Following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pneumonia (NCP), also named COVID-19 by WHO, there is a general fear of the unknown virus as its full effects remain to be seen. Fever, coughing, sore throat, difficulty breathing —the NCP’s symptoms are similar to the common cold or the flu, but it’s potentially more dangerous.
Viruses could be deadly, like HIV and Ebola. But what are viruses? How can they cause so much trouble?
Viruses are non-living organisms (有机体) approximately one-millionth of an inch long. Unlike human cells or bacteria, they can’t reproduce on their own. Instead, they invade the cells of living organisms to reproduce, spread and take over.
Viruses can infect every living thing – from plants and animals down to the smallest bacteria. For this reason, they always have the potential to be dangerous to human life. Sometimes a virus can cause a disease so serious that it is fatal. Other viral infections trigger no noticeable reaction.
Viruses lie around our environment all of the time, waiting for a host cell to come along. They can enter our bodies by the nose, mouth, eyes or breaks in the skin. Once inside, they try to find a host cell to infect. For example, HIV, which causes AIDS, attacks the T-cells of the immune system.
But the basic question is, where did viruses first come from? Until now, no clear explanation for their origin exists. “Tracing the origins of viruses is difficult”, Ed Rybicki, a virologist (病毒学家) at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, told Scientific American, “because viruses don’t leave fossils and because of the tricks they use to make copies of themselves within the cells they’ve invaded”.
However, there are three main hypotheses (假说) to explain the origin of viruses. First, viruses started as independent organisms, then became parasites (寄生者). Second, viruses evolved from pieces of DNA or RNA that “escaped” from larger organisms. Third, viruses co-evolved with their host cells, which means they existed alongside these cells.
For the time being, these are only theories. The technology and evidence we have today cannot be used to test these theories and identify the most plausible explanation. Continuing studies may provide us with clearer answers. Or future studies may reveal that the answer is even murkier (含糊不清的) than it now appears.
1.What can we learn about viruses from the text?
A.Viruses have nothing to do with the common cold.
B.Viruses are really small living organisms.
C.Viruses can’t reproduce unless they find a host cell.
D.Viruses enter our bodies mainly through the mouth, nose and hair.
2.Which of the following might explain the origin of viruses?
A.They evolved from the fossils of large organisms.
B.They evolved from parasites into independent organisms.
C.They evolved from the T-cells in animals.
D.They evolved along with their host cells.
3.The underlined word “plausible” in the last paragraph probably means ________.
A.reasonable B.common
C.creative D.unbelievable
4.What can we conclude from the text?
A.Viruses live longer in human host cells than in animals’.
B.Viruses will become more like bacteria as they evolve.
C.It may take a long time to understand the origin of viruses.
D.The author is optimistic about future virus research.
At a young age, Patti Wilson was told by her doctor that she was an epileptic (癫痫病患者). Her father, Jim Wilson, is a morning jogger. She ran with her father every day. After a few weeks, she told her father, “Daddy, what I’d really love to do is to break the world’s long-distance running record for women.” Her father checked the Guinness World Records and found that the farthest any woman had run was 80 miles.
As a freshman in high school, Patti announced, “I’m going to run from Orange County up to San Francisco.”(A distance of 400 miles.) “As a sophomore (二年级学生),” she went on, “I’m going to run to Portland, Oregon.”(Over 1,500-miles.) “As a junior, I’ll run to St. Louis.”(About 2,000 miles.) “As a senior, I’ll run to the White House.”(More than 3,000 miles away.)
In view of her handicap (缺陷), Patti was as ambitious as she was enthusiastic, but she said she looked at the handicap of being an epileptic as simply “an inconvenience”. She focused not on what she had lost, but on what she had left.
That year she completed her run to San Francisco wearing a T-shirt that read, “I Love Epileptics.” In her sophomore year, Patti’s classmates got behind her. They built a large poster that read — “Run, Patti, Run!”
On her second marathon (马拉松), a doctor told her she had to stop. “Doctor, you don’t understand,” she said. “I’m doing it to break the chains on the brains that limit so many others.”
She finished the run to Portland, completing her last mile with the governor of Oregon. After four months of almost continuous running from the West Coast to the East Coast, Patti arrived in Washington and shook the hand of the then President of the United States. She told him, “I wanted people to know that epileptics are normal human beings with normal lives.”
Because of Patti’s efforts, enough money had been raised to open up 19 multi-million-dollar epileptic centers around the country. If Patti Wilson can do so much with so little, what can you do to outperform (超越) yourself in a state of total wellness?
1.How did Patti look at her illness?
A.She thought of it as a gift.
B.She devoted all her attention to it.
C.She faced it with discouragement.
D.She considered it a small difficulty.
2.What did Patti do when a doctor asked her to stop her run?
A.She continued without quitting.
B.She focused on her treatment.
C.She followed his advice.
D.She asked for her classmates’ assistance.
3.Why did the author ask the question in the last paragraph?
A.To ask readers to answer it.
B.To get inactive people to run.
C.To encourage deep thinking.
D.To show his view on success.
Every new parent knows that rocking can calm that uneasy baby when it’s time to take a nap. But the benefits of gentle movement may go beyond the baby stage. Because two new studies show that rocking also helps grown-ups, both human and mouse, get a good night’s sleep.
What should be no surprise is that movement can calm someone. Think of how many times you’ve fallen asleep on a train. But can motion really cause a nap, and make for a deeper sleep?
To find out, researchers invited 18 healthy volunteers for a sleepover. “So they came to the lab and slept one time on the motionless, normal bed. And one night where they got rocked.” said Aurore Perrault, a sleep researcher at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. “And what we find is that when compared to a motionless night, a whole night of rocking sleep has a beneficial effect not only on sleep beginning but also on sleep continuity. “Subjects who were rocked also did better on a memory test the next morning than the stiller sleepers.
In the second study, Kompotis, a student at the University of Lausanne, rocked a group of mice. “Whether rocking affects sleep in other species was never before discussed. So the main questions for our study were whether rocking affects sleep in mice and what is the possible system? ”
Kompotis placed the mouse cages on a platform that moved from side to side. Though mice were rocked four times faster than their human counterparts—a frequency of one back-and-forth per second, or 1 Hertz, worked best—the results were strikingly similar. “During rocking at 1 Hertz, time spent asleep increased, and mice fell asleep twice as fast as at still condition.” However, additional studies could allow the researchers to identify a new aim for treating sleep disorders, including insomnia (失眠).
If you want a good night’s sleep, you might think about adding a little swing to your night-time routine.
1.What’s the purpose of the second study in the passage?
A.To do research on the sleep system of other species.
B.To see whether rocking affects sleep of other species.
C.To discuss in which case rocking affects baby’s sleep.
D.To study the influence of rocking on sleep disorders.
2.What do we know about the mice in Paragraph 5?
A.Their sleeping time went up when rocked at 1 Hertz.
B.Their sleep disorder including insomnia was treated.
C.When rocked, they fell asleep four times faster than at still condition.
D.When rocked, they slept faster than their human counterparts.
3.What’s the best title of the passage?
A.Rocking Helps Grown-ups Sleep Too.
B.Deep Sleep Needs the Constant Swing.
C.Rocking Greatly Affects Deep Sleep.
D.Rocking Can Treat Sleep Disorders.
假定你是李华，你的美国笔友Mike所在的华盛顿中学将在7月举行中国文化日活动，他给你来信寻求活动的相关建议，请给他回信，内容包括：
1.活动的内容和形式；
2.说明推荐理由。
注意：
1.词数100左右；
2.可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯
参考词汇：paper-cutting剪纸 calligraphy书法
Dear Mike,
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours 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。
In the past three years, many activities had been organized by our school. What impressed me mostly was an activity calling “Learning to Farm”. In an autumn afternoon, we went to a farm, where we learned knowledge and had many fun. Having been in the city for such a long time, we were more than happy to go to a countryside. After we arrived, we divided into three groups. Some students learned how to raise pigs, some worked in the garden, and the other helped the farmers with the work in the fishpond. It was not until it was totally dark when we stopped working. Though we were tired out but we felt pleased on our way back home.
Michael Evans was standing in line, waiting to pay his taxes. Suddenly, he heard a/an_________sound ahead of him. The elderly woman at the window was crying. Then Evans learned why: he heard the cashier (出纳员) _________ her that her house was headed for auction (拍卖). He also heard the woman tell the cashier that her daughter had recently died.
Evans, who had just _________his father, knew too well the pain of losing a loved one. He _________the window, saying to the cashier, “If you can get her house back, I’ll pay for her taxes. The amount due: $20,000.”
The elderly woman was _________. Her despair turned to disbelief. The cashier left to _________ the amount and Evans _________to go straight to the bank for the money. And he did.
But when he___________, he asked someone else to hand the money to the cashier. Evans was trying to slip away _______. “I didn’t want this attention,” he explains.
Of course, ____________found him — it’s not every day that someone pays a stranger’s large tax bill. That said, Evans often finds himself on the giving end of such situation, ______________ for years he went unrecognized for it.
Evans received a/an ____________for his lifetime of ____________ a few weeks after the tax incident.____________he didn’t want the attention, but his son thought differently, “So good to see my dad finally get the recognition he____________.”
Michael Evans Sr. will retire soon and he hopes he’ll continue to ____________his local youth football league team — he pays for their equipment and uniforms. His son will ____________the business, with his dad’s love for charity. “I feel __________of my father. When a man heard a stranger was about to lose her house. He opened his heart — and his__________.”
“I ____________my life after him and I want my children to look at me the way I look at my dad.”
1.A.amazing B.disappointing C.encouraging D.disturbing
2.A.convince B.inform C.teach D.write
3.A.buried B.called C.found D.imagined
4.A.approached B.broke C.cleaned D.opened
5.A.discouraged B.interested C.surprised D.worried
6.A.confirm B.double C.limit D.reduce
7.A.tended B.regretted C.promised D.refused
8.A.hesitated B.returned C.left D.spoke
9.A.bravely B.lonely C.proudly D.quietly
10.A.attention B.chance C.money D.progress
11.A.as B.if C.though D.until
12.A.award B.present C.letter D.call
13.A.ability B.curiosity C.dignity D.generosity
14.A.Thus B.Again C.Besides D.Instead
15.A.wants B.deserves C.forgets D.ignores
16.A.educate B.train C.sponsor D.unite
17.A.come up with B.get away with C.put up with D.carry on with
18.A.ashamed B.afraid C.proud D.tired
19.A.mouth B.wallet C.account D.door
20.A.name B.seek C.spend D.model
