Translations
1.如果驾驶员违反交通规则，除了罚款之外，还有别的处罚办法？（alternative）
2.上班时间打盹的员工应该为此事故负责。（blame）
3.由于互联网技术的发展，越来越多的中国企业可以在网上寻找潜在客户，和外国企业做生意。（thanks）
4.我这一生都没有想过自己能身处这样一个环境，在这里鼓励每个人展示不同之处，在学习中找到自己的声音。（Never）
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 passage carefully. Fill in each blank with a proper sentence given behind. Each sentence can be used only once. Note that there are two more sentences than you need.
Living off grid
When you need electricity, you just plug in the machine and switch it on. If you need water, you turn on the tap. 1. For many people, these facilities are the basics of civilized society and the idea of living without them seems risky. Yet for a growing number of people, the idea of living off grid — without electricity, water or sewage — is an increasingly attractive lifestyle.
Off-gridders do not have to give up electricity or a modern lifestyle — some choose to, but most use small hydroelectric power systems, solar panels or windmills to generate enough power for their needs. Heating and cooking needs are met by solar energy or wood burning systems, and toilet facilities range from non-water toilets to outside compost toilets. 2. It ranges from traditional yurts (a type of tent) to luxury house with high-speed internet and central heating. Whether they live in simple homes or luxury houses, what they all have in common is that their lifestyles do not create any pollution or carbon emissions — the ultimate goal for off-gridders.
Around 100,000 people are thought to be living off grid in the UK now. 3. They grow their own food, home-school their children and provide their own medical care. They are people who have been priced out of the housing market or who have grown disillusioned with what modern society can offer and who decides that an alternative lifestyle isn’t a pipe dream, but a viable option.
A part from living an alternative lifestyle, cost is a big factor in choosing to live off-grid. Off-grid houses are far cheaper to build than ordinary homes since they don’t need to be connected to the electricity or water supplies and even road access is not necessary. Materials tend to be cheaper, too. Popular options include straw or old tyres and cement.
Surprisingly, the biggest problem off-gridders face is not building their homes or becoming self-sufficient but getting permission to build. Rural areas away from town are the perfect choice but these are often protected by law from construction of any kind or have building restrictions. There are now several websites dedicated to land-sharing so that the costs of buying land and getting permission can be shared, and there are increasing numbers of off-grid communities. 4. Off-gridding could soon be common all over Europe and America.
A.Many are self-sufficient, not just providing their own electricity, water and sewage systems, but in all aspects.
B.After you use the toilet, you flush it and the waste disappears.
C.This shift from individual to group off-gridding reflects the fact that the trend is growing noticeably.
D.They live in a huge variety of types of accommodation.
E.Living off-grid still has a long way to go before it becomes a mainstream way of living.
F.Rather than building permanent homes, vans or mobile homes or even old shipping containers are other options.
It was in the archives (档案室) of the Archbishop of York that Matthew Collins had a sudden insight: He was surrounded by millions of animal skins.
Another person might say they were surrounded by books and manuscripts written on parchment, which is made from skins, usually of cows and sheep. Collins, however, had been trying to make sense of animal-bone fragments from archaeological digs, and he began to think about the advantages of studying animal skins, already cut into rectangles and arranged neatly on a shelf. Archaeologists consider themselves lucky to get a few dozen samples, and here were millions of skins just sitting there.
In recent years, archaeologists and historians have awakened to the potential of ancient DNA extracted from human bones and teeth. DNA evidence has enriched — and complicated — stories of prehistoric human migrations. It has provided tantalizing clues to epidemics such as the black death. It has identified the remains of King Richard III, found under a parking lot. But Collins isn’t just interested in human remains. He’s interested in the things these humans made; the animals they bred, slaughtered, and ate; and the economies they created.
That’s why he was studying DNA from the bones of livestock — and why his lab is now at the forefront of studying DNA from objects such as parchment and beeswax. These objects can fill in gaps in the written record, revealing new aspects of historical production and trade. How much beeswax came from North Africa, for example?
Collins splits his time between Cambridge and the University of Copenhagen, and it’s hard to nail down exactly what kind of — ologist he is. He has a knack for gathering experts as diverse as parchment specialists, veterinarians, geneticists, archivists, economic historians, and protein scientists (his own background). “All I do is connect people together,” he said. “I’m just the ignorant one in the middle.”
However, it didn’t take long for his group to hit their first culture conflict. In science and archaeology, destructive sampling is at least tolerated, if not encouraged. But book conservators were not going to let people in white coats come in and cut up their books. Instead of giving up or fighting through it, Sarah Fiddyment, a postdoctoral research fellow working with Collins, shadowed conservationists for several weeks. She saw that they used white Staedtler erasers to clean the manuscripts, and wondered whether that rubbed off enough DNA to do the trick. It did; the team found a way to extract DNA and proteins from eraser pieces, a compromise that satisfied the team found a way to extract DNA and proteins from eraser pieces, a compromise that satisfied everyone. The team has since sampled 5,000 animals from parchment this way.
Collins is not the first person to think of getting DNA from parchment, but he’s been the first to do it at scale. Studying the DNA in artifacts is still a relatively new field, with many prospects that remain unexplored. But in our own modern world, we’ve already started to change the biological record, and future archaeologists will not find the same treasure of hidden information in our petroleum-laden material culture. Collins pointed out that we no longer rely as much on natural materials to create the objects we need. What might have once been leather or wood or wool is now all plastic.
1.How is Collin’s study different from the study of other archaeologists?
A.He studies human skins and bones.
B.He is the first person to study animal skins.
C.He studies objects related to humans and their lives.
D.His study can provide clues to previous epidemics.
2.Collin thinks of himself as ignorant because _____.
A.his major doesn’t help his research
B.he can’t connect experts of different fields
C.he finds it hard to identify what kind of — ologist he is
D.his study covers a wide range of subjects beyond his knowledge
3.What can be inferred form the passage?
A.Destructive sampling is not allowed in the field of science and archeology.
B.Collin made a compromise by only studying copies of books made of animal skins.
C.Book protectors were opposed to Collin’s study because his group tracked them for several weeks.
D.It is difficult for future archeologists to study what society is like today due to plastic objects.
4.What may be the appropriate title of this passage?
A.A new discovery in archaeology
B.A lab discovering DNA in old books
C.Archaeology on animals seeing a breakthrough
D.Collin’s contributions to the identification of old books
Amazon Charts
The Top Five Most Sold & Most Read Books of the Week
No. 1 It — Now a major film BY STEPHEN KING
Stephen King’s terrifying, classic # 1 New York Times bestseller, “a landmark in American literature (Chicago Sun-Times)”— about seven adults who return to their hometown to fight a nightmare they had first been troubled with as teenagers…an evil without a-name: it.
Readers of Stephen King know that Derry, Maine, is a place with a deep, dark hold on the author. It reappears in many of his books, including Bag of Bones, Hearts in Atlantis and 11/22/63. But it all starts with It.
No. 2 A Column of Fire — # 1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER BY KENFOLLETT
In 1558, the ancient stones of Kingsbridge Cathedral looked down on a city split by religious conflict. As power in England shifted dangerously between Catholics and Protestants, royalty and commoners clashed, testing friendship, loyalty and love…
No. 3 A Game of Thrones — NOW THE ACCLAIMED HBO SERIES GAME OF THRONES BY GEORGE R. R. MARTIN
From a master of contemporary fantasy comes the first novel of a landmark series unlike any you’ve ever read before. With A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin has launched a genuine masterpiece, bringing together the best the genre has to offer. Mystery, intrigue, romance and adventure fill the pages of this magnificent saga, the first volume in an epic series sure to delight fantasy fans everywhere.
No. 4 The Cuban Affair — INSTANT # 1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER BY NELSON DEMILLE
Brilliantly written with his signature humor and real experience from his research trip to Cuba… Nelson DeMille is a true master of genre.
No. 5 Sleeping Beauties BY OWEN KING, STEPHEN KING
In this spectacular father/son collaboration, Stephen King and Owen King tell the “highest of high-stakes stories: What might happen if women disappeared from the world of men?”
In a future so real and near that it might be now, something happens when women go to sleep. And while they sleep, they go to another place, a better place, where harmony prevails and conflict is rare…
1.According to the article, which book is co-authored?
A.It B.A Game of Thrones
C.The Cuban Affair D.Sleeping Beauties
2.According to the passage, which books have been adapted for television or the big screen?
A.It and A Game of Thrones B.Origin and The Cuban Affair
C.A Game of Thrones and Origin D.Sleeping Beauties and A Column of Fire
3.According to the article, which of the following statements is true?
A.The Cuban Affairs is a novel written with a serious tone.
B.The story in A Column of Fire is set in a modern European country.
C.It describes a frightening story set in Derry, a location familiar to readers of Stephen King.
D.The author of A Game of Thrones has also written other books, including Bags of Bones.
Swimming in an ocean of stars
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It’s my great honor to receive the Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society. Thank you.
I started writing sci-fi because I looked for a way to escape the dull life, and to reach out, with imagination, to the mysterious time and space that I could never truly reach. But then I realized that the world around me became more and more like science fiction, and this process is speeding up. Future is like pouring rain. It reaches us even before we have time to open the umbrella. Meanwhile, when sci-fi becomes reality, it loses all its magic, and that frustrates me. Sci-fi will soon become part of our lives. The only thing I can do, is to push my imagination further to even more distant time and space to hunt for the mysteries of sci-fi. As a sci-fi author, I think my job is to write things down before they get really boring.
This being said, the world is moving in the direction opposite to Clarke’s predictions. In 2001, A Space Odyssey, in the year of 2001, which has already passed, human beings have built magnificent cities in space, and established permanent colonies on the moon, and huge nuclear-powered spacecraft have sailed to Saturn. However, today, in 2018, the walk on the moon has become a distant memory. And the furthest reach of our manned space flights is just as long as the two-hour mileage of a high-speed train passing through my city.
As a sci-fi writer, I have been striving to continue Arthur Clarke’s imagination. I believe that the boundless space is still the best direction and destination for human imagination. I have always written about the magnitude and mysteries of the universe, interstellar expeditions, and the lives and civilizations happening in distant worlds. This remains today, although this may seem childish or even outdated. It says on Arthur Clarke’s epitaph,“He never grew up, but he never stopped growing.”
Many people misunderstand sci-fi as trying to predict the future, but this is not true. It just makes a list of possibilities of what may happen in the future, like displaying a pile of cobblestones for people to see and play with. Science fiction can never tell which scenario of the future will actually become the real future. This is not its job. It’s also beyond its capabilities. But one thing is certain: in the long run, for all these countless possible futures, any future without space travel is gloomy, no matter how prosperous our own planet becomes.
Sci-fi was writing about the age of digital information and it eventually became true. I now look forward to the time when space travel finally becomes the ordinary. By then, Mars and the asteroid belts will be boring places and countless people are building a home over there. Jupiter and its many satellites will be tourist attractions. The only obstacle preventing people from going there for good, will be the crazy price.
But even at that time, the universe is still unimaginably big that even our wildest imagination fails to catch its edge. And even the closest star remains out of reach. The vast ocean of stars can always carry our infinite imagination.
Thank you all.
1.What does the writer mean by the underlined sentence in the second paragraph?
A.Science technology has been developing fast before we realize it.
B.What happened in our life was mysterious and beyond our imagination.
C.We had a good outlook for the future and were desperate to realize our dream.
D.We managed to escape from the boring life and looked forward to the prosperous future.
2.What can we learn from the third paragraph?
A.What Clarke foresaw is childish and out of date, going against scientific theories.
B.It is feasible for human beings to fulfill challenging space missions that Clarke forecast.
C.Human beings have deserted imaging and exploring the attractive and boundless space.
D.Clarke’s predictions haven’t happened in real life and the reality won’t change very soon.
3.According to the passage, which of the following statements is true?
A.What is written in science fiction can never become a reality.
B.The writer considers it his duty to create sci-fi with author Clarke.
C.Science fiction provides readers with possibilities that future will bring about.
D.High price will likely stop humans from dreaming of living on other planets.
4.What’s the writer’s attitude towards sci-fi creation?
A.Curious B.Passionate
C.Concerned D.Suspicious
