Your 2018 Reading List, Provided by Bill Gates
Most of us can’t live like billionaire Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, but we can read like him. Gates recommended four books in 2018—though some were published earlier.
Leonardo da Vinci, by Walter Isaacson (2017)
The bestselling biographer of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein researched deeply into da Vinci’s contributions beyond art, highlighting the breadth of his scientific, technological, and creative output. “Leonardo nearly understood almost all of what was known on the planet at the time. That’s mostly because of his curiosity about every area of natural science and the human experience,” said Gates.
The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir, by Thi Bui (2017)
Gates calls this graphic novel “really impressive”. Bui is the daughter of Vietnamese refugees who came to America after the fall of Saigon, and becoming a parent inspired her to look into her own parents’ miserable history. “I was struck by how the experiences Bui illustrates manage to be both universal and specific to their circumstances,” said Gates.
Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders (2018)
Saunders, a long-time short story writer, won high praise for this novel. The book imagines the ghosts that haunt (萦绕) the basement of Willie Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln’s son, who died at 11 in real life. “Willie’s death after the Civil War made the president have a new understanding of the grief he’s creating in other families by sending their sons off to die in battle,” said Gates.
Origin Story: A Big History of Everything, by David Christian (2018)
This new book is by the creator of Big History, a free, online social studies course. It traces history in wide, sweeping movements, starting with the Big Bang, and it provides, in effect, a short course in modern science. This is a brief history of the universe. “David gets a little stuck on the current economic and political problems in the West, and I wish he talked more about the role innovation will play in preventing the worst effects of climate change,” said Gates.
1.Which books refer to the field of science?
A. Origin Story and Leonardo da Vinci.
B. Lincoln in the Bardo and Origin Story.
C. Leonardo da Vinci and The Best We Could Do.
D. The Best We Could Do and Lincoln in the Bardo.
2.If you are interested in thrillers, whose book will you most probably choose?
A. Walter Isaacson. B. Thi Bui.
C. George Saunders. D. David Christian.
3.Which of the following statements is TRUE?
A. The Best We Could Do is an autobiography.
B. Lincoln in the Bardo has been warmly received.
C. David Christian talks much about the part that innovation will play.
D. Readers can only read about Leonardo da Vinci’s contributions towards art.
很多父母太溺爱孩子，导致一些孩子缺乏基本的生活自理能力。你班正准备就这一话题召开一次主题班会，请你依据下表用英语准备一篇发言稿，要点如下：
原因 | 1、父母只关注孩子的学习，忽视其他能力的培养 2、父母包办过多，为孩子安排好一切 |
结果 | 1、缺乏基本的生活自理能力 2、经受不住困难的考验 3、以自我为中心，比较自私 |
建议 | （至少两点） |
1. 对所给提示，不要简单翻译，可适当增加细节，使行文连贯。
2. 词数150左右。开头己给出，不计入总词数。
Nowadays, many parents try their best to give their children a happy and meaningful life.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
阅读下列句子，根据中文或首字母提示，写出正确单词，每空仅填一词。
1.There are v _____ kinds of hotels with different in the city. You can choose the one you like.
2.He is such a c _____ boy, keeping asking questions about the equipment when visiting the lab.
3.After the students handed in their paintings, the class was d _____ and they all went home.
4.It never o _____ to me that it would take two days for the students to finish the program.
5.Excuse me but you can't sit here. These seats are r _____ for special guests.
6.She is _____ (热情的）about going to Spain，, which is always her dream country.
7..We are _____ (安排）the schedule to end the last program a little earlier to allow the guests more time for the dinner meal.
8.I decided not to do my more personal interviews until I _____ (官方地)became president that December.
9.Dad, when will we arrive at the _____ (目的地)？The journey is so long that it seems endless.
10.Scientists haven't found strong evidence for the _____ (存在）of this creature.
请认真阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。请将答案写在答题纸上相应题号的横线上。
I grew up in one of the poorest communities on the south side of Atlanta, US and was raised by a single mother who didn't finish 3rd grade. Not many people expected much of me, so I had to expect something of 1..
On my 13th birthday, I bought a poster of Harvard and put it up in my room. Being at Harvard was 2. I dreamt about all the time though many people thought it was far 3. my reach. I would bum the midnight oil,4. (bury) in piles of books. I'd begin my day by asking myself these two questions, "What do I want in my life?" and "Are the things I am doing today going to get me closer to that life?"
5. (remind) myself of my goal each made it easy to say no to the same choices I saw my peers making, because those paths wouldn't have taken me closer to my goal. Asking myself those questions gave me the courage and energy to study just one more hour on my SATs when my friends were asleep; and it gave me the determination to submit（提交）just one more scholarship 6. (apply) when 180 others had already turned me down.
On March 31st, 2011, 7. email arrived from Harvard. The first word was "Congratulations!" A
month later, Harvard invited me to visit the campus 8. for the first time I got to see inside Sanders Theater, tour Widener Library and eat dinner in Annenberg Hall. I couldn't wait to start my 9. (explore) here.
Who you are today is the result of the decisions that 10. (make) earlier, and who you will be tomorrow will be the result of the choices you make today. Who do you want to be tomorrow?
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
