What does the man mean? A. He will do a ...

How will the man pay?

A. By cheque. B. By credit card. C. In cash.

Where does the man want to go?

A. To New York. B. To Boston. C. To Chicago.

请阅读下面短文，并按照要求用英语写一篇150词左右的文章。

The University of Cambridge confirmed that it would accept students based on Gaokao test results in a post on the University’s official Weibo account on March 25.

The Gaokao, China’s extremely difficult university entrance exam, is now accepted by a number of overseas universities including the University of New Hampshire, which last year became the first state university in the US to accept Gaokao scores for new admissions, the University of Western Australia and the University of British Columbia in Canada.

Previously, Chinese students would have to take standardized college admission tests, such as the SAT and ACT used in US schools.

The Gaokao is regarded as suitable preparation for Cambridge. The Gaokao scores of successful applicants will vary from province to province and year to year. As a guideline, successful applicants will usually have scores in the top 0.1% of those taking the Gaokao in their province. In addition to the total score, Cambridge Colleges will pay close attention to individual subject scores and scores in the Senior High School Examinations (Xueye Shuiping Kaoshi; previously the Huikao). The Xueye Shuiping Kaoshi alone are not regarded as suitable preparation for Cambridge.

（写作内容）

1.用约30词写出上文概要；

2.你对高考被国外著名大学认可的看法，并至少从两个方面解释你的观点；

3.谈谈你对如何提高高考国际认可度的建议(不少于2条)。

（写作要求）

1.写作过程中不能直接引用原文语句；

2.作文中不能出现真实姓名和学校名称；

3.不必写标题。

（评分标准）

内容完整，语言规范，语篇连贯，词数适当。

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请认真阅读下列短文，并根据所读内容在文章后表格中的空格里填入一个最恰当的单词。注意:每个空格只填1个单词。

Human love isn’t neatly ordered or easily predictable. But that doesn’t mean that mathematics hasn’t got something because, love, as with most of life, is full of patterns. Mathematics is, basically, all about the study of pattern, patterns from predicting the weather to the fluctuations(起伏) in the stock market, to the movement of the planets or the growth of cities. And if we’re being honest, none of those things are exactly neatly ordered and easily predictable, either.

So let us talk about how to pick a perfect partner using a hit of mathematics that is called Optimal Stopping Theory.

Imagine that you start dating when you’re 15 and ideally, you’d like to be married by the time that you’re 35. And there’s a number of people that you could potentially date across your lifetime, and they’ll be at varying levels of goodness. The math says then that what you should do in the first 37 percent of your dating window, you should just reject everybody as serious marriage potential. And then, you should pick the next person that is better than everybody that you’ve seen before. If you do this, it can be mathematically proven, in fact, that this is the best possible way of maximizing your chances of finding the perfect partner.

But unfortunately, I have to tell you that this method does come with some risks.

For instance, imagine if your perfect partner appeared during your first 37 percent. Now, unfortunately, you’d have to reject them. Now, if you’re following the maths, I’m afraid no one else will appear that’s better than anyone you’ve seen before, so you have to go on rejecting everyone and die alone.

Okay, another risk is, let’s imagine, instead, that the first people that you dated in your first 37 percent are just incredibly dull, boring, terrible people. Now, that’s okay, because you’re in your rejection phase. But then imagine, the next person to come along is just slightly less boring, dull and terrible than everybody that you’ve seen before. Now, if you are following the maths, I’m afraid you have to marry them and end up in a relationship which is, frankly, not most satisfying.

Okay, so this method doesn’t give you a 100 percent success rate, but there’s no other possible strategy that can do any better.

And actually, I also think that subconsciously, humans, we do sort of do this anyway. We give ourselves a little bit of time to play the field, get a feel for the marketplace or whatever when we’re young. And then we only start looking seriously at potential marriage candidates once we hit our mid-to-late 20s. I think this is convincing proof, if ever it were needed, that everybody’s brains are prewired(天生的)to be just a little bit mathematical. Therefore, it can be mathematically proven that this is the best way to find the perfect partner.

    I never soon the night nor seen a star; I’ve seen neither spring nor fall nor winter. I was born at the end of the Reining Age(刹车时代), just as the Earth’s rotation(旋转)was coming to a final stop.

The Reining lasted for 42 years, three years longer than the Unity Government had planned. My mother once told me about the time our family witnessed the last sunset. The Sun had ever so slowly crept toward the horizon, almost as if it had stopped moving altogether. In the end, it took three days and three nights to finally set. Naturally, that was the end of all “days” and all “nights”. The Eastern Hemisphere(半球)was covered in weak light for a long time then, perhaps for a dozen years or so - with the Sun hiding just beyond the horizon - its rays reflected by half of the sky. It was during that long sunset that I was born.

Dusk did not mean darkness. The Northern Hemisphere was lit up by the Earth Engines. These giant engines had been raised all across Asia and North America; only the solid plates beneath those two continents could resist the great pushing forces they exerted. There were about 12,000 Earth Engines built and distributed across the Asian and American plains.

From my home 1 could see the bright plasma plumes(等离子气柱)of several hundred Earth Engines. Just imagine a titanic palace, one as large as the Parthenon on the Acropolis. Now imagine countless titanic pillars rising from that palace, reaching to the heavens, each releasing brilliant, bluish-white light like a titanic shining tube. And then there is you; you are a microbe on the palace’s floor. This only begins to paint the picture of the world we lived in.

This picture, however, is not yet complete. In order to survive the melting temperature of the expanding sun, we have to push the Earth away from it. First, the Earth must be stopped from rotating. Only the forces acting tangentially(正切地)to the Earth’s rotation could slow it, so the Earth Engines had to be built to a specific angle. Those gigantic pillars of light were leaning to that angle. Now imagine what that meant for our palace, with its pillars all leaning on the point of falling down! Many who came from the Southern Hemisphere went mad when suddenly seeing this awesome view.

Worse than the view was the burning heat released by the Earth Engines. Outdoors the temperature was stuck at around 160 to 180 degrees, forcing us to wear special suits just to leave the house. The extremely high temperatures often brought pouring rains. It was always a terrifying scene when the beam of an Earth Engine cut through dark clouds. The clouds scattered the brilliant, bluish-white light of the beam, erupting it into endless rainbow light that covered the entire sky like white-hot magma(岩浆).

To my generation, born in the Northern Hemisphere, all of this was perfectly normal and natural, just like the Sun, stars and Moon had been to generations before the Reining Age. We called the entire history of the human race that had come before us the Pre-Solar Age; what a fascinating and golden era that had truly been!

The Reining Age left the earth with a horrifying result. The sea tides, quickened by the Earth Engines, had swallowed two out of every three cities in the Northern Hemisphere; then the global increase in temperatures melted the polar icecap, resulting in floods that spread to the Southern Hemisphere. Thirty years earlier my grandfather had witnessed giant 300-foot waves that had engulfed Shanghai. Even now, he could never tell us about it without his gaze slipping into a thousand-mile stare.

Our planet had already changed beyond recognition before it even set out on its journey. Who knew what hardships were waiting for us on our long travels through outer space?

1.What happened when the author was born?

A. The earth had stopped turning for forty-two years.

B. The sun was making its last fall towards the horizon.

C. All the Earth Engines had not been finished.

D. His family were suffering from the summer hotness.

2.Which of the following about the Earth Engines is right?

A. They were built in Asia and North America due to their huge number and weight.

B. Their light and heat provided necessary energy for people to survive.

C. They were all built to point straight upward to the sky to stop the earth rotating.

D. Their existence brought both opportunities and inconvenience to people on the earth.

3.What can we infer from the last three paragraphs?

A. People born in the Southern Hemisphere could enjoy four different seasons.

B. The author missed his Pre-Solar Age lifestyle very much.

C. Grandfather would never forget the scene of Shanghai being swallowed.

D. The author was discouraged but optimistic about the future of the earth.

4.In this excerpt(节选)we can clearly see that the author is good at __________.

A. describing mental activities B. visualizing vivid scenes

C. doing experimental analysis D. expressing personal belief

5.This excerpt is a part of __________.

A. a documentary novel B. an academic essay

C. a scientific research report D. a science fiction

6.What is the best title of this chapter?

A. The Last Sunset. B. The Earth Engines. C. The Reining Age. D. The Post-Solar Life.