If you’ve ever visited London, it’s likely that you’ve heard the loud chimes（鸣响）of Big Ben, the 157-year-old clock bell of the UK’s Houses of Parliament（议会）.
But on Aug 21, the world’s most famous bell fell silent. This is because the Palace of Westminster’s Elizabeth Tower, which houses Big Ben, needs to be repaired. The workers who’ll carry out the repairs don’t want their ears to be damaged by the sounds of the huge bell, reported BBC News. Big Ben won’t ring again regularly until 2021.
There’s been quite an emotional response to the move. Several members of parliament gathered in front of the Houses of Parliament to hear the bell’s last regular chime for four years. A few even shed tears, as if they were attending a friend’s funeral.
But a number of politicians are angry about the lengthy silencing of Big Ben, calling it a symbol of Britain, according to ABC News. And some members of public agree with it. “It’s our heritage,” David Dummigan, from Cumbria in the north of England, told The New York Times. “People come from all over the world to look at it and listen to it. It’s part of British history.” This kind of emotional reaction could be linked to “fears about Britain losing its voice and place in the world, which is part of the threat that comes from Brexit”, according to CNN. “The reality of losing a place at the top table is being made obvious,” it wrote.
Worries aside, fans of Big Ben will still be able to hear its unique chimes during special occasions such as New Year’s Eve. But if we do miss hearing Big Ben on a regular basis, we could always set its sound as our message tone.
1.Why did Big Ben fall silent?
A. To get Big Ben repaired.
B. To create a quiet environment for residents.
C. To protect the workers’ ears.
D. To remove some politicians’ anger about it.
2.What does the underlined word “it” in Paragraph 4 refer to?
A. Big Ben needs to be repaired.
B. Big Ben is a symbol of Britain.
C. The UK is losing its voice in the world.
D. Big Ben should ring on special occasions.
3.Why did Britons react emotionally?
A. Fears about Big Ben falling silent forever.
B. Threat coming from the rise of other countries.
C. Worries about not being able to visit Big Ben anymore.
D. Worries about the UK losing its influence on the world.
4.Which of the following can be the best title for the text?
A. Britons React Emotionally to Big Ben’s Silence.
B. Britons are Worried about the Fall of the UK.
C. Britain is Losing its Place at the Top Table.
D. Big Ben Falls Silent for Four Years.
Most young people enjoy some form of physical activity. It may be walking, cycling or swimming, or winter, skating or skiing. It may be a game of some form---football, hockey, golf or tennis. It may be mountaineering.
Those who have a passion for climbing high and difficult mountains are often looked upon with surprise. Why are men and women willing to suffer cold and hardship, and to take risks on high mountains? This astonishment is caused, probably, by the difference between mountaineering and other forms of activity to which men give their leisure.
Mountaineering is a sport and not a game. There are no man-made rules, as others, as there are for such games as golf and football. There are, of course, rules of a different kinds which would be dangerous to ignore, but it is this freedom from man-made rules that makes mountaineering attractive to many people. Those who climb mountains are free to use their own methods.
If we compare mountaineering with other more familiar sports, we might think that one big difference is that mountaineering is not a “team game”. We should be mistaken in this. There are, it is true, no “matches” between “teams” of climbers, but when climbers are on a rock face linked by a rope on which their lives may depend, there is obviously teamwork.
The mountain climber knows that he may have to fight forces that are stronger and more powerful than man. He has to fight the forces of nature. His sport requires high mental and physical qualities
A mountain climber continues to improve in skill year after year. A skier is probably past his best by the age of thirty. But it is not unusual for men of fifty or sixty to climb the highest mountains in the Alps. They may take more time than younger men, but they perhaps climb with more skill and less waste of efforts, and they certainly experience equal enjoyment.
1.Mountaineering is a sport, not a game because______
A. there is not certain rule for climbers to follow
B. it is too dangerous for climbers
C. it can’t bring people joy and leisure
D. it has man-made rules
2.According to the writer, the only enemy of mountaineer should be______
A. temperature B. nature
C. climate D. patience
3.The underlined word “passion” in Paragraph 2 could be replaced by______
A. enthusiasm B. taste
C. gift D. strength
请认真阅读下面文字，并按要求用英语写一篇150词左右的文章。
Authorities have called for nationwide enforcement of food standards in schools amid an ongoing investigation into a Shanghai-based food supplier accused of serving low-quality lunches with expired ingredients at a private school in the city.
The Shanghai Municipal Food and Drug Administration confirmed in a statement on Tuesday that students at the SMIC Private School in the Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park were served expired food, including rotten and moldy produce. Expiration dates on the packaging of some products had been altered. The investigation confirmed what the students’ parents reported during a surprise inspection of the school’s kitchen on Friday.
The State Administration for Market Regulation and the Ministry of Education urged local education and food authorities on Tuesday to strengthen inspections of campus canteens to ensure their safety. On Saturday, SMIC Private School apologized to students, staff and parents and promised to take full responsibility for failing to supervise the vendor, according to its website. The principal of the school has been dismissed.
（写作内容）
1.用约30个词概述所给信息的主要内容；
2.简要分析校园食品安全的重要性。
3.就如何保障学校食品的安全性提出你的建议（不少于两条建议）。
（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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请阅读下面短文，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：请将答案写在答题卡上相应题号的横线上。每个空格只填一个单词。
In workplaces and families across the world, people tend to communicate on the Internet. We send endless emails; we video chat rather than travel across the town to meet. Actually, sitting down and interacting with someone in person can seem like a rare luxury nowadays. But as technology develops, are we losing our ability to connect and empathize (移情) with others?
Empathy is the ability to feel another person’s emotions and understand his/her views. In the past few decades, researchers have emphasized our ability to literally read others. The way we usually try to detect other people’s emotions is through their facial expressions—their eyes in particular. We are told that “the eyes are the windows of the soul, and eye contact is certain critical in empathy.”
However, empathy relies on more than reading facial expressions. New research suggests our voice can greatly help us connect. A new study by Michael Kraus from Yale University has found that our sense of hearing may be even stronger than our sight when it comes to accurately detecting people’s emotions. In other words, you may be able to sense someone’s emotional state even better over the phone than in person. Kraus conducted three experiments to arrive at the conclusion. In all these experiments, the participants gave the best performance when they only heard peoples voices (compared to when they looked at facial expressions alone, or looked at facial expressions and heard voices).
In several follow-up studies, Kraus directed his attention to why the voice is such a powerful mode of empathy. He asked the participants to discuss a difficult work situation over a video conferencing platform using either just the microphone or the microphone and the video. Once again, the participants were more accurate at detecting people’s emotions in voice-only calls. When we only listen to the voice, he found, we simply focus more on the nuances(细微差别) as the speakers express themselves.
How can we get better at interpreting emotions in the voices of our coworkers and loved ones? There isn’t much research so far exploring this question specifically. One study on babies, cries suggested that parents with more musical training were better at distinguishing cries of distress from other types of cries. But, really, we might not need much training. Kraus found that, once you remove other inputs (like facial expressions), your attention naturally sharpens when it comes to voice messages. Besides, the human ability to catch nuances in voices may have offered a strong evolutionary advantage to our ancestors, which helped ensure survival.
You’re more emotionally on the phone | |
A question to answer | ●Nowadays 1. communication has gained great popularity, which dramatically 2. real-life interactions. In such a situation, can we still connect and empathize with others? |
A 3. belief about empathy | ●Humans tend to understand what other people are4. by detecting their facial expressions, especially from their eyes. |
A new study about empathy | ●The new study was5. on three experiments, which suggested that the participants were most6. in detecting people's emotions when they only heard their voices. |
A(n)7. of the new study | ●The voice is a powerful mode of empathy, because it makes people stay 8. on the voice messages. |
Other discoveries | ●According to a study on babies' cries, musical training is a9. to better ability to listen for empathy. ●The ability to listen was an important reason why our ancestors were able to 10. |
When Oscar Pistorius was convicted (证明有罪的)murder last month, the judge described the case as a “human tragedy of Shakespearean proportions”. The Paralympic athlete’s fall from grace made this comparison appropriate: overcoming severe disability to reach “Olympian heights”, falling in love with a beautiful model, and, in a coincidence that wouldn’t be out of place in one of the plays, taking her life on Valentine’s Day. Mr. Pistorius’s tragic flaw was that he was an excessive paranoia（偏执狂）, which showed itself in an enthusiasm for guns.
Mr. Pistorius’s case is, indeed, peculiarly Shakespearean. But Justice Eric Leach, who delivered the judgment, is but one of those who have turned to the playwright in times of legal need. In 2012, Britain’s High Court quoted “King Lear” in a trial regarding a “threatening” joke on Twitter — they eventually overturned a conviction on the grounds that social-media users “are free to speak not what they ought to say, but what they feel”. A choice snippet of “Hamlet” (“a little patch of ground that hath no profit in it but the name”) was quoted in a 2008 boundary dispute. “Henry VIII” was called forth by Senator Sam Ervin Jr during the Watergate hearings. The condemnation of Dzokhar Tsarnaev, involved in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, was sealed with lines from “Julius Caesar”: “the evil that men do lives after them; the good is often buried with their bones.”
Lawyers’ love of Shakespeare is appropriate given that more of his lines are devoted to discussing law than any other profession. Some think his knowledge of the law was so detailed that the “real” Shakespeare must have been a lawyer. A study by Scott Dodson and Ami Dodson published last year set out to discover “the most literary justice” of those currently sitting(开庭), and which authors were regularly turned to for quotable wisdom. The “most abundant citer and the widest read” was found to be Antonin Scalia, and — no surprise — William Shakespeare topped the list of the often-quoted, along with Lewis Carroll. Both Shakespeare and Carroll accumulated sixteen references from five justices. Other popular authors among the bench were George Orwell, Charles Dickens, Aldous Huxley and Aesop.
The words of Shakespeare are likely to be sounded around courtrooms for decades to come as many universities — particularly in America and Britain — have included him in their law courses. Harvard Law School offers a seminar which focuses entirely on “justice and morality in the plays of Shakespeare”. King’s College London’s “Shakespeare and the Law” model is co-taught by the Literature and Law faculties, and explores “the role of the law in mediating the place of the individual within society”. There are sensible reasons behind this; the University of Southampton, in line with recent studies, states that it offers the opportunity to study law through a literary prism of Shakespeare, Dickens, Kafka and others in order to “help law students to become more ethically sharp”. A study argues that reading literary fiction makes people show empathy, challenge prejudice, and be more flexible in their decision-making. A literary sensibility enables lawyers to present clear, structured opinions and briefs.
But what is it about the work of Shakespeare, in particular, that lends itself to legal quotation and reflection? After all, as Robert Peterson pointed out in “The Bard and the Bench”, all 37 of Shakespeare’s plays have been quoted by American courts, in over 800 judicial opinions. One answer lies in the fact that Shakespeare’s status embodies high culture; quoting him seeks to invest the judgment with credibility and induce a sense of history. Mr. Peterson notes that this can “drive decisions in authentic ways”. Another option is Shakespeare’s universality — everyone has either read, or claims to have read, plays like “Hamlet”. His works have become globally shared; the term “Shakespearean tragedy” induces a rise-and-fall story even if the listener is not familiar with the works themselves. The horrifying details of Mr. Pistorius’s actions on that night, placed in a familiar Shakespearean frame, helps members of the court, and the public, to make sense of the unnecessary bloodshed.
1.Why is Oscar Pistorius mentioned in the first paragraph?
A. To introduce the topic of the passage.
B. To explain why he was announced guilty of murder.
C. To show the appropriateness of Shakespeare’s comparison.
D. To highlight how Shakespeare influenced his conviction.
2.What can be inferred from the passage?
A. Studying law makes people more flexible in making right decisions.
B. The quotation from Shakespeare in court will keep up in the following decades.
C. The accusation against Twitter was overturned by Britain’s High Court in 2012.
D. It is a must for law students in America and Britain to take courses in Shakespeare’s play.
3.Which of the following is closest in meaning to the underlined word “embodies” in the last paragraph?
A. Creates. B. Shapes.
C. Promotes. D. Represents.
4.The reason why Shakespeare is often quoted in court is that__________.
A. he is universally recognized as a productive playwright
B. the quotation from him adds credibility to the judgment
C. there are many professional legal terms in his works
D. Shakespearean tragedy is globally read by people
5.How is the passage mainly developed?
A. By listing data. B. By presenting examples.
C. By analyzing phenomena. D. By making comparisons.
6.Which of the following is the most suitable title for the passage?
A. Why Lawyers Love Shakespeare
B. Famous Quotations from Shakespeare
C. How Shakespeare Created Popular Works
D. The Most Influential Playwright in History
Overcoming extreme cold, cruel ice and people dismissing him as mad, Slovenian Davo Kamicar became the first person to ski non-stop down Mount Everest.
After a dramatic fall over almost sheer cliffs of snow, stones and ice, 38-year-old Kamicar emerged in his base camp after five hours of skiing. “I feel only absolute happiness and absolute tiredness,” he said.
At one stage he had to speed over stretches of ice that collapsed and broke underneath him and could have sent him falling into the deep crevasses (裂缝) that dot the mountain.
The descent (下落) had been seen by many as insanely dangerous. The Darwin Awards website, which documents deaths which are foolhardy, urged people to log on to Internet broadcasts of the attempt. “Keep your eyes peeled for a live Darwin Award,” it said.
However, the only body to make the news was the corpse (尸体) of an unknown mountaineer which Kamicar zipped past as he descended, one of an estimated 120 corpses, thought to litter the slopes.
“This mountain is always full of surprises. Seeing a dead man out there was a really shocking experience,” he said.
Thanks to strategically placed cameras on the mountain and one attached to his safety helmet, hundreds of thousands of people witnessed his descent on the Internet, which was one of the record highs ever. During the run more than 650,000 hits were registered on his expedition website jamming it for a time as others tried to access the site.
Weather conditions were so severe that Kamicar had to abandon plans to rest on the summit before attempting to descend. Instead, suffering from fatigue, as soon as he reached the top he put on his skis and flung himself back down the mountain.
Dealing with the mountain had already cost Kamicar two fingers when a previous failed attempt saw him get frostbite as a fierce storm lashed the peak.
Kamicar comes from a skiing family and took part in his first Himalayan skiing expedition in 1989. Since then, he has been tireless in raising funds and sponsorship for more expeditions, with Everest as the permanent goal.
1.Davo Kamicar made history by ________.
A. skiing down Mount Everest without rest
B. descending Mount Everest within the shortest time ever
C. attracting largest number of audience online for his descent
D. becoming the first to film his descent down Mount Everest
2.The underlined word foolhardy in the passage is closest in meaning to ______.
A. sudden and hard to accept B. taking unnecessary risks
C. attracting public attention D. working hard to fool others
3.According to the passage, which of the following statements is TRUE?
A. Kamicar saw about 120 dead bodies littering the slope.
B. The broadcast of his descent online was cancelled because of the website jam.
C. Kamicar’s family had a tradition to conquer Mount Everest.
D. This was not Kamicar’s first attempt on Mount Everest.
4.Which of the following may be the best title for the passage?
A. Mad man skis down Everest B. Darwin Award for Davo Kamicar
C. Extreme sports hero slides to a record D. Body of mountaineer found on Everest
