Throughout modern history, perhaps there has never been a scientist as iconic (偶像的) as Stephen Hawking.
Whether he 1. (educate) the world with his knowledge of the universe, or making fun of himself in TV shows, it is hard to imagine what the world will be like now Hawking is no longer in.
On March 14, 2018, the British physicist passed away in Cambridge. Since then, many people have expressed their condolences (哀悼) on social media, including British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee,2. invented the World Wide Web. “We have lost a great mind and a wonderful spirit,” Berners-Lee wrote.
Hawking was an icon for many reasons, but he will be best remembered 3. his work in the field of science.
Building on German scientist Albert Einstein’s work, Hawking explained his belief that space 4. (start) with the Big Bang, and will end with black holes.
“This complete set of laws can give us the 5. (answer) to questions like ‘How did the universe begin?’” Hawking wrote in his 2010 work The Grand Design. “Where is it going and will it have an end? If so, how will it end?”
Besides his work in science, he also managed to overcome many difficulties in his personal life. While 6. (study) at Cambridge University, he was diagnosed with motor neuron (运动神经元) disease at the age of 21. His 7. (ill) left him paralyzed and he was told he only had a short time to live. However, he went on to become one of the 8. (great) minds the world has ever known.
“I felt it was unfair. Why should this happen to me?” he once recalled. “At the time, I thought my life was over and that I would never realize the potential I felt I had. But now, 50 years later, I can be satisfied with my life.”
Hawking left behind a great legacy (遗产). His signature book A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, 9. (publish) in 1988, became one of the world’s best-selling science publications. And in 2014, UK actor Eddie Redmayne played Hawking in the movie The Theory of Everything, which tells the tale of the physicist’s life.
He may no longer be with us, 10. Hawking will continue to inspire the world for generations to come. As he once said himself, “Look up at the stars and not down at your feet!”
Fifteen years ago, I took a summer vacation in Lecce in Italy. After climbing up a hill for a full view of the blue sea, I paused to catch my ______ and then positioned myself to take a photo.
Unfortunately, just as I took out my camera, a woman approached from behind and ______ herself right in front of my ______. Like me, she was here to stop, sigh and appreciate the scenery.
____ as I was, after about 15 minutes, my camera scanning the sun and reviewing the shot I would ______ take, I was upset. Should I ask her to ______ so that I could take just one picture of the landscape? Sure, I could have asked her, but something ______ me doing so. She seemed so ______ in her observation. I didn’t want to mess with that.
Another 15 minutes passed and I grew more ______. The woman was still there. I decided to take the photo ______. And now when I look at it, I think her ______ in the photo is what makes the image ______. The landscape, beautiful on its own, somehow comes to life and breathes ______ this woman is engaging with it. This photo, with the ______ beauty that unfolded before me and the woman who ______ it, now hangs on the wall in my bedroom. What would she think if she knew that her figure is captured (捕捉) and ______ on a strangers bedroom wall? A bedroom, after all, is a very private space, in which a woman I don’t even know has been kept forever. In some ways, she has been ______ in my house.
Perhaps we all live in each other’s space. Perhaps this is what photos are for: to ______ us that we all appreciate beauty, and that we all share a common ______ for pleasure and connection.
This photo is a reminder, a captured moment, an unspoken ______ between two women, separated only by a thin square of glass.
1.A. sight B. breath C. way D. attention
2.A. planted B. found C. lost D. enjoyed
3.A. concern B. photo C. view D. direction
4.A. Cautious B. Curious C. Casual D. Patient
5.A. eventually B. randomly C. extremely D. hurriedly
6.A. back away B. go over C. move along D. stay out
7.A. caught B. sent C. got D. prevented
8.A. anxious B. content C. quiet D. confident
9.A. excited B. annoyed C. worried D. confused
10.A. anyway B. somehow C. instead D. indeed
11.A. beauty B. behavior C. determination D. presence
12.A. puzzling B. disappointing C. interesting D. boring
13.A. unless B. because C. although D. until
14.A. strange B. regrettable C. distant D. unique
15.A. ruined B. created C. missed D. discovered
16.A. protected B. observed C. frozen D. drawn
17.A. hanging B. living C. shining D. wandering
18.A. promise B. tell C. convince D. remind
19.A. respect B. plan C. desire D. sense
20.A. conversation B. result C. trust D. love
Perhaps you have heard the expression “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”. So when you want to do business in France, you have to get to know French culture, make marketing plans, and run your business by local laws.
1. The French take great pride in their language, so anyone who does not speak it may run the risk of being disrespected by his French colleagues or business partners. Also, another reason why learning French is important is that it is a great way to show every possible French business partner that you care and respect their country’s culture and language.
The first thing that you should do when meeting someone new is to shake his hand firmly and always look at the person in the eye. In social meetings with friends, kissing is common.
Use first names only after being invited to. 2. The French will sometimes introduce themselves using their surname first, followed by their first name.
Dress well. 3. Your business clothing is a reflection of your success and social status. Always try to be tasteful and stylish. Women are advised to dress simply but elegantly. Wearing make-up is practiced widely by businesswomen.
The French are passionate about food, so lunches are common in doing business in France, which usually consist of an appetizer, main meal with wine, cheese, dessert and coffee, and normally take up to two hours. 4.
Do not begin eating until the host says “bon appetite”. Pass dishes to the left, keep wrists above the table and try to eat everything on the plate. 5. This may suggest that you find the food tasteless. If eating in a restaurant t the person who invites always pays.
A. Remember to be as polite as possible.
B. This is a time for relationship building.
C. Use Monsieur or Madame before the surname.
D. Be careful with adding salt, pepper or sauces to your food.
E. Make an appointment with your business partner in advance.
F. The French draw information about people based on their appearance.
G. Language should be the focus of anyone planning to do business in France.
Since English biologist Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, scientists have vastly improved their knowledge of natural history. However, a lot of information is still of the speculation, and scientists can still only make educated guesses at certain things.
One subject that they guess about is why some 400 million years ago, animals in the sea developed limbs (肢) that allowed them to move onto and live on land.
Recently, an idea that occurred to the US paleontologist (古生物学家) Alfred Romer a century ago became a hot topic once again.
Homer thought that tidal (潮汐的) pools might have led to fish gaining limbs. Sea animals would have been forced into these pools by strong tides. Then, they would have been made either to adapt to their new environment close to land or die. The fittest among them grew to accomplish the transition (过渡) from sea to land.
Romer called these earliest four-footed animals “tetrapods”. Science has always thought that this was a credible theory, but only recently has there been strong enough evidence to support it.
Hannah Byrne is an oceanographer (海洋学家) at Uppsala University in Sweden. She announced at the 2018 Ocean Sciences Meeting in Oregon, US, that by using computer software, her team had managed to link Homer’s theory to places where fossil deposits (沉积物) of the earliest tetrapods were found.
According to the magazine Science, in 2014, Steven Balbus, a scientist at the University of Oxford in the UK, calculated that 400 million years ago, when the move from land to sea was achieved, tides were stronger than they are today. This is because the planet was 10 percent closer to the moon than it is now.
The creatures stranded in the pools would have been under the pressure of “survival of the fittest”, explained Mattias Green, an ocean scientist at the UK’s University of Bangor. As he told Science, “After a few days in these pools, you become food or you run out of food... the fish that had large limbs had an advantage because they could flip (翻转) themselves back in the water.”
As is often the case, however, there are others who find the theory less convincing. Cambridge University’s paleontologist Jennifer Clark, speaking to Nature magazine, seemed unconvinced. “It’s only one of many ideas for the origin of land-based tetrapods, any or all of which may have been a part of the answer,” she said.
1.Who first proposed the theory that fish might have gained limbs because of tidal pools?
A. Alfred Romer. B. Charles Darwin.
C. Hannah Byrne. D. Steven Balbus.
2.Why were tides stronger 400 million years ago than they are today according to Steven Balbus?
A. There were larger oceans.
B. Earth was closer to the moon.
C. The moon gave off more energy.
D. Earth was under greater pressure.
3.The underlined word “stranded” in Paragraph 8 probably means “________”.
A. found B. settled
C. abandoned D. trapped
4.What is the focus of the article?
A. The arguments over a scientific theory.
B. The proposal of a new scientific theory.
C. Some new evidence to support a previous theory.
D. A new discovery that questions a previous theory.
“Years ago when I was at the Grand Canyon, I remembered someone coming up to the canyon’s edge, taking a shot with a camera and then walking away, like ‘got it – done’, barely even glancing at the magnificent scene in front of him,” Linda Henkel, a scientist at Fairfield University, US told Live Science.
Henkel was surprised by how obsessed (痴迷的) people are with taking pictures these days - before dinner, during friends’ birthday parties, on museum tours and so on.
They keep taking pictures because they think that it helps record the moment, but as Henkel’s latest study has just found out, this obsession may prevent their brains remembering what actually happened, reported The Guardian.
In her study, Henkel led a group of college students around a museum and asked them to simply observe 15 objects and photograph 15 others. The next day the students’ memory of the tour was tested, and the results showed that they were less accurate in recognizing the objects and they remembered fewer details about them if they photographed them.
‘‘When people rely on technology to remember them — counting on the camera to record the event and thus not needing to attend to it fully themselves, it can have a negative impact on how well they remember their experiences,” Henkel explained.
But there is also an exception: if students zoomed in to photograph part of an object, their memory actually improved, and those who focused the lens (镜头) on a specific area could even recall parts that weren’t in the frame.
So basically, this study is saying that constantly taking pictures can harm your memory. But shouldn’t reviewing pictures we have taken help wake up our memories? This is true, but only if we spend enough time doing it.
“In order to remember, we have to access and interact with the photos, rather than just collect them,” Henkel told The Telegraph. However, previous research has shown that most people never take the time to look over their digital pictures simply because there are too many of them and they aren’t usually very organized on their computers.
1.Why did the author mention Henkel’s trip to the Grand Canyon at the beginning?
A. To complain about some tourists’ bad habits.
B. To give suggestions on how to enjoy one’s tour.
C. To point out people’s obsession with taking pictures.
D. To describe the beautiful view of the Grand Canyon.
2.What can we learn from Henkel’s study?
A. Reviewing pictures always helps people bring back memories easily.
B. Taking pictures in a museum tour helps students recognize objects better.
C. People should spend more time taking pictures than studying real objects.
D. Pictures focusing on the details of objects probably improve people’s memories.
3.The underlined word “it” in Paragraph 5 probably refers to “________”.
A. the camera B. technology
C. the event D. an object
4.What is the article mainly about?
A. People’s obsession with taking pictures and its influence.
B. Possible ways of using pictures to improve one’s memory.
C. Great harm to memory caused by taking pictures constantly.
D. A believable study into the negative impact of lining cameras often.
US student Vanessa Tahay stands out from the other teenagers in her school. Her skin is dark, her accent is thick, and if you ask her, she will tell you these are the things she is proudest of. Tahay is a poet, and at 18 she was considered among the best in Los Angeles.
When she is on the stage, audiences often go silent. They also laugh, shout and cry. But this doesn’t come easily for someone who comes from a village that sits at the base of a huge mountain range in Central America. When she first appeared at school, she was teased by others for being short and different. She never spoke, so they called her “mouse”.
“How do I defend myself?” Tahay thought. “I don’t know how.”
“Keep going,” her mother would tell her. “At some point, you’ll learn.”
She spent hours after school and on weekends watching the same DVDs: English without Barriers.
Tahay’s elder brother, Elmer, persuaded her to go to the after-school poetry club. In the last six years, her English teacher Laurie Kurnick has turned Cleveland Charter High School’s poetry program into one of the most respected in the city. Her team draws from the likes of D.H. Laurence, Pat Mora and Kendrick Lamar to create poems about their own lives. The poems focus on many things —some funny, some painful.
The first time Tahay read the group’s poems, chills went up her spine (脊柱). “I wish I could write like that,” she thought. “I want to say something.”
She wrote her first poem about her first year in America. She called it Invisible. The day her turn came to recite in front of the team, she broke down crying. She cried for 15 minutes. “I had so much held in,” Tahay said. “I couldn’t even finish it.”
But she kept at it despite her less-than-perfect grammar, spelling and diction (措辞). Still, she wouldn’t tell her friends about her poetry because she worried they would make fun of her.
But with time, her poems changed her. “They gave me pride,” Tahay said. “They told me that I’m worth something.”
“She had this innocence,” Kurnick said. “This willingness to be genuine and show you things you don’t ever see.”
1.What did Tahay’s mother suggest she do when she was teased by others?
A. Fight with them bravely.
B. Report them to her teachers.
C. Ignore them and keep going.
D. Try hard to make friends with them.
2.What are the themes of Tahay and her team’s poems?
A. Their admiration for the great poets.
B. Their appreciation of natural beauty.
C. Their expectations of a better future.
D. Funny and painful stories about their lives.
3.How did Tahay probably feel when she first read the group’s poems?
A. She was cold. B. She was excited.
C. She was nervous. D. She was frightened.
4.How did Tahay benefit from writing poems?
A. She felt more confident about herself.
B. She won many national poetry competitions.
C. She became the first student poet in the city.
D. She improved her grammar and spelling greatly.
