任务型阅读
请阅读下面短文，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：请将答案写在答题卡上相应题号的横线上。每个空格只填1个单词。
An Extension of the Human Brain
Other people can help us compensate for our mental and emotional deficiencies (欠缺)，much as a wooden leg can compensate for a physical deficiency. To be exact, other people can extend our intelligence and help us understand and adjust our emotions. When another person helps us in such ways, he or she is participating in what I’ve called a “social prosthetic (义肢的）system.” Such systems do not need to operate face-to-face, and it’s clear to me that the Internet is expanding the range of my own social prosthetic systems. It’s already a big bank of many minds. Even in its current state, the Internet has extended my memory and judgment.
Regarding memory: Once I look up something on the Internet, I don’t need to keep all the details for future use—I know where to find that information again and can quickly and easily do so. More generally, the Internet functions as if it were my memory. This function of the Internet is particularly striking when I’m writing; I’m no longer comfortable writing if I’m not connected to the Internet. It’s become natural to check facts as I write, taking a minute or two to dip into PubMed, Wikipedia, or other websites.
Regarding judgment: The Internet has made me smarter in matters small and large. For example, when I’m writing a textbook, it has become second nature to check a dozen definitions of a key term, which helps me dig into the core and understand its meaning. But more than that, I now regularly compare my views with those of many others. If I have a “ new idea,” I now quickly look to see whether somebody else has already thought of it, or something similar—and I then compare what I think with what others have thought. This certainly makes my own views clearer. Moreover, I can find out whether my reactions to an event are reasonable enough by reading about those of others on the Internet.
These effects of the Internet have become even more striking since I’ve begun using a smartphone. I now regularly pull out my phone to check a fact, watch a video, read weibo. Such activities fill the spaces that used to be dead time (such as waiting for somebody to arrive for a lunch meeting).
But that’s the upside (好处).The downside is that in those dead periods I often would let my thoughts flow and sometimes would have an unexpected insight or idea. Those opportunities are now fewer and farther between.
An Extension of the Human Brain | |
A prosthetic nature | 荫 ●The 1. can help make up for our mental and emotional deficiencies as a wooden leg can compensate for a bodily deficiency. • ●It 2. in our daily events, extending our intelligence, comprehending our feelings, and expanding the range of social activities. |
Wonderful aspects: memory and judgment | • ●On the Internet, we could quickly and easily locate the details, and check facts, without 3. them in mind. |
• ●The Internet makes us smarter over 4. kinds of things. It provides a dozen definitions of a key term for us to find the 5. of the matter. • ●The Internet enables us to exchange ideas with many others to 6. our claims, and to 7. our actions. | |
The 8. sides of smartphones | • ●Smartphones make it easier and more 9. to check reality, watch video clips, read weibo. |
• ●Smartphones 10. the possibility for new and insightful minds, and steal away our dead time. | |
阅读理解
请阅读下列短文，从短文后各题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
D
Not so long ago, most people didn’t know who Shelly Ann Francis Pryce was going to become. She was just an average high school athlete. There was every indication that she was just another American teenager without much of a future. However, one person wants to change this. Stephen Francis observed then eighteen-year-old Shelly Ann as a track meet and was convinced that he had seen the beginning of true greatness. Her time were not exactly impressive, but even so, he seemed there was something trying to get out, something the other coaches had overlooked when they had assessed her and found her lacking. He decided to offer Shelly Ann a place in his very strict training seasons. Their cooperation quickly produced results, and a few year later at Jamaica’s Olympic games in early 2008, Shelly Ann, who at that time only ranked number 70 in the world, beat Jamaica’s unchallenged queen of the sprint(短跑).
“Where did she come from?” asked an astonished sprinting world, before concluding that she must be one of those one-hit wonders that spring up from time to time, only to disappear again without signs. But Shelly Ann was to prove that she was anything but a one-hit wonder. At the Beijing Olympic she swept away any doubts about her ability to perform consistently by becoming the first Jamaican woman ever to win the 100 meters Olympic gold. She did it again one year on at the World Championship in Briton, becoming world champion with a time of 10.73--- the fourth record ever.
Shelly-Ann is a little woman with a big smile. She has a mental toughness that did not come about by chance. Her journey to becoming the fastest woman on earth has been anything but smooth and effortless. She grew up in one of Jamaica’s toughest inner-city communities known as Waterhouse, where she lived in a one-room apartment, sleeping four in a bed with her mother and two brothers. Waterhouse, one of the poorest communities in Jamaica, is a really violent and overpopulated place. Several of Shelly-Ann's friends and family were caught up in the killings; one of her cousins was shot dead only a few streets away from where she lived. Sometimes her family didn’t have enough to eat. She ran at the school championships barefooted because she couldn’t afford shoes. Her mother Maxime, one of a family of fourteen, had been an athlete herself as a young girl but, like so many other girls in Waterhouse, had to stop after she had her first baby. Maxime’s early entry into the adult world with its responsibilities gave her the determination to ensure that her kids would not end up in Waterhouse's roundabout of poverty. One of the first things Maxime used to do with Shelly-Ann was taking her to the track, and she was ready to sacrifice everything.
It didn't take long for Shelly-Ann to realize that sports could be her way out of Waterhouse. On a summer evening in Beijing in 2008, all those long, hard hours of work and commitment finally bore fruit. The barefoot kid who just a few years previously had been living in poverty, surrounded by criminals and violence, had written a new chapter in the history of sports.
But Shelly-Ann’s victory was far greater than that. The night she won Olympic gold in Beijing, the routine murders in Waterhouse and the drug wars in the neighbouring streets stopped. The dark cloud above one of the world’s toughest criminal neighbourhoods simply disappeared for a few days. “ I have so much fire burning for my country,”Shelly said. She plans to start a foundation for homeless children and wants to build a community centre in Waterhouse. She hopes to inspire the Jamaicans to lay down their weapons. She intends to fight to make it a woman’s as well as a man’s world.
As Muhammad Ali puts it, “ Champions aren't made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them. A desire, a dream, a vision.” One of the things Shelly-Ann can be proud of is her understanding of this truth.
1. Why did Stephen Francis decide to coach Shelly-Ann?
A. He had a strong desire to free her family from trouble.
B. He sensed a great potential in her despite her weaknesses.
C. She had big problems maintaining her performance.
D. She suffered a lot of defeats at the previous track meets.
2. What did the sprinting world think of Shelly-Ann before the 2008 Olympic Games?
A. She would become a promising star.
B. She badly needed to set higher goals.
C. Her sprinting career would not last long.
D. Her talent for sprinting was known to all.
3.What made Maxime decide to train her daughter on the track?
A. Her success and lessons in her career.
B. Her interest in Shelly-Ann’s quick profit.
C. Her wish to get Shelly-Ann out of poverty.
D. Her early entrance into the sprinting world.
4. What can we infer from Shelly-Ann's statement underlined in Paragraph 5?
A. She was highly rewarded for her efforts.
B. She was eager to do more for her country.
C. She became an athletic star in her country.
D. She was the envy of the whole community.
5. By mentioning Muhammad Ali’s words, the author intends to tell us that .
A. players should be highly inspired by coaches
B. great athletes need to concentrate on patience
C. hard work is necessary in one’s achievements
D. motivation allows great athletes to be on the top
6. What is the best title for the passage?
A. The Making of a Great Athlete
B. The Dream for Championship
C. The Key to High Performance
D. The Power of Full Responsibility
阅读理解
请阅读下列短文，从短文后各题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
C
El Nifio, a Spanish term for “the Christ child”, was named by South American fisherman who noticed that the global weather pattern, which happens every two to seven years, reduced the amount of fishes caught around Christmas. El Nifio sees warm water, collected over several years in the western Pacific, flow back eastwards when winds that normally blow westwards weaken, or sometimes the other way round.
The weather effects both good and bad, are felt in many places. Rich countries gain more from powerful Nifio, on balance, than they lose. A study found that a strong Nifio in 1997 helped American’s economy grow by 15 billion, partly because of better agricultural harvest, farmers in the Midwest gained from extra rain. The total rise in agricultural in rich countries in growth than the fall in poor ones.
But in Indonesia extremely dry forests are in flames. A multi-year drought (干旱）in south-east Brazil is becoming worse. Though heavy rains brought about by El Nino may relieve the drought in California, they are likely to cause surface flooding and other disasters.
The most recent powerful Nino, in 1997-98, killed around 21,000 people and caused damage worth $36 billion around the globe. But such Ninos come with months of warning, and so much is known about how they happen that governments can prepare. According to the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), however, just 12% of disaster-relief funding in the past two decades has gone on reducing risks in advance, rather than recovery and rebuilding afterwards. This is despite evidence that a dollar spent on risk-reduction saves at least two on reconstruction.
Simple improvements to infrastructure (基础设施）can reduce the spread of disease. Better sewers (下水道）make it less likely that heavy rain is followed by an outbreak of the disease of bad stomach. Stronger bridges mean villages are less likely to be left without food and medicine after floods. According to a paper in 2011 by Mr Hsiang and co-authors, civil conflict is related to El Nino’s harmful effects—and the poorer the country, the stronger the link. Though the relationship may not be causal, helping divided communities to prepare for disasters would at least reduce the risk that those disasters are followed by killing and wounding people. Since the poorest are least likely to make up for their losses from disasters linked to El Nino, reducing their losses needs to be the priority.
1. What can we learn about El Nino in Paragraph 1?
A. It is named after a South American fisherman.
B. It takes place almost every year all over the world.
C. It forces fishermen to stop catching fish around Christmas.
D. It sees the changes of water flow direction in the ocean.
2. What may El Ninos bring about to the countries affected?
A. Agricultural harvests in rich countries fall.
B. Droughts become more harmful than floods.
C. Rich countries’ gains are greater than their losses.
D. Poor countries suffer less from droughts economically.
3. The data provided by ODI in Paragraph 4 suggest that
A. more investment should go to risk reduction
B. governments of poor countries need more aid
C. victims of El Nino deserve more compensation
D. recovery and reconstruction should come first
4. What is the author’s purpose in writing the passage?
A. To introduce El Nino and its origin.
B. To explain the consequences of El Nino.
C. To show ways of fighting against El Nino.
D. To urge people to prepare for El Nino.
阅读理解
请阅读下列短文，从短文后各题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
B
Chimps(黑猩猩) will cooperate in certain ways, like gathering in war parties to protect their territory. But beyond the minimum requirements as social beings, they have little instinct (本能) to help one another. Chimps in the wild seek food for themselves. Even chimp mothers regularly decline to share food with their children. Who are able from a young age to gather their own food.
In the laboratory, chimps don’t naturally share food either. If a chimp is put in a cage where he can pull in one plate of food for himself or, with no great effort, a plate that also provides food for a neighbor to the next cage, he will pull at random ---he just doesn’t care whether his neighbor gets fed or not. Chimps are truly selfish.
Human children, on the other hand are extremely corporative. From the earliest ages, they decide to help others, to share information and to participate a achieving common goals. The psychologist Michael Tomasello has studied this cooperativeness in a series of expensive with very young children. He finds that if babies aged 18 months see an worried adult with hands full trying to open a door, almost all will immediately try to help.
There are several reasons to believe that the urges to help, inform and share are not taught .but naturally possessed in young children. One is that these instincts appear at a very young age before most parents have started to train children to behave socially. Another is that the helping behaviors are not improved if the children are rewarded. A third reason is that social intelligence. Develops in children before their general cognitive（认知的）skills,at least when compared with chimps..In tests conducted by Tomtasell, the children did no better than the chimps on the physical world tests, but were considerably better at understanding the social world
The cure of what children’s minds have and chimps’ don’t in what Tomasello calls what. Part of this ability is that they can infer what others know or are thinking. But that, even very young children want to be part of a shared purpose. They actively seek to be part of a “we”, a group that intends to work toward a shared goal.
1. What can we learn from the experiment with chimps?
A. Chimps seldom care about others’ interests.
B. Chimps tend to provide food for their children.
C. Chimps like to take in their neighbors’ food.
D. Chimps naturally share food with each other.
2. Michael Tomasello’s tests on young children indicate that they____.
A. have the instinct to help others
B. know how to offer help to adults
C. know the world better than chimps
D. trust adults with their hands full
3.The passage is mainly about ____.
A. the helping behaviors of young children
B. ways to train children’s shared intentionality
C. cooperation as a distinctive human nature
D. the development of intelligence in children
阅读理解
请阅读下列短文，从短文后各题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
A
|
Day school Program Secondary students across Toronto District School Board(TDSB) are invited to take one or two e-Learning courses on their day school timetable. Students will remain on the roll at their day school. The on-line classroom provides an innovative relevant and interactive Learning environment. The courses and on-line classroom are provided by the Ministry of Education These on-line courses Benefits of e-Learning Include: Is e-Learning for You? Students who are successful in on-line course are usually; Students need to spend at least as much time with their on-line course work as they would in a face-to-face classroom course. |
1.E-Learning courses are different from other TDSB courses in that .
A. they are given by best TDSB teachers.
B. they are not on the day school timetable.
C. they are not included on students’ reports.
D. they are an addition to TDSB courses.
2.What do students need to do before completing e-learning courses?
A. To learn information technology on-line.
B. To do their assignments independently.
C. To update their mobile devices regularly.
D. To talk face to face with their teachers.
完形填空
请阅读下面短文，从短文后各题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
Years ago, a critical event occurred in my life that would change it forever. I met Kurt Kampmeir of Success Motivation Incorporation for breakfast. While we were ___ ,Kurt asked me, “ John, what is your for personal growth?
Never at a loss for words, I tried to find things in my life that might for growth. I told him about the many activities in which I was . And I went into a about how hard I worked and the gains I was making. I must have talked for ten minutes. Kurt patiently, but then he smiled and said, “You don’t have a personal plan for growth, do you?”
“No, I .
“You know,” Kurt said simply, “growth is not a(n) process.”
And that’s when it me. I wasn’t doing anything to make myself better. And at that moment, I made the : I will develop and follow a personal growth plan for my .
That night, I talked to my wife about my with Kurt and what I had learned. I her the workbook and tapes Kurt was selling. We that Kurt wasn’t just trying to make a sale. He was offering a for us to change our lives and achieve our dreams.
Several important things happened that day. First, we decided to the resources. But more importantly, we made a commitment to together as a couple. From that day on, we learned together, traveled together, and sacrificed together. It was a decision. While too many couples grow apart, we were growing together.
1.A. workingB. preparingC. thinkingD. eating
2.A. suggestionB. demandC. planD. request
3.A. appealB. lookC. callD. qualify
4.A. involvedB. trappedC. lostD. bathed
5.A. lectureB. speechC. discussionD. debate
6.A. calculatedB. listenedC. drankD. explained
7.A. eagerlyB. graduallyC. gratefullyD. finally
8.A. admittedB. interruptedC. apologizedD. complained
9.A. automaticB. slowC. independentD. changing
10.A. confusedB. informedC. pleasedD. hit
11.A. on loanB. on purposeC. on saleD. on balance
12.A. commentB. announcementC. decisionD. arrangement
13.A. lifeB. progressC. performanceD. investment
14.A. contractB. conversationC. negotiationD. argument
15.A. lentB. soldC. showedD. offered
16.A. recalledB. definedC. recognizedD. declared
17.A. toolB. methodC. wayD. rule
18.A. provideB. buyC. giveD. deliver
19.A. growB. surviveC. moveD. gather
20.A. difficultB. randomC. firmD. wise
