1 . Who is a genius? This question has greatly interested humankind for centuries.
Let’s state clearly: Einstein was a genius. His face is almost the international symbol for genius. But we want to go beyond one man and explore the nature of genius itself. Why is it that some people are so much more intelligent or creative than the rest of us? And who are they?
In the sciences and arts, those praised as geniuses were most often white men, of European origin. Perhaps this is not a surprise. It’s said that history is written by the victors, and those victors set the standards for admission to the genius club. When contributions were made by geniuses outside the club—women, or people of a different color or belief—they were unacknowledged and rejected by others.
A study recently published by Science found that as young as age six, girls are less likely than boys to say that members of their gender(性别)are “really, really smart.” Even worse, the study found that girls act on that belief: Around age six they start to avoid activities said to be for children who are “really, really smart.” Can our planet afford to have any great thinkers become discouraged and give up? It doesn’t take a genius to know the answer: absolutely not.
Here’s the good news. In a wired world with constant global communication, we’re all positioned to see flashes of genius wherever they appear. And the more we look, the more we will see that social factors(因素)like gender, race, and class do not determine the appearance of genius. As a writer says, future geniuses come from those with “intelligence, creativity, perseverance(毅力), and simple good fortune, who are able to change the world.”
1. What does the author think of victors’ standards for joining the genius club?| A．They’re unfair. | B．They’re conservative. |
| C．They’re objective. | D．They’re strict. |
| A．They think themselves smart. |
| B．They look up to great thinkers. |
| C．They see gender differences earlier than boys. |
| D．They are likely to be influenced by social beliefs |
| A．Improved global communication. |
| B．Less discrimination against women. |
| C．Acceptance of victors’ concepts. |
| D．Changes in people’s social positions. |
| A．Geniuses Think Alike | B．Genius Takes Many Forms |
| C．Genius and Intelligence | D．Genius and Luck |
1. What do some international students do during their gap year?
| A．Take this chance to travel. |
| B．Perform their military duty. |
| C．Meet other educational requirements. |
| A．Students may miss their friends at college. |
| B．Students may not want to continue their studies. |
| C．It goes against the schedule of some colleges. |
| A．To provide tutorship to students. |
| B．To call the media's attention to the gap year. |
| C．To help students plan their gap year. |
调查对象：你校高中生调查人数：200 人
调查方式：访谈
调查结果：(见下图)
注意： 1. 词数 100 左右；
2. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯；
3. 开头和结尾已给出，但不计入词数。
Whom Do You Turn to When in Trouble？
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1. 争做爱粮，节粮的倡导者。
2. 爱粮节粮的具体措施。
注意：1. 参考词汇：厉行节俭，反对浪费 practice strict economy and combat waste
2. 字数：100词左右。
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5 . Growing Pains
The term "adulting started as a sort of joke 一一 whenever a millennial（千禧一代）would do something age-appropriate, this was an act of "adulting." Now, though, millennials obviously require training in being an adult.
Rachel Flehinger has co-founded an Adulting School, which includes online courses on simple sewing, conflict resolution and cooking. The cause for such classes is that many millennials "haven’t left childhood homes" 一一 in America 34 percent of adults aged 18 to 34 still lived with their parents as of 2015, up from 26 percent a decade before.
There's a good deal of truth to this. If you're living at home, with Mom and Dad doing their best to spoil（(溺爱）you, you're less likely to know how to do laundry, cook or balance a checkbook. Dependency breeds enervation.
But here's the catch: Living at home doesn't necessarily lead to dependency. As of 1940, more than 30 percent of 25- to 29-year-olds lived at home with parents or grandparents. They were adulting, even while living at home. Parents expected their kids to do chores, to prepare for life. Instead of blaming living at home, then, we have to blame our style of parenting. The truth is that we've simply become lazier as parents.
So what's the real problem?
We're more likely to let our kids crash on our couches（长沙发）than tell them to get a job and pay rent. We don't push our kids to build families of their own, as life expectancy has increased, so has adolescence. Americans aren't expected to start building a life, particularly middle- and upper-class Americans, until they're nearing their 30s. Then the question is how we can encourage young people to "'adult" in non-circumstance-driven fashion.
1. What does the last sentence in the third paragraph "Dependency breeds enervation." mean?| A．Parents would like to do housework by themselves |
| B．Present kids are too lazy to do housework. |
| C．Dependency makes kids unable. |
| D．Kids depend on their parents. |
| A．Millennials would like to be trained in being an adult. |
| B．Parents are too lazy to do chores. |
| C．Millennials don't adult because they still live in their childhood homes. |
| D．In the 1940s kids were adulting even when they were living at home. |
| A．"Adulting" is hard, but only because parents are too lazy to teach their kids. |
| B．Millennials should leave home early to adult. |
| C．Americans aren't expected to start building a life until they're nearing their 30s. |
| D．Adulting schools with online courses are popular. |
| A．The government should push off the age of adulthood. |
| B．Parents should leave kids in charge of society. |
| C．Parents should put responsibility on young people. |
| D．Pushing kids to adult is painful for parents. |
6 . For many parents, raising a teenager is like fighting a long war, but years go by without any clear winner. Like a border conflict between neighboring countries, the parent-teen war is about boundaries: Where is the line between what I control and what you do?
Both sides want peace, but neither feels it has any power to stop the conflict. In part, this is because neither is willing to admit any responsibility for starting it. From the parents’ point of view, the only cause of their fight is their adolescents’ complete unreasonableness. And of course, the teens see it in exactly the same way, except oppositely. Both feel trapped.
In this article, I’ll describe three no-win situations that commonly arise between teens and parents and then suggest some ways out of the trap. The first no-win situation is quarrels over unimportant things. Examples include the color of the teen’s hair, the cleanliness of the bedroom, the preferred style of clothing, the child’s failure to eat a good breakfast before school, or his tendency to sleep until noon on the weekends. Second, blaming. The goal of a blaming battle is to make the other admit that his bad attitude is the reason why everything goes wrong. Third, needing to be right. It doesn’t matter what the topic is—politics, the laws of physics, or the proper way to break an egg—the point of these arguments is to prove that you are right and the other person is wrong, for both wish to be considered an authority—someone who actually knows something—and therefore to command respect. Unfortunately, as long as parents and teens continue to assume that they know more than the other, they’ll continue to fight these battles forever and never make any real progress.
1. Why does the author compare the parent-teen war to a border conflict?| A．Both are about where to draw the line. |
| B．Both can continue for generations. |
| C．Neither has any clear winner. |
| D．Neither can be put to an end. |
| A．The teens tend to have a full understanding of their parents. |
| B．The teens agree with their parents on the cause of the conflict. |
| C．The teens cause their parents of misleading them. |
| D．The teens blame their parents for starting the conflict. |
| A．give orders to the other |
| B．know more than the other |
| C．gain respect from the other |
| D．get the other to behave properly |
| A．Solutions for the parent-teen problems. |
| B．Examples of the parent-teen war. |
| C．Causes for the parent-teen conflicts. |
| D．Future of the parent-teen relationship. |
7 . It is fashionable today to criticize Big Business, and there is one issue on which the many critics agree: CEO pay. We hear that CEOs are paid too much (or too much relative to workers) , or that they control others’ pay, or that their pay is insufficiently related to positive outcomes. But the more likely truth is CEO pay is largely caused by intense competition.
It is true that CEO pay has gone up---top ones may make 300 times the pay of typical workers on average, and since the mid-1970s, CEO pay for large publicly traded American corporations has, by varying estimates, gone up by about 500%. The typical CEO of a top American corporation-from the 350 largest such companies-now makes about $18.9 million a year.
While individual cases of overpayment definitely exist, in general, the determinants of CEO pay are not so mysterious and not so trapped in corruption (腐败). In fact, overall CEO compensation for the top companies rises pretty much in line with the value of those companies on the stock market.
The best model for understanding the growth of CEO pay, though, is that of limited CEO talent in a world where business opportunities for the top firms are growing rapidly. The efforts of Americans highest-earning 1 % have been one of the more dynamic elements of the global economy.
It’s not popular to say, but one reason their pay has gone up so much is that CEOs really have upped their game relative to many other workers in the U. S. economy.
Today’s CEO, at least for major American firms, must have many more skills than simply being able to “run the company.” CEOs must have a good sense of financial markets and maybe even how the company should trade in them. They also need better public relations skills than their predecessors, as the costs of even a minor slipup can cause a bad consequence. Then there’s the fact that large American companies are much more globalized than ever before, with supply chains spread across a larger number of countries. To lead in that system requires knowledge that is fairly incredible.
There is yet another trend: virtually all major American companies are becoming tech companies, one way or another. An agribusiness company, for instance, may focus on R&D in highly IT- intensive areas such as genome sequencing (基因组序列). Similarly, it is hard to do a good job running the Walt Disney Company just by picking good movie scripts and courting stars ； you also need to build a firm capable of creating significant CGI (计算机生成图像) products for cartoon movies at the highest levels of technical sophistication and with many frontier innovations along the way.
On top of all of this, major CEOs still have to do the job they have always done- which includes motivating employees, serving as an internal role model, helping to define and extend a corporate culture, understanding the internal accounting, and presenting budgets and business plans to the board. Good CEOs are some of the world’s most powerful creators and have some of the very deepest skills of understanding.
1. Which of the following has contributed to CEO pay rise?| A．The growth in the number of cooperation |
| B．The general pay rise with a better economy |
| C．Increased business opportunities for top firms |
| D．Close cooperation among leading economics |
| A．foster a stronger sense of teamwork |
| B．finance more research and development |
| C．establish closer ties with tech companies |
| D．operate more globalized companies |
| A．operation | B．success |
| C．mistake | D．promotion |
| A．CEOs Are Not Overpaid | B．CEO Pay: Past and Present |
| C．CEOs’ Challenges of Today | D．CEO Traits: Not Easy to Define |
1. 写出疫情的发展状况；
2. 告知中国是如何应对此次疫情的；
3. 安慰Tim并表达战胜疫情的信心。
注意：1. 词数不少于100词；
2. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
参考词汇：病毒virus 流行病epidemic
Dear Tim,
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Yours,
Li Hua
9 . Alongside air and water, food is a necessity (必需) for human beings to survive and thrive (蓬勃发展). But it’s a lot more than that. As Mariette DiChristina of Scientific American wrote: “The most intimate (亲密的) relationship we will ever have is not with any fellow human being. Instead, it is between our bodies and our food.”
Nowadays, for most people in the world’s wealthiest countries, food is a hobby, an enthusiasm, and even something fashionable.
Turn on the TV in the US, UK or France, and you’ll find at least one channel feeding this popular obsession (迷恋).
And most of us know at least one person who thinks of themselves as a “foodie”. It’s almost impossible nowadays to check our social media apps without at least two or three photos of delicious meals appearing on our screen － however annoying we may find it.
But behind the fancy recipes and social media bragging (夸耀), many of us forget how much we take food for granted.
This is why World Food Day is held each year by the United Nations on Oct 16. The day allows the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization to highlight (强调) both the progress that has been made against hunger, and the awful amount of progress that still needs to be made.
Take Kenya for example. This East African nation has been suffering terrible droughts, some of the worst in recent years. The result is that people are beginning to starve. Children in particular are suffering, with some of them even dying.
This may seem shocking to know, especially as many cultures outside of Africa think of food in a completely different way. But even in developed nations in the West, families on low incomes (收入) are forced to use food banks － organizations that hand out donated (捐赠) food to those who can’t afford to pay for it themselves.
So what can we do on World Food Day? One good way to spend it would be to feel humble and appreciate what we have. After all, food is essential for our survival, but not everyone is as lucky as we are when it comes to dinner time.
1. The author borrowed Mariette DiChristina’s words to ______.| A．discuss the latest trend in the food industry |
| B．point out the food shortage problem in the world |
| C．emphasize the connection between food and humanity |
| D．show the importance of food for human survival |
| A．have turned many people into foodies |
| B．are very popular among viewers |
| C．will soon be replaced by social media apps |
| D．often mislead people’s opinion of food issues |
| A．raise awareness of the issues behind hunger |
| B．share fancy recipes and promote food cultures |
| C．call on people to donate food to those in need |
| D．inform people of the food crisis in Africa |
| A．give more food to charity | B．share food with their neighbors |
| C．feel grateful for the food they eat | D．skip meals sometimes to save food |
10 . Royal Dutch Shell is launching a $ 300 million and forestry program, at a time when an increasing number of oil companies are putting money in carbon offset (碳补偿)plans to meet climate goals. The company will spend the money over the next three years on projects to store carbon, including large forests in the Netherlands and Spain, and will start offering motorists the option of purchasing carbon offsets when they buy petrol at the pump.
The executives of the company explained that these carbon offset projects were a new business opportunity for Shell, as well as a way to meet its climate targets. “We believe that over time we will be building a business, because these carbon credits will become more valuable as carbon becomes more limited," they said. Shell recently decided to cut its net carbon footprint (碳排放)by 2-3 percent in five years, which includes emissions (排放)from the products it sells. The company plans to produce carbon credits from the forestry projects, then sell these credits on to customers buying its oil and gas products, or apply the credits to its own operations to lower its carbon footprint.
Plants absorb carbon dioxide as they grow and restoring forests and other natural areas is considered one of the simplest ways to store carbon. However, the voluntary market for carbon credits based on forestry projects has its critics, as projects in developing countries can be hard to monitor. Shell's move has also been criticized by some environmentalists. They worried that there was a risk of " greenwash when companies invested in forestry projects. "There is an entire debate about whether forestry projects truly reduce emissions or not," they said, pointing out that planting in one area could cause deforestation (滥伐森林)to another.
Shell said it would rely on the third party to ensure its forest program to meet the Voluntary Carbon Standard and strict biodiversity requirements. Mark Lewis, head of climate change investment research at BNP Paribas, said, " Planting trees to offset emissions, as far as it goes, is a step in the right direction."
1. What is popular among oil companies these days?| A．Studying climate changes. |
| B．Launching forestry programs. |
| C．Working out carbon offset plans. |
| D．Attracting motorists to buy their petrol. |
| A．By quitting the emissions of its products. |
| B．By reducing its carbon footprint by a quarter. |
| C．By limiting the oil used by its own operations. |
| D．By putting carbon credits it produces on the market. |
| A．The projects can't really stop carbon emissions. |
| B．The projects are hard to monitor in poor countries. |
| C．The projects may lead to deforestation in other forests. |
| D．The projects haven't met strict biodiversity requirements. |
| A．Discount. | B．Cheat. |
| C．Decline. | D．Change. |
