I don’t think I can recall a time when I wasn’t aware of the beauty of the ocean. Growing up in Australia, I had the good fortune of having the sea at my side. The first time I went to Halfmoon Bay, I suddenly had the feeling of not being able to feel the ground with my feet anymore.

For my 10th birthday, my sister and I were taken out to the Great Barrier Reef. There were fish in different colors, caves and layers of coral. They made such an impression on me. When I learned that only 1 percent of Australian’s Coral Sea was protected, I was shocked. Australian marine life is particularly important because the reefs have more marine species than any other country on earth. But sadly, only 45 percent of the world’s reefs are considered healthy.

This statistic is depressing, so it’s important for us to do everything to protect them. The hope that the Coral Sea remains a complete eco-system has led me to take action. I’ve become involved with the Protect Our Coral Sea activity, which aims to create the largest marine park in the world. It would serve as a place where the ocean’ s species will all have a safe place forever.

Together, Angus and I created a little video and we hope it will inspire people to be a part of the movement. Angus also shares many beautiful childhood memories of the ocean as a young boy, who grew up sailing, admiring the beauty of the ocean, and trying to find the secrets of ocean species.

1.From the underlined sentence in Para.1, we can learn the author ________.

A.seldom went surfing at the sea

B.forgot his experiences about the ocean

C.never went back to his hometown

D.had a wonderful impression of Halfmoon Bay

2.According to the second paragraph, Australian marine life ________.

A.is escaping from the Coral Sea gradually

B.depends on reefs for living greatly

C.may be faced with danger

D.is protected better than that in other oceans

3.The Protect Our Coral Sea activity is intended to ________.

A.contribute to a complete eco-system

B.prevent more marine species being endangered

C.set up a large nature reserve for reefs

D.raise more teenagers’ environmental awareness

4.Angus and the author created a little video to ________.

A.urge more people to take action to protect the marine species

B.inspire more people to explore the secret of the ocean

C.share their childhood experiences about the ocean

D.bring back to people their memories of ocean species

    Shopping centers，stadiums and universities may soon have a new tool to help fight crime.

A California company called Knightscope says its robots can predict and prevent crime. Knightscope says the goal is to reduce crime by half in areas the robots guard.

William Santana Li is the chief executive officer of Knightscope. He says，"These robot security guards will change the world. Our planet has more than seven billion people on it. It's going to quickly get to nine billion people. The security equipment that we have globally is just not going to develop that fast. The company's Autonomous Data Machines can become the eyes and ears of law enforcement（执法）."

"You want them to be machines plus humans. Let. the machines do the heavy and sometimes dangerous work and let the humans do the strategic decision-making work，so it's always working all together."

The machines do not carry weapons but they have day and night video cameras which are able to turn 360 degrees and can also sense chemical and biological weapons.

Some people may become concerned about their privacy, especially in connection with the video recordings. Some people may worry that such recordings will appear on the Internet. Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the UCLA School of Law, says the machines have to be used in the right way and it will be interesting to see how state laws deal with this kind of video.

William Santana Li says there is a long waiting list for the robots in the US. Workers in the company are working overtime to meet the demands of the market. At least 25 other countries are also interested in these robot security guards.

1.What can this new tool do for humans?

A.Make strategic decisions.

B.Keep watching day and night.

C.Carry heavy weapons.

D.Stop crime autonomously.

2.Why are some people worried about the new robots?

A.Their privacy may be let out.

B.The robots are very expensive.

C.Robots will replace humans.

D.They will be out of work soon.

3.Which of the following can be the best title of the text?

A.Robots Are Becoming More Popular

B.Robots Contribute a Lot to the World

C.Robots Are in Great Demand Now

D.Security Robots Could Help Cut Crime

    Griffith Observatory (天文台) is a national leader in public astronomy, and one of the most popular attractions in Los Angeles. It is located on the southern slope (山坡) of Mount Hollywood in Griffith Park at 1,134 feet above sea level.

Visitors may drive to the observatory and park in its parking lot or on nearby roads. No reservation (预订) is required to visit. Parking is limited, and the busiest time is weekends. Buses, taxis, and car pools are welcome. LADOT provides weekend public bus service from the Sunset/Vermont Metro Red Line Station.

Griffith Observatory is open six days a week. Admission and parking are free.

Hours of Operation

Tuesday－Friday         12 noon－10 pm

Saturday－Sunday       10 am－10 pm

Monday                 Closed

Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day Closed

Samuel Oschin Planetarium

The Samuel Oschin Planetarium theater offers 8 to 10 live, half­hour presentations each day. There are usually four different shows from which to choose.

Shows are presented every 60 to 90 minutes. Check the website, information desks, or the box office for each day’s show time. Being seated late is not permitted.

Samuel Oschin Planetarium tickets must be purchased at the observatory and are only available on the day of the show. The ticket prices for shows are：

Adults (13－59 years old)         $7.00

Children (5－12 years old)         $3.00

Seniors (60 years and older)      $5.00

Students                        $5.00

Children under 5 years old will be admitted only to the first show each day.

Hearing assist devices are available on request.

Public Telescopes

Free public telescopes are available each evening; the observatory is open and skies are clear. The Zeiss telescope on the roof is generally open by 7 pm. All observing must be completed by 9:45 pm.

1.What can we learn about Griffith Observatory according to the passage?

A.It is open all the year around.

B.It is mostly visited at weekends.

C.It becomes famous because of Hollywood.

D.It is the most attractive place in Los Angeles.

2.Which of the following best describes the Samuel Oschin Planetarium theater?

A.Hearing assist devices are provided to seniors.

B.The shows there generally last 60 to 90 minutes.

C.Visitors are required to be seated before the show starts.

D.The tickets for the shows can be bought through the website.

3.To watch the show, a young couple with a 7­year­old son should pay ________.

A.$13.00 B.$15.00

C.$17.00 D.$20.00

4.Which of the following is charged?

A.Parking. B.Telescopes.

C.Hearing assist devices. D.Watching presentations.

阅读下面材料，根据其内容和所给段落开头语续写两段，使之构成一篇完整的短文。续写的词数应为150左右。

Throughout life, we come across many people who impact us in a way. The person who left a great impact on me is my dad.

Three months after turning fourteen, my life was great. I was getting settled into a high school; my grades were already starting off greatly and I was making friends. One day as I came home from school, I walked into our living room, finding my mom and dad talking. My parents turned to me and told me to sit down because there was something important they had to tell me. I soon found out that my dad’s liver (肝脏) was failing and he needed an immediate transplant. I was shocked and confused. He was working and never looked sick. My parents told me not to worry because everything would be fine. Four months had passed and my dad still had not received a new liver; he was progressively getting worse. His body seemed to be getting weaker, but he constantly said he was fine.

It was getting hard for my family and me. My dad had to quit his job leaving my mom to be the only provider. I had to take on the responsibility of cleaning the house, cooking meals and checking on my dad while my mom was at work. I had to cut back on hanging with my friends because my dad was beginning to go in and out of the hospital. My focus for school was starting to slip. So were my grades. Two nights before my school spring break, my mom received a call from the hospital that my dad had been in a car accident and that he was in hospital. Surprisingly, my dad hadn’t received a scratch on him. Then next night my mom received a call from the doctor stating that there was a liver that matched my dad’s body and that he needed to get to the hospital immediately.

Para. 1

  My mom and I rushed to the hospital and my dad was brought into surgery.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Pare. 2

  Having to take on so many responsibility at home and constantly worn about my dad has helped shaped me into the person I am today.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _

假定你是李华，你校英国交换生Max想了解中国文化及孔子。请给他写封邮件，邀请他参加关于孔子与中国文化的讲座 , 内容包括：

1.时间、地点、主题；

2. 你对该活动的看法。

参考词汇：孔子Confucius   儒家(学说) : Confucianism

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

    On one June afternoon，Gene and his brother Rouco were________Gene's yard. It had grown brown and was almost in________in the heat, and the situation needed changing. The new grass was already there, but the job was________. Suddenly, Gene wasn't feeling good. He went inside to rest and________ the couch. Seeing this, his wife, Melissa, called 911 immediately.

_____he was staring down death, Gene had one thing in his mind: the lawn. If the grass wasn't put down that day, it would________. “While he was having his heart attack, almost in and out of ________, he kept begging me to put it down because he didn't want it to go________,” Melissa recalled.

Soon the medical workers arrived and took Gene and Melissa to the hospital, leaving Rouco behind to________the situation. Within an hour, he had________to remove the old grass. He was about to lay the new ones when seven men---the same ones who had________his brother---walked off the emergency vehicle. It turned out that Gene had told them how_______ he'd wanted to get the grass down, so they returned to help.

Fortunately, Gene had a successful operation. He's now fully recovered,________his beautiful lawn at home. The couple are still amazed that those men went________their job duties. "These men________Gene from death, and then came back to save his grass. That's just so awesome.”

1.A.tending B.exploring C.designing D.observing

2.A.control B.innovation C.chaos D.condition

3.A.difficult B.special C.regular D.new

4.A.faded away B.fell off C.calmed down D.rolled over

5.A.As if B.In case C.Now that D.Even though

6.A.slide B.die C.rest D.mix

7.A.consciousness B.celebrity C.experiment D.experience

8.A.diverse B.decent C.different D.waste

9.A.handle B.explain C.outline D.examine

10.A.decided B.managed C.pretended D.emerged

11.A.counted B.recovered C.treated D.connected

12.A.quickly B.finally C.badly D.easily

13.A.sharing B.trying C.missing D.enjoying

14.A.within B.beneath C.beyond D.outside

15.A.pushed B.dragged C.blocked D.pulled

    Many people are stuck in a life they don’t want, and are held in places by everything from financial restrictions to social pressures. If you are looking to pursue your dreams, it can be discouraging to change everything at once. 1.

Write down your goals to get them out of your head and into reality. Be honest with yourself about what you want, no matter how impossible it seems and ignore what you “should” do based on the views of your friends, family or society.  2. Don’t leave anything out, no matter how small or silly it sounds. Look at the themes of your list to get an idea of what your dream life will look like.

3. choose one that is relatively easy to accomplish, one that is doable but will require work and one that seems impossible based on your current circumstances and lifestyle. List the steps you will need to take to get to each goal, getting down to the little details.

Start with your smallest goal and work through the steps until you achieve it. Each time you complete one of the steps, cross it off so you can celebrate the process in addition to the end result.  4.

Figure out how you can work your second two goals into your life. 5. If your big dream is to quit your job and travel the world, start a savings account that is dedicated to travel money and set aside a small amount each week for three years. Plan your steps according to the time you set and they will be doable and fit smoothly into your life.

A.Seek support from your friends and family.

B.You will need to have courage to make changes.

C.Identify the top three things that will get you closer to your dream life.

D.When you achieve the goal, find a way to continue integrating it into your life.

E.Choose a deadline for each goal, whether it is one year down the road or five.

F.List the things you want to accomplish in your life, both personal and professional.

G.Instead, making small, gradual changes to prepare the way to dream tries to make the process easier.

    From linguists’ point of view, grammar is a set of patterns for how words are put together to form phrases or clauses, whether in spoken or written. Different languages have different patterns. Some scholars have tried to identify patterns common to all languages. But apart from some basic features, few of these so-called linguistic universals have been found.

The study of these patterns open up “an ongoing debate” between two positions, known as prescriptivism and descriptivism. Prescriptivism thinks a given language should follow consistent rules, while descriptivism sees variation and adaptation as a natural and necessary part of language.

Language purists(纯化论者) worked to establish and promote this standard by detailing a set of rules that reflected the established grammar of their times. And rules for written grammar were applied to spoken language as well. Speech patterns that deviated from the written rules were considered signs of low social status. And many people who are grown-ups speaking in these ways were forced to adopt the standardized form.

More recently, however, linguists have understood that speech is a separate phenomenon from writing with its own regularities and patterns.We form our spoken skills through unconscious habits, not memorized rules. And because speech also uses mood and intonation for meaning, its structure is often more flexible, adapting to the needs of speakers and listeners. This could mean avoiding complex clauses that are hard to understand in real time, making changes to avoid awkward pronunciation or removing sounds to make speech faster.

But while the debate between prescriptivism and descriptivism continues, the two are not mutually exclusive. Like language itself, it’s a wonderful and complex fabric woven through the contributions of speakers and listeners, writers and readers, prescriptivists and descriptivists from both near and far.

1.What does the underlined word“deviated”in Paragraph 3 probably mean?

A.copied B.updated C.differed D.originated

2.According to the passage, prescriptivism____________.

A.focuses on established language patterns B.accepts the differences between languages

C.follows the innovations in language patterns D.attaches more importance to written language

3.What is Paragraph 4 mainly about?

A.A new understanding of language. B.The beliefs held by prescriptivists.

C.The impact of grammar on language. D.The ongoing debate between linguists.

4.Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?

A.The Importance of Grammar. B.The History of Grammar.

C.Grammar: Rules or Habits. D.Grammar: Writing Rules.

    Science is finally beginning to embrace animals who were, for a long time, considered second-class citizens.

Annie Potts of Canterbury University has noted that hens trained to pick colored buttons sometimes choose to give up an immediate food reward for a slightly later (and better) one.

Pigs respond meaningful to human symbols. When a research team carried wooden blocks marked with X and O symbols around pigs, only the O carriers offered food to the animals. The pigs soon ignored the X carriers in favor of the O's. Then the team switched from real-life objects to T-shirts printed with X or O symbols. Still, the pigs walked only toward the O-shirted people: they had transferred their knowledge to a two-dimensional format, a not inconsiderable feat of reasoning.

I’ve been guilty of prejudiced expectations, myself. At the start of my career, I was firmly convinced that monkeys and apes who are from our own mammalian(哺乳动物的) class out-think and out-feel other animals. Fairly soon, I came to see that whales too are masters of cultural learning, and elephants express profound joy and mourning with their social companions. Long-term studies helped to fuel a viewpoint shift in our society: the public no longer so easily accepts monkeys made to undergo painful procedure kin laboratories, elephants forced to perform in circuses, and dolphins kept in small tanks at theme parks.

Animal activists are already there, of course, committed to not eating these animals. But what about the rest of us? Can paying attention to the thinking and feeling of these animals lead us to make changes in who we eat?

1.According to Annie Potts, what ability do hens have?

A.interaction B.analysis C.creation D.abstraction

2.What does the research into pigs show?

A.That pigs learn letters quickly. B.That pigs have a good eyesight.

C.That pigs can build up a good relationship. D.That pigs can apply knowledge to new situations.

3.What does Paragraph 4 mainly suggest?

A.The similarities between mammals and humans.

B.The necessity of long-term studies on mammals.

C.A change in people's attitudes towards animals.

D.A discovery of how animals express themselves.

4.What might be the best title for the passage?

A.The Inner Lives of Food Animals B.The Lifestyles of Food Animals

C.Science Reports on Food Animals D.A Revolution in Food Animals

Flying High

Barrington Irving made his historic flight and founded an educational non-profit-making organization. The secret, he believes, is having a dream in the first place, and that starts with learning experiences that inspire kids to build careers.

The moment of inspiration for Irving came in his parents’ bookstore. One customer, a professional pilot, asked Irving if he’d thought about becoming a pilot. “I told him I wasn’t smart enough; but the next day he took me to the cockpit (驾驶舱) of the commercial airplane he flew, and just like that I was hooked.”

To follow his dream, Irving turned down a football scholarship to the University of Florida. He washed airplanes to earn money and increased his flying skills by practising at home on a $40 flight simulator (模拟) video game. Then another dream took hold: flying alone around the world. He faced more than 50 rejections for sponsorship before convincing some companies to donate aircraft components. He took off with no weather radar, no de-icing system, and just $30 in his pocket.

After 97 days, 26 stops and dozens of thunderstorms, he touched down to a cheering crowd in Miami. “It was seeing so many young people watching and listening that pushed me into giving back with my knowledge and experience.” Irving has been doing it ever since. He set up his non-profit-making organization, Experience Aviation (航空), aiming to increase the numbers of youth in aviation and science-related careers. “We want to create chances for students to accomplish something amazing,” he notes. The most powerful educational tool is the example his own life provides.

1.According to Irving, what is the most important in achieving success?

A.Meeting people who provide unexpected help.

B.Getting a chance to study technical knowledge.

C.Having something specific that you want to accomplish.

D.Developing communication with different organizations.

2.What Irving replied to the pilot in the bookstore suggested that ______.

A.he felt embarrassed to refuse the offer B.he was doubtful about his own abilities

C.he knew his efforts would be rewarded D.he realized immediately how lucky he was

3.What can we learn about Irving in Paragraph 3?

A.He chose to reduce his budget as low as possible.

B.He was finally given enough money to keep going.

C.He got the most useful flying tips from his video game.

D.He took on a further challenge after he knew how to fly.

4.Why does Irving set up his non-profit-making organization?

A.Because he hoped to become a public figure.

B.Because he expected to start a business in other fields.

C.Because he saw there was great interest in what he was doing.

D.Because he thought he could teach more than flight schools could.