There was once a troubled family. The parents spoiled their children. The son, John, loved to play video games all day long when summer vacation was around and he did not like to study. The daughter, Emily, on the other hand, loved studying without play. To her, video games were for foolish people who were unable to achieve anything useful. Life went on with parents complaining and not changing anything.
One day two new neighbors arrived in their neighborhood. One lived on the right side of John’s house while the other lived on the left side of John’s house. These two people were twins. They did not communicate with anyone other than themselves. John and his family felt uncomfortable living right between them. Strange sounds came from their houses every midnight until the afternoon. People heard and saw thunder and lightning coming from the house. After a couple of weeks of lightning flashing, machines roaring, this disturbed every household. Everyone could not help but wonder what their new neighbors were doing. It was whispered that they were inventing a time machine in secret.
People were beginning to dislike them. Every moment they heard these noises, they felt like something was going to explode soon. To deal with this problem John and Emily’s parents walked to both houses to speak with the owners. But on each door hung a sign that said, “DO NOT DISTURB!” They tried knocking the door and no one responded or came out from the house. The machine noise kept going but once in a while it did stop for a small break before it continued. They tried nearly every day to get the attention of their new neighbors. But in the end they gave up. They decided to send their kids to get their attention instead. So they made a plan and the kids successfully entered the neighbor’s houses.
注意:
1.续写词数应为150左右;
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Paragraph 1:
Unexpectedly, the kids both experienced a journey to their own future there.
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Paragraph 2:
After returning from the neighbor’s houses, the two kids changed totally.
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2 . My 23-year-old son Dan packed, ready for the journey to work abroad for a year. It was a milestone,
I looked
This wasn’t the first time I had let such an opportunity
Now I stood in front of him, trying to recall all the times I had let go of. How often has that not happened to us all? A son graduates or a daughter is married. But at those ceremonies, we don’t seize the
Here and now, I knew it really mattered; but I still found myself nervous and uncomfortable. Why does it have to be so
I gathered all my courage. “Dan,” I
I was not sure whether he
What I told Dan was clumsy and commonplace. Yet it was
Then he
A.making | B.leaving | C.marking | D.setting |
A.closely | B.tightly | C.quickly | D.hurriedly |
A.hard | B.eager | C.afraid | D.unwilling |
A.put down | B.take away | C.set off | D.pass by |
A.excitement | B.confusion | C.devotion | D.creation |
A.careless | B.selfless | C.wordless | D.hopeless |
A.places | B.reasons | C.directions | D.cases |
A.chance | B.clue | C.fortune | D.wonder |
A.contribute | B.mean | C.lend | D.happen |
A.hardworking | B.tiring | C.difficult | D.boring |
A.finally | B.formally | C.exactly | D.repeatedly |
A.formed | B.written | C.heard | D.caught |
A.in | B.towards | C.on | D.against |
A.anything | B.nothing | C.something | D.everything |
A.searched for | B.worked for | C.headed for | D.applied for |
3 . Nearly half of all employees are close to “breaking point” at work due to increased stress levels. A survey of 2,000 professionals found the average working adult feels stressed for almost a third of their working day.
The mounting pressure faced in their job also contributes to five hours of lost sleep per employee every week. Checking work emails after hours, last-minute deadlines, having to do a speech or presentation and an overly demanding manager were named as some of the biggest causes of workplace stress.
It also revealed that in the average week, employees will complain about their boss for 31 minutes and their job in general for another two hours and 45 minutes. Richard Jenkins, psychologist and spokesman for well-being charity CABA, said: “Everyone will experience pressure day-to-day.”
“A level of pressure can actually make us work better, however too much pressure that rises to an unmanageable level leads to stress. The working public needs to know how to manage their pressure to avoid reaching boiling point. Some people cope by blowing off steam through physical activity like the gym or going for a run while for some, things like breathing exercises can help. Everyone will have a strategy that they find works better to help them release the pressure. Unfortunately, in many cases we don’t introduce these decompressing (减压) moments in our lives which can help release the pressure and reduce stress. Finding ways to manage your stress is essential, it is also worth addressing the root causes of your stress to try to manage the source rather than just treat the symptoms.”
The study also found seven in 10 adults have vented about their workplace to a colleague, partner, family member or friend. 46 percent of those who have felt stressed at work didn’t end up doing anything about it, hoping the problem would go away on its own. Of those who do take action, 38 percent have told their manager about it, while 51 percent have gone for a walk to cool down.
1. What is the possible result of pressure faced by workers?A.Giving a public presentation. | B.His demanding department head. |
C.Loss of about 5 hours’ sleep weekly. | D.Constantly checking email after work. |
A.Pressure will not do you any good in your daily life. |
B.It’s better to turn to medicine when one is faced with great stress. |
C.Women tend to feel more pressure at work than their male colleagues. |
D.Almost everybody will adopt his own way to deal with their stress in their lives. |
A.complained. | B.argued. | C.wandered. | D.asked. |
A.Indifferent. | B.Objective. | C.Positive. | D.Negative. |
4 . A. Human feet will become just one big toe.
In a lecture at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1911, a surgeon named Richard Clement Lucas made a curious prediction that the “useless outer toes” will become used less and less, so that “man might become a one-toed race” in the next century. Look and check your toes.
B. Our houses will be cleaned by hoses.
In a 1950 article titled “Miracles You’ll See in the Next 50 Years,” the New York Times’ longtime science editor Waldemar Kaempffert predicted that by the 21st century, all you’ll have to do to get your house clean is “simply turn the hose on everything.”
That’s because he imagined furniture would be made of synthetic fabric or waterproof plastic. “After the water has run down a drain in the middle of the floor” all you’d have to do is “turn on a blast of hot air” to dry everything. A mercy for housewife, right?
C. We’ll live in flying houses.
Inventor, science writer, and futurist Arthur C. Clark—who co-wrote the screenplay for 2001: A Space Odyssey—believed that the boring houses of 1966 would be extremely different by the time we reached the 21st century. Evidently, the houses of the future would have nothing keeping them on the ground and they would be able to move to anywhere on the earth on a whim (异想天开). So easy to travel abroad!
D. We’ll eat candy made of underwear.
In Popular Mechanics, Waldemar Kaempffert predicted that all food would be delivered to our homes in the form of frozen bricks by the 21st century. “Cooking as an art is only a memory in the minds of old people,” he wrote. And, thanks to advances in cooking technology, Kaempffert predicted it would even be possible to take ordinary objects like old table cloth and “silk-like underwear” and bring them to “chemical factories to be made into candy.” No, thanks! Not at all!
1. How many toes would become useless and disappear in his left foot, according to the surgeon?A.Five. | B.Four. | C.Three. | D.Two. |
A.He likes it very much. | B.He thinks it acceptable. |
C.He completely rejects it. | D.He would like to have a try. |
A.They were all put forward by the greatest minds at their time. |
B.Although they sounded unbelievable, they were well received. |
C.They appeared in the same magazine almost around the same time. |
D.They were interesting predictions about the century we are living now. |
A.in B.others C.group D.The E.but F.afraid G.could H.What I. to make J.are discussing |
Some people like talking with others,
6 . Amy was a 3rd-grade student. Ever since she started school, someone teased (讥笑) her about her speech or her limping (跛行) every single day. Amy was
One morning
Back home at the dinner table that evening, Amy was
“There’s a
Amy smiled and started
Dear Editor,
My name is Amy. I am nine years old. I have a
Love, Amy
A week later, a picture of Amy and her
Amy was not teased any longer.
1.A.tired of | B.satisfied with | C.surprised at |
A.if | B.when | C.until |
A.Forget | B.Repeat | C.Watch |
A.felt | B.walked | C.lost |
A.clever | B.curious | C.quiet |
A.home | B.school | C.work |
A.make | B.learn | C.share |
A.wish | B.speech | C.dance |
A.thinking | B.talking | C.worrying |
A.look for | B.take out | C.work on |
A.class | B.competition | C.problem |
A.because of | B.except for | C.far from |
A.week | B.day | C.hour |
A.advice | B.gift | C.letter |
A.finally | B.hardly | C.usually |
7 . Lifestyle Changes to Make You Healthier and Happier
All people want to stay healthy and happy, but most of our focus is on sick-care, not healthcare.
Food for health
Everyone knows we should eat certain amount of fruit and vegetables a day,
Do exercise
Getting less than five hours’ sleep a night doubles the risk of death from heart disease, according to a study, and other studies have shown that it speeds up ageing. And it plays a big part in our mental health, too.
Friends for life
A.Research shows 15 minutes’ exercise a day could add 3 years to your life. |
B.Here’s how you can start to improve your health and happiness. |
C.Friendships actually change our body chemistry. |
D.yet only 28% of adults are hitting this target. |
E.Sleep well |
8 . We use our middle names when filling out official papers, and when we write our initials (姓名的首字母) on something. But except that, we don’t use them every day. So why do we even have middle names in the first place?
Some people might answer, “It’s so my mom has three names to shout at me, so I know I’m in trouble.”
But there is history behind it, and it dates back to ancient Rome. At that time, people had three names, a personal name, a family name, and another name which showed what branch of family you were from. The more names you had, the more respected you were by others.
This tradition of names spread over to Western cultures in the 1700s.Aristocrats (贵族) would give their children long names to show their high place in society. Spanish and some other cultures would give their children names from their parents’ previous generations to be able to keep track of the child’s family tree.
But the way we use middle names today started in the Middle Ages when Europeans named their children with the given name first, baptismal (洗礼的) name second, and family name third. The tradition was spread to America as people started to go overseas.
Today, some people don’t even have middle names, some prefer to be called by their middle name, and some never even use theirs. But, just feel lucky that we don’t need to keep track of our family tree like some aristocrats used to and end up with 38 names.
1. When would we use middle names?A.When calling our friends. |
B.When writing to our parents. |
C.When filling out official papers. |
A.Proud. | B.Angry. | C.Happy. |
A.To show their high place in society. |
B.To show their respect for others. |
C.To show their good memory. |
A.It’s Cool to Have 38 Names |
B.We Don’t Need Family Names |
C.Why Do We Have Middle Names? |
9 . Can you imagine that there are a huge number of tiny waste pieces in the Arctic (北冰洋的) sea ice? Because of the waste pieces,30,000 kinds of animals are in danger. It’s true that one person’s acts alone can’t help the planet. But each one of us can find ways to make our contributions.
In the home, we could try not to waste foods. Use a digital meal planner to get a right amount of food so that everything we buy and cook gets eaten. Learn how to store foods to keep them fresh longer. Be sure to use proper ways to keep our home warm. For example, we can replace old windows with energy-saving ones.
At the store, we could green our habits. Buy reusable plates, but not single-use ones. Buy home tissue (纸巾) not made of materials which may lead to destruction (破坏) of forests. Buy glass cups instead of paper ones.
In the community, we could help keep its plants healthy. Take part in tree-planting projects or grass-cutting activities to help plants grow well.
Our actions alone can’t save the planet, but the above ways and habits can help.
1. What puts so many animals in danger?A.Cold ice. | B.Waste pieces. | C.Bad weather. |
A.To avoid wasting foods. |
B.To cook delicious foods. |
C.To keep foods fresh. |
A.That can be kept long. |
B.That can be used again. |
C.That can be thrown away. |
A.To describe the future of the planet. |
B.To encourage an environment friendly life. |
C.To introduce shopping places for green products. |
10 . We were on our way! In Wyoming we would have a new home. It was 1980 and my husband Gary and I were driving to Wyoming with our kids. After driving all day, we were hungry. So we stopped at a restaurant to have dinner.
After the dinner, we were on our way again. Suddenly our vehicle hit ice on a bridge. As soon as the car started to slide, Gary touched the brakes (刹车) but failed to control the car. We were thrown from side to side against the guardrails (护栏).It took some time before we slid to a stop, but unfortunately our car was totally destroyed.
Only minutes later, a car stopped by and the driver asked how he might help. With his help, my husband was able to have our car taken to Rapid City. Then he drove us to a hotel in the city. He made sure we were safe before he said goodnight and left. The next morning, the driver returned and drove us to find our car so that we could take back our valuables. He lost at least half a day of work, all for a family he had never met and would never see again.
With no car, our family finally arrived in Gillette, where we had no friends. Though we were a little lonely, we all felt lucky and thankful to the amazing stranger whose service made such a difference to our family.
1. Why did the family go to Wyoming?A.They liked to go traveling. |
B.They had a restaurant to run there. |
C.They would have a new home there. |
A.It hit ice on a bridge. |
B.It was touched by a car. |
C.It slid into the river. |
A.To repair the family’s car. |
B.To say goodbye to the family. |
C.To help the family get their valuables. |
A.Helpful. | B.Honest. | C.Humorous. |