假设你是小明．你家打算改善住房条件。现在有两套房子供选择：一套是郊区的传统式平房，一套是位于商业区的现代公寓楼。家里人对购买哪套更好持不同的观点。请你根据下表所给的内容，用英语给你的朋友Paul写一封信，征求他的意见。
|
现代公寓楼 |
传统式平房 |
你的观点 |
|
1.宽敞明亮； 2.购物、上学方便； 3.有公园等供休闲、娱乐的场所。 |
1.安静，空气清新； 2.价格便宜； 3.邻里之间交往多，氛围和谐、亲切。 |
|
注意：1．表达须包括所提供的所有信息，并可适当发挥；2．词数：100左右；3．开头已为你写好，不计入总词数。
参考词汇：郊区suburbs
Dear Paul ,
Recently my family are planning to improve our housing conditions ...
Sept. 7th, Tuesday Cloudy
I watch TV until 12 o'clock last night, so I had no 1.
time to go over my lessons. I got up very late this morning 2.
that I had to hurry school without breakfast, yet I was late 3.
of the first class. When I entered the classroom, the maths 4.
teacher had to stop explaining a problem, and all my classmates 5.
fixed their eye on me. My face turned red. Something 6.
more worse happened to me in the English class. The teacher 7.
asked me to recite the text, but I could speak nothing but 8.
sorry, for I did not spend any time prepare my lessons. The 9.
teacher looked at me with his coldly eyes. What a terrible 10.
day I had! I Will never do anything like that again.
Computers might not be clever enough to trick adults into thinking they are intelligent yet, but a new study, led by Javier' Movellan at the University of Califomia San Diego, shows that a giggling (咯咯笑的) robot is clever enough to get toddlers (初学走路者) to treat it as a peer (同龄人).
The researchers stationed a 2-foot-tall robot Called QRIO in a classroom of a dozen toddlers aged between 18 months and two years. QRIO stayed in the middle of the room using its sensors (传感器) to avoid bumping (碰撞) into the kids. It was programmed to giggle when the kids touched its head, to occasionally sit down, and to lie down when its batteries died.
"We expected that after a few hours, the magic was going to disappear," Movellan says. "That's what was found with earlier robots." But, in fact, the kids remained interested in the robot over several weeks, eventually communicating with QRIO in much the same way they did with other toddlers.
The researchers measured the relationship between the children and the robot in several ways. Firstly, as with other toddlers, they touched QRIO mostly on the arms and hands, rather than on the face or legs. For this age group, "the amount of touching is a good predictor of how you are doing as a social being," Movellan says.
The children helped the robot up when it fell, and when QRIO's batteries ran out and it lay down, a toddler would come up and cover it with a blanket and say "night, night". However, when QRIO was programmed to spend all its time dancing, the kids quickly lost interest. When the robot went back to its old self, the kids treated it like a peer again.
"The study shows that current technology is very close to being able to produce robots able to develop a special relationship with toddlers," says Movellan. But, he adds, it is not clear yet whether robots can interest older children or adults in the same way.
1.What does the underlined word "stationed" in Paragraph 2 probably mean?
A. Hid. B. Observed. C. Placed. D. Named.
2.At the beginning of the experiment, researchers .
A. feared that the robot would harm the toddlers
B. programmed the robot to move freely about the classroom
C. expected the robot to communicate with the toddlers
D. thought the toddlers' interest in the robot wouldn't last long
3.Kids aged between 18 months and two years behave
as social beings by.
A. giggling B: touching C. toddling D. dancing
4.What would be the best title for the passage?
A. Giggling robot becomes one of the kids
B. Giggling robot used as a classroom assistant
C. Giggling robot makes kids more active in class
D. Giggling robot attracts more attention from kids
For many people, there is only one good reason to go to an amusement park: the roller coaster. But why do People go on roller coasters?
"Where else in the world can you scream at the top of your lungs and throw your arms in the air?" Frank Farley asks. "If you did that in most other places, they'd take you to your parents and probably put you through a psychological evaluation (心理检查)." Farley is a psychologist at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Roller coasters are often attractive to kids whose lives are stressful or controlled. "Roller coasters are a way of breaking out of the humdrum (单调 ) of everyday life. You can let it all go and scream and shout or do whatever you want," Farley says. It has been proved that many adults feel the same way.
Compared with skateboarding, extreme mountain biking, and other adventure sports, riding roller coasters is safe. Parents usually don't mind when kids go on coasters. Roller coasters also have a way of bringing people together. Riders share the thrill and adventure of surviving what feels like an extreme experience.
Whether you like to ride a roller coaster may depend on your personality. Psychologists say that there is a certain type of person that naturally seeks out extreme experiences. "They enjoy things like change, variety, and intensity (强度)," says Farley. "These people are actually attracted to thrills." He describes such people as having Type-T personalities ("T" stands for thrill).
He also believes that these thrill seekers are more adventurous and creative than other people. Albert Einstein was a Type T. "If nobody liked to seek stimulation (刺激)," he argues, "the human race wouldn't be where it is today."
1.What is the passage mainly about?
A. The disadvantages of roller coasters.
B. The characteristics of roller coasters.
C. Why many people enjoy roller coasters.
D. How people act when riding roller coasters.
2.According to Farley, what will most people feel after riding a roller coaster?
A. Scared. B. Confident. C. Nervous. D. Relaxed.
3.If a person is a Type T, he seems to .
A. enjoy adventure sports
B. dislike riding roller coasters
C. like popular sports
D. work well with others
4.According to Farley, to our society, people with Type-T personalities are __
A. dangerous B. important
C. useless D. harmful
The great Alaskan explorer John Muir once wrote that to have dinner with a glacier (冰川) on a sunny day is an excellent thing. It is better to sleep beside one, on an Antarctic island, with just a sleepifig bag for warmth and the sky as your tent.
Our camp-out was in early January of this year on Danco Island, along the Antarctic Peninsula. Midway through a 10-day Antarctic journey, conditions were near perfect. We started our voyage from the Akademik Ioffe in Zodiacs, landing on the wide beach with its fist-sized rocks. At the height of the Antarctic summer, the shore was clear of snow, with plenty of room for the 40 adventurers to spend the night.
Danco Island was charted in 1898 by the Belgian explorer Adrien de Gerlache, who was the first to prove that you could overwinter in Antarctica and survive. De Gerlache paved the way for Lt. Robert Scott's first expedition in 1901. De Gerlache mapped the archipelago (群岛). He later named the island after his team member mile Danco, a geophysicist who died that winter. For one year in the mid-1950s, Danco was known as Base O by the British, who kept a scientific research station there, although all that. remains of it is a foundation and a pile of coal.
Our expedition was organized by Australian tour operator Peregrine Adventures. The weather was extraordinary -- sunny with daytime temperatures of about 1't2. The camping was easy and accessible to all ages. Sleeping under the stars in Antarctica, in just a sleeping bag is pretty amazing.
1.Whom did Adrien de Gerlache have a direct effect on?
A. John Muir. B. Lt. Robert Scott.
C. The tourists. D. The author.
2.What was Danco Island named after?
A. A place. B. A glacier.
C. A person. D. An ocean.
3.It can be inferred from the passage that .
A. old people can't go 'camping in Antarctica
B. the author went to the Antarctica in winter
C. John Muir might have visited an Antarctic island
D. Lt. Robert Scott built a station in the Antarctic
4.What would be the best title for the passage?
A. Danco Island
B. An expedition to Antarctica
C. Explorers of Antarctica
D. Sleep under the stars in Antarctica
A.I. (人工智能) is just starting to become part of our lives, and books and movies have been talking about A.I. and robots for years. Mostly, in these books and movies, the computers and robots turn out to be the enemies of the human race. Here is a selection of some famous A.I. movies..
2001: A Space Odyssey
In the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, HAL is one of the first computers to talk like a human. HAL is very frightening because it speaks in a calm voice as it goes on a killing spree (疯狂杀戮). When the astronauts attempt to hide in a smaller spaceship and switch off the microphones, HAL uses a camera to read their lips and understand what the astronauts are saying.
The Terminator
In The Terminator, a computer thinks that its deadly enemies are human beings. As a result, the computer launches missiles (导弹) to start international wars and then builds killer robots to destroy the human race.
The Matr/x
In The Matrix, a computer takes over the world and uses human beings for energy. The computer keeps people alive by making them think that they are still living normal lives. A few brave rebels (叛逆者) decide to fight against the computer.
Star War movies
In the Star War movies, computerised robots are used as servants and soldiers. R2-D2, a small cylindrical (圆柱形的) robot, and C-3PO, a tall talking robot, help some humans defeat the evil ruler, Darth Vader, in a dangerous battle between the forces of good and evil.
1.In the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, the astronauts switch off the microphones to
A. prevent HAL hearing whom they axe calling
B. prevent HAL hearing what they are saying
C. force HAL to use a camera
D. force HAL to speak loudly
2.If you want to know how an intelligent computer uses human beings for energy, you should watch __
A. The Terminator.
B. 2001: A Space Odyssey'
C. Star War movies
D. The Matrix
3.R2-D2 and C-3PO stand for
A. the scientific forces
B. the natural forces
C. the good forces
D. the evil forces
4.What do the four movies have in common?
A. They all have the same ending.
B. They are about a similar theme.
C. They are all based on science fiction books.
D. They started heated discussions about A.I.
