(B)
Stress: Good or Bad?
Stress used to be an almost unknown word, but now that we are used to talking about it, I have found that people are beginning to get stressed about being stressed.
In recent years, stress1._____(regard) as a cause of a whole range of medical problems, from high blood pressure to mental illness. But like so many other things, it is only too much stress2.____ does you harm. It is time you considered that if there were no stress in your life, you would achieve a little. If you are stuck at home with no stress, then your level of performance will be low. Up to a certain point, the more stress you are under, the 3.____(good) your performance will be. Beyond a certain point, though , further stress will only lead to exhaustion, illness and finally a breakdown. You can tell when you are over the top and on the downward slope, by asking yourself 4.______ number of questions. Do you, for instance, feel that too much is being expected of 5._____, and yet find it impossible to say no? Do you find yourself getting impatient or6.____(annoy) with people over unimportant things?... If the answer to all those questions is yes, you had better7._____(control ) your stress, as you probably are under more stress than is good for you.
To some extent you can control the amount of stress in your life. Doctors have worked out a chart showing how much stress is involved in various events. Getting married is 50, pregnancy 40, moving house 20, Christmas 12,etc. If the total stress in your life is over 150, you are twice as likely 8.______ (get )ill.
Section A
Directions: After reading the passages below, fill in the blanks to make the passages coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form. of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.
(A)
Bags of Love
Last year, I was assigned to work at an office near my mother’s house, so I stayed with her for a month. During that time, I helped out with the housework and contributed to the groceries.
After less than a week, I started noticing that the groceries were running out pretty quickly — we were always suddenly out of something. 1._______(wonder) how my mum could consume them so quickly, I began observing her daily routine for two weeks. To my surprise, I found that she would pack a paper bag full of canned goods and head out every morning at about nine. Eventually, I decided to follow her and 2._______ happened truly amazed me. She was taking the food to the refugee camp, in 3._____ she distributed it to children.
I asked around and found out that my mum was very well known in the area. The kids were very friendly with her and even looked up to her as if she were their own mother. Then it hit me —why would she not want to tell me about what she 4.____(do)? Was she worried about how I would react or that I would stop 5.____(buy) the groceries if I found out?
When she got home, I told her about my discovery. 6._____ she could react, I gave her a big hug and told her she didn’t need to keep it a secret 7._____ me. She told me that some of the children lived with an older lady in a shelter while others slept on the streets. For years, my mum has been helping out by giving them whatever food she could spare. I was so impressed by 8.____ selfless she was.
书面表达
请阅读下面短文，并按照要求用英语写一篇150词左右的文章。
In recent years, internet voting has become increasingly popular in China. People not only cast on-line votes themselves, but also urge others to vote for competitions like the “Most Beautiful Teacher” and the “ Cutest Baby”.
Li Jiang, a high school student, is invited to vote in the “ Best Police Officer 冶 competition, organized by the local government to let the public have a better understanding of police officers’ daily work. Li Jiang visits the website and reads all the stories. He is deeply moved by their glorious deeds. He is already thinking of becoming a policeman himself in the future.
Su Hua is invited by his uncle to vote for his cousin in the “ Future Singer冶 competition. He has already received three similar invitations this week. His uncle tells him that if his cousin wins the competition, the family will win an overseas tour for free. Su Hua likes his cousin very much, but he finds other singers perform even better. To vote, or not to vote? This is a question that troubles him very much.
【写作内容】
1. 用约30个单词写出上文概要；
2. 用约120个单词阐述你对网络投票的看法，并用2 ~3个理由或论据支撑你的看法。
【写作要求】
1. 写作过程中不能直接引用原文语句；
2. 作文中不能出现真实姓名和学校名称；
3. 不必写标题。
【评分标准】
内容完整，语言规范，语篇连贯，词数适当。
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.
