A mother stared down at her son who was dying of terminal leukemia (白血病). Like any parent she wanted her son to grow up and realize all his dreams. She took her son's hand and asked, "Bopsy, did you ever think about what you wanted to be when you grew up?"
"Mommy, I always wanted to be a fireman when I grew up."
Mom smiled back and said, "Let's see if we can make your wish come true." Later that day she went to her local fire department in Phoenix, Arizona, where she met Fireman Bob. She explained her son's final wish and asked if it might be possible to give her six-year-old son a ride around the block on a fire engine. Fireman Bob said, "Look, we can do better than that. If you'll have your son ready at seven o'clock Wednesday morning, well make him an honorary fireman for the whole day, He can come down to the fire station；, eat with us, go out on all the fire calls, the whole nine yards! And, if you'll give us his sizes, we'll get a real fire uniform made for him."
Three days later Fireman Bob picked up Bopsy, dressed him in his fire uniform and escorted（护送）him from his hospital bed to the waiting hook and ladder truck. Bopsy got to sit up on the back of the truck and help steer it back to the fire station. He was in heaven.
There were three fire calls in Phoenix that day and Bopsy got to go out on all three calls. He rode in the different fire engines and even the fire chief's car. Having his dream come true, with all the love and attention that was lavished（慷慨给予）upon him, Bopsy lived three months longer than any doctor thought possible.
One night all of his vital signs began to drop and the head nurse began to call the family members to the hospital. Then she remembered the day Bopsy bad spent as a fireman, so she called the fire chief and asked if it would be possible to send a fireman in uniform to the hospital to be with Bopsy as he made his transition. The chief replied, "We can do better than that. We'll be there in five minutes. Will you please do me a favor? When you hear the sirens（警报器）screaming and see the lights flashing, will you announce over the PA system that it's just the fire department coming to see one of its finest members one more time? And will you open the window to his room? Thanks?"
About five minutes later a hook and ladder truck arrived at the hospital, extended its ladder up to Bopsy's third floor open window and 14 firemen and two fire-women climbed up the ladder into Bopsy's room. With his mother’s permission, they hugged him and held him and told him how much they loved him. With his dying breath, Bopsy looked up at the fire chief and said, "Chief, am I really a fireman now?"
"Bopsy, you are," the chief said. With those words, Bopsy smiled and closed his eyes for the last time.
1.Bopsy's mother went to the local fire department and asked if .
A. her son could get a fire uniform
B. Fireman Bob could make her son a real fireman
C. her son could see a fire engine
D. they could give her son a ride on a fire engine
2.What did Fireman Bob probably mean by saying "the whole nine yards"?
A. The fire engine was nine yards long.
B. The whole journey that day was very upsetting.
C. Bopsy could experience everything as a fireman,
D. All the sirens of the fire engines would scream that day.
3.According to Paragraph 4 and 5, Bopsy managed to do many things EXCEPT .
A. driving the hook and ladder truck B. going out on all the three fire calls that day
C. riding in the fire chef's car D. living longer than he was supposed to be
4.Why did the head nurse want a fireman in uniform to be sent to the hospital?
A. Because Bopsy begged her to do so.
B. Because Bopsy saw the firemen as his family members.
C. Because she wanted to do something for Bopsy before he died,
D. Because she wanted Bopsy to be approved as a real fireman.
5.Which of the following statements best shows the theme of the passage?
A. Where there is a will, there is a way.
B. Sometimes there are miracles because of love.
C. Great things may be done by painstaking efforts.
D. A mother understands what a child does not say.
In the years ahead, AI will raise three big questions for bosses and governments. One is the effect on jobs. Although bosses publicly praise the broad benefits AI will bring very much, their main interest lies in cutting costs. One European bank asked a technology company to find a way of reducing the staff in its operations department from 50,000 to 500. This special report has shown that AI-enhanced tools can help reduce staff in departments such as customer service and human resources by a large amount. The McKinsey Global Institute finds that by 2030 up to 375m people, or 14% of the global workers in companies or countries, could have their jobs automated away. Bosses will need to decide whether they are prepared to offer and pay for retraining, and whether they will give time off for it. Many companies say they are all for workers developing new skills, but not at the employer’s expense.
A second important question is how to protect privacy as AI spreads. The Internet has already made it possible to track people's digital（数字的）behaviour in extremely small detail. AT will offer even better tools for businesses to monitor consumers(客户) and workers, both online and in the physical world. Consumers are sometimes happy to go along with this if it results in personalised（个性化的）service. But AI probably brings privacy violations (侵犯) that are seen as shocking and morally unacceptable. In the wrong hands, useful technology could be against fair and equal treatment. Countries with a record of the careful watching of a person place, especially by the police or army and human-rights abuses already using AI to monitor political activity. The police around the world will use AI to spot criminals, but may also look on ordinary citizens secretly, in order to discover things or find out information about them. New rules will be needed to ensure agreement on what degree of monitoring is acceptable.
The third question is about the effect of AI on competition in business. Today many firms are competing to provide AI-enhanced tools to companies. But a technology company that achieves artificial intelligence could race ahead of competitors, put others out of business and lessen competition. This is unlikely to happen in the near future, but if it did it would be of great concern.
1.What can we learn from the second paragraph?
A. All the daily behavior of people is tracked by the Internet.
B. AI is a kind of technology against fair and equal treatment.
C. Consumers are happy to be monitored as long as there is suitable service provided.
D. AI may be applied in more ways including discovering things about ordinary people.
2.What does the underlined word “spot” in Paragraph 2 mean?
A. notice B. prevent
C. reduce D. analyze
3.Which of the following statements is true according to this passage?
A. The staff in a European bank has been sharply reduced by AI technology.
B. AI has aroused concern about privacy as it spreads.
C. New rules for monitoring have been set.
D. Technology companies have achieved major breakthroughs in AI.
4.Which of the following is the best title of the passage?
A. Big rise in profits B. possible track in digital behaviour
C. Sunny with a chance of thunderstorms D. Promising with a concern of privacy protection
Summer's here and it won't be long before school-aged kids across America start complaining that they're tired of riding their bikes, playing at the park, swimming in the pool...and all the other awesome activities their parents hoped would keep them pleasant for the next 10 weeks. Well, if it's any comfort, such rapid boredom could suggest that the kids have amazing powers of memory. A new study shows that the better your short-term memory is, the faster you fed sated (过饱的）and decide you've had enough.
"Though satiation can be physical, like when you feel full after eating too much, we were interested in the psychological (心理学的）side of satiation. Like when you’re just tired of something," Noelle Nelson, assistant professor of marketing and consumer behavior. She and her colleague Joseph Redden at the University of Minnesota tried to think outside the lunch box." Something that was interesting to me is that some people get tired of same things at very different speeds. So if you think about pop songs on the radio, some people must still be enjoying them and requesting them even after hearing them a lot. But a lot of other people are really sick of those same songs."
The difference, the researchers thought, might have to do with memories of past experiences. For example, studies show that people push away from the dinner table sooner when they're asked to describe in detail what they ate earlier for lunch.
So the researchers tested the memory capacity (能力）of college students, The students then viewed a repeating series of three classic paintings...like The Starry Night, American Gothic, and The Scream...or listened and re-listened to a series of three pop songs...or three pieces of classical music. Throughout the test, the students were asked to rate（定等级）their experience from zero to tan. And the better a participant scored in the memory test, the faster they got bored." We found that people with larger capacities remembered more about the music or art, which led to them getting tired of the music or art more quickly. So remembering more details actually made the students feel like they'd experienced the music or art more often."
The findings suggest that marketers could control our desire for their products by figuring out ways to keep us from fully remembering our experiences. We could also trick ourselves into eating less junk food by putting ourselves in the memory of a previous (之前的）snack. As for kids easily bored, just tell them to forget about it—it might help them have more fun.
1.According to the new study, kids get tired of some activities quickly because of .
A. too many activities B. good short-term memory
C. fast satiation D. physical tiredness
2.The researchers did a test on college students and found that .
A. lower capacities could help them remember more about the music or art
B. these students got tired of things at the same speed
C. they remembered the three classic paintings better than the songs
D. students with larger memory capacity would get bored faster
3.The underlined word "it" in the last paragraph refers to .
A. the past memory B. the past capacity
C. the past boredom D. the past complaints
4.What does the passage mainly talk about?
A. School-aged kids tend to have good short-term memory in summer.
B. Bad short-term memory is more likely to make us lose interest in something easily.
C. The quality of your short-term memory affects the speed you feel bored.
D. It is important to develop the memory capacity of college students.
The best books of the year
Fiction | Simon &Schuster $26. | Asymmetry By Lisa Halliday The first section, "Folly," is the story of a love affair between a book editor and an elderly novelist. The second section, "Madness" describes an Iraqi-American economist who is being held up at Heathrow airport. In "Asymmetry," two seemingly unrelated sections are connected by a shocking finale. |
Fiction | Viking. $27. | The Great Believers By Rebecca Makkai Set in the Chicago of the mid-80s and Paris at the time of the 2015 terrorist attacks, Makkai's deeply affecting novel uses the AIDS epidemic and a mother's search for her distant daughter to explore the effects of senseless loss and our efforts to overcome it. |
Nonfiction | Random House $28. | Educated By Tara Westover Westover's extraordinary memoir (回忆录)is an act of courage and self-invention. The youngest of seven children, she grew up in Idaho, in a survivalist family lacking even a birth certificate (证明) and did not attend school until she went to college. The reward for her efforts Is a book that shows to a great thirst to learn. |
Nonfiction | Simon & Schuster $37.50. | Frederick Douglass By David W. Blight Douglass wrote three autobiographies (自传）himself, describing his rise from slavery to a role as one of the greatest figures of the 19th century, but Blight's work is fuller than any of those, relating both the public and private life in a way that Douglass either could not or would not undertake. |
1.Which of the following books are published by the same publishing house?
A. Asymmetry & The Great Believers. B. The Great Believers & Educated.
C. Educated & Frederick Douglass. D. Asynimetry & Frederick Douglass.
2.Which of the following statements is true according to the passage?
A. There is no connection between the two sections in "Asymmetry".
B. "The Great Believers" is set in a poor family in Idaho.
C. Westover didn't attend a single day of school before going to the college.
D. Blight wrote three autobiographies about both the public and private life.
"Paige, go down to the office," said my teacher, There was a strange tone（语气）in her ______. I was never known to get into trouble, so I knew something was ______ . It got even more ______ when my teacher said my mom was on the phone. Did something happen to my ______? I picked up the phone; I was barely breathing and my hands were ______. "Honey, there was a bank robbery today and your dad was ______ in the car chase that followed. He is doing okay, but shots were fired at his squad(特别行动小组)."
My dad has been a ______ for over 25 years. Every day of my life, I have lived with the ______ thought that something could happen to him. I have always been ______ to my dad, and I do not know what I would do if he was taken away from me, I am so ______ of his job, but I must admit it would be ______ if he had a normal job. On April 28, my dad got the call to go to a bank robbery. The robbery ______ a car chase. My dad was driving fast to ______ the robber. Over the radio, a fellow officer was yelling at him ______ him the robber was pointing a gun towards his squad. Three shots were fired. My clad narrowly escaped those bullets. All I had to hear was that my dad was involved in a shooting, and I was ______ his funeral (葬礼). I thought the day would never end.
My mom and I sat at home waiting for my dad to walk through the door. The second he did. I rushed up to him and gave him the biggest ______ in the world.
Life is about ______ it with the ones you love. What is the ______ of life if you do not have your friends and family? This experience has taught me a ______ . I have learned to live my life to the ______ and never to take anyone or anything for granted.
1.A. mind B. heart C. voice D. appearance
2.A. wrong B. exciting C. boring D. common
3.A. encouraging B. confusing C. satisfying D. annoying
4.A. school B. class C. family D. committee
5.A. waving B. shaking C. suffering D. moving
6.A. lost B. held C. involved D. taken
7.A. policeman B. coach C. professor D. doctor
8.A. anxious B. optimistic C. interesting D. unnecessary
9.A. hateful B. close C. cruel D. helpful
10.A. tired B. proud C. jealous D. ashamed
11.A. harder B. poorer C. easier D. wealthier
12.A. gave out B. took away C. came across D. turned into
13.A. keep up with B. look up to C. rise up against D. get away from
14.A. inspiring B. warning C. comforting D. instructing
15.A. describing B. refusing C. holding D. imagining
16.A. demand B. hug C. success D. shock
17.A. comparing B. sharing C. hiding D. regretting
18.A. way B. atmosphere C. fortune D. point
19.A. subject B. rate C. lesson D. skill
20.A. happiest B. fullest C. longest D. highest
—Would you mind if I closed the door, as it is so cold?
—Of course not. .
A. My pleasure B. It depends
C. With pleasure D. Go ahead
