People release (放) balloons for special occasions like memorial services and grand openings. It is fun and exciting. But it really causes great destruction to the environment and threatens the 1. (life) of our wildlife.

When a balloon 2. (fly) into the sky, it doesn’t end up 3. (stay) there. It eventually bursts and returns to the earth as ugly litter. Balloons can even travel thousands of miles and pollute the most remote and pure places. More 4. (sad), they can present a threat to many animals. Birds, whales, turtles and other animals often mistake balloons 5. food, which can do damage to them because balloons contain 6. (harm) chemicals. Balloons even kill animals. When an animal swallows a balloon，it can block its intestinal tract (肠道), resulting in starvation.

Part of the reason why releasing balloons 7. (permit) in so many places is that some balloons do break down eventually. However, it takes about four years 8. (break) down completely.

Watching hundreds of balloons slowly going up into the sky might give you a five-second thrill, 9. is it worth a bunch of dead animals and so many places full of rubbish? Absolutely not. 10. we should do is to get creative and come up with alternative ways to celebrate.

13-year-old Madison was studying at home when her mother burst in. She said a boy had fallen into a septic tank (化粪池) and made an urgent ____ for Madison’s help.

They ran to a neighbor yard, where the ____ adults surrounded the septic tank opening ____wider than a basketball. The boy, aged only 2, had slipped in and was ____.

Madison quickly ____ the situation. She was the only one who could ____ through the small opening. Without ____, she got close to the opening and said, “____ me in.”

Some people held her waist and ____. She wiggled (扭动) arms and shoulders until she ____ the opening. Inside, the tank was dark and the air smelly. When she stuck her arms into the dirty water, she jammed her left wrist against a hidden stick, ____ it severely.

____ tend to her injury, Madison scanned the surface of the dirty water, hoping to ____ the underwater boy. Suddenly she saw his little toes stick out. When spotting the vague ____ of his foot again, Madison shot out her ____ hand, grasped the foot tightly and shouted, “Pull me up!”

As they nearly reached the surface, the boy’s other foot got stuck. She wiggled his foot until it was ____. Eventually they were lifted out.

____, the kid wasn’t out of trouble. Having suffered from lack of ____ that long, he wasn’t breathing. He was then given hard hits on the back until he coughed up water. At the sight of this, Madison sighed with ____.

Madison received months of treatment for her wrist, which made her ____ actions more impressive.

1.A. appointment    B. attempt    C. choice    D. request

2.A. anxious    B. curious    C. annoyed    D. merciful

3.A. partly    B. previously    C. slightly    D. dramatically

4.A. floating    B. weeping    C. trembling    D. drowning

5.A. controlled    B. examined    C. took part in    D. gave up

6.A. look    B. jump    C. fill    D. fit

7.A. time    B. permission    C. hesitation    D. judgment

8.A. Throw    B. Lower    C. Force    D. Push

9.A. legs    B. arms    C. head    D. hands

10.A. adjusted to    B. got through    C. tore down    D. held on to

11.A. touching    B. trapping    C. injuring    D. striking

12.A. In an effort to    B. Rather than    C. Likely to    D. Ready to

13.A. feel    B. smell    C. follow    D. attract

14.A. skin    B. gesture    C. picture    D. outline

15.A. left    B. single    C. good    D. clumsy

16.A. frozen    B. free    C. flexible    D. bare

17.A. However    B. Instead    C. Therefore    D. Personally

18.A. protection    B. oxygen    C. gravity    D. energy

19.A. fright    B. cold    C. relief    D. respect

20.A. unselfish    B. thoughtless    C. unconscious    D. random

Culture shock is the emotional and mental reaction to being in a completely new cultural environment. 1. it generally consists of several stages of feelings.

The “honeymoon stage” is usually, the first stage that people go through when surrounded by different cultural values and lifestyles. During this stage, people have positive images of their new cultural surroundings. They tend to view these in an idealistic way and ignore problems. 2. This stage is usually quite short and quickly replaced by the second stage called “the frustration stage”.

During the “frustration stage”, newcomers begin to act negatively. 3. Visitors tend to exaggerate (夸大) problems in the new culture. They may feel isolated (孤立) during this stage. Depending on one’s situation, this stage can last days, months, or even years.

With the frustration stage ending, the adjustment stage begins. This marks the time when newcomers try their best to accept the differences of the new culture and the challenges of everyday life.

4. Some newcomers enter the “mastery stage” and are completely accustomed to the values and beliefs of the new culture. They are able to handle the new culture like a native while keeping some of their own original cultural values. Some choose the “rejection stage” and decide against fitting in with the new culture. 5.    _ Other newcomers completely adopt the identity of the new culture and give up the values and beliefs of their home culture.

A. Meeting new people is seen as fascinating.

B. The new cultural surroundings are no longer novel.

C. They regain their sense of balance and become confident.

D. This process opens the door to three possible outcomes.

E. For many people this is often a very difficult experience.

F. A person experiencing culture shock may display many symptoms.

G. They usually permanently withdraw from the culture through isolation or returning home.

A Japanese company is developing a pair of smart glasses that can help those with visual or comprehension problems to read written text more easily. Called the Oton Glass, the glasses are meant to translate text into sound using two cameras and an earpiece, both fitted to its frame.

Half of the lens (镜片) is a mirror that reflects the wearer’s eyes back to the first camera, which tracks eye movement. The other camera captures the text. Wearers use the glasses by staring at the text they can’t read and blinking (眨眼) to trigger the glasses. Then the captured words are sent to a cloud system, which processes the text and turns it into sound played through the earpiece. If the system is unable to identify the words, the images are sent to a remote worker who can deal with them.

The Oton Glass lead designer, Keisuke Shimakage, started working on the glasses in 2012 to aid his father, who had developed dyslexia, a condition that makes it difficult for someone to read and spell. While his father eventually recovered, Shimakage continued his development in order to help others with the disorder.

Currently, the Oton Glass is seeking funding. Backers can get a pair of the glasses for 5,000 yen (roughly $47).

Smart glasses aren’t a new concept, but it’s difficult to point to any single pair of smart glasses that people have reviewed favorably. It could, perhaps, be that previous products tried to do too much, or were too expensive. That’s why Intel’s Vaunt smart glasses stripped out some features, like its camera, LCD screen, and speakers. The Oton Glass is for a very specific audience, and its relatively low price could make it more appealing to those who want an affordable way to understand the text around them.

1.What was Keisuke’s original purpose in designing the Oton Glass?

A. To treat his father’s disease.

B. To translate text into sound.

C. To assist his father to read.

D. To make written text easier to read.

2.What is the right order how the Oton Glass works?

a. The camera captures the words.

b. The wearer stares at the text.

c. The wearer hears the sound via the earpiece.

d. The cloud system turns the text into sound.

e. The wearer blinks to get the glasses working.

A. a, b, e, c, d    B. e, b, c, d, a

C. b, d, a, e, c    D. b, e, a, d, c

3.The underlined part “stripped out” in the last paragraph can be replaced by ________.

A. improved    B. removed

C. increased    D. invented

4.What is the last paragraph mainly about?

A. The advantages of the Oton Glass.

B. The characteristics of smart glasses.

C. Consumers’ evaluation of the Oton Glass.

D. The target audiences of various smart glasses.

Dogs and humans have been living side-by-side for about 15,000 years, but there are tons of facts about dogs that perhaps we have never heard of.

Night vision

Dogs have good night vision. Their large pupils let more light in and the rods (视杆细胞) work better in poor light. But the biggest factor is the tapetum (反光组织), which reflect light at the back of the eye. Besides, dogs’ whiskers (胡须) also help them “see” in the dark because they pick up on very small changes in air, providing dogs with information about the size, shape, and speed of things nearby.

Secret tail code

Dogs can use their tails to communicate. They wag their tails to the right when they are relaxed or happy, and to the left when nervous or threatened. When they’ re aggressive, the tails will stick straight-up in the air. A broad wag is friendly while a slow wag is neutral, neither excited nor anxious.

Dreams

We often see a dog’s body making sudden movements in its sleep. Dogs have the same brain wave patterns as humans’ while they are asleep, so they dream just like we do.

Super nose

Dogs can find their way home despite long distances. Their noses are a vital part of their incredible sense of direction. The part of a dog’s brain that controls smell is 40 times larger than humans’. They’re able to follow smells for miles. Furthermore, dogs have an amazing ability to recognize the smells given off by the abnormal cells in human bodies, including cancer. This is something scientists are eager to explore further. And interesting, a dog’s “fingerprint” is on its nose. The patterns on dogs’ noses are so distinct that they can actually be used to identify the animals.

A sixth sense

Dogs act strangely before something bad, like a storm or earthquake, happens, for they are sensitive to low frequencies that humans can’t sense. So don’t let their strange behavior go unnoticed next time. It could save your life.

1.Which of the following indirectly helps dogs see well in the dark?

A. Their rods.    B. Their tapetum.

C. Their whiskers.    D. Their pupils.

2.If a dog holds up the tail, it indicates ________.

A. happiness    B. attack

C. friendliness    D. relaxation

3.What hasn’t been discovered about a dog?

A. Why it can sense natural disasters.    B. Why it has an acute sense of smell.

C. What emotions it shows with its tail.    D. How it can smell humans’ illnesses.

4.In what way are dogs like humans?

A. They dream when they sleep.    B. They have good night vision.

C. They have distinct nose patterns.    D. They can react to low frequencies.

For years going home for the holidays has been bittersweet. I appreciate the opportunity to spend quality time with my mom but it is painful for me to see her house littered with stuff (物品). Clothes bought but never worn, and new items in their original packaging carelessly purchased and never used. It’s evident that seeing the stuff on a daily basis reminds my mom of a time when shopping was her way of spending money.

I didn’t fully understand the extent to which my mom was suffering until this week, when I saw piles of clothes on her bed, “How do you manage to sleep every night with all that stuff, Mom?” I asked. To my horror, she replied to it because I know I have to get rid of all this stuff eventually; I am punishing myself by sleeping with them until I do that.”

Shocked and upset, I gently explained to her that punishing herself was only to make things worse, and that everybody deserves a place to sleep in peace, no matter what mistakes they’ve made. I suggested she move all the stuff upstairs, leaving her room comfortable to sleep in.

With patience and her slow but steady guidance, I helped her go through some of the piles and move them upstairs. For the rest of the week I stayed there, she was in a better mood and was excited about going-through the rest of the house to finally get rid of her stuff—past mistakes and painful times. The items brought back painful memories as we inspected and moved them, but I kept reminding her that removing them would allow her to move on and heal. We finally sold so many things and took bag after bag to charity.

The stuff is just a sign of the destructive patterns of self-hatred on past mistakes. Only through the act of self-forgiveness can we bring about a chain reaction of reorganizing— both of the house and heart.

1.What made the author feel bitter?

A. She couldn’t understand her mom’s sorrows.

B. Her mom was stuck in the painful memories.

C. Her mom was always left alone at home.

D. Her mom wasted money on useless things,

2.The underlined word “that” in the second paragraph refers to ________.

A. getting rid of the stuff.    B. buying the stuff

C. opening the stuff    D. moving the stuff

3.We can infer from the passage that ________.

A. the author never bought her mom anything

B. the author’s mom has no money to purchase now

C. the author s mom regrets buying so many things

D. the author knows her mom’s suffering only this week

4.What’s the best title of the passage?

A. How to do shopping wisely    B. The importance of self-forgiveness.

C. Keep an eye on the elderly’s behavior    D. Clearance helps remove suffering

In many fields youngsters are changing the world. Listed below are several influential young people.

Muzoon Almellehan, 19

Millions of children live in refuge? camps (难民营)，where few pave access to school. Almellehan experienced these conditions firsthand after fleeing Syria. Fighting to change that, she travels the world to tell people about the significance of education Almellehan, UNICEF’s(United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund) youngest-ever goodwill ambassador now, plans to return to her homeland Syria finally.

Auli’i Cravalho,17

The Hawaii native voiced the heroine in Disney’s hit movie Moana. Now Auli’i is taking on a new role. She’ll star on NBC’s Rise, a drama about a high school theater department’ that lifts the spirits of a struggling steel town in Pennsylvania. Based on a true story, the show has strengthened her belief that young people can bring about real change.

Moziah Bridges, 16

At 9, Moziah launched, his own handmade bow-tie business from his grandmother’s kitchen table. Now Mo’s Bows is worth about $1.5 million. More recently, Moziah signed a licensing deal with the NBA that lets him sell bow ties featuring team logos. But Moziah has even grander ambitions. He plans to expand globally. He credits his success to his natural sense of style.

Mikaila Ulmer, 13

Mikaila used to hate bees. She was stung (蜇) twice. But after learning honeybees are critical to the ecosystem and dying out, she developed a fascination with them. She was determined to help. Using her great-grandmother’s recipe, Mikaila made a mixture, sweetened with local honey. She sold it at community business fairs, donating 10% of her profits to honeybee-advocate groups. Mikaila also runs a nonprofit group called the Healthy Hive Foundation, whose goal is to raise awareness about the hardship of the honeybee.

1.What did Auli’i Cravalho learn from the drama Rise?

A. Young people indeed have the ability to make a difference.

B. High school theater department can help the steel town.

C. She can voice any kind of NBC drama in the future.

D. She has the ability to take up acting as her lifelong profession.

2.Mikaila began to do business with the purpose of _______.

A. making money to help people in need

B. rescuing the endangered but beneficial honeybees

C. putting her great-grandmother’s recipe to good use

D. developing a traditional technique for producing honey

3.What do the four young people have in common?

A. They are commercially successful.

B. They’re leading a wealthy and full life.

C. They’ve gained wide recognition now.

D. They have no interest in academic subjects.

请认真阅读下面有关“有声读物”（audio books）的图表及相关文字，并按照要求用 英语写一篇 150 词左右的文章。

An audio book is a recording of a text being read. Audio books are considered a valuable tool. Digital innovation isn’t just changing the way audio books are created, packaged and sold. It’s starting to reshape the way readers consume literature.

Like many young people, Tony Chou, a 25-year-old software engineer in Shanghai, never used to read much. He barely cracked a book in college and would read one or two a year on vacation, at most. But in the past year, he’s finished 10 books. He listens to audio in pieces throughout the day on his iPhone during his morning workout, on his 20-minute-trip to work, and while he’s cooking dinner or cleaning up. Before he falls asleep, he switches to an e-book of the same story on his Kindle, and starts reading right where the narrator left off.

（写作内容）

1.用约 30 个单词概述上述信息的主要内容；

2.阅读有声读物受欢迎的原因（不少于两点）；

3.联系实际，谈谈你愿意读传统读物还是有声读物，并简述理由。

（写作要求）

1.写作过程中不能直接引用原文语句；

2.作文中不能出现真实姓名和学校名称；

3，不必写标题。

（评分标准） 内容完整，语言规范，语篇连贯，词数适当。

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请认真阅读下列短文，并根据所读内容在文章后表格中的空格里填入一个最恰当的单词。注意：请将答案谢在答题纸上相应题号的横线上，每个空格只填一个单词。

Hearing loss, that’s an older person’s problem, right? Think again. Noise, not age, is the leading cause of hearing loss. While hearing problems are common among older folks, damage from everyday noise is growing among younger Americans, including those in their teens and 20s.

The latest research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP) shows some 40 million Americans ages 20 to 69 suffering hearing damage from everyday loud noise, including heavy traffic, noisy restaurants, rock concerts, sporting events and loud music via earbuds(耳塞). Among 12- to 19-year-olds, researchers estimate some 17 percent show evidence of noise-induced hearing loss in one or

both ears. Worse, many Americans don’t even realize their hearing has been affected.

In the CDCP’s analysis of more than 3,500 hearing tests, one out of four adults claimed their hearing was just fine and reported no job-related noise, yet hearing tests indicated they already had noise-induced hearing loss. This type of damage causes a alarming drop in the ability to hear high-pitched sounds, and it was evident in those as young as 20.

“We have government standards in the workplace to protect workers from noise, but nothing protects you from a society getting noisier every year,” says audiologist Jack Scott, of the Center for Audiology, Speech, Language, and Learning at Northwestern University. Even in protected parks and wildlife areas, a recent study found that noise pollution from traffic, logging and drilling has doubled, drowning out the natural sounds of birds and rushing water.

Sarah Sydlowski, the audiology director of the hearing implant program at the Cleveland Clinic, puts the problem this way: “The baby boomer generation is dealing with skin cancer from the tanning they did as teens. This generation will have to deal with the consequences of noise exposure that damaged their hearing.” Many young adults don’t realize that hearing loss is permanent. When loud noise kills the sensitive inner-ear cells that allow us to hear, they don’t regenerate. “The hearing you have when you’re

born is all you get. Those cells can’t be replaced,” says Sydlowski says. “And the damage is cumulative（累

积的）,” adds Scott. The more often the ears are exposed to damaging noise, the more cells die, leading to damaged hearing day by day.

Part of the reason hearing damage is showing up earlier is today’s improved portable devices. The sound level 28 years ago from the Walkman, with its weak headphones, was much lower than today’s high-fidelity smartphones with earbuds that deliver louder sound much closer to the eardrum. A study that compared hearing tests of teens found the levels of mild hearing loss jumped 30 percent. But don’t just blame the earbuds, says Sydlowski. People underestimate what a safe level of sound is, “especially when they’re already in a noisy environment.” Both she and Scott say a common problem among their younger patients is turning up the sound in their earbuds to mask the noise around them.

To protect your hearing, follow these tips:

Turn down the volume. If you’re listening to music through your earbuds, “any volume level higher than 50 percent is risky,” says Sydlowki.

Limit your exposure. Do not attend fitness classes with deafening music (or at least move away from the speakers, advises Sydlowski) and sports stadiums with ear-splitting crowd noise.

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①One by one, prejudices are disappearing in the West. People may harbour private suspicions that other people’s race or sex makes them inferior—but to say so openly is totally taboo. One old prejudice remains respectable, though. Just ask a childless person.

②They are not charged to special taxes, as they were in Soviet Russia; nor are they driven from their

homes, as they still are in some poor countries. The childless nonetheless come in for a lot of criticism. Some point out that non-parents are failing to produce the future workers who will pay for their pensions. Childless politicians are charged with not having a proper stake（利害关系）in society. “He talks to us about

the future, but he doesn’t have children!” complained Jean-Marie Le Pen, co-founder of the National Front party, of Emmanuel Macron, who went on to win the French presidency. Similar attacks on Theresa May and Angela Merkel also failed—but researchers find that many voters quietly agree.

③The charges against the childless should be thrown out, along with other social prejudice. In many

rich countries, between 15% and 20% of women, and a slightly higher proportion of men, will not have children. The share is rising. Some have medical problems; others do not meet the right person in time; still others decide they do not want them. Whatever the cause, the attacks on the childless are baseless.

④If non-breeders are selfish, they have a strange way of showing it. They are more likely to set up

charitable foundations than people with children, and much more likely to donate money to good causes. According to one American estimate, the mere fact of not having children raises the amount a person leaves to charity by a little over $10,000. The childless are thus a small but useful counterweight to the world’s parents, who stop social immobility by passing on their social and economic advantages to their children.

⑤The fact that so many senior politicians lack offspring（子孙）ought to put to rest the idea that they

do not care for society. Five of the G7 countries are led by childless men and women. Mr Macron, Mrs May, Mrs Merkel, Shinzo Abe and Paolo Gentiloni have their faults, but they are not notably less able than Justin Trudeau (who has three children) let alone Donald Trump (who has five). Their opportunities for nepotism

（裙带关系）are limited. And they spare their countries dynastic politics.

⑥The charge that childless people fail to pull their weight in population is correct, but is less serious than it appears. Those who do not have children do put pressure on public pension systems. Governments

have to do unpopular things like making pensions less generous, as Japan has done, or accepting more immigrants, as some Western countries have done. But to sustain （ 维 持 ） public pensions in the long

term, countries do not actually need more parents. What they need instead is more babies. It is possible to combine a high rate of childlessness with a high birth rate, provided people who become parents have more than one or two children. That was the pattern in many Western countries a century ago. Ireland, yet another country with a childless leader, still manages it today.

⑦The childless also do everyone else a favour by creating wonderful works of art. British novelists

have been especially likely to have no offspring: think of Hilary Mantel, P.G. Wodehouse and the Brontë sisters. In September last year Britain put Jane Austen on its ten-pound note. That decision has was controversial, though it was hard to see why. Few people have written as shrewdly（出神入化）about money

or about families—even though Austen did not marry, and had no children.

1.What is the main idea of Paragraph 2?

A. The childless often get punished in society.

B. The childless often come under sharp criticism.

C. Most successful politicians have no children

D. Childlessness affects the result of an election.

2.The childless are prejudiced because people think the childless    .

A. have a strange way to show selfishness

B. set a bad example for young people

C. are not as able as those with children

D. are the government’s financial burden

3.What does the underlined word “it” in Paragraph 6 refer to?

A. Accepting more immigrants.

B. Reducing the pensions for the aged.

C. Encouraging parents to have more children.

D. Supporting the political leaders with no children.

4.What is the author’s attitude towards the childless?

A. Understanding    B. Skeptical

C. Disappointed    D. Reserved

5.Which of the following shows the structure of the passage?(①to⑦ represent Paragraphs 1 to 7)

A.     B.

C.     D.

6.What is the best title for the passage?

A. In defence of the childless

B. In hope of having a child or not

C. Reasons for not having children

D. Measures to address aging problems