2020 SAN FRANCISCO
WRITERS CONFERENCE
17th Celebration of Craft, Commerce & Community
February 13-16, 2020 at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco
Speakers: *Walter Mosley*Jonathan Maberry *Brooke Warner
Plus authors, editors, publishers & literary agents from New York, L.A. & S.F. Bay Area
Visit www.SFWriters.org to get event/contest/scholarship details, access online registration for the free SFWC Newsletter.
Considerable Early Discounts and Special Room Rates!
2019 SAN FRANCISCO
WRITING FOR CHANGE
A one-day conference for all writers who want to change the world through their writing.
September 14th at the Unitarian Center Details and registration:
www.SFWritingforChange.org
SFWC/San Francisco Writers Foundation is a nonprofit organization
Behind the Scenes of a Writing Conference
When you attend a writing conference, you see a facade that took months or longer to make up. Plenty is going on behind the scenes. Let’s take a look behind the curtain.
The day starts long before attendees walk through the door. Registration is set up, signs posted and tables arranged. Logistics ( 后 勤 ) all fall on the conference organizers. For example, the annual conference I direct in San Francisco (see the poster above) is a simple one-day conference that takes more than eight months to put together and around 15 staff and volunteers to manage. Larger multi-day conferences have even more going on behind the scenes.
Overseeing it all is the conference director, a conductor who typically works with committee directors to make sure everything runs smoothly. Over the course of the conference, staffers make sure everything stays on track. It’s not unusual for staff to walk miles in a day and go without meals.
Conference staff and volunteers are always behind the curtains making sure your experience is perfect. The next time you attend a well-run writing conference, take a moment to thank staff and volunteers for their devotion. They deserve all the praise they can get because without them, there would be no conference.
1.The underlined word facade refers to ___.
A.the effort behind the scenes
B.the scenes visible to the public
C.the literary masterpiece on display
D.the material distributed at the meeting
2.What’s the latest time to start to arrange for the one-day conference in San Francisco?
A.July, 2019. B.March, 209.
C.September, 2019 . D.January, 2019.
3.According to the writer, the attendees of the 2020 San Francisco Writers Conference should praise the ____ .
A.three speakers B.authors and editors
C.staff and volunteers D.corporate sponsors
Dame Zaha Hadid, the Iraqi-born British architect whose tall structures left a mark on skylines and imaginations around the world and in the process reshaped architecture for the modern age.
She was not an average designer. She liberated architectural geometry( 几何), giving it a whole new expressive identity. Geometry became, in her hands, a vehicle for unprecedented and eye-popping new spaces. Her buildings elevated uncertainty to an art, conveyed in the odd ways.
Her work implying mobility, speed, freedom and uncertainty spoke to a worldview widely shared by a younger generation. “I am not European, I don’t do conventional work and I am a woman,’’ Strikingly Ms. Hadid never allowed herself on her work to be categorized by her background or her gender. And she was one of a kind, a path breaker. In 2004, she became the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize, architecture’s Nobel.
Zaha Hadid was born in Baghdad on October 31, 1950. Then in 1972, she arrived at the architectural association in London, a center for experimental design. Her teachers included Elia Zenghelis and Rem Koolhaas. “They aroused my ambition,” she would recall, “and taught me to trust even my strangest instincts.” By the 1980s she had established her own practice in London. And she began to draw attention with an unrealized plan in 1982—1983 for the Peak Club.
Her partner, Patrick Schumacher, played an instrumental and collaborative role in her career. Mr. Schumacher coined the term parametric(参数的) design to include the computer-based approach that helped the firm’s most weird concepts become reality. Ms. Hadid called what resulted in an organic language of architecture, based on these new tools, which allow us to combine highly complex forms into a fluid(流线的) and complete whole.
Her sources were nature, history or whatever she sought useful. When her Rosenthal Center, a relatively modest project, opened in 2003, Herbert Muschamp, the architecture critic declared it “the most important American building to be completed since the end of the cold war”.
“She was bigger than life, a force of nature,” as Amale Andraos, the dean of Columbia University’s architecture school, put it, “she was a pioneer.”
She was. For women, for what cities can desire to build and for the art of architecture.
1.What features the structures designed by Zaha Hadid?
A.Free architectural geometry. B.Conventional design.
C.Odd imagination. D.Colorful patterns.
2.According to Paragraphs 3 and 4, which of the following statement is TRUE?
A.Zaha Hadid taught herself to trust instincts.
B.The plan for the Peak Club hasn’t been carried out.
C.The architect’s gender influenced her work dramatically.
D.Zaha Hadid was the first architect to win the Pritzker Prize.
3.How did the computer-based approach make a difference to Zaha Hadid’s work?
A.It contributes to realizing the strange ideas.
B.It simplifies the complex structure as a whole.
C.It provides new tools to translate the language.
D.It serves as an instrument to interpret the concepts.
4.The purpose of the passage is to____.
A.present Zaha Hadid’s life experience
B.praise Zaha Hadid’s inspiration and diligence
C.compare Zaha Hadid’s works in different times
D.show Zaha Hadid’s great contributions to architecture
The networked computer is an amazing device. It is the first media machine that serves as the mode of production (you can make stuff), means of distribution (you can upload stuff to the network), site of _____ (you can download stuff and interact with it), and place of praise and criticism (you can comment on the stuff you have downloaded or uploaded). _____, the computer is the 21st century’s culture machine.
But for all the reasons there are to _____ the computer, we must also act with caution. This is because the networked computer has started a secret war between downloading and uploading—between passive consumption and active _____—whose outcome will shape our collective future in ways we can only begin to imagine.
All animals download, but only a few upload anything besides faces and their own bodies. Humans are _____ in their capacity to not only make tools but then turn around and use them to create superfluous( 过 剩 的 ) material goods (paintings, sculpture and architecture) and superfluous experiences (music, literature, religion and philosophy). _____, it is precisely these superfluous things that define human culture and ultimately what it is to be human. Downloading and consuming culture requires great skills, but _____ to move beyond downloading is to rob oneself of a defining ingredient of humanity.
Despite the possibilities of our new culture machines, most people are still _____ download mode, brought about by television watching. Even after the _____ of widespread social media, a pyramid of production remains, with a small number of people uploading material, a slightly larger group commenting on or modifying that content, and a huge percentage remaining satisfied to just _____.
The networked computer offers the first chance in 50 years to _____ the flow caused by TV viewing, to encourage thoughtful downloading and, even more importantly, meaningful uploading. The computer offers the opportunity to bring about a complete _____ from the culture of television and a shift from a consumption model to a production model. This is a historic opportunity. Fifty years of television dominance has given birth to an unhealthy culture. The _____ is now in our collective grasp. It involves controlling our intake, or downloading, and _____ our levels of activity—uploading.
Of course people will still download. Nobody uploads more than a tiny percentage of the culture they consume. But using the networked computer as a download-only device, or even a download-mainly device, is a _____ opportunity that history affords us. Therefore, the goal must be to establish a balance between consumption and production.
1.A.celebration B.conversations C.reception D.ceremonies
2.A.Without doubt B.In return C.In particular D.By contrast
3.A.liberate B.celebrate C.concern D.reject
4.A.request B.support C.defense D.creation
5.A.unique B.familiar C.efficient D.loyal
6.A.In addition B.In fact C.For instance D.By the way
7.A.striving B.comparing C.failing D.attempting
8.A.optimistic about B.unfamiliar with C.stuck in D.ashamed of
9.A.transformation B.emergence C.encounter D.maintenance
10.A.consume B.neglect C.combine D.innovate
11.A.enhance B.quicken C.reverse D.extend
12.A.outcome B.exposure C.break D.evolution
13.A.puzzle B.cure C.regret D.favor
14.A.analyzing B.maintaining C.featuring D.increasing
15.A.wasted B.treasured C.multiplied D.revised
Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage 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 New Hero is Here to Save the Day
It’s thought that when a hero like Batman is blessed with great power, he or she must endure loneliness and suffering as a result. The Flash(闪电侠), however, makes a fun, lightning-quick and optimistic superhero. After the wild success of TV series Arrow, a TV network launched The Flash, 1. (show) the image of this Superhero, who was only a supporting character in Arrow.
Like Spiderman, who gained the ability to make webs and climb walls after he 2. (bite) by a spider, Barry Allen in The Flash was shocked into superhero-status by accident. A strike from a lightning put Allen into a nine-month unconscious state, and when he emerged, he found himself 3. (equip) with super speed.
Naturally, Allen slips on a colorful suit and becomes the Flash, a hero 4. extreme speed to fight super-powered bad guys. But the Flash also has other purposes, namely finding out the truth behind his mother’s death and his father’s unjust imprisonment.
In line with superhero series standards, The Flash features action and eye-popping special effects. There’s nothing terribly innovative here, but 5. we do get is a unique superhero with a more unusual personality. 6. Allen has gone through unpleasant childhood experience, in this show he grows into a superhero 7. powers include optimism. He’s got a group of scientists that not only save his life, but also provide him with emotional support and the tools necessary 8. (fight) crime.
A big surprise for me was that The Flash cast Prison Break star Wentworth Miller as a bad character, who uses a gun that 9. turn anything into ice. US shows began their entrance into the Chinese market with Friends, but Prison Break pushed interest in US TV series to a new height largely thanks to Miller’s wonderful acting. Now Miller’s back to act in The Flash. 10. is a nice surprise that this new show serves as a platform for Prison Break fans to revisit their old favorite, although this time around he’s an antagonist(反派角色).
假如你是李华，你校交换生Peter打算加入你所在的汉服社团（Hanfu Club），请你给他回一封电子邮件。要点如下：
1.欢迎他的加入；
2.介绍社团一些活动。
注意：1. 词数：100左右；
2. 可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯；
3. 开头和结束语已为你写好。
Dear Peter,
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I’m looking forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
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。文中共有10处语言错误，每句中最多有两处。每处错误仅涉及一个单词的增加、删除或修改。
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号（∧），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：在错的词下划一横线，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。
When first learning to ride a bicycle, I decided to go to my friend’s houses for a game of badminton.
On my way there, however, I chased by a fierce dog. I cycled as fast as I could so it jumped at me and caught my leg. I shouted and unlucky fell off my bicycle, that injured my knees. Nervously, I managed to get on the bike. Much to my relief, the dog eventually gave in chasing me. But by then I was too tired to play the badminton. After a short rest at my friend’s house, I leave for home, taking other route this time. Finally, I reached home, feel exhausted after the evening’s adventure.
