1 . The United Kingdom is hosting the AI Safety Summit, bringing politicians, computer scientists and big AI company leaders to a site chosen for its symbolism: Bletchley Park, the birthplace of computing and code-breaking (密码破译).
During World War II, a group of mathematicians, chess masters and other experts gathered at the Victorian country house 72 kilometers northwest of London to start a secret war against Nazi Germany. Their goal was to break a set of constantly changing codes produced by Nazi Germany’s Enigma machine. To do it, Bletchley Park’s wartime scientists — building on work done by Polish code-breakers — developed Colossus, the first programmable digital computer. Some historians say cracking the code helped shorten the war by up to two years.
“It has oversimplified its true contribution by describing Bletchley Park as a playground for Turing and other scientists.” said historian Chris Smith, author of The Hidden History of Bletchley Park. “Although it fits into the romantic idea that a group of smart men with a bit of wool and some yards of wire can win the war. In fact, almost 10,000 people worked at Bletchley Park during the war. Three quarters of them were women. It’s basically a factory... Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. When peace came, the code-breakers returned to civilian life and promised to keep secret about their wartime work. It was not until the 1970s that the work at Bletchley Park became widely known in Britain.”
In 1994, the site opened as a museum, after local historians banded together to prevent it from being pulled down to build a supermarket. It was restored to its 1940s appearance, complete with old typewriters, phones and cups—including the one tied to a heater in Hut 8, where Turing led the Enigma team.
1. What can we learn about Colossus?| A．It was invented by Nazi Germany. |
| B．It was designed to send secret messages. |
| C．Polish code-breakers also made a contribution to it. |
| D．The project’s goal was to produce the first computer. |
| A．Women’s hard work was overlooked. | B．The secret should not be kept for so long. |
| C．The computer ought to be more powerful. | D．It is silly to say the machine shortened the war. |
| A．To highlight the government’s support. | B．To show the perfect restoration of the site. |
| C．To stress Turing’s important role in the project. | D．To tell the difficulty in collecting the lost items. |
| A．To advocate women’s equal rights with men. |
| B．To advertise a newly restored computer museum. |
| C．To show the significance of an important meeting. |
| D．To add some background to the AI safety meeting. |
2 . The switch from water-powered to coal-powered factories in 19th-century Britain may be a result of droughts that made water power less reliable and coal more attractive.
Previously, it was thought that industrialists ran out of attractive places along rivers to build the waterwheels that powered many of their factories in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Past analyses of the water power available to early industrialists relied on 20th-century precipitation (降水) patterns, but these are unreliable for assessing historical water power, says Tara Jonell at the University of Glasgow in the UK.
Jonell used previous precipitation records combined with elevation (海拔) data to create a more accurate model of the flow in Britain’s rivers and streams at the time. She found that industrialists in England, Scotland and Wales had barely tapped potential water power when they made the change to coal. Concentrated development had completely filled a few places, such as regions along the River Spodden near Manchester, but overall “ there was still plenty of water power that existed”, says Jonell.
“This supports the argument that coal power was neither more plentiful nor more productive than water power at the time,” says Brett Christophers at Uppsala University in Sweden. “ It adds another nail to the coffin of the old belief. ”
One possibility is that a series of droughts may have made water power less reliable than coal, says Jonell. But Andreas Malm, who wasn’t involved with this work, says it is unclear whether actual droughts took place at the time. He says workers’ movements in the 1830s and 1840s may have prevented industrialists from relying on labour to make up production shortfalls that could have been driven by changing precipitation patterns. The mobility of coal was also a factor in this power change, he says. Relying on coal meant factories could be built near cheap labour or convenient transportation, instead of being limited to places along rivers.
1. What was the cause of the industrial revolution according to the previous belief?| A．The increased energy demand. |
| B．The insufficient water resources. |
| C．The lack of suitable areas for waterwheels. |
| D．The difficulty in building waterwheels. |
| A．By analyzing previous data. |
| B．By comparing water and coal power. |
| C．By referring to other studies. |
| D．By remodeling precipitation patterns. |
| A．It leads to a controversial conclusion. |
| B．It stresses the effect of droughts. |
| C．It agrees with the conventional thought. |
| D．It provides good evidence for the new finding. |
| A．Supportive. | B．Doubtful. | C．Cautious. | D．Objective. |
On the eve of the Chinese Lunar New Year,
Jade Rabbit is probably the most famous rabbit in China. It features on the special stamps
The image of a white rabbit often leaves
Lord Rabbit, known as Tu’er Ye in Chinese, is an auspicious (吉利的) clay toy for children in Beijing.
Queen Elizabeth II was farewelled at an hour-long state funeral in London’s Westminster Abbey, with her body later moved to her final
About 2,000 people attended the funeral, most notably the Queen’s children: King Charles, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward. Her grandchildren,
As well as foreign royals and state
The service
On the top of the coffin (棺材) was a wreath of flowers
Queen Elizabeth Ⅱ will be buried alongside her late husband, Prince Philip.
增加：在缺词处加一个漏词符号（∧)，并在此符号下面写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线(＼)划掉。
修改：在错词下面划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意： 1.每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；
2.只允许修改10处，多者从第11处不计分。
Yesterday, I read an interesting story about two men who travelled from France to England in a hot air balloon in 1784. Highly over the water, they discovered the hole in the balloon. The hole became bigger and bigger. The air keeps the balloon up was escaping quickly and the balloon was coming up. The two men threw all their equipments into the water to make the balloon light. It started to rise higher again. So it was still too close to the water. Finally, the men threw away most of his clothes to save themselves. The crowd waiting to greet with them in England were very surprised see this when the balloon landed in front of them.
The Oscars are held every March in the city of Los Angeles. Many of the
However, on March 8,2000, someone stole the fifty-five Oscar statues that
A few days
Finally Willie Fulgear received a $ 50,000 reward and the invitation to the Oscar ceremony. He didn’t receive
1. What was the main meal for people in Prussia in the 18th century?
| A．Rice. | B．Potatoes. | C．Bread. |
| A．Disappointed. | B．Curious. | C．Anxious. |
| A．He was very smart. |
| B．He liked making jokes. |
| C．He was crazy about potatoes. |
8 . It was December 25, 1914, only 5 months into World War Ⅰ. German, British, and French soldiers already sick and tired of the senseless killing, disobeyed their superiors and fraternized (打得火热) with “the enemy” along two-thirds of the Western Front. German troops held Christmas trees up out of the trenches (战壕) with signs, “Merry Christmas.”
“You no shoot, we no shoot.” Thousands of troops streamed across a no-man’s land filled with dead bodies. They sang Christmas carols, exchanged photographs of loved ones back home, shared rations, played football, and even roasted some pigs. Soldiers embraced (拥抱) men they had been trying to kill a few short hours before. They agreed to warn each other if the Generals (将军) forced them to fire their weapons, and to aim high.
It shocked the high command on either side. Here was disaster in the making: soldiers declaring their brotherhood with each other and refusing to fight. Generals on both sides declared this peacemaking to be wrong. Fifteen million would be killed.
Not many people have heard the story of the Christmas Truce. On Christmas Day, 1988, a story in the Boston Globe mentioned that a local FM radio host played “Christmas in the Trenches” several times and was surprised by the effect. The song became the most requested recording during the holidays in Boston on several FM stations. “Some callers even telephone the host deeply moved, sometimes in tears, asking, ‘What the hell did I just hear?’”
You can probably guess why the callers were in tears. The Christmas Truce story goes against most of what we have been taught about people. It gives us a glimpse of the world as we wish it could be and says, “This really happened once.” It reminds us of those thoughts we keep hidden away, ou of range of the TV and newspaper stories that tell us how trivial (微不足道的) and mean human life is. It is like hearing that our deepest wishes really are true: the world really could be different.
1. What is the main idea of the second paragraph?| A．Troops celebrated their victories. | B．Generals forced their army to fight back. |
| C．Soldiers made peace with their enemies. | D．Soldiers decided to give in to their enemies. |
| A．A fierce war. | B．Many deaths. | C．A peaceful world. | D．Many heroes. |
| A．They experienced the war. | B．They lost loved ones in the war. |
| C．They valued the life in peace. | D．They desired to protect their motherland. |
| A．Being against wars. | B．Cherishing today’s happiness. |
| C．Remembering heroes. | D．Showing no respect for life. |
9 . After seemingly endless waiting, news finally reached President Abraham Lincoln. The North had won at Gettysburg. The citizens of Pennsylvania created a national cemetery（公墓）for the soldiers who lay dead at Gettysburg. A ceremony was planned. Lincoln received an invitation to attend. He was not asked to give the major speech of the day. That honor was given to a New England statesman and professional speaker named Edward Everett. The president was asked instead to say “a few words”.
As the day approached, Lincoln’s wife asked him to reconsider. Their son, Tad, had fallen ill. Mary Lincoln was near crazy. On the morning of the day, Tad was so sick that he could not eat. Lincoln felt unwell himself, but he decided to go anyway.
On Thursday, November 19, for two hours, Everett held the audience spellbound with his rich voice and inspiring words. Then Lincoln rose to speak. “Four score and seven years ago,” he began in his high pitched（声调高的）voice. He spoke for barely three minutes.
As Lincoln sat down, some eyewitnesses recalled little applause（掌声）. Others heard “not a word, not a cheer, not a shout”. A person taking notes asked Lincoln, “Is that all?” Embarrassed, Lincoln replied, “Yes--for the present.” A photographer in the crowd had not even had time to take a picture.
Lincoln thought his speech was a failure. Some newspapers considered it as “silly” and “boring”. But Everett correctly predicted that the Gettysburg Address would “live among the history of man”. A few days after both of them had spoken at Gettysburg, he wrote to Lincoln, saying that he wished he had come “as close to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes”. Lincoln replied, telling Everett how pleased he was that “the little I did say was not entirely a failure.”
Indeed it was not. It gave the North new hope and purpose as to why it was fighting the war. Today, Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is remembered as one of the greatest speeches of all time.
1. What can we learn from the first paragraph?| A．Lincoln was asked to give a mini speech. |
| B．Lincoln was elected President on the victory of Gettysburg. |
| C．Lincoln’s speech was given to celebrate the end of the War. |
| D．Lincoln ordered the construction of a cemetery in Gettysburg. |
| A．To show the disappointment of the audience. |
| B．To show the greatness of Lincoln’s speech. |
| C．To laugh at Lincoln for his unsuccessful speech. |
| D．To tell us that Lincoln was very sad about his speech. |
| A．Sympathy. | B．Criticism. |
| C．Appreciation. | D．Embarrassment. |
| A．Because it was distinctively well constructed. |
| B．Because it was concise and delivered in a rich voice. |
| C．Because Everett, a great speaker, sang high praise for it. |
| D．Because people got hope and a sense of purpose from it. |
10 . Mention the terms Italian culture and Renaissance art and one is immediately reminded of the mysterious smile of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.
The Renaissance had a deep effect on the development of European culture. Having its beginnings in Italy, by the 16th century, it had spread to the rest of Europe. Its influence was felt in different fields such as philosophy, literature, religion, science, politics, and, of course, art. The scholars of the Renaissance period applied the humanistic method to every field of study, and wanted to have human emotion and realism in art.
Renaissance scholars studied the ancient Latin and Greek texts, searching the libraries of Europe for works of ancient times that had become obscure, in their hunt for reforming and perfecting their worldly knowledge. However, that does not mean that they refused religion. In fact, many of the greatest works of the Renaissance period were devoted to it, with the church supporting a lot of the works of Renaissance art. However, there were slight changes in the manner in which the scholars began to treat religion, which affected the cultural life of society, which in turn influenced the artists of that period and therefore was reflected in their art.
In Raphael’s The School of Athens, for example, some well-known people were described as classical scholars with Leonardo da Vinci given as much importance as Plato in his time. Giotto di Bondone, 1266-1337, a Florentine, who is regarded as the greatest Italian painter just earlier than the Renaissance period, is thought to be the first artist who treated a painting as a window into space.
However, it was only after the writings of Filippo Brunelleschi, 1377-1446, who is considered the first great builder of the Italian Renaissance, that perspective (透视法) was formally accepted as an artistic technique.
1. What makes Italy stand out in a way in world history?| A．Its artists during the Renaissance were numerous. | B．It was the center of the European countries. |
| C．It had many famous inventors in different fields. | D．It was home to the Renaissance. |
| A．meaningless and hard to recognize | B．clear and meaningful to guiding people |
| C．unclear and difficult to understand or see | D．easy to understand but having little meaning |
| A．After the completion of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. |
| B．After Leonardo da Vinci’s being compared to Plato. |
| C．After Giotto di Bondone’s paintings were respected. |
| D．After Filippo Brunelleschi’s completing his writings. |
| A．Italy’s Renaissance art and artists | B．the famous artists in Italy’s history |
| C．Italy’s influence on the world in culture | D．the hardships during the Renaissance in Italy |
