Have you ever heard of an insect called the cicada(蝉)? 1. But they have an interesting internal clock that tells them when to go aboveground.
Every 17 years, billions of the noisy Brood V cicadas(十七年蝉) will swarm(成群出现) to northeastern parts of the US, including New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania. 2.But there are usually a lot less of them compared to the Brood V cicadas.
3. According to Discovery News, these insects started their lives in 1999. And as their 17-year life cycle comes to an end, they go aboveground when their underground homes get warmer 64 degrees Fahrenheit (about 18℃) to be exact.
Then the females will lay hundreds of eggs in trees, and after about four to six weeks, the mother and father cicadas will die. 4.
While they can be kind of annoying, these insects don’t harm humans, but they do make a lot of noise during their time aboveground. 5.
However, since there are so many of the 17-year cicadas, the amount of laid eggs can sometimes harm small trees and bushes. But after this summer, these insects will mostly mind their own business until 2033.
A. That sound is the male cicadas attracting the female cicadas.
B. The cicada insects are common in summer, especially in August and can be found in July as well.
C. There are other kinds of cicadas that come around once a year or every 13 years.
D. The baby cicadas will go underground, and the 17-year cycle will start over again.
E. As a matter of fact, people like to eat them in some cultures.
F. Well, a special kind of these insects live underground in the US for most of their lives.
G. This is what makes Brood V cicadas so special.
It’s an ordinary morning，like all the others．But instead of being woken up by the buzzing of an alarm clock, you’ll be roused by the smell of freshly made coffee，light entering your room as the curtains open automatically，and a gentle back massage（按摩）provided by your high-tech bed.
This is what a typical(典型的) person's life will be like two decades from now，according to The Guardian. Want to know more?
After you get up, your apartment will be like an electronic orchestra with you as the conductor. With simple moves of your hand and spoken instructions, you’ll be able to control your apartment’s temperature, humidity, music and lighting. You’ll be able to look through the day’s news on translucent screens while your breakfast waits for you in the automatic oven.
As you move into your kitchen, you might accidentally hit your toe on a cupboard. If you do, you’ll grab your cell phone and open the diagnostics(诊断) app. Inside your phone there will be a tiny microchip(芯片) that uses X-ray waves to scan your body. The scan will tell whether your toe is bruised or broken.
After breakfast, your driverless car will take you to work. While you “drive”, your central computer system will suggest a list of chores(家务事) that your housekeeping robots can do that day and it will also remind you to buy a gift for your mother’s upcoming birthday.
As you can see, with the help of advanced technology, our lives will be more efficient(有效率的). Technology will mitigate our forgetfulness and free us of many small burdens that distract us, such as buying a ticket. Our brain will therefore be able to focus on more important things like preparing for a presentation or doing “deep thinking”.
However, the development of technology might have some disadvantages as well. By 2036, we’ll be relying heavily on the virtual(虚拟的) world, which will mean that all of our data will be stored in the cloud, a remote digital storage system with near limitless capacity(容量). That will increase the possibility of someone else accessing, sharing or manipulating(操控) our personal information.
1.What might be the author’s purpose in writing the text?
A. To stress the importance of developing technology.
B. To remind people not to depend too much on computers．
C. To introduce one new invention that will benefit our future lives.
D. To describe how advanced technologies will affect our future lives.
2.According to the text, in two decades, ________.
A. you’ll be able to rely on an electronic orchestra to wake you up instead of an alarm clock
B. a tiny microchip in your phone will treat you when you are sick
C. you will be able to adjust the conditions of your apartment via oral instructions or simple hand gestures
D. technology will be smart enough to help us with important things like preparing for a presentation
3.What does the underlined word “mitigate” in Paragraph 6 mean?
A. Make up for. B. Worsen. C. Cure. D. Take advantage of.
When we know somewhere well，we say we “know it like the back of our hand”. But new research has shown that we don’t actually know as much about our hands as we think we do.
Wider and shorter
Professor Matthew Longo at the University of London and his team did an experiment, covering the left hands of 100 people. Then they asked the people to point to where they thought their fingertips and knuckles (指关节) were. They made some quite big mistakes.
“People think their hand is wider than it actually is,” said Longo. The fingers also seem shorter than they are. This mistake gets worse as you go across the hand from the thumb to the little finger.
Sense of position
“It is connected to our sense of position,” explained Longo. This is our ability to tell where different parts of our bodies are, even when we can’t see them. “It tells us whether a joint is straight, or not” he said. It also tells us whether we are going up or down in an elevator. All this information comes from signs from nerves in real time. It’s like our brain has maps — maps that show the size and shape of our body. “This experiment tried to find those maps,” said Longo.
Strength(强度) of feeling
But these maps make mistakes. These mistakes may be made because of how the brain understands different parts of the skin. “Our brains ‘see’ areas as larger where the skin feels touch strongly,” said Longo. Body parts don’t appear as their true size, but appear bigger or smaller depending on how strongly they feel touch. Our lips, for example, have more nerves than our nose. So brain “sees” lips on its map of the body as being bigger than our nose. The same thing happens for other parts of the body that have lots of nerves.
Longo believes that more research in this area may help us to understand eating problem better, because people suffering from these problems may not know their bodies properly.
1.Which of following statement is TRUE about the experiment according to the article?
A. People think their body parts are larger than they actually are.
B. People made more mistakes about their little fingers length than their thumbs’ length.
C. People’s fingers are actually shorter than they think.
D. People were asked to draw their hands from memory
2.What does the underlined “it” in Paragraph 4 refer to?
A. The new experiment. B. The location information.
C. The mistake people made. D. The sizes of fingers and hands.
3.We can learn from the article that ________.
A. the maps of people’s bodies form before they are born
B. the maps of our body are based on information from nerves
C. our sense of position tells how different parts of the body work
D. how we feel about our body shape is only decided by our sense of position
4.We can infer from the article that ________.
A. the hand feels touch more strongly than fingers do
B. our lips have a weaker sense of touch than our nose
C. there are more nerves in the finger than in the hand
D. our sense of position should not be trusted because it is too often incorrect
Books have tremendous power. Between their pages, readers can be transported to anywhere imaginable and become just about anyone or anything. Unfortunately, many children all over the world don’t have access to books. For several years now, Maria Keller, a 14-year-old girl from Minneapolis, Minnesota, has been changing that fact.
When she was 8 years old, Maria already loved reading. She also noticed that some of her classmates didn’t read as much as she did. When she asked her mother why that could be, her mother said that they might not be able to afford books. Maria had never thought of this. She could not believe that some children might not have bedtime stories read to them. She became determined to change this.
With her mother’s help, Maria created Read Indeed. Read Indeed is a non-profit organization aiming to collect and distribute(分发) books to children in need. During the early stages of Read Indeed, Maria set the goal to collect and distribute 1 million books by the time she was 18. It didn’t take long to reach that goal.
Today, at age 14, she has collected over 1.8 million books and has shipped them to many states and countries around the world. She says, “I cannot live without books. As I continue my mission, I have learned that the number of kids who have no books are in the hundreds of millions. So I just can’t give up, even after reaching my original goal of 1 million books distributed.”
She recently set a new goal: to distribute donations to kids in need in every state in the United States, and every country in the world. She keeps track of her progress on a large map at the warehouse(仓库) where they store and sort books. Maria believes that she can get support from even more people and help kids around the world to become better readers!
1.We can know from Paragraph 2 that ________.
A. some of Maria’s classmates had no textbooks
B. some of Maria’s classmates didn’t have money to buy books
C. some of Maria’s classmates didn’t like reading at all
D. some of Maria’s classmates couldn’t afford to go to school
2.According to the passage, which statement about Read Indeed is true?
A. It collects and gives out books to poor children.
B. It is an organization which sells books to children around the world.
C. It raises money to buy books for children.
D. It is a campaign which encourages children to read.
3.What can we infer from what Maria says in Paragraph 4?
A. She lives on selling books.
B. Her original dream has been achieved.
C. She will give up her mission of distributing books.
D. The number of children who have no books has greatly dropped.
4.Which word can best describe Maria?
A. Optimistic. B. Smart. C. Brave. D. Strong-willed.
When The New Republic magazine predicted who would win the 2016 Nobel Prize in literature on Oct 6, it said: “Not Bob Dylan. That’s for sure.”
But the award came as a surprise to many. On Oct 13, the famous US musician was named the Nobel laureate by the Swedish Academy. He has “created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition", according to the organization.
Although Dylan, 75, is not really thought to be a literary（文学的） writer, he has given the world a lot of creative work over 50 years, especially when it comes to his folk songs.
In his 1985 album Biograph, Dylan wrote about the appeal(魅力) of folk music to him. Rock songs “weren’t serious enough or didn’t reflect（反映） life in a realistic way", according to Dylan. But folk, was “a more serious type of thing. The songs are filled with more sadness; more joy …much deeper feelings".
Dylan’s music and lyrics spoke to many people during the 1960s. His lyrics were often about great political issues, such as the civil rights movement. The 1960s were a time of change when the young were making sure that their voices were heard. The idea is most famously expressed in Dylan's The Times They Are a -Changing (1964), which warns the world, “You better start swimming or you'll sink（下沉） like a stone. For the times they are a-changing!”
There were complaints that a literary prize had been given to a singer. But ancient “Greek poets Homer and Sappho wrote poetic works that were meant to be listened to, that were meant to be performed, often with instruments — and it’s the same way with Dylan", the Swedish Academy’s permanent secretary Sara Danius told CNN.
It could even be said that giving the important prize to Dylan has brought back an old literary tradition. The millions whose lives Dylan’s words and music have changed will surely welcome the award.
1.Dylan found folk music attractive because ________.
A. it brought joy to people
B. it reflected life on a much deeper level
C. it could be used to express feelings freely
D. it needed more creativity than other types of music
2.Which of the following statements is TRUE about Dylan according to the article?
A. He never thought that he would win the Nobel Prize.
B. All of his influential works were created in the 1960s.
C. His songs expressed people’s feelings well during the 1960s.
D. His fans were mostly young people who were active in political movements.
3.According to the last two paragraphs, ________.
A. lyrics can be seen as a literary form
B. a literary prize should not be given to a singer
C. Dylan’s works were inspired by Greek poets
D. Dylan won the award because he influenced many song-writers
4.What’s the author’s attitude toward giving Bob Dylan the 2016 Nobel Prize in literature?
A. Unconcerned. B. Objective. C. Doubtful. D. Supportive.
假设你是李华，你的美国笔友汤姆（Tom）沉迷于玩智能手机不能自控，他写信向你寻求帮助，请你给他回一封电子邮件。内容包括：
1.表达理解和关心；
2.提出具体建议；
3.表达希望与祝福。
注意：1.词数：100左右
2.可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯
3.开头语已为你写好。
Dear John,
I’m sorry to hear that you’re suffering from smart phone addiction.
Sincerely yours,
Li Hua
