1 . Plenty of audiences have warned: don’t see the new French movie The Taste of Things on an empty stomach. Juliette Binoche plays a longtime personal cook to a man who’s a gourmand (美食家). They share a passion for food. Filled with delicious meals, the film celebrates food, and all the work and love that go into making it.
When you see a delicious meal in a movie or an ad, chances are that it’s not fit to eat. Food stylists have been known to substitute glue for milk, and coat meat with motor oil. All this was a big “No” for Vietnamese French director Tran Anh Hung.
Tran says he wanted everything in The Taste of Things “to be real,” from the raw ingredients (食材) to the menu to the way the cooks move in the kitchen. Real food can’t always handle multiple takes. Plus, Tran needed to show dishes at different stages of preparation. So he needed a lot of everything. For a classic French dish, “we needed 40 kilos of meat for the shooting.” He also had to find vegetables that looked like they were harvested in the 19th century. “They’re not as beautiful as today,” he says, “They’re not straight, and they have many spots on the skin.”
After doing extensive research into the history of French cuisine and working with a historian, Tran enlisted three-star chef Pierre Gagnaire to make sure the menu he’d come up with worked in real life.
Gagnaire also cooked for Tran for five days, so the director could study his movements in preparation for filming. Tran says watching Gagnaire move around the kitchen taught him that “simplicity is important and you don’t need to have the perfect gesture for this or that. You need only to be very free.” Gagnaire says the movie feels like a gift. “For my creativity, it’s an honor,” he says. The famous chef agreed to take a small part in the film.
“When you leave this film, you feel calm because instead of violence, there’s tenderness,” Gagnaire says.
1. What can we say about The Taste of Things?| A．It shows that food represents love. |
| B．It gives audience a good appetite. |
| C．Its characters only focus on cooking. |
| D．Its story is based on a food stylist. |
| A．Romantic. | B．Caring. |
| C．Demanding. | D．Humorous. |
| A．To get a role in Tran’s movie. |
| B．To give Tran some inspiration. |
| C．To test Tran’s menu for the film. |
| D．To show Tran his food creativity. |
| A．To show a film shooting style. | B．To recommend a film. |
| C．To call on people to save food. | D．To promote food culture. |
2 . Most children now chat daily either online or through their mobile phones.
Sometimes the online world, just like the real world, can cause problems, such as bullying (恃强凌弱) or arguments.
| A．Going online is great fun. |
| B．Computer studies are part of schoolwork now. |
| C．The language of chat is strange to many parents, too. |
| D．There are some websites that are not suitable for the children. |
| E．To keep children safe, your management must cover the family computer. |
| F．They are connecting to a huge number of other children all over the world. |
| G．Surfing the Internet takes up too much of the time that should be spent on lessons. |
California Governor Gavin Newsom on Friday signed legislation that makes Chinese Lunar New Year a state holiday. The move recognizes the diversity of cultures which Asian Americans have brought to California, the third
The legislation lets any state employee take eight hours of vacation, annual leave or compensatory leave
In a
Lunar New Year is celebrated by thousands of Asian and Pacific Islander Californians at community events that illustrate
Also on Friday, a ceremony
Zhang Jianmin, China’s consul general in San Francisco, raised the flag with Meron Foster, a senior officer at the San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Protocol. Zhang expressed his gratitude
4 . Sitting inside the Shenzhou XVI spacecraft, Gui Haichao, the first Chinese civilian on a spaceflight, together with the other two astronauts,
Born in 1986, Gui’s
Gui then pursued postdoctoral research overseas and published about 20 SCI academic papers in top international journals. After returning to China, he received Beihang’s invitation to teach
In the spring of 2018, Gui was told that China’s manned space authorities had made a decision
Dumpling is a Chinese cuisine. Actually, the tradition of eating dumplings during winter solstice has its
It is said that dumplings were invented by Zhang Zhongjing, a
Thereafter, every winter solstice Zhang Zhongjing made “cold dispelling dumpling soup” in order to prevent and cure ailments
Afterwards, Zhang Zhongjing died on the day of winter solstice.
6 . Food festivals are a common occurrence in the UK and take place in all sorts of places and at all sorts of times. Whatever your taste, there’s a food festival to match — no matter how specialized.
1. Meatopia
This three-day, London-based festival takes place at the end of August and is a meat lover’s paradise. In addition to a range of legally sourced meat products, from juicy burgers to tender steaks, attendees can listen to live music, watch butchery demonstrations, and attend informal meat-based workshops.
2. The National Honey Show
If you have a sweet tooth, then it could be that the National Honey Show, which started in 1921 and is the largest event of its kind, is the place for you to be. This three-day event attracts many local entries who showcase their sweet golden honey, some of which is sold globally.
3. The Orange Sauce Festival
Have you heard about a festival that is devoted only to orange sauce? Held in Cumbria, this sweet, fragrant festival has been running for 3 years. What attracts people most is a competition to find the best homemade orange sauce. There are thousands of participants from over 30 different countries across the globe, bringing their local snacks to share here.
4. The Ginger and Spice Festival
If you’d prefer something with a little more kick to it, then you could attend The Ginger (姜) and Spice Festival held in Market Drayton. Unlike other food festivals, it celebrates its town’s historic connection to Robert Clive, who returned from India with ginger. Because of this, they specialize in baking gingerbread, but also sell a range of traditional spices from mild to hot.
1. What do Meatopia and the National Honey Show have in common?| A．Both of them last for three days. | B．Both of them hold workshops. |
| C．Both of them originated from London. | D．Both of them have a long history. |
| A．The Meatopia. | B．The Ginger and Spice Festival. |
| C．The National Honey Show. | D．The Orange Sauce Festival. |
| A．It has something to do with a historic figure. |
| B．The ginger used in the festival is from India. |
| C．It sells spicy food. |
| D．The food is cooked by Robert Clive. |
7 . Is it true that our brain alone is responsible for human cognition(认知)? What about our body? Is it possible for thought and behaviour to originate from somewhere other than our brain? Psychologists who study Embodied Cognition(EC)ask similar questions. The EC theory suggests our body is also responsible for thinking or problem-solving. More precisely, the mind shapes the body and the body shapes the mind in equal measure.
If you think about it for a moment, it makes total sense. When you smell something good or hear amusing sounds, certain emotions are awakened. Think about how newborns use their senses to understand the world around them. They don’t have emotions so much as needs – they don’t feel sad, they’re just hungry and need food. Even unborn babies can feel their mothers’ heartbeats, and this has a calming effect. In the real world, they cry when they’re cold and then get hugged. That way, they start to associate being warm with being loved.
Further studies have backed up the mind-body interaction. In one experiment, test subjects were asked to judge people after being handed a hot or a cold drink. They all made warm evaluations when their fingertips perceived warmth rather than coolness. And it works the other way too. In another study, subjects’ fingertip temperatures were measured after being “included” in or “rejected” from a group task. Those who were included felt physically warmer.
For further proof, we can look at the metaphors(比喻)that we use without even thinking. A kind and sympathetic person is frequently referred to as one with a soft heart and someone who is very strong and calm in difficult situations is often described as solid as a rock. And this kind of metaphorical use is common across languages.
Now that you have the knowledge of mind-body interaction, why not use it? If you’re having a bad day, a warm cup of tea will give you a flash of pleasure. If you know you’re physically cold, warm up before making any interpersonal decisions.
1. According to the author, what is the significance of EC?| A．It brings us closer to the truth in human cognition. |
| B．It offers a clearer picture of the shape of human brain. |
| C．It reveals the major role of the mind in human cognition. |
| D．It facilitates our understanding of the origin of psychology. |
| A．Their personal looks. | B．Their mental needs. |
| C．Their inner emotions. | D．Their physical feelings. |
| A．Human speech is alive with metaphors. |
| B．Human senses have effects on thinking. |
| C．Human language is shaped by visual images. |
| D．Human emotions are often compared to natural materials. |
| A．To deepen the readers’ understanding of EC. |
| B．To encourage the reader to put EC into practice. |
| C．To guide the reader onto the path to career success. |
| D．To share with the reader ways to release their emotions. |
8 . In 1945, two sculptures meant to represent the average man called Norman and woman called Norma in the United States went on exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History.
That same year, a contest was launched to find a living representation of Norma. Normal is often used to mean “typical”, “expected”, or even “correct”. By that logic, most people should fit the description of normal. And yet, not one of almost 4,000 women who participated in the contest matched Norma, the supposedly “normal” woman.
This puzzle isn’t unique to Norma and Norman, either — time and time again, so-called normal descriptions of our bodies, minds, and perceptions have turned out to match almost no one. So what does normal actually mean — and should we be relying on it so much?
In statistics, a normal distribution describes a set of values that fall along a bell curve (曲线). The average, or mean, of all the values is at the very center, and most other values fall within the hump (驼峰) of the bell. Normal doesn’t describe a single data point, but a pattern of diversity. Many human traits, like height, follow a normal distribution. Some people are very tall or very short, but most people fall close to the overall average. Outside of statistics, normal often refers to an average like the single number pulled from the fattest part of the bell curve that excludes all the nuances of the normal distribution. Norma and Norman’s proportions (比例) came from such averages.
Applied to individuals, whether someone is considered normal usually depends on how closely they get to this average. At best, such definitions of normal fail to capture variation. When limited or inaccurate definitions of normal are used to make decisions that impact people’s lives, they can do real harm. There were examples in history.
To this day, people are often targeted and discriminated against on the basis of disabilities, mental health issues, and other features considered “not normal”. But the reality is that the differences in our bodies, minds, perceptions, and ideas about the world around us — in short, diversity — is the true normal.
1. What can we learn about Norman and Norma?| A．No participant fitted the description of them in the contest. |
| B．They were on display as soon as they were completed in 1945. |
| C．They were both named by the American Museum of Natural History. |
| D．People viewed them as typical and correct representations of humans. |
| A．The former and the latter fall at totally different points of the bell curve. |
| B．The former and the latter account for different puzzles in our daily life. |
| C．The latter is a single number whereas the former shows a pattern of diversity. |
| D．The latter often indicates the distribution of a set of values but the former doesn’t. |
| A．Possibilities. | B．Examples. | C．Meanings. | D．Differences. |
| A．What Is Real Normal? |
| B．When Are Humans Normal? |
| C．How Does Normal Cause Harm? |
| D．Why Shouldn’t We Rely on Normal? |
9 . London and Paris are two of Europe’s biggest tourist destinations, just a few hours away from each other by road or rail and an hour’s distance by air. What about the train-ferry combination that many recall fondly from their childhoods? Well, though it’s budget-saving, this option is too time-consuming today, so better leave it to your memories. Since the UK is not part the Schengen Area, passengers need to go through passport control prior to boarding.
Air trips
Though flying between London and Paris is by no means recommended, there are still a few people traveling between the two dynamic cities by air. A very low one-way fare is possible through advanced booking, but of course it’s rare, and that doesn’t include the taxi and rail fares traveling to and from the airports.
* One-way fares from Paris can be as low as 49;
* From London, Air France flies with fares as low as £39(46), and British Airways as low as £48 (56).
Rail trips
The only direct train between London and Paris is the Eurostar, which travels 15 -17 times per weekday. Eurostar’s 2015 edition trains can make the journey in two hours at speeds of up to 320 km/h. Besides, they offer good seating space.
* Fares begin at a reasonable £58(68), round trip;
* The earlier you book, the more you save.
Bus trips
The bus is by far the least expensive and longest way to travel between Paris and London. Eurolines and OUIBUS are two major bus lines traveling between the two capitals. The journey takes between seven and nine hours. Both lines advertise free Wi-Fi.
* One-way Eurolines fares begin at 15;
* One-way OUIBUS fares begin at 15 too, but early bird sales can even lower the fare.
1. Which way is probably the cheapest for a round trip?| A．By train-ferry. | B．By air. | C．By rail. | D．By bus. |
| A．Free booking. | B．Taxi pickup. |
| C．Good seating space. | D．Free Wi-Fi. |
| A．There are different competing companies. |
| B．They are cheaper if booked ahead of time. |
| C．They are more expensive from the Paris end. |
| D．There are still additional fees to be included. |
10 . When I mentioned to some friends that we all have accents (口音), most of them proudly replied, “Well, I speak perfect English/Chinese/etc.” But this kind of misses the point.
More often than not, what we mean when we say someone “has an accent” is that their accent is different from the local one, or that pronunciations are different from our own. But this definition (定义) of accents is limiting and could give rise to prejudice. Funnily enough, in terms of the language study, every person speaks with an accent. It is the regular differences in how we produce sounds that define our accents. Even if you don’t hear it yourself, you speak with some sort of accent. In this sense, it’s pointless to point out that someone “has an accent”. We all do!
Every person speaks a dialect (方言), too. In the field of language study, a dialect is a changed form of a language that is featured by its variations (变化) of structure, phrases and words. For instance, “You got eat or not?” (meaning “Have you eaten?”) is an acceptable and understood question in Singapore Oral English. The fact that this expression would cause a standard American English speaker to take pause doesn’t mean that Singapore Oral English is “wrong” or “ungrammatical”. The sentence is well-formed and clearly communicative, according to native Singapore English speakers’ solid system of grammar. Why should it be wrong just because it’s different?
We need to move beyond a narrow idea of accents and dialects — for the benefit of everyone.
Language differences like these provide insights into people’s cultural experiences and backgrounds. In a global age, the way one speaks is a distinct part of one’s identity (身份). Most people would be happy to talk about the cultures behind their speech. We’d learn more about the world we live in and make friends along the way.
1. What does the author think of his/ her friends’ response in paragraph 1?| A．It reflects their self confidence. |
| B．It reflects their language levels. |
| C．It misses the point of communication. |
| D．It misses the real meaning of accents. |
| A．To support the use of dialects. |
| B．To show the importance of dialects. |
| C．To correct a grammatical mistake. |
| D．To highlight a traditional method. |
| A．Learn to speak with your local dialect. |
| B．Look for an official definition of accents. |
| C．Appreciate the value of accents and dialects. |
| D．Separate our local languages from others’. |
| A．Everyone Has an Accent |
| B．Accents Improve Our Identities |
| C．Dialects Lead to Misunderstanding |
| D．Standard English Is at Risk |
