When I was seven years old, my family moved from Mexico to America. In Mexico, I was a cheerful girl who loved making people laugh with my jokes and inventing fun games to play with my friends. However, when I arrived in America, I found it hard to fit in, and I became quieter.
We lived in a small house with a modest yard where we grew vegetables—my responsibility. While I took pride in watching them grow, there were times when I dreamed of having a beautiful garden like my schoolmate Luella’s, with its delicate tulips (郁金香). Although Luella lived in the same neighborhood as me, we barely knew each other.
It was after a tornado that Luella and I finally became close friends.
The tornado struck on a Sunday afternoon.The gentle breeze transformed into a strong wind, and thick gray clouds filled the sky. Gradually, the tornado took shape, starting as a thin rope and growing into a large black funnel (漏斗). My entire family gathered in the bathroom, seeking shelter from the storm. Terrified, I sat close to my mom, knees in my chest. After the storm had passed, our worries and fears were replaced by relief that we were unharmed and that our house had remained undamaged.
As I stepped outside, I witnessed the extent of the damage the tornado had caused to our neighborhood. Across the street, a tall tree had fallen, crushing Luella’s garden in front of her yellow house. We hurried over to check on it. Fortunately, her family seemed to be away at the time, and no one was injured. However, her once-beautiful garden was in ruins, with the fallen tree destroying the tulips and debris (碎片) spread everywhere. I could only imagine how heartbroken they must feel seeing this.
Then my mom’s usual words rang in my ear, “It is more blessed to give than to receive,” and my family started to think about how we could help.
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。
Just at that moment, Luella’s family returned in their car.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Even after the debris was cleared, I could still sense Luella’s sorrow for her lost garden.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________2 . Language gives us the power to describe countless actions, properties and relations that compose our experiences, real or imagined. As for how languages were created, scientists found iconicity might play a key role.
People can’t bridge language gap and understand each other without iconicity. When playing a game of charades (猜字谜) , we act out our meaning, using our hands and bodies to describe the sizes and shapes of objects. The key to this process of forming new symbols is the use of iconicity. Not limited to gesturing, iconicity appears in our visual communication too. Traffic signs, food packaging, maps. . . wherever there are people communicating, you will find iconicity.
According to our research, iconicity might also exist in our voices. We organized a contest in which we invited contestants to record a set of sounds to express different meanings. The winner of the contest was determined by how well listeners could guess the intended meanings of the sounds based on a set of written options. Critically, the sounds that contestants submitted couldn’t include actual words or onomatopoeias (拟声词) .
Listeners were remarkably good at interpreting the meanings of the sounds. Yet, all of the contestants and listeners were speakers of English. Thus, it was possible that listeners’ success relied on some cultural knowledge that they shared with the speakers. Did the listeners also understand the speakers from completely different cultural backgrounds?
Later, an Internet survey translated into 25 different languages was carried out. Participants listened to each sound from the English speakers and guessed the meaning by choosing from six written words. Guessing accuracy for the different groups ranged from 74 percent for English speakers to 34 percent for Portuguese speakers. It is far from perfect, but well above the chance rate of eight percent expected by us.
Taken together, these studies show that our capacity for iconic communication has played a critical role. Without this special talent, language would likely never have gotten off the ground.
1. Which of the following can explain “iconicity” ?| A．A skill in foreign language learning. | B．The process of acting out our meanings. |
| C．The connection between form and meaning. | D．A barrier between different language speakers. |
| A．It required sounds containing meanings. | B．Its winners were creative in recordings. |
| C．It aimed to prove iconicity in words. | D．Its entries were familiar to listeners. |
| A．English pronunciations differ. | B．The research has a limitation. |
| C．The cultural gap is narrowing. | D．Listening skills vary in cultures. |
| A．Clarifying the influence of sounds. | B．Proving the necessity of exchanges. |
| C．Uncovering the origin of languages. | D．Identifying the function of gestures. |
It was a quiet and peaceful afternoon. Connie, already home from school, was sitting comfortably in a chair at the kitchen table, doing her homework. Baby Sister was in the living room, building a castle with her bricks and singing softly to herself.
Suddenly they heard a familiar and unwelcome sound: “La-la-la-la-la-la.”
Connie remarked that trouble was coming, and she was right. A moment later the back door flew open and banged against the kitchen wall. As 8-year-old Benjy ran into the dining room, he inquired about everyone’s whereabouts, accidentally crashing the door against the wall with such force that a small vase dropped to the floor and broke into-pieces.
“Benjy, you naughty boy!” cried Connie. “Whatever will Mom say?”
“Hi, Con. What are you doing here? You don’t want to read anymore, do you?” said Benjy excitedly. “Let’s play something. Look what I found today.”
As Benjy emptied his pockets, sticks, rocks, and candies dropped on the floor and rolled in every direction. However, Connie refused to play. She mentioned that she needed to learn the poetry for a test. To Connie’s shock, Benjy suddenly knocked her book out of her hand and ordered her to play with him first.
Connie was annoyed and jumped out of her chair. “Why did you do that?” she cried. “Why can’t you leave people alone?”
“Oh, stuck-up (趾高气扬的), are you?” teased Benjy, pulling Connie’s hair and kicking her book across the room. Unfortunately it hit Baby Sister’s castle and brought it crashing down in ruins.
“Boo-hoo-hoo!” cried Baby Sister. “You’ve broken my castle, and I wanted Mamma to see it. Boo-hoo-hoo!” She picked up a block and cast it as hard as she could at Benjy’s head. He ducked (躲避), and it missed him, striking a picture and breaking the glass.
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。
At this moment the back door opened again and their mother walked in.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Benjy thought a lot about Mom’s advice and decided to make a change.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Lani Williams and her mother, Sincerity, have lived in the historic town of Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui for most of their lives.
Last week, as wildfires began to destroy their beloved town, both the mother and daughter jumped in their car to escape.
Embers (灰烬) were already falling down on them. So Lani got her mom into the car. But then the traffic already stood still. Then she saw another fire beside them on a whole house. Lani thought they were going to die in the car.
Lani and her mom determined the only way out of the fire’s path was to get out of their car and climb over a nearby seawall, into the ocean water.
That escape route, though, proved too difficult as Sincerity has trouble walking and uses a walker for assistance.
As Lani and Sincerity was thinking what to do, a man, a complete stranger, came to their aid.
The man, later identified as Benny Reinicke, told Sincerity to lean on his back so that he could carry her over the seawall and into the water.
He said, “Auntie, put your weight on me. I got you there.”
Reinicke carried Sincerity on his back over the seawall, and then stayed with Sincerity and her daughter in the ocean water for over eight hours as they waited for the fires to die out.
“I just kept thinking to myself, like, this is a young guy that could have just left. He could have swum around to safety, leaving us behind,” Lani said. “But he didn’t. He stayed with us the whole entire time and made sure that all of us were safe.”
After they made it out of the ocean to safety, Lani and Sincerity lost touch with Reinicke.
When everything came to normal, Sincerity told her daughter that they should find Reinicke and say thank you to him. Lani tried her neighborhood for some information about Reinicke but she found nothing.
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。
So Lani decided to turn to the social media.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Lani told Reinicke that she and her mother would arrange a face-to-face meeting with him.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________“Look!” I said to my husband, Roger, pointing to the branches. “The doves (鸽子) have built a nest.
On a chilly April day, we watched with horror as a hawk dived down and took one of the doves. By the next morning the other parent was gone too. Roger climbed up a ladder to take a look into the nest. Was it possible the hawk had spared the young? Yes, there sat a newly hatched baby dove! We brought him inside and set up the nesting box with the heat lamps we had used for raising chickens. Then we rushed to the pet shop to buy the formula (配方奶) which needed to look like the mother’s milk. But even with our care and prayers, we knew that the dove’s chances were slim. We were especially worried that our little bird, whom we’d named Hawkeye, hardly cooed (咕咕地叫) at all. That had to be a bad sign.
But to our surprise, Hawkeye not only survived but also thrived. Within a month, he was able to stand on the edge of a bowl and eat out of a baby spoon. And before we knew it, he was eating the seeds we gave him. Having the opportunity to nurture this new life brought me a greater measure of peace with each passing day.
As Hawkeye grew, we noticed that unlike all the other doves in our yard, he had a double breast with a line dividing it. When I did some research on the doves, I found out that females don’t often coo.
“We got it all wrong,” I told Roger. “Hawkeye is a girl!”
We realized that we’d have to teach her to fly. First, we urged her to fly from a finger to the bottom rung (梯子的横档) of a six-foot ladder, and in no time she was moving quickly to the top. She lit out (逃走，溜掉) for the kitchen whenever she heard the click of the spoon on her bowl. By mid-June she’d gained full confidence in her wings.
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: At that time, we knew it was time to set our Hawkeye free.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Paragraph 2: But one May morning, Hawkeye and the other dove landed on the rooftop.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________6 . It lasted just 24 seconds, but it’s an unforgettable moment that has caught hearts everywhere. During a basketball game at Zeeland East High School in Zeeland, Michigan, the crowd fell quiet, giving high school junior Jules Hoogland an opportunity to take a shot.
Hoogland, who is blind, followed along as a woman tapped (轻敲) a yellow pole against the backboard and a teammate guided her to the perfect position. Thirteen seconds later, the 11th grader nailed a free throw and the silent audience erupted in roaring cheers and applause.
Zeeland Public Schools shared the extraordinary moment, filmed by Brandy Navetta, the school district’s communications and marketing director on Twitter, along with the words, “You thought national basketball tournaments were infusive, but Zeeland Public Schools Unified Basketball took over the court this morning. And the crowd went wild!”
Hoogland’s mom Karen said she was so proud of her achievement. She also praised the young students for their respect and sensitivity towards her daughter. Hoogland set a new record on what blind people can achieve and wanted this video to inspire all those who are facing challenges. “I’m hoping this video will inspire others to keep trying no matter what their challenges are,” she said.
Students from both Zeeland East and Zeeland West High School witnessed Hoogland’s uplifting shot, part of an inclusive basketball game with zLinks. Nathan VandeGuchte, a special education teacher with Zeeland West, added that inclusive sports has made a significant impact on students at Zeeland schools since the zLinks program started. “It was so moving to see Hoogland hit that shot again in front of 2,500 people,” said Nathan. “The lens (视角) with which many of our special education students are viewed has now been forever changed. They know that they are important, and they recognize that they are contributing members of our student body!”
1. Why did the crowd go wild as Hoogland nailed a free throw?| A．Because she couldn’t see. | B．Because she was competitive. |
| C．Because it was her first shot. | D．Because it was the end of the game. |
| A．Addictive. | B．Puzzling. |
| C．Informative. | D．Exciting. |
| A．Dream big, dream early. | B．Never fear to fight challenges. |
| C．Interest is the best teacher. | D．The more one does, the more one can do. |
| A．They were usually overestimated. |
| B．They got confidence from the program. |
| C．They should be given more opportunities. |
| D．They were eager to explore the unknown. |
7 . If you are trying to assess a person’s character, make sure you do not rely too heavily on factors that can be misleading. Instead, observe the individual’s ability to tell the truth and to commit.
You can tell a lot about a person’s character by observing how he treats other people.
Whether or not a person is honest says a lot about his character. The attitude a person has about honesty can also indicate what type of person he is.
A person’s character is affected by his attitude.
When you are trying to assess someone’s character, remember that it consists of qualities and habits that form his identity.
| A．More importantly, it’s necessary to continue his inner struggle. |
| B．The level of commitment indicates the type of character he has. |
| C．There are many other things in life that may require commitment. |
| D．This includes both people he knows and people he does not know. |
| E．Also, pay attention to his attitude and try to distinguish how it impacts his life. |
| F．Observe the person’s conversations and try to determine how often he tells lies. |
| G．Some people generally have a negative outlook while others may try to be positive even in difficult situations. |
1. What makes the speaker a frequent visitor to teahouses?
| A．Their tea. | B．Their atmosphere. | C．Their service. |
| A．Settle an argument. |
| B．Learn Sichuan Opera. |
| C．Talk about business. |
| A．People can chat for a day there. |
| B．They help people makeup faster. |
| C．They attract like-minded people. |
1. How does Emily find her first surfing lesson?
| A．Discouraging. | B．Unforgettable. | C．Exciting. |
| A．15. | B．22. | C．25. |
| A．Teach Emily to surf. |
| B．Give Emily a surfboard. |
| C．Talk with Emily’s brother. |
| A．On Wednesday. | B．On Friday. | C．On Saturday. |
1. What encouraged Mr Roberston to go to the Antarctic?
| A．A training course. | B．A program. | C．A report. |
| A．Falling into ice holes. | B．Losing touch with others. | C．Living in extreme temperatures. |
| A．The wind. | B．The plane. | C．The device. |
| A．They could leave earlier. | B．They got some fresh food. | C．Someone lived near them. |
