There are probably no people on Earth who like to gossip as much as the British. If prying into (打探) other’s lives were an Olympic sport, then Team GB would surely take the gold medal.
And when the British can’t watch the lives of real people, they have another source of entertainment to fall back on—the soap opera. British soap operas are very different to US TV dramas. For one, they are normally longer running. The two most popular, Coronation Street and East-enders, have been running for 48 and 24 years respectively. Both are broadcast several times a week, so remarkably there have been more than 7,000 episodes of Coronation Street.
The most obvious difference is that, unlike US dramas, the British soap operas focus on the real world. There is little glamour (魅力), the stars are rarely rich, and they normally have boring jobs. Perhaps the appeal is that the lives of the characters often mirror the lives of the audience—but with some drama added. This means the viewer can relate to the characters and feel the pain and happiness they go through on the show.
Because these soap operas last for decades, the cast is ever changing. The shows rarely focus on one or two main characters. Like the real world, people come and go all the time. However, there are exceptions. Coronation Street’s William Roach, 76, has played the role of Ken Barlow since the very first episode of the show in 1960, and he is still a regular.
The choice of which soap opera you follow is often cultural: People from the north of British tend to watch Coronation Street as it is set in Manchester. People from the south generally prefer East-enders, which is set in the east of London. The show is generally considered grittier and is aimed at a younger audience.
1.What is the main difference between American dramas and British soap operas?
A. American dramas are longer.
B. British soap operas are longer.
C. American dramas deal with dangerous things.
D. British soap operas deal with real people.
2.Why do British people like to watch such operas?
A. They can find their own life from the operas.
B. They can enjoy the operas in their free time.
C. They can watch the operas for many years.
D. They care about the fate of the characters in the operas.
3. The underlined world “episodes” in the 2nd paragraph probably means ______.
A. plays B. pages
C. issues D. parts
4.One characteristic of British operas is that ______.
A. the characters play the same role for a long time.
B. the characters in the play often change
C. people don’t know what will happen next
D. there is only one or two characters in them
书面表达
请根据你对以下图画的理解，以“Deeds Should Match Words”为题，用英语写一篇作文。
你的作文应包括以下内容：
1. 简要描述该图的内容；
2. 概述你对该图中言行不一的现象的理解；
3. 举例说明该图对你的启示。
注意：
1. 可参照图画适当发挥；
2. 作文词数150左右；
3. 作文中不得提及有关考生个人身份的任何信息，如校名、人名等。
任务型阅读
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。请将答案写在答题卡上相应题号的横线上。
Deep reading, as opposed to superficial (shallow) reading we do on the Web, is an endangered practice, one we ought to take steps to preserve as we would a historic building or a significant work of art.
Recent research has illustrated that deep reading, characterized as a unique experience different kind from the mere understanding of words, is slow, immersive (沉浸的), rich in sensory detail and emotional and moral complexity. Although deep reading does not, strictly speaking, require a conventional book, the limits of the printed page are uniquely helpful to the deep reading experience. A book’s lack of hyperlinks (超链接), for example, frees the reader from making decisions—should I click on this link or not—allowing her to remain fully absorbed in the story.
That immersion is supported by the way the brain handles language rich in detail, indirect reference and figures of speech: by creating a mental representation that draws on the same brain regions that would be active if the scene were unfolding in real life. The emotional situations and moral dilemmas that are the material of literature are also vigorous (有活力的) exercise for the brain, driving us inside the heads of fictional characters and even, studies suggest, increasing our real-life capacity (能力) for recognition.
None of this is likely to happen when we’re browsing through a website. Although we call the activity by the same name, the deep reading of books and the information-driven reading we do on the Web are very different, both in the experience they produce and in the capacity they develop. A growing body of evidence suggests that online reading may be less satisfying, even for the “digital natives” to whom it is so familiar. Researchers reported that 39% of children and teens read daily using electronic devices, but only 28% read printed materials every day. Those who only read onscreen were three times less likely to say they enjoy reading very much and tell which book they like best. The study also found that young people who read daily only onscreen were nearly twice less likely to be above-average readers than those who read daily in print or both in print and onscreen.
All in all, the disappearance of deep reading would harm the intellectual and emotional development of generations growing up online, as well as the preservation of a critical part of our culture: the novels, poems and other kinds of literature that can be appreciated only by readers whose brains have been trained to understand them.
Passage outline | Supporting details |
The present situation about deep reading | ◆ As we are reading more on the Web, deep reading has a tendency to 1. . ◆ Like a historic building or a significant work of art, deep reading 2. our preservation. |
3. of deep reading | ◆ Deep reading4. complex emotional and moral experiences. ◆ Deep reading usually 5. from printed materials. ◆ Deep reading helps train a reader’s brain and make it more6. . ◆ Compared with online reading, deep reading can bring readers more 7. . ◆ Deep reading makes a bigger 8. in increasing readers’ reading ability. |
Conclusion | ◆ Without deep reading, generations in this digital world can’t develop well in emotion and9. . ◆ Without deep reading, people may be10. to appreciate literature. |
They don’t quite know how to cope with all the dam trouble they’ve got down in Hampden, Maine. And according to town manager Leslie Stanley, it doesn’t look as if things will improve any in the immediate future. “We’ve got a real annoying problem on our hands,” he says.
The annoyance began in late May. About three miles outside of town a group of beavers (河狸) built a dam near the mouth of a culvert (涵洞) that carries a stream under Canaan Road. Some 50 feet of roadway and several hundred feet of land on each side of the culvert were flooded. Stanley sent a road crew out to level the dam. The beavers rebuilt it. The crew tore it apart again. In fact, they tore it apart for ten mornings－and for ten straight nights the beavers rebuilt it.
On the eleventh day, the foreman tossed (扔) the problem back to the town manager. He, in turn, tossed it on to the local game warden (狩猎监督官). The warden, absorbed in beaver knowledge, moved quietly and carefully out one night and placed a petrol-soaked bag over the dam. (Any beaver expert will tell you the creatures just can’t tolerate petrol smell.)
In the morning the bag was found artistically woven (编织) into the dam.
The warden set out three steel traps that night. In the morning one was empty. The other two had been stolen by the beavers and used to strengthen the dam. The warden, cursing the state law against hunting beavers with firearms, got his traps back and set them out again and again. And every night the beavers stole them.
Town manager Stanley enlisted additional troops. He telephoned his police chief. Those beavers were breaking a state law against blocking up a natural watercourse. “Why aren’t you out there to uphold the law?” Stanley asked. “You’re the police chief. So remove them. Arrest them. Do something.”
Three mornings later, the police chief proudly announced the end of the dam. At 2:00 A.M., he said, he and a licensed dynamiter (炸药使用者) had blown it to small pieces. Stanley said he’d believe it when he saw it.
They drove out to the culvert and found a new dam already half-built. They also found the highway choked with mud and remains thrown up by the dynamite.
Stanley said maybe they should call in the Army Corps of Engineers. But the police chief’s faith in explosives was unshaken. He launched an all-out campaign，but the beavers always managed to have the holes plugged by the time the fire department appeared on the scene for its morning mop-up.
In time, the beavers tired of this nonsense and moved their dam “inside” the culvert－where it couldn’t be blown up without destroying the road too.
Stanley and his general staff held a council of war and agreed that fresh strategy was called for. Then they came up with an inspired idea. If we remove every branch of the dam by hand, we’ll force the beavers to go in search of new building material to replace what we’ve taken. Then we can place box traps along their runways and seized them.
The plan was completely approved. Moreover it worked. On July 30, town manager Stanley was able to announce that the beaver group had been trapped and removed to a remote wilderness area. And there was great joy in Hampden－until the middle of October, that is, when a group of young beavers was spotted swimming in the same waters from which its elders had recently been taken away.
But to make a long story short, the strategy that worked with the older beavers worked with the young ones too.
1.What was the annoying problem for the authorities in Hampden, Maine?
A. They failed to destroy the dam repeatedly built by the beavers.
B. They didn’t know who to send to deal with the dam trouble.
C. The beavers were building dams in every corner of the town.
D. The political situation in the town was becoming much worse.
2.What did the local game warden do?
A. He made steel traps to strengthen the dam.
B. He set out to hunt the beavers with firearms.
C. He learned a lot about the construction of the dam.
D. He used petrol-soaked bags to drive the beavers away.
3.Which is the correct order of the following events?
① The land on both sides of the culvert was flooded.
② The local leaders worked out a strategy.
③ The game warden set out steel traps.
④ The beavers rebuilt their dam inside the culvert.
⑤ The police chief used explosives to destroy the dam.
A. ①③②⑤④ B. ①③⑤④② C. ②①④③⑤ D. ②①⑤③④
4. The underline word “uphold” in Paragraph 6 probably means ________.
A. revise B. resist C. violate D. maintain
5. What can we learn about beavers from the passage?
A. The beavers seem to be stubborn about building dams.
B. The beavers are allowed to be killed when causing trouble.
C. The beavers can’t adapt themselves to living in wilderness.
D. The beavers finally returned to the culvert with their young.
The defeat of Lee Sedol, the world’s strongest Go (围棋) player, by a Google artificial intelligence (AI) program, looks like another milestone towards a world where computers can do almost anything a human can. It is not. There are uncountable things that only a human can do, and that no computer seems close to. The problem is that the purely human things are not economically useful to anyone. The things that computers can be taught to do are by contrast economically fantastic. But even the most powerful programs are not human, just as a shovel (铲车). They have no feelings. What they have is power, but this power is growing at a rate that should frighten us all.
It might be less frightening if computers were truly intelligent, but even the most powerful networks are less human than monstrous Martians (火星人). Their power will be used to make money for the firms that finance their development, and then for others quick and clever enough to take advantage of the new world. It is far more likely that they will increase inequality and still further remove the middle classes as we move towards an hourglass (以金钱来衡量的) society in which everyone is either very rich or very poor and likely indebted.
One of the ill effects of the spread of more intelligent computer networks is, at the same time, the spread of what might be called artificial stupidity. If AI is employed largely to replace unskilled labour, it is most productive when labour is kept unskilled or redefined that way. So much of the work in service industries is now simplified until it might be automated (自动化). And robots will never need pensions. AI is slowly reducing skilled work, like some forms of medical diagnosis (诊断), at the same time, as older doctors complain that the traditional human skills of diagnosis are falling out of medical training. The belief that everything worthwhile can be measured and then managed is far more damaging to humanity than the threat of artificial intelligence on its own.
But no victory in complicated Go games can bring us closer to truly human-like computers.
1.By mentioning the defeat of Lee Sedol, the author intends to tell us that ______.
A. computers can completely replace humans in everything
B. humans are of no practical economic values to the society
C. the power of computers is growing at a frightening rate
D. AI programs can not compare with humans economically
2. We can learn from Paragraph 2 that the power of computers will ______.
A. improve the quality of human life
B. promote equality at work places
C. make contributions to human development
D. widen the gap between the rich and the poor
3.What does “artificial stupidity” in Paragragh 3 mean?
A. Unskilled workers become stupid.
B. AI discourages skilled work.
C. Computers don’t need pensions.
D. AI is ruining medical training.
4. What is the author’s attitude towards the future of artificial intelligence?
A. Optimistic. B. Supportive. C. Sceptical. D. Cautious.
When you’re a parent to a young child, you spend a lot of time talking about feelings: about having to share, about being disappointed because you may not have a cookie instead of broccoli (绿花椰菜), about the great injustice of a parent pressing the elevator button before the child has a chance to.
And in a parenting culture that’s increasingly concerned with centering children’s needs above all else, mothers and fathers have become skillful at talking about their kids’ feelings while masking their own. But new research suggests that parents who hide their negative emotions are doing their children, and themselves harm.
A study published this month says that when parents put on a faux-happy (假开心) face for their kids, they do damage to their own sense of wellbeing and authenticity.
“For the average parent the findings suggest when they attempt to hide their negative emotion expression and overexpress their positive emotions with their children, it actually comes at a cost: doing so may lead parents to feel worse themselves,” researcher Dr Emily Impett, says.
It makes sense that parents often fall back on amping up (扩大) the positivity for the sake of their children—there are a lot of things in the world we want to protect our kids from. But children are often smarter than we expect and are quite in tune with what the people closest to them—their parents—are feeling.
There was a time about a year or so ago, for example, when I received some bad news over the phone; I was home with my four-year-old and so I did my best to put on a brave face. She knew immediately something was wrong though, and was confused.
When I finally let a few tears out and explained that Mom heard something sad about a friend, she was, of course, just fine. My daughter patted my shoulder, gave me a hug, and went back to playing. She felt better that she was able to help me, and the moment made a lot more sense to her emotionally than a smiling mom holding back sobs. I was glad that I could feel sad momentarily and not have to work hard to hide that.
Relaying positive feelings to your children when you don’t feel them is a move the researchers called high cost — that it may seem like the most beneficial to your child at the time but that parents should find other ways of communicating emotions that “allow them to feel true to themselves”.
But this is also about children seeing the world in a more honest way. While we will want to protect our children from things that aren’t age-appropriate or harmful, it’s better to raise a generation of kids who understand that moms and dads are people too.
1.What is the typical behavior of parents when they bring up their children?
A. Allowing their children chances to do things themselves.
B. Expressing their dissatisfaction with their children.
C. Hiding their true emotions from their children.
D. Sharing their favorite food with their children.
2. If parents put on a faux-happy face, _______.
A. their children will be protected
B. their children will be taken in
C. they will feel happy as a result
D. they will undergo worse feelings
3.The author mentioned the example of her daughter to illustrate ______.
A. children are not so clever as parents think
B. children can often understand parents’ true feelings
C. it’s meaningful for parents to always look positive
D. it’s necessary to expose children to harmful things
4. We can conclude from the passage that _______.
A. protecting children from age-inappropriate things is important
B. it makes sense for children to know their parents’ negative feelings
C. children will admire their parents more because of being protected
D. separation from negative feelings helps children see the world honestly
