1 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. abusive       B. bounds       C. descriptions       D. dramatic       E. emerges       F. essentially G. fantastic       H. promises       I. settings       J. trust       K. unusually

Are You Scared of AI?

A recent Monmouth University survey has found that only 9 percent of Americans believe that computers with artificial intelligence will do more good than harm to society. When the same survey was conducted 35 years ago, about one in five said AI would benefit mankind. In other words, people have less complete     1     in AI now than they did dozens of years ago, when the technology was more science fiction than reality.

“It’s     2     that there is public doubt about AI. There absolutely should be,” said Meredith Broussard, an artificial intelligence researcher and professor at New York University. Most Americans     3     agree with Broussard that AI has a place in our lives, but not for everything.

When asked questions about     4     in which AI might be used, most people said it was a bad idea to use AI for military aircraft that try to distinguish between enemies and civilians. Some are worried about the     5     use of AI in policing, disturbing people’s privacy. Most respondents said it was a good idea for machines to perform risky jobs such as coal mining.

The term “AI” is a catch-all for everything. It can be the constant use of technology, such as our daily preference to autocomplete in web search queries (关键词). It can also be the software that     6     to predict crime before it happens. People afraid of AI may be influenced by     7     of evil computers from books and movies — like Skynet, the super-intelligent machines in “The Terminator” movies. Broussard said the ways AI can end up destroying your quality of life won’t be as     8     as murderous fictional computers.

Actually, the fear of AI     9     due to the fact that we just don’t know where AI is going and how soon it will take us to get there. Technology makes surprising and unusual leaps and     10     in ways we never think it will. Anyway, whether we like it or not, artificial intelligence is here to stay.

3 . 请用方框中的单词完成句子。

strategy   demand   major   rescue obviously

1. Sugar is a ______ cause of toothache.
2. The boy was in tears and ______ very upset.
3. These sports ______ both speed and strength.
4. The lady was trying to ______ her son from the fire.
5. We must develop a ______ to deal with the problem.

4 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. cause   B. cover   C. crises     D. edged   E. hammered   F. left G. rages   H. reason   I. response   J. spill     K. warnings

The Wilsons river broke its banks on the night of February 27^th while Lismore, a town of around 30,000 in New South Wales, was sleeping. Its residents snoozed through early-hours emergency     1     that “risk to life was approaching”. Within hours the town was submerged. Residents scrambled into their attics. Mothers carried children onto rooftops. An army of locals launched tin boats into the floods to save them. Four people died.

Eastern Australia has been     2     by what politicians call “once-in-1,000-year” flooding. It has already had a rainy summer because of La Niña, a phenomenon which triggers downpours there. Brisbane, Queensland’s capital, received almost 80% of its annual rainfall in less than a week in February, flooding 15,000 homes. As the rain     3     into northern New South Wales, it ripped up roads and drowned herds of cattle. Storms lashed Sydney on March 8 th , causing a dam to     4     over. Some 50,000 people in the state have been forced to evacuate.

Scientists are careful when blaming floods on global warming because everything from rainfall to urban development contributes to them. They disagree, too, about whether climate change is a factor in this kind of never-ending downpour. No matter the     5    , extreme weather is now a regular occurrence in Australia. In 2019 and 2020 vast lands of the country were torched in bushfires which destroyed more than 3,000 homes and killed 33 people. Unlucky towns such as Lismore have in recent years been hit by both fire and floods.

It does not help that the state and federal governments’     6     has been disorganized. When disaster strikes, official aid is often slow to come. In 2019 the federal government set aside almost A$4bn for a fund that would help it respond to     7     and prevent future ones. But it has spent hardly any of that money. It has now deployed the army and is dishing out cash to victims, but locals fume that they were     8     for days without power or fuel as supplies of food and water dwindled.

A debate now     9     about how or even whether places like Lismore should rebuild. Analysts think the floods might trigger insurance claims worth more than A$3bn. Expenses are already so high in disaster-prone towns that many locals can no longer afford     10    . “If we are going to start thinking every time there’s a natural disaster that we have to give up and leave because it’s too hard, then where are we going to live?” asks Lismore’s mayor, Steve Krieg. That is becoming a question for ever more Australians.

5 . 从方框中选择词汇并用其正确形式填空；每空只填一个词，每词只用一次。有两个多余词汇。

theory   cast   internal   appeal   determine   phenomenon   symbol

1. The Olympic torch ________ peace and friendship among the nations of the world.
2. One of the researcher’s ________ is that people who restrict their calorie intake live longer.
3. The swine flu ________ a cloud on the economic development in Mexico in 2009.
4. Spending the holidays in Britain wasn’t a prospect that I found particularly ________ .
5. Her competence and strong ________ ensured that she rose to the top of her profession.

6 . 选词填空

speed up；at a loss；take up；take the place of；lay off；break down；consist；live up to；lose sight or；make out；by all means；come to light

1. We mustn't ____________ the significance of environmental protection while advancing economy. This is the key to sustainable development.
2. He did not want to ____________ a competitive sport like mountaineering.
3. The mystery of the murder was finally solved after new evidence ____________.
4. Construction of the teaching building ____________ by far, because it must be completed by the end of this year as scheduled.
5. In the current economic crisis, a large number of workers in the factories nationwide ____________ to reduce the costs.
6. The rescue team ____________ soldiers, doctors and the local policemen arrived at the quake-stricken area as fast as they could, racing against the clock to save each living soul.
7. No matter what difficulties we meet on our way, we need to accomplish our goals ____________.
8. Negotiations ____________. I’m now starting to worry that we’ll never reach an agreement for a new contract.
9. With over 150 different recipes from more than 100 varieties of pasta, Carmen is never ____________ for something to cook.
10. He tried extremely hard to ____________ his parents' expectations.

7 . 选词填空

think of, as if, look up, as usual, suffer from, in ruins, set up, dig out, in shock, go through

1. Let’s ____________some questions about life.
2. They ____________schools, factories and hospitals in this poor area.
3. We all know that we can’t live____________ without good health.
4. If you can’t keep healthy, you will often ____________ your weak body.
5. She ____________ many things and suffered a lot at an early age.
6. After the big fire, the main building of the church was ____________ .
7. He suddenly rushed out, leaving all the people in the room ____________.
8. While reading, better not stop to ____________ the new words in the dictionary every now and then.
9. The press watchdogs (狗仔队) spare no effort to ____________the secrets of those famous people.
10. He talks with a stranger ____________ they were good friends.

8 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. characteristics     B. diverse     C. employ       D. function     E. issue F. integration          G. hit            H. military     I. potential     J. schemes     K. wearers

Future Fashion: Biometric Bodysuits

A team of the Applied NanoBioscience Center at Arizona State University has built prototypes (原型) of biometric bodysuits. They can detect chemical attacks, deliver drugs to their     1    , or even perfume scents if your body temperature rises too much. The     2     version of the Scentsory Chameleon Bodysuit incorporates fuel cells to provide a lightweight source of power for the soldier’s equipment. The civilian one can monitor your heart or blood pressure, deliver interactive games or simply work as a wearable computer. You will even be able to download new colors and patterns from the Web to change your appearance according to this article from East Valley Tribune in Arizona. Both versions should     3     the market within a few years.

Frederic Zenhausern, director of the Applied NanoBioscience Center at ASU, has joined with Ghassan Jabbour, a professor at the University of Arizona, to develop two prototypes of “biometric bodysuits” that contain embedded sensors, power sources, microfluidic devices and other gadgets not normally associated with the latest Paris fashions. Such “smart” clothing could     4     future soldiers early warning of chemical attacks or automatically deliver insulin to diabetics, Zenhausemn said. “The biometric bodysuit shows how electronics and fluidics (流体学) can be incorporated into clothing to perform a wide range of     5     tasks, from highly functional to the aesthetic.” he said.

The civilian Chameleon will have somewhat different     6    . Its biometric outfit demonstrates how miniature electronics could be embedded in clothing to promote health. It is made of clear vinyl (乙烯基) and white plastics to show the placement of various electronic and fluidic devices. In the future, such an outfit could diagnose diseases and deliver medications to the wearer, monitor heart rate or blood pressure, deliver interactive games and other forms of entertainment or     7     as a wearable computer.

Another possibility would be to download different designs from the Internet so the fabric could change colors and patterns, Zenhausern said. And it could all be made to look stylish by the     8     of electronics and high-fashion designs, he said. In fact, the concept of embedding microelectronics in fabrics has     9     far beyond clothing. Sheila Kennedy, a Boston-based architect and visiting professor at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, sees possibilities to     10     the technology in building design. As an example, she said window shades containing organic light emitting diodes (二极管) could produce electricity from sunlight that would help generate power.

9 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. adopted   B. approaching   C. demonstration D. expansion E. featured F. focus G. forecasted H. maintained I. nonrenewable J. optimistic. K. surviving

Earth Day Turns 50

About 20 million Americans turned out for the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970. Lectures and gatherings took place at more than 2,000 college campuses, 10,000 elementary and high schools, and thousands of other places across the country. Forty-two states     1     resolutions supporting Earth Day. It is sometimes described as, up to that time, the largest public     2     in history.

The lectures and literature surrounding the event     3     lots of depressing predictions about the future, which could be found in the book The Environmental Handbook. Its cover noted that it had been “prepared for the first national environmental teach-in.” Commissioned(委托) by the group Friends of the Earth, the book talked about the threats of rising population and exhaustion of     4     resources- Many of its contributors—let’s call them the Catastrophists―warned that even such actions as halving the number of human beings and stopping economic growth completely might not be enough to prevent the     5     ecological disasters.

A different group of researchers     6     that while economic growth and technological progress had created some ecological problems, these things also would be a source of solutions. Let’s call these folks the Prometheans. The economist Theodore Schultz argued in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 1972 that the     7     of modern agriculture would free up more land for nature. Other advocates of this more     8     outlook included the oceanographer Cy Adler, the economist Christopher Freeman, and Nature editor emeritus John Maddox, author of the 1972 book The Doomsday Syndrome.

Today, the Earth Day Network hopes a billion people across the world will participate in Earth Day 2020, where the 50th anniversary     9     will be on man-made climate change. Living as we do in the future that the Catastrophists and the Prometheans (灾变论者与开创者)    10    ,   now is a great time to look back at the claims made five decades ago.

10 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. advance        B. appeal        C. association        D. differs        E. diligently        F. entirely G. frustration        H. produce        I. uncooperative        J. vague        K. worthy

The garden path

Imagine a plate holding two strawberries, identical in appearance. One came out of a supermarket box. By the time it reached the plate it may have been off the vine for two weeks. The other strawberry was picked from a garden minutes before being eaten.

The first one will probably taste like a slightly sour cucumber, with a(n)     1     hint of berry taste. The second is likely to be sweet and floral. Supermarket strawberries are not     2     without advantages: they are convenient and available in the northern hemisphere in February. But the two berries are distinct from each other in the same way that hearing music in a concert hall     3     from listening to it on a worn-out cassette. The home-grown fruit is an edible case for cultivating a home garden.

Those who long dismissed gardening as a waste of time     4     this argument with great passion. They think a garden can yield peas that taste like the vibrant, green essence of spring; tomatoes and carrots of incomparable sweetness; and lettuces and herbs that taste like themselves rather than the plastic they are usually packaged in. Growing your own vegetables, exotic or routine, ensures a reliable supply, offering quality seasonal     5     .

That attitude misrepresents the ultimate     6     of gardening: it mistakes the product for the purpose. On the other hand, a garden, especially in the easy years, can also yield little but     7     . Novice gardeners may plant the wrong crops for their soil. And even expert gardeners can lose a season’s harvest to     8     weather.

No matter. The real joy of gardening is the time spent doing it. The deepest pleasure — as with cooking writing, bringing up children or almost anything worthwhile - is in the work itself. A gardener’s memories center not on the food produced, but on long summer afternoons with hands in the dirt, surrounded by family, if the garden is at home, or deepening     9     with friends and neighbors in a community garden. To garden is to     10     help life flourish with love and patience, in the ground and above it.