Born on August 9,1963,New Jersey,Whitney Houston almost seemed bound to become a singer.Her mother Cissy Houston was the choir(唱诗班)minister at New Hope Baptist Church,and it was there that a young Whitney got her start.
When she was 19,Whitney Houston was discovered in a nightclub by the famous Clive Davis of Arista Records. In 1983,Houston made her debut(首演)on national television.In 1985,she released her debut album Whitney Houston and almost immediately became a sensation.Over the next year,her hit singles Saving All My Love for You and How Will I Know helped the album reach the top of the charts,where it staved for fourteen weeks in a row. Houston won a Grammy in 1986 for Saving All My Love for You.
By 1992,Whitney Houston was on top of the world,but her life was about to get very complicated very quickly. That year she married the R&B singer Bobby Brown.At first the marriage was passionate and loving,but things turned sour as the decade progressed and both Brown and Houston battled drug abuse.
In spite of these growing personal troubles,Whitney Houston continued to progress in her career,crossing over successfully into acting in 1992 by starring in The Bodyguard.Her single from the movie,I will Always Love You, proved to be Houston's biggest hit ever,spending a record-breaking fourteen weeks on top of the US charts.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s,Whitney Houston's increasingly rocky marriage,struggles with drug and health problems threatened her career.Over the next few years,Houston attempted to break her drug habit and divorced Bobby Brown in 2007.
After almost a decade of struggling with her personal life,Houston seemed to be pulling herself together.She released a new album,I Look to You,in 2009.The recording received a warm welcome from music fans.
In early 2012,Houston worked on a new musical film Sparkle with Jordin Spark.Unfortunately,Houston didn't live long enough to see it.
Whitney Houston died on February 11,2012,in Los Angeles.With her passing,the music world has lost one of its most outstanding stars.
1.From the first paragraph,we know that .
A. Whitney Houston grew up in a nearby church.
B. Whitney Houston came from a single-parent family.
C. Whitney Houston had to support her family by singing when she was a child.
D. Whitney Houston grew up in a musical background.
2.Which shows the right order of the following events?
a.Whitney Houston divorced the R&B singer Bobby Brown.
b.Whitney Houston began to sing at New Hope Baptist Church.
c.Whitney Houston starred in the film The Bodyguard.
d.Whitney Houston worked on a new musical film Sparkle.
A. bcad B. badc
C. abdc D. cadb
3.What's the author's attitude towards Houston's death?
A. Ashamed B. Regretful
C. Hopeless D. Delightful
4.Which can be the best title of the passage'?
A. Whitney Houston's music talent B. Whitney Houston's achievement
C. Whitney Houston's lite story D. Whitney Houston's sudden death
Centre,Inc.
JOB DETAILS
Job Title: Food Service Assistant
Hours Per Week: 20-24
Wage: $15.77
Job Type: Off-Campus Job
Work Type: Non work-study job
Position Description:
Centre,Inc.is hiring Food Service Assistant.
Details:
Gain experience that combines well with a Culinary Degree.Working hours include weekdays 3-7 pm and every other weekend 11 am-7 pm.Must be willing to work every other weekend and during some holidays.20-24 hours per week.$ 11-75 per hour+$ 4.02 per hour (see benefits),Total$15.77 per hour.
Duties:
Prepare and serve food to people of a community correctional facility(社区管教所).Work under the direction of the Dietary Manager.
Requirements:
Must be flexible,reliable,and energetic.Must pass a criminal background check,drug test,and physical test.
Apply:
Stop by and fill out an application at 123 15th Street N.Fargo,ND 58102 or e-mail your resume to alannawa@centreinc.org
Benefits:
Additional $ 4.02 per hour health and welfare benefit,paid vacation,pro-rated holiday pay,employee assistance programs and wellness program.
Centre,Inc.is an EEO/AAP employer and will recruit(招募),hire,train,and promote,into all job levels,the most qualified persons without regard to race,color,religion,gender identity,or national origin.
EMPLOYER DETAILS
Address: 123 15th St N
City/State: Fargo,ND
Phone: 701-373-8354
Email: alannawa@centreinc.org
Date Posted: 10-20-16 3:18:49 pm
Job Number: 20622
1.What field does this position belong to?
A. Food service. B. Education.
C. Medical care. D. Mass media.
2.How much will be paid if you work for 20 hours per week?
A. $ 282 B. $ 235
C. $ 315.4 D. $ 378.48
3.What will the company NOT do before employing a person?
A. Check criminal background B. Confirm family background
C. Examine physical health D. Hold a drug test
4.If you want to apply for this position,you can .
A. post your resume to the company B. send information via fax
C. call them at 701-373-8354 D. go to apply for it in person
第二节 (20 分)
假设你是红星中学高三学生李华,请根据以下四幅图的先后顺序,写一篇英文周记,记录毕业前夕你们制作以“感恩母校”为主题的毕业纪念视频的全过程。注意:词数不少于60。提示词:视频video
第一节 (15分)
你的英国朋友Jim所在的学校要组织学生来中国旅行,有两条线路可以选择:“长江之行”或者“泰山之旅”。Jim来信希望你能给些建议。请你给他回信,内容包括:
1.你建议的线路;
2.你的理由;
3.你的祝愿。
注意:1.词数不少于50;
2.开头和结尾已给出,不计入总词数。
Dear Jim,
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Hua
根据短文内容,从短文后的七个选项中选出能填入空白处的最佳选项。选项中有两项为多余选项。
Every animal sleeps, but the reason for this has remained foggy. When lab rats are not allowed to sleep, they die within a month. 1
One idea is that sleep helps us strengthen new memories. 2 We know that, while awake, fresh memories are recorded by reinforcing (加强) connections between brain cells, but the memory processes that take place while we sleep have been unclear.
Support is growing for a theory that sleep evolved so that connections between neurons(神经元) in the brain can be weakened overnight, making room for fresh memories to form the next day. 3
Now we have the most direct evidence yet that he is right. 4 The synapses in the mice taken at the end of a period of sleep were 18 per cent smaller than those taken before sleep, showing that the connections between neurons weaken while sleeping.
If Tononi’s theory is right, it would explain why, when we miss a night`s, we find it harder the next day to concentrate and learn new information — our brains may have smaller room for new experiences.
Their research also suggests how we may build lasting memories over time even though the synapses become thinner. The team discovered that some synapses seem to be protected and stayed the same size. 5 “You keep what matters,” Tononi says.
A. We should also try to sleep well the night before.
B. It’s as if the brain is preserving its most important memories.
C. Similarly, when people go for a few days without sleeping, they get sick.
D. The processes take place to stop our brains becoming loaded with memories.
E. That’s why students do better in tests if they get a chance to sleep after learning.
F. “Sleep is the price we pay for learning,” says Giulio Tononi, who developed the idea.
G. Tononi’s team measured the size of these connections, or synapses, in the brains of 12 mice.
Hollywood’s theory that machines with evil(邪恶) minds will drive armies of killer robots is just silly. The real problem relates to the possibility that artificial intelligence(AI) may become extremely good at achieving something other than what we really want. In 1960 a well-known mathematician Norbert Wiener, who founded the field of cybernetics(控制论), put it this way: “If we use, to achieve our purposes, a mechanical agency with whose operation we cannot effectively interfere(干预), we had better be quite sure that the purpose put into the machine is the purpose which we really desire.”
A machine with a specific purpose has another quality, one that we usually associate with living things: a wish to preserve its own existence. For the machine, this quality is not in-born, nor is it something introduced by humans; it is a logical consequence of the simple fact that the machine cannot achieve its original purpose if it is dead. So if we send out a robot with the single instruction of fetching coffee, it will have a strong desire to secure success by disabling its own off switch or even killing anyone who might interfere with its task. If we are not careful, then, we could face a kind of global chess match against very determined, super intelligent machines whose objectives conflict with our own, with the real world as the chessboard.
The possibility of entering into and losing such a match should concentrate the minds of computer scientists. Some researchers argue that we can seal the machines inside a kind of firewall, using them to answer difficult questions but never allowing them to affect the real world. Unfortunately, that plan seems unlikely to work: we have yet to invent a firewall that is secure against ordinary humans, let alone super intelligent machines.
Solving the safety problem well enough to move forward in AI seems to be possible but not easy. There are probably decades in which to plan for the arrival of super intelligent machines. But the problem should not be dismissed out of hand, as it has been by some AI researchers. Some argue that humans and machines can coexist as long as they work in teams—yet that is not possible unless machines share the goals of humans. Others say we can just “switch them off” as if super intelligent machines are too stupid to think of that possibility. Still others think that super intelligent AI will never happen. On September 11, 1933, famous physicist Ernest Rutherford stated, with confidence, “Anyone who expects a source of power in the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine.” However, on September 12, 1933, physicist Leo Szilard invented the neutron-induced(中子诱导) nuclear chain reaction.
1.Paragraph 1 mainly tells us that artificial intelligence may ________.
A. run out of human control
B. satisfy human’s real desires
C. command armies of killer robots
D. work faster than a mathematician
2.Machines with specific purposes are associated with living things partly because they might be able to ________.
A. prevent themselves from being destroyed
B achieve their original goals independently
C. do anything successfully with given orders
D. beat humans in international chess matches
3.According to some researchers, we can use firewalls to ________.
A. help super intelligent machines work better
B. be secure against evil human beings
C. keep machines from being harmed
D. avoid robots’ affecting the world
4.What does the author think of the safety problem of super intelligent machines?
A. It will disappear with the development of AI.
B. It will get worse with human interference.
C. It will be solved but with difficulty.
D. It will stay for a decade.