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A boy trembled in the cold winter, wrapping his arms around himself on a bus stop bench. He
wasn’t1._______ (穿着)warm clothes and the temperature was -10oC. A heartbreaking scene! But the good 2.d_______ of the ordinary people who witnessed the 11-year-old Johannes were both joyous3.________inspiring. A woman，sitting next to the boy，discovered he was4._______ a school trip and was told to meet his teacher at the bus stop. She selflessly5.c_______ her own coat around his shoulders. Later, 6._______woman at first gave him her scarf, then wrapped him in her large jacket. Throughout the day, more and7._______ people offered Johannes their gloves and even the coats off their backs. 8. _______ (事实上), it was a hidden camera experiment by Norwegian charity SOS Children’s Village as part of their winter campaign to gather donations to send much-needed coats and blankets to 9.h_______ Syrian children get through the winter. Synne Ronning, the information head of the organization, also noted that the child was a10.v_______ who was never in any danger during the filming.
For many centuries，countless scholars have asked the question：What is beauty? As designers update the latest fashions and artists create their masterpieces, what is considered beautiful changes at an alarming pace.
Fifty years ago，the full-figured Marilyn Monroe was a symbol of the American aesthetic(美学的)value；today，many Hollywood actresses different in appearance from Marilyn’s have taken her place. However，aesthetic values not only differ from generation to generation，but do so along cultural lines as well. Often, what is considered disgusting to one civilization is just the aesthetic appeal in another. Thus it is difficult to give an absolute definition(定义)of beauty.
As fundamental(基础的)physicists，my colleagues and I like to believe that we are involved in a search for a beauty that affects definition. The beauty that we search for is not what is set up through the work of people and subject to the tastes, but rather what has been laid down by nature Physics allows its students to look past outer appearances，into a deeper beauty. As a human being，I am attracted by the visual appeal of a wave crashing on the beach. As a physicist, however I am able to see the deeper beauty of the physical laws that govern such a phenomenon.
In truth，since Albert Einstein put forward the idea that there might be one main physical theory that governs the universe，aesthetics have become a driving force in modern physics. Einstein and other later physicists have discovered that：Nature, as its most fundamental level，is beautifully constructed. The extraordinary simplicity of the laws that govern the universe is really breathtaking . As Einstein said, it would seem more likely that we should find ourselves living in a“chaotic(无秩序曲)world，in no way graspable through thinking”. Yet we are now closer than ever to a full understanding of the universe’s beautiful clockwork. As new discoveries and technologies allow us to examine the physical world on deeper and deeper levels，we find that the beauty itself becomes much deeper.
1.The reference to“Marilyn Monroe”in Paragraph 2 mainly serves to___________.
A．provide an example of today’s beauty standards
B．show there is no fixed definition of aesthetics
C．compare traditions of the East to the West
D．discuss her abilities as an actress
2.When appreciating a wave crashing on the beach，a physicist sees the beauty of___________.
A．the visual attractionB．the powerful sounds
C．the physical laws behindD．the lovely creatures
3.Why are Albert Einstein’s words mentioned in Paragraph 3?
A．To detail the functions of physical laws.
B．To highlight the range of Einstein’s influence.
C．To show that Einstein doubted the beauty of physics.
D．To stress the very simplicity of the laws of the universe.
4.The passage is mainly to___________.
A．present a special way of seeing beauty
B．emphasize the influence of physics
C．discuss the awareness of cross-culture
D．argue the traditional ideas on value
What’s the greenest place in America? If you answered something like the warm sunlight of Santa Barbara, you’d be wrong. The greenest place in America has almost no sign of nature— the buildings outnumber the trees— and the air isn’t all that great. What it has is density(密度)and efficiency— the twin qualities that finally define green in the global warming time. Applying those standards，the greenest place in America is New York City— particularly，the overcrowded，overpriced island of Manhattan, which produces 30％ less per-capita(人均)greenhouse gas than that of the nation．
It’s that density that makes Manhattan so green. Manhattan’s population density is 800 times the national average. Density comes with negatives，certainly— small living spaces，air pollution— but it also enables amazing efficiencies．Over 80％ of Manhattanites travel to work by public transport, by bike or on foot— compared to an average of about 8％ everywhere else in the country. Manhattan’s apartment buildings are far more energy-efficient than the houses in the suburbs.
What’s true of New York City is more or less true of other American urban areas, which explains why a growing part of the environmental movement now focuses on greening cities, hoping to attract more Americans back downtown. There’s an effort to make cities more sustainable(可持续的)，by improving public transport，reducing air pollution and upgrading energy efficiency. But even more important, it is quite urgent to change decades of government policies that have been in favor of the suburbs，with disastrous consequences for energy，the environment and the climate.
That’s exactly the difficult point. For all the high efficiency and convenience and richness of living in a city，there are disadvantages too．New York，for example，has some of the highest childhood asthma(哮喘)rates in the U.S.
So it’s welcome news that New York has continued to push its P1aNYC scheme, a long-term program to make the city greener and more sustainable over the next decades. Recently it announced an update to the plan that includes phasing out heavy heating oils in New York City apartment buildings by 2030，to be replaced with cleaner natural gas.
1.Manhattan is considered as the greenest place in America because of its__________
A．buildings and treesB．density and efficiency
C．sunlight and natureD．transport and population
2.We can infer from the passage that___________.
A．New Yorkers have urged the city government to carry out green policies
B．the public transport and living space are quite satisfactory in New York
C．life in the countryside is more comfortable and energy efficient than that in cities
D．the significance of making cities greener is gained in promoting energy efficiency
3.The underlined word “it” in the last paragraph refers to___________.
A．New York cityB．PlaNYC scheme
C．ManhattanD．Santa Barbara
4.The underlined part “phasing out” in the last paragraph probably means___________.
A．rapidly promoting dealing with
B．widely suggesting researching on
C．gradually stopping using
D．immediately forbidding producing
5.What would be the best title for the passage?
A．Manhattan the Greenest Place in America?
B．The Higher Density，the Greener City?
C．PlaNYC Scheme：New York City’s Future
D．Living in Cities Does Good to the Environment
Hong Kong plays host to exciting events ranging from colourful festivals to world class arts and sports events. When planning your next visit，be sure to include these signature events in your plans.
1.Where can sport lovers order tickets for sports events?
A．At www．hkticketing．com．
B．At www． hksevens．com．
C．At Hong Kong Stadium．
D．At Auditorium，Kwai Tsing Theatre．
2.How much should you pay at least to attend both the jazz concert and Writer’s Block?
A．HK $260.B．HK $310.C．HK $440.D．HK $500.
3.In which event can audience see Woody Allen in person?
A．Affordable Art Fair.
B．Jazz Concert— HKCO + Howard MeCrary.
C．Writer’s Block.
D．Hong Kong Sevens 2014.
Will online courses transform world of education?
Some may wonder what it feels like to attend a class at Stanford University. The recently popular MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) can satisfy this desire. But they are also most likely to change the situation of higher education. Only last month，both Peking University and Tsinghua University announced plans to start open online course on the edX platform，one of the world’s major providers of MOOCs，to explore this new form of online education.
Gaining momentum(势头)
“It’s not only a change of platforms from offline to online. It’s more about a reform of
teaching methods，even the whole education system，”said Chen Jining，president of Tsinghua University.
The potential of MOOCs to reform education has been obvious in the US ever since the immediate popularity of the course Artificial Intelligence，taught by Stanford University professor Sebastian Thrun, who later co-founded Udacity, a platform with 1.6 million enrolled(注册) students in 200 countries. According to Nature magazine，by June 2013，74 percent of universities in the US offered some type of online course. Lu Fang, vice-president of Fudan University，explains the appeal of MOOCs as a simple case of supply and demand：“The demand for high quality educational resources from both enrolled students and professionals is feeding the rise of MOOCs，in which classes usually taught by top teachers are available to everyone，”said Lu.
Too early to replace
With easy access and free of charge, MOOCs are said to have the potential to change the present education system. But there are barriers，because hardly any universities offer degree certificates, as college administrators point out, it’s difficult to confirm if students are foaming anything in MOOCs，reposed USA Today．
The Wall Street Journal also reposed that，presently，a typical MOOC student is likely to have
already graduated from college and is using the course to explore an interest or acquire professional
skills. Even so, an increasing number of undergraduates are signing up.
“What we are really establishing(创建)are educational pathways for people who want skills that are related to contemporary jobs，”Thrun told The Wall Street Journal．
1.MOOCs have been considered likely to reform education since___________．
A．the founding of Udacity
B．the wide application of online education
C．the popularity of the course Artificial Intelligence
D．the opening of MOOCs on the edX platform in China
2.According to Lu Fang, MOOCs have become popular because___________．
A．high quality educational resources are in demand
B．students can attend courses in famous universities
C．college students have access to famous teachers
D．MOOCs have brought about revolution in education
3.What can we learn from the passage?
A．Most of the MOOCs focus on professional training for college graduates．
B．There are barriers for MOOCs to replace the present education system．
C．International companies prefer applicants who graduate from MOOCs．
D．More and more undergraduates have realized the limits of MOOCs．
4.The author’s attitude towards MOOCs is___________．
A．doubtful B．negative C．critical D．optimistic
Tasha Tudor(August 28，1919 — June 18，2008) was an American illustrator(插画家)and writer of children’s books. She received many awards and honors for her contributions to children’s literature. When people talk about her creativity in artwork，she said,“I do it to support my dogs and my four children.”Her great publishing record, the number of magazine stories that have been written about her over the years, and her admirers have no effects on her at all.
Much of Tasha’s artwork and her reading are done in the wintertime.“I love winter. It’s delightful，”she says.“I don’t have to go anywhere because I work at home. If I’m snowed in，I can stay this way for months.”She hopes for early, deep snow to protect her garden from the hardship of the New England winter，and when it comes she puts on snowshoes when she needs to get down the mile-long dirt path that leads to the road.
Given her enjoyment of winter and her fantasy(梦幻)way of life，it’s not surprising that Tasha’s Christmas is a storybook holiday. She hangs flowers over the front door. Her tree comes from the woods,
and it goes up on Christmas Eve，lit by homemade candles and decorated with her great- grandmother’s collection that dates from 1850. In a place of honor on the tree are large cookies cut into the shapes of her animals.
The grandchildren and friends get presents from Tasha’s old dolls；so do the animals and they
have their own Christmas tree. “Of course，it’s a known fact that all the animals talk on Christmas
Eve,”she has written. Small, handmade gifts fill a big wooden box
At the end 0f each year, Tasha can look back and know that her life is perfect，that she has
again ignored the twentieth century，and that the magic continues. And for the rest of us，here’s
a bit of advice, Tasha style：“Nowadays, people are so restless．If they took some tea anti spent more time rocking on the porch(门廊)in the evening listening to light music，they might enjoy life more.”
1.Tasha loved winter because it allowed her to ____________．
A．read stories to her grandchildren
B．show her DIY snowshoes to kids
C．stay indoors working mid reading
D．enjoy bicycle tiding along the path
2.From the passage, we can learn that Tasha’s life is ____________．
A．modern and fashionableB．simple and fantastic
C．lonely and hardD．adventurous and inspiring
3.Which of the following is TRUE about Tasha?
A．She cared little about fame.
B．She created an animal fund.
C．She wrote many stories for magazines.
D．She bought presents for her relatives.
4.In which section of a paper can you probably read the article?
A．Travel.B．Sports.C．Economy.D．People.
