When I was nine years old, I learned how to make a coin disappear. I’d read The Lord of the Rings and adventured into the adult section of the library to search for a book of magics — nine being that curious age at which you’re old enough to work through more than 1, 200 pages of mysterious fantasy literature. The book I found instead taught basic techniques. 1.
At first it wasn’t even magic but just a bad trick. 2. I tossed the coin over and over, and after two weeks of this my mom got a carpet sample from the hardware store and placed it under the mirror to remove the sound of the coin falling again and again.
I had heard my dad work through passages of new music on the piano, so I knew how to practice — slowly, deliberately, going for preciseness rather than speed. 3. It did not look like a magic trick. It looked like a miracle.
4. Everyone went crazy. The teacher on duty crossed the field to see what was going on. Usually, Mrs. Tanner filled her classroom with an appetite for punishment and an oversize plastic golf club she waved like a weapon, knocking it down on the desks of the unruly and sleepy students. 5. The coin disappeared for her too. She asked to do it again. I did. I’m sure my hands were sweating, but when I looked up, everything had changed. I will remember the look on her face — the look of wide-eyed, open-mouthed wonder — forever.
A. I was soon absorbed in the plot.
B. I devoted the next months to practice.
C. She was really angry about the whole thing.
D. One day I made the coin disappear on the playground.
E. At last I tried before the mirror and the coin disappeared.
F. Now she marched toward me and demanded to know what was going on.
G. I spent hours each day running through the secret moves in front of the mirror.
On September 10, 2018, Jack Ma, founder and chairman of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, announced his successor(继任者)at the company he founded 19 years ago. Surprisingly, in a country where 70 to 80 percent of private companies are still family run, Mr. Ma did not name a family member. Rather, one of the world’s largest e-commerce companies will be led by Daniel Zhang, an 11-year Alibaba old hand chosen only for his “professional talent.”
The history of many countries can be marked by a trend away from dependence on family succession in business, or the belief that qualities of leadership flow through bloodlines. Ma is a true innovator(创新者)in many ways, most famously for building an innovative online shopping market worth more than the economies of most countries. But his legacy(遗产)may lie in showing how China as well as much of Asia can produce founders of successful organizations unwilling to pass the torch to relatives.
“Alibaba was never about Jack Ma,” he stated in announcing his succession plan. Instead, the former schoolteacher who came from lowly origins is stepping back from day-to-day operations because he has built a system that takes root in a company culture based on innovation, transparency, and responsibility. “For the last 10 years, we kept working on these ingredients,” he stated.
The company’s future will depend on developing a wealth of talent that drives innovation, he said. And in a society with a long tradition of cautious distrust toward those outside the family circle, Ma has built an “architecture of trust” with customers, who number over half a billion. Chinese now readily rely on Alibaba’s online payment system, its ratings of products and services, and other trust-building systems or methods pioneered by the company.
China’s rapid growth now produces a new billionaire almost every day. Many of them, like Ma, have favored systems of management based on talent and honesty. As many countries have discovered as they progress, it is better to swim in a talent pool, not a gene(基因)pool.
1.What do we know about Daniel Zhang from the passage?
A. He’s a talented professor.
B. He’s an experienced manager.
C. He’s a successful founder.
D. He’s Chairman of Alibaba.
2.Where does Ma’s legacy lie in?
A. Becoming a successful innovative founder.
B. Casting doubt on traditional succession plan.
C. Providing creative answers to succession problems.
D. Representing trends towards non-family-run companies.
3.What seems to be the recipe for the company’s future success?
A. Trust-building methods.
B. The “architecture of trust”.
C. A culture of talent development.
D. The latest successful innovations.
4.What can be a suitable title for the text?
A. Prefer Qualities to Blood.
B. Train a Potential Successor.
C. Favor Genes over Talents.
D. Provide New Management.
Parents tend to favour children of one sex in certain situations — or so evolutionary biologists tell us. A new study used colored backpack sales data to show that parental wealth may influence spending on sons different from daughters.
In 1973 biologist Robert Trivers and computer scientist Dan Willard published a paper suggesting that parents invest(投入)more resources, such as food and effort, in male children when times are good, and in female children when times are bad. According to the Trivers-Willard hypothesis(假说), a son given lots of resources can become a gentleman — but parents with few resources tend to invest them in daughters, who generally find it easier to be a fair maiden.
Studying parental investment after birth is difficult, however. The new study looked for a standard of measurement of such investment that met several criteria: it shouldn’t be affected by sex differences in the need for resources; it should measure investment rather than outcomes; and it should be objective.
Study author Shige Song, a sociologist at Queens College, City University of New York, examined spending on pink and blue backpacks purchased in China in 2015 from a large retailer, JD. com. He narrowed the data to about 5, 000 bags: blue backpacks bought by families known to have at least one boy and pink ones bought by families known to have at least one girl. The results showed that wealthier families spent more on blue than pink backpacks — suggesting greater investment in sons. Poorer families spent more on pink packs than blue ones. The findings were published in Evolution and Human Behavior.
Song’s evidence for the Trivers-Willard hypothesis is “indirect” but “pretty convincing,” says Rosemary Hopcroft, a sociologist at the. University of North Carolina at Charlotte, who was not connected with the new study. Hopcroft reported in 2016 that U. S. fathers with high-status occupations were more likely to send their sons to private school than their daughters, while fathers with lower-status jobs more often enrolled their female children. Although the new study does not prove the families were buying the blue backpacks for boys and pink ones for girls, Hopcroft notes that “it’s a clever and interesting paper, and it’s a rather unusual use of big data.”
1.What does the writer intend to do in Paragraph 2?
A. Introduce an earlier study.
B. Identify children’s needs.
C. Assess the influence of a study.
D. Explore into parental investment.
2.What offers a challenge for the new study?
A. The investment meeting several criteria.
B. The measurement of eventual outcomes.
C. Different demands for resources between sexes.
D. Consistent standards in measuring parental investment.
3.What can be learned from Song’s research?
A. The new study was done in 2015.
B. Big data was sampled for research.
C. Preference was offered to consumers.
D. Blue packs were favored over pink ones.
4.Which of the following is likely to match Hopcroft’s remark on Song’s research?
A. It’s entertaining. B. It’s well-designed.
C. It’s unbelievable. D. It’s unusual.
In 2011, the old style Malta buses were taken off the road and replaced by modern vehicles. Most of the old buses were deserted, a few were sold, and about 100 of them were put into storage in the hope of showing them in a museum at some stage.
A pre-2011 visit to Malta wouldn’t have been complete without a ride on one of the colorful buses. Until 1973 you could tell the destination of the bus just by looking at its color — Sliema was green and white, Zabbar was red and white with a blue stripe(条纹)etc. . Later, the buses all had numbers. For a while, they were all painted green and white before the ‘final’ orange, yellow and white.
In their prime, walking around the Triton fountain at the Valletta bus station, you would have found it very difficult to see two buses of exactly the same design. Most of them had locally built bodies. On the front of the buses carried names like Dodge, Leyland, Bedford etc. . You were equally likely to find football pennants(锦旗)and the like decorating the cabs. Real bus experts would have recognized that these were there mainly for decorative reasons, and were seldom an accurate reflection of the vehicle’s origins.
Nowadays much more modern buses are to be found at the Floriana bus station. They are more environmentally friendly and possibly even more comfortable than the older types. However, I miss the old buses. I remember, when you boarded your bus, you had to prepare the correct change to pay the usually bad-tempered driver as you got on. If you were seated anywhere near the front, you would have noticed that most drivers sat well to the right of their steering wheel. The reason for this, as any Maltese would tell you, was to leave space for their pet to sit alongside them. I wonder where the pet sits these days.
1.What makes a pre-2011 visit to Malta special according to Paragraph 2?
A. Traveling in colorful buses.
B. Using buses with stripes.
C. Painting buses bright colors.
D. Telling destinations by different colors.
2.Which of the following best explains “prime” underlined in Paragraph 3?
A. Painful time. B. Exciting time.
C. Moment of fantasy. D. Moment of glory.
3.What can we learn about Malta buses when they were popular?
A. They were of the same pattern.
B. The decorations reflected their origin.
C. Most were uniquely designed.
D. Only football pennants decorated the cabs.
4.How would the author feel about the old style Malta buses?
A. Comfortable. B. Environment-friendly.
C. Safe. D. Memorable.
The Harvard Pre-College Program is a nice experience for high school students. Alongside peers(同辈)from around the world, you’ll be introduced to college life as you attend classes, live on campus, and enjoy fun outings and activities.
◆Learning without limits
Biology, physics, law, writing and philosophy — these are just a few of the 30-plus courses you can choose from in each session. In our noncredit classes, we set aside grades so that you can fully commit to your growth as a well-rounded student. Class sizes typically range from 14 to 18 students to encourage interactive learning.
◆Living at Harvard
When you attend the Pre-College Program, you’ll live in a historic undergraduate house, near Harvard Square. You will be with your fellow Pre-College students, resident directors, and proctors who provide support. You’ll also enjoy meals in one of Harvard’s dining halls, which are a short walk from Harvard Yard and provide many options for a variety of dietary needs.
◆Thriving outside the classroom
The summer Pre-College Program offers many mentally challenging co-curricular(补充课程的)activities beyond the classroom. With faculty and Harvard-affiliated experts, you will have the opportunity to participate in workshops on topics like the psychology of color-blindness, classic literature from around the world and science of happiness. From our Cambridge scavenger hunt to a trip to the Sand Sculpting Festival at America’s first public beach, there’s no shortage of fun activities in the Pre-College Program.
1.What do we know about the 30-plus courses?
A. You can only choose five of them.
B. They provide credits for students.
C. You should set aside other subjects.
D. They assist your full development.
2.Where can you enjoy meals during the program?
A. Near Harvard Square. B. Close to Harvard Yard.
C. In one of the workshops. D. In an undergraduate house.
3.What is the purpose of the passage?
A. To advertise meals. B. To comment on an activity.
C. To introduce a program. D. To recommend courses.
假定你是李华，今年暑假你将参加“英国名校两周游”夏令营，计划7月份在伦敦逗留三天（7月13至15日），并住在Wellington Hotel。你想与去年在你家接待过的英国学生 Charlie见面，请你给他写一封邮件，内容包括：
1. 简单介绍伦敦的行程；
2. 希望见面并商量见面的时间和地点。
注意：1. 词数100左右；
2. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯；
3. 开头和结尾已给出，不计入总词数。
Dear Charlie,
How time flies! It has been almost a year since your last visit. ______________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Looking forward to your reply.
Yours,
Li Hua
