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.
Barditch High School decided to an All-School Reunion. Over 450 people came to the event. There were tours of the old school building and a picnic at Confederate Park. Several former teachers were on hands to tell stories about the old days. Ms. Mabel Yates, the English teacher for fifty years, 1.(wheel)to the Park.
Some eyes rolled and there were a few low groans(嘟囔声)when Ms.Yates was about to speak. Many started looking at their watches and coming up with excuses to be anywhere instead of preparing to listen to a lecture from an old woman 2. had few kind words for her students and made them work harder than all the other teachers combined.
Then Ms. Yates started to speak:
"I can't tell you 3. pleased I am to be here. I haven't seen many of you since your graduation, 4.I have followed your careers and enjoyed your victories as well as crying for your tragedies. I have a large collection of newspaper photographs of my students. 5. I haven't appeared in person, I have attended your college graduations, weddings and even the birth your children, in my imagination."
Ms. Yates paused and started crying a bit. Then she continued:" It was my belief that if I pushed you as hard as I could, some of you would succeed to please me and 6.would succeed to annoy me. Regardless of our motives, I can see that you have all been successful in your 7.（choose） path."
"There is no greater comfort for an educator than 8.(see) the end result of his or her years of work. You have all been a great source of pleasure and pride for me and I want you to know I love you all from the bottom of my heart."
There was a silence over the crowd for a few seconds and then someone started clapping. The clapping turned into cheering, then into a 9. （deafen）roar(呼喊). Lawyers, truck drivers, bankers and models were rubbing their eyes or crying openly with no shame all 10. of the words from a long forgotten English teacher from their hometown.
Directions: Write an English composition in 120-150 words according to the instructions.
越来越多的城市居民养宠物, 宠物给人带来欢乐,但是经常会有扰民或伤人的事件发生。有人提议禁止城市居民养宠物。 请谈谈你的看法。
Directions: Translate the following sentences into English, using the words given in brackets.
1.只要你有耐心，你总能在夜市淘到一些便宜货。(pick up)
2.让他宽慰的是，在房价飙升之前，他在同事的建议下买了一套公寓。(advice)
3.这个品牌的手机各方面都比所有其他的手机好，只是价格实在太贵了。(superior)
4.鉴于这个计划风险太大，虽然设计者的分析听上去很合理，政府最终没有采纳。(risky)
Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and main point(s) of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.
The New Dinner and a Movie
Dinner and a movie was a two-part affair. But increasingly, the two have blended into a single experience, allowing moviegoers to get fries and a beer while they watch the latest superhero blockbuster. Full-service theaters have become a Friday-night pastime as Americans are going to the movies.
Dine-in cinemas are not altogether new. In the late 1980s, brothers Mike and Brian Mc Menamin opened one in Portland, Ore. A decade later, inspired by the Mc Menamins, Tim and Karrie League began pairing trendy beer with hits like The Craft at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin. But in recent years, the trend has expanded from marginal to mainstream. There are now 29 Alamo locations nationwide, from Omaha to El Paso.
Full-service theaters appeal to a broader, more regionally diverse customer base. At Movie Tavern in Roswel, Ga., for instance, you can order popcorn seafood and a “Jumbo Jar” cocktail while watching Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. AMC, the biggest U.S. movie-theater company, launched Dine-In, where meals can be ordered with the push of a button.
The rise in full-service moviegoing coincides with declining ticket sales across the industry more broadly. North American movie attendance in 2017 dropped to what appears to be a 27-year low. The downward tendency is the continuation of a 15-year trend. As younger audiences choose to consume content on their smartphones and the popularity of streaming rises dramatically, it’s no wonder that theater owners are seeking creative ways to stimulate customers off their couches. It’s working: despite a 2% decline in movie attendance over four years, AMC Dine-In achieved 4% growth in just two.
Full-service theaters are not without complaints. Despite servers’ attempts to quiet down, many find them distracting when serving food. Besides, prices tend to get steeper once varieties of food enter the mix.
But for those with the funds, the full-service theater offers reason enough to quit online movies.
Directions: Read the following passage. Fill in each blank with a proper sentence given in the box. Each sentence can be used only once. Note that there are two more sentences than you need.
There’s no denying crows are smart. They can remember where food has been hidden, recognize faces and craft tools. And, according to a new paper in Scientific Reports, some crows can even make those tools from memory. This skill may point to these clever corvids having a sort of culture of their own.
Researchers, led by Sarah Jelbert at the University of Cambridge, worked specifically with New Caledonian crows. 1. But experts haven’t been able to make sure where the crows pick up their skills. A bird in one area can construct the same tool as another bird miles away — but there’s no evidence bird one watched bird two build the gadget in order to copy it. And New Caledonian crows don’t really have a language, either.
2. Jelbert and her team had a hunch(预感) that it was because the birds were building based on the memory of tools they’d seen.
To test this, the group trained eight crows to place pieces of paper into a pseudo-vending machine (really just a wooden box) to get a treat. 3. Once they learned which sizes were rewarded, Jelbert and her team then gave the feathered participants large cards; the birds could fashion these into the coin sizes they’d picked up on earlier. Importantly, the crows didn’t get any sort of template(模板) when they were working with the big cards. And the birds snipped them into pieces that were similar in size to the coins they’d learned would get them treats.
Given the lack of a template to copy, it seems the crows were able to construct mental images of the coins and use it to replicate a tool. 4. These birds can see something and not just build it from memory, but potentially make improvements in their designs. “Most importantly,” the authors say in the study, “an improvement made by a crow during its lifetime could become part of the template learnt by subsequent generations, leading to an increase in tool complexity over time.” And this progression is a key component of cultural progression.
Jelbert and her team recognize there’s still work to be done to see if their hypothesis is solid, like testing how long the crows can remember their mental images of the tools.
A. So if they’re not building by imitation or carrying out instructions, how is this knowledge getting passed around?
B. Crafting tool is a kind of culture, which can be passed down from generation to generation by crows.
C. However, the crows only got treats when they popped in a paper “coin” of a certain size.
D. These birds, native to the islands of New Caledonia east of Australia, are known for their ability to craft tools.
E. Seeing this in action is important because it supports the idea that New Caledonian crows are capable of building — at least when it comes to crafting tools.
F. Jelbert and her team then gave the crows paper to let them cut into proper size.
Recently, a coalition of business and advocacy groups from around Washington gathered to kick off a campaign to enact a carbon pricing program in the capital. Known as the Climate and Community Reinvestment Act of D.C., the plan would place a new tax on all fossil fuels bought or sold, with the hope of ultimately discouraging the use of these polluting energy sources.
The big-picture goal of this campaign is admirable: to address the ever-deepening crisis of humanity-driven climate chaos by dissuading the continued use of coal, oil and gas, the filthy substances rapidly warming our planet. But unfortunately, the approach — one based in a world of financial markets, trading schemes and enticing new public revenue streams — is deeply and inherently flawed. Simply put, carbon pricing is a false solution to climate change and a distraction from real, effective climate solutions we must urgently pursue.
To date, there is scant(不足的) evidence to indicate that carbon taxes lower greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, the opposite is true. Recently Food & Water Watch reviewed the British Columbia carbon tax program, often cited by advocates as an example of success. From 2009 (the first full year of the tax) to 2014, emissions from taxed sources grew by 4.3 percent. And in the seven years after the carbon tax took effect, total gasoline sales increased by 7.37 percent.
Supporters of such plans like to focus on a deceivingly simple notion that increasing the price of a consumer good will automatically reduce its use. But this just isn’t the case when it comes to the purchase of necessities. People must heat their homes in winter, and they must commute to work, regardless of the cost.
Those backing the D.C. carbon pricing plan like to note that revenue from the new tax would go toward investment in clean energy sources. But only 20 percent of the generated funds would be allocated in this manner. The rest would be divvied(分摊) up in tax breaks for businesses and rebates(回扣) for consumers, another factor undercutting the notion that increased costs up front would change consumer behavior in the long run.
Meanwhile, fossil fuel giants such as ExxonMobil are increasingly coming out in support of carbon pricing. This should be cause for alarm for anyone concerned with stamping out the use of the dirty energy sources these corporations profit from. Exxon knows that carbon taxes will do little to change the business-as-usual dependence on oil and gas that it relies on to continue operating and enriching shareholders. Furthermore, corporations such as Exxon rightly view carbon pricing schemes as a means of diverting energy and interest from tougher regulations that might actually encroach on(侵犯) their business plans and bottom lines.
Despite what many well-intentioned activists and community leaders want to believe, there is no convenient, market-friendly solution to our dire climate condition. There is only the hard truth that we must tackle the problem at its source: We must stop using fossil fuels, and soon. The latest science indicates that in order to avoid the worst effects of deepening climate chaos, society must transition completely to clean, renewable energy by 2035.
1.Food &Water Watch found that _______ .
A.carbon taxes could limit greenhouse gas emissions
B.taxing carbon emissions did not reduce pollution
C.carbon emissions grew at a lower rate than gasoline sales
D.British Columbia carbon tax program achieved lasting effect
2.Which of the following is true, according to Paragraphs 4 and 5?
A.Consumers will use less of a good when its price increases.
B.Carbon taxes will benefit the development of clean energy.
C.Increased cost will do little to change the use of necessities.
D.The dependence on fossil fuels will decrease automatically.
3.Fossil fuel giants _________.
A.are expressing dissatisfaction with carbon pricing schemes
B.are reducing their dependence on dirty energy sources
C.view clean renewable energy as their future source of profits
D.see carbon pricing as distraction from tough rules against them
4.The most suitable title for this text would be __________.
A.The Carbon Tax Fallacy(谬论) B.The Climate Change Myth
C.The Call for Clean Energy D.The Causes of Climate Chaos
