The tornado came without any sign—the sky was blue and the sun had been out. The first alert my husband, Jimmy, 67, and I, 65, got came around 9 p.m., from some scrolling text on the TV Jimmy was watching. He ran upstairs to find me in our third-floor bedroom, and we changed the channel to our local Pensacola, Florida, station.
No sooner had we found coverage of the tornado than it was on top of us. The bones of the house shook, and the power went out. Pink insulation（绝缘材料） flew into the room from a trapdoor to the attic, and the wind began to roar through the house. We had three flights of steps to navigate to get to the relative safety of the first floor. Because the closet down there is wedged （塞进） underneath a brick staircase, it seemed like the sturdiest(坚固的) place in our town house to wait things out.
I didn’t know how or if we would make it down the steps. It felt as if there were no floor underneath me as the wind lifted me off my feet. I gripped the banister(楼梯扶手) and tried to move forward, but this intense pressure held me in place. In those seconds of stillness, I could hear everything around me rattling.
As we reached the last flight of steps, our front door blew out. Shards of glass that looked like broken ice flew everywhere. Suddenly, a three-foot-long tree branch whipped through the doorframe. It flew over our heads, missing us by inches. Had we been one step up, it would have impaled us. The back wall of the house followed suit and tore off into the darkness outside.
Instantly I reached the closet, Jimmy pushed me down to the closet floor, but he couldn’t get inside himself because of the wind. I gripped Jimmy’s arm as the tornado sucked the door open and tried to bring Jimmy with it. My knees and scalp were full of glass, but in that moment, I felt no pain. If I had let go, Jimmy would have flown right out and into the bay. “Hold on! Hold on!” he yelled. But there was nothing in this closet to hold on to.
All of a sudden, Jimmy lifted off his feet like people in tornadoes do in the movies. I thought he was gone. And then everything stopped. He landed on his feet. In those first quiet moments, I couldn’t believe it was over. Jimmy said he’d go outside to check. “No,” I said. “Don’t leave me.”
Our neighbor says the storm lasted four minutes. In that time, four of the twelve town houses in our unit were completely destroyed. Of the houses left standing, ours suffered the most damage. Amazingly, none of us were severely injured.
1.Paragraph 2—4 mainly tell us______.
A. the tornado was on top of us
B. the tornado caused great damage
C. the coverage of the tornado became a reality
D. the tornado was so strong that it lifted the author off her feet
2.The underlined words “this intense pressure” in Paragraph 3 refer to______.
A. the author’s nervousness about the tornado
B. the force from the tornado on the author
C. the stress the author felt from her life
D. the pressure the banister gave the author
3.From the passage we can know that ______.
A. Neither the author nor her husband was injured.
B. the author’s house was completely destroyed.
C. they were aware of the tornado before it came.
D. it became dark outside when the tornado hit the town
4.The author wrote the passage to _______.
A. share with us her experience of surviving a tornado
B. warn us of the danger caused by tornados
C. show us how to fight against a tornado
D. tell us tornados are dangerous and how to protect us from them
Microsoft has developed a new smartphone app that interprets eye signals and translates them into letters, allowing people with ALS（渐冻症）, also known as motor neurone disease, to communicate with others from a phone.
The GazeSpeak app combines a smartphone’s camera with artificial intelligence to recognize eye movements in real time and transform them into letters, words and sentences.
For people suffering from ALS, eye movement can be the only way they are able to communicate.
“Current eye-tracking input systems for people with ALS are expensive, not effective under sunlight, and require frequent re-calibration(再校正) and abundant, relatively stable setups,” said Xiaoyi Zhang, a researcher at Microsoft who developed the technology.
“To mitigate the drawbacks…we created GazeSpeak, an eye-gesture communication system that runs on a smartphone, and is designed to be low-cost, effective, and easy to carry and learn.”
The app is used by the listener by pointing their smartphone at the speaker. A chart that can be stuck to the back of the smartphone is then used by the speaker to determine which eye movements to make in order to communicate.
The chart shows four grids of letters, which each correspond to a different eye movement. By looking up, down, left or right, the speaker selects which grids the letters they want belong to. The artificial intelligence is then able to predict the word or sentence they are trying to say.
Zhang’s research, Smartphone-Based Gaze Gesture Communication for People with Motor Disabilities, is set to be presented at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in May.
1.The main purpose of the passage is to _________.
A. arouse people’s attention on the shortcomings of Current eye-tracking input systems.
B. introduce a new smartphone App for people suffering from ALS to communicate.
C. call for people’s awareness of helping people with ALS to communicate successfully.
D. compare the current eye-tracking input systems with the new GazeSpeak app.
2.The underlined word “mitigate” in paragraph5 probably means _________
A. ignore B. accept
C. strengthen D. weaken
3.According to the passage, which of the following sentences is TRUE?
A. There are many ways to communicate for people suffering from ALS.
B. The speaker points their smartphone at the listener when using the app.
C. The current eye-tracking input systems for people with ALS need improving.
D. The new smartphone app for people with ALS has been put on the market.
A study published in Blood Pressure Monitoring stated that sitting with your legs crossed can increase your blood pressure. The reason this happens is because the blood in your legs has to work against gravity to be pumped back to your heart, crossing one leg over the other increases resistance, making it even harder for the blood to circulate. This causes your body to increase your blood pressure to push the blood back to the heart. You won’t feel any immediate effects, but if you sit for long periods of time it’s important that you take note of how long you have your legs crossed for. You shouldn’t have your legs crossed for more than 15 minutes, and it’s important that you get up and walk around at least once every hour.
Crossing your legs can also lead to neck and back pain. Ideally, it’s best for our bodies to sit with our feet planted flat, hip width apart, on the floor, but it’s not easy to maintain perfect posture all day at the office. When you sit with your legs crossed your hips are in a twisted position, which can cause one of your pelvic bones to rotate. Since your pelvic bone supports your neck and spine, this can cause pressure on your lower and middle back and neck.
You also might notice that when you sit with your legs crossed for long periods of time your feet and legs get tingly or have the feeling of being asleep. This is because when one leg sits on top of the other it causes pressure on the veins and nerves in your legs and feet. It can cause numbness and/or temporary paralysis in the legs, ankles, or feet. While the feeling of discomfort may only last a minute or two, repeatedly crossing your legs until they feel numb can cause permanent nerve damage.
1.What can be learned from the text?
A. We will feel blood pressure increased immediately after crossing legs.
B. It’s easy for us to keep correct posture all day.
C. The pelvic bone can cause pressure on your lower and middle back and neck.
D. Your legs will get pain with legs crossed for long periods of time.
2.Crossing your legs may cause some health problems except___________.
A. Causing the pain of neck and back.
B. Increasing the blood pressure.
C. Leading to the pain of feet and legs.
D. Resulting in the disability of arms.
3.What is suggested according to the text?
A. Do not often cross your legs while sitting.
B. Cross your legs for more than 15 minutes every day.
C. Get up and walk around at least once every other hour.
D. Cross your legs to lower your blood pressure.
假定你是李华，你的美国朋友John对茶感兴趣。请用英语给他写一封邮件，诚邀他参加即将在宁波举办第九届国际茶文化节(the 9th International Tea Culture Festival)，并简要介绍茶文化节活动及我国茶的历史，茶的益处等。
注意：1）词数100左右；
2）可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
Hi John,
____________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li hua
假定英语课上老师要求同桌之间交换修改作文，请你修改你同桌写的以下作文。作文中共有10处错误，每句中最多有两处。错误涉及一个单词的增加、删除或修改。
增加：在缺词处加一个漏词符号(∧)，并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线(\)划掉。
修改：在错的词下画一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意：1.每处错误及其修改均仅限一词。
2．只允许修改10处，多者(从第11处起)不计分。
With the improvement of people's living standards, more and more people possess their own car. Some thought it is good to own a car. First, it's an convenient, fast and comfortable means of transportation, that saves people much time on the trip. It also makes businesses and industries to develop faster.
However, others have different opinions, thinking that cars give waste gases and pollute the environment around. Have too many cars will have some bad effects, such as more accidents and crowdedness. Besides, lacking parking lots are another big problem.
As far as I'm concerned, we ought to think careful before buying cars. Even if we have cars, we should use it less.
阅读下面短文，在空白处填入 1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。
The giant panda 1. (love) by people throughout the world. Chinese scientists 2. (recent) had a chance to study a wild female panda with a newborn baby. She was a very 3.(care) mother. For 25days, she never left her baby, not even to find something 4. (eat)! She would not let any other pandas come near. She licked the baby constantly to keep it clean. Any smell might attract natural 5.(enemy) that would try to eat the little comforting pats. The mother held the baby in her front paws much the way a human does. 6. it cried, she rocked it back and forth and gave it little comforting pats. The mother continued to care for the young panda 7. more than two years. By that time, the panda no longer needed 8.(it) mother for food. However, it stayed with her and leaned about the ways of the forest. Then, after two and a half years, the mother 9. (drive) the young panda away. It was time for her to have a new baby, 10. it was also time for the young panda to be independent.
