阅读理解In this section there are five reading passages followed by a total of 20 multiple-choice questions and 5 short answerquestions. Please read the passages and then write your answers on the ANSWER SHEET.Text AOur knowledge of the oceans a hundred years ago was confined to the two-dimensional shape of the sea surface and the hazards of navigation presented by the irregularities in depth of the shallow water close to the land. The open sea was deep and mysterious, and anyone who gave more than a passing thought to the bottom confines of the oceans probably assumed that the sea bed was flat. Sir James Clark Ross had obtained a sounding of over 2,400 fathoms in 1839, but it was not until 1869, when H.M.S. Porcupine was put at the disposal of the Royal Society for several cruises, that a series of deep soundings was obtained in the Atlantic and the first samples were collected by dredging the bottom. Shortly after this the famous H.M.S. Challenger expedition established the study of the sea floor as a subject worthy of the most qualified physicists and geologists. A burst of activity associated with the laying of submarine cables soon confirmed the Challengers observation that many parts of the ocean were two to three miles deep, and the existence of underwater features of considerable magnitude.Today, enough soundings are available to enable a relief map of the Atlantic to be drawn and we know something of the great variety of the sea bed’s topography. Since the sea covers the greater part of the earth’s surface, it is quite reasonable to regard the sea floor as the basic form of the crust of the earth, with, superimposed upon it, the continents, together with the islands and other features of the oceans. The continents form rugged tablelands which stand nearly three miles above the floor of the open ocean. From the shore line, out a distance which may be anywhere from a few miles to a few hundred miles, runs the gentle slope of the continental shelf, geologically part of the continents. The real dividing line between continents and oceans occurs at the foot of a steeper slope.This continental slope usually starts at a place somewhere near the 100-fatheom mark and in the course of a few hundred miles reaches the true ocean floor at 2,500-3,500 fathoms. The slope contains steep, probably vertical, cliffs, and gentle sediment-covered terraces, and near its lower reaches there is a long tailing-off which is almost certainly the result of material transported out to deep water after being eroded from the continental masses.

阅读理解How to not be boringA) Humans are creatures of habit. We love to establish a routine and stick with it. Then we often put ourselves on auto-pilot. Routines can be incredibly useful in helping you get things done. However, too much of a routine can also make you incredibly boring. Nevertheless, many people live lives that are boringly predictable, or live a life where everything is outlined or planned.B) To tell the truth, interesting people are more popular among their friends. If you don’t arouse someone’s curiosity or brighten someone’s day, you probably come across as being a little bit dull. But that doesn’t mean your life has ended and you can’t do anything to change it. If you find yourself searching for something to say beyond small talk, try these tactics to find more interesting approaches to conversation.C) Recently, I was at a gathering of colleagues when someone turned to me and asked, "So, what’s new with you?" Ordinarily, I think I’m a good conversationalist. After all, it’s literally my job to talk to people and tell their stories or share their advice. And that’s not exactly an unexpected question. Still, the only "new-to-me" topics that came to mind were my daughter’s basketball tournament (锦标赛) and my feelings about that morning’s political headlines—neither amusing nor appropriate topics at that moment.D) Oh, no, I thought. Have I become boring? But sharing our experiences in an authentic way to connect with other people is what makes us interesting, says associate professor Michael Pirson. The hesitation I felt in not sharing the ordinary things that were happening in my life, and the wild mental search for something more interesting, may have backfired and made me seem less interesting.E) "If someone is making up some conversation that might be interesting, it’s probably not going to land well," says Pirson, whose expertise includes trust and well-being, mindfulness, and humanistic management. "It’s going to feel like a made-up conversation that people don’t necessarily want to tune in to."F) The most interesting people aren’t those who’ve gone on some Eat, Pray, Love journey to find themselves. Instead, Pirson says, they’re those who examine the ordinary. "Often, the ’boring things’ may not be boring at all. Maybe they are actually little miracles," he says. Share your observations about the world around you—interesting stories you heard or things you noticed—and you may be surprised by the universal connection they inspire.G) This is essentially how Jessica Hagy starts her day. The author of How to Be Interesting-. An Instruction Manual, Hagy spends a lot of time thinking about what’s interesting to her. People who are interesting are persistently curious, she says.H) Think about the everyday things around you and ask questions about them. What is that roadside monument I see on my way to work every day? Who built that interesting building in my city? What nearby attractions haven’t I visited? Why do people do things that way? Use what you find to ask more questions and learn more about the world around you. "Having that sort of curiosity is almost like a protective gear from getting into boredom," she says. And when you find things that are truly interesting to you, share them.I) Television veteran Audrey Morrissey, executive producer of NBC’s The Voice, is always looking for what will make a person or story interesting to viewers: It’s usually a matter of individuality. "Having a strong point of view, signature style, or being a super-enthusiast in a particular field makes someone interesting," she says. That means embracing what is truly interesting or unique about yourself. "Many people are ’ not boring’ in the way that they can carry a conversation or can be good at a social gathering, etc. To be interesting means that you have lived life, taken risks, traveled, sought out experience to learn for yourself and share with others," she says.J) Of course, it’s possible to be a fountain of knowledge and a boring person, says public relations consultant Andrea Pass. Paying attention to the listener is an important part of having a conversation that’s interesting to both parties. Talking on and on about what’s interesting to you isn’t going to make you an interesting person, she says.K) "If the listener is not paying attention, it’s your sign to shorten the story or change direction. Make sure to bring the audience into the conversation so that it is not one-sided," Pass says. Be a better listener yourself, and give others opportunities to participate in the conversation by inviting them with questions or requests to share their own experiences or thoughts, (e. g. , "Now, tell me about your favorite book," or "Have you ever been to that attraction?") Questions are a powerful tool, especially when they encourage others to disclose information about themselves. A 2012 study from the University of California, Santa Barbara, found that roughly 40% of the time we are talking, we’re disclosing subjective information about our experience. And when we’re doing so, our brains are more engaged. So one strategy to leave others with the impression that you’re a sparkling conversation partner is to get others to talk about themselves.L) Being relatable is also essential, Morrissey says. "The best entertainment and storytelling comes from people who are relatable—those who don’t shy away from opening up but freely share who they are and what they care about. These are the people viewers most relate to and find interesting. Being authentic, honest, and vulnerable is always interesting."M) I have now come to realize that being boring, in actuality, is not only about who you are as a person, but also how you present yourself. No matter what, make sure you are having fun in life. Because when you are enjoying, people around you will begin to enjoy as well. Show some interest in them and they will definitely show some in you. If you are a very reserved person, this could be a little difficult at first. But with a little effort, you can definitely improve.

阅读理解Passage 2 It is exciting to apply for a job that really interests you

阅读理解 Progressives often support diversity mandates as a path to equality and a way to level the playing field. But all too often such policies are an insincere form of virtue-signaling that benefits only the most privileged and does little to help average people. A pair of bills sponsored by Massachusetts state Senator Jason Lewis and House Speaker Pro Tempore Patricia Haddad, to ensure 'gender parity' on boards and commissions, provide a case in point. Haddad and Lewis are concerned that more than half the state-government boards are less than 40 percent female. In order to ensure that elite women have more such opportunities, they have proposed imposing government quotas. If the bills become law, state boards and commissions will be required to set aside 50 percent of board seats for women by 2022. The bills are similar to a measure recently adopted in California, which last year became the first state to require gender quotas for private companies. In signing the measure, California Governor Jerry Brown admitted that the law, which expressly classifies people on the basis of sex, is probably unconstitutional. The US Supreme Court frowns on sex-based classifications unless they are designed to address an 'important' policy interest, because the California law applies to all boards, even where there is no history of prior discrimination, courts are likely to rule that the law violates the constitutional guarantee of 'equal protection'. But are such government mandates even necessary? Female participation on corporate boards may not currently mirror the percentage of women in the general population, but so what? The number of women on corporate boards has been steadily increasing without government interference. According to a study by Catalyst, between 2010 and 2015 the share of women on the boards of global corporations increased by 54 percent. Requiring companies to make gender the primary qualification for board membership will inevitably lead to less experienced private sector boards. That is exactly what happened when Norway adopted a nationwide corporate gender quota. Writing in The New Republic, Alice Lee notes that increasing the number of opportunities for board membership without increasing the pool of qualified women to serve on such boards has led to a 'gold skirt' phenomenon. Where the same elite women scoop up multiple seats on a variety of boards. Next time somebody pushes corporate quotas as a way to promote gender equity, remember that such policies are largely self-serving measures that make their sponsors feel good but do little to help average women.

阅读理解In a competitive economy, the consumer usually has the choice of several different brands of the same product. Yet underneath their labels, these products are often nearly identical. One manufacturer''s toothpaste tends to differ very little from another manufacturer''s. Two different brands of shampoo may vary only in scent or color. And the tobacco in two different brands of cigarettes frequently comes from the same fields. This close similarity means that a shopper often has little reason to choose one brand over another. Thus, manufacturers are confronted with a problem--how to keep sales high enough to stay in business. Manufacturers solve this problem by advertising. Through advertising, each manufacturing company tries to convince consumers that its product is special. To do this ,the companies try to appeal to consumers in various ways. In fact, advertisements may be classified into three types according to the kind of appeals they use. 　　One type of advertisement tries to appeal to the consumer''s reasoning mind. It may offer a claim that seems scientific. For example, it may say that dentists recommend Flash toothpaste, or it may declare that Woof dog food contains a special, vitamin-rich ingredient known as K-9, or it may report that laboratory tests show that R. I. P. cigarettes contain fewer harmful ingredients than other brands. In selling a product, the truth of advertising may be less important than the appearance of truth. A scientific approach gives the appearance of truth. 　　Another type of advertisement tries to amuse the potential buyer. Products that are essentially boring, such as cleaning powder or insecticide, are often advertised in an amusing manner. One way of doing this is to make the products appear alive. The advertiser may draw little cartoon eyes, arms, and legs on the cans of cleaning powder and have the resulting figures scrub the sink. Ads of this sort are silly, but advertisers believe that consumers are likely to remember and buy the products that the consumers associate with fun. 　　Associating the product with something pleasant is the technique of the third type of appeal. In this class are ads that suggest that the product will satisfy some basic human desires. One such desire is the wish to be admired by other people. Many automobile advertisements are in this category. They imply that other people will admire you--may even be jealous--when they see you driving the hot, new Aardvark car. This kind of appeal is sometimes strengthened by hiring a famous person to endorse the product. Seeing the famous person, the consumer is supposed to reason thus: Everyone admires Judson Smith the great football star. Judson Smith used Buckworthy Bank traveler''s checks. Therefore, if I use Buckworthy Bank traveler''s checks, everyone will admire me too. Some other basic desires that ads commonly try to appeal to are the desires for social acceptance ,financial security, and so on. 　　One only needs to look through a magazine or watch an hour of TV in order to see examples of these three different advertising strategies.

阅读理解Passage 1 The standardized educational or psychological tests, which are widely used to aid in selecting, assigning or promoting students, employees and military personnel, have been the target of recent attacks in books, magazines, the daily press, and even in Congress

阅读理解 This week's A-level results will have disappointed some students, but despite that there may in one sense never be a better time to be a UK teenager who wants to go on to higher education. The recent massive expansion in higher education, as well as the lack of alternatives and the decline in the number of school leavers, means that for now and the next two or three years, sixth formers holding A-level certificates and equivalent qualifications will be in high demand. The generous offers being made by institutions to attract students at all stages of the admissions process are a symptom of that demand. Since cutting tuition fees puts off students fearing a cut-price education, universities are instead offering incentives in various forms, as well as offering bursaries to support those students whose family circumstances mean they would otherwise be unable to afford to go. But the current shortage of students obscures a major flaw in the pipeline from school to campus: the UK's outdated insistence on conducting applications and admissions without knowing a candidate's final exam results. It's not enough to say that if the system isn't broken it doesn't need fixing, because it is broken. The evidence is the bureaucratic scaffolding that has been erected purely to work around the lack of exam results. First come the grade predictions made by teachers—these are ridiculously unreliable but they set the boundaries of where students apply, aggravating inequality. Then there is the growth in unconditional offers, which overcome the instability of the system by ignoring exam results entirely but are said to downgrade the importance of the exams. There are two straightforward options to tackle this problem. One is to imitate Scotland and reintroduce the halfway AS-level scrapped by Michael Gove as education secretary, and allow those to be used as a better guide. The other is to move A-level exams earlier in the year, to March or April. Then the results would be published during term time, with sixth formers using the intervening period to research possible choices, assisted by school staff able to aid those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Other countries avoid these difficulties because they have education systems that don't insist on 16- and 17-year-olds making definitive choices in a narrow range of subjects to study and then propel them into choosing overly specialised courses from their first day as undergraduates. That is a wider issue, but for now let us reform the admissions process, as Labour has suggested. There could not be a better time now that student numbers are low.

阅读理解Passage 3 Accounts of debilitating fear after trauma date back to the Trojan wars

阅读理解The view over a valley of a tiny village with thatched (草盖的) roof around a church; a drive through a narrow village street lined with thatched cottages painted pink or white; the sight over the rolling hills of a pretty collection of thatched farm buildings—these are still common sights in parts of England. Most people will agree that the thatched roof is an essential part of the attraction of the English countryside. Thatching is in fact the oldest of all the building crafts practiced in the British Isles (英伦诸岛). Although thatch has always been used for cottage and farm buildings, it was once used for castles and churches, too. Thatching is a solitary (独自的 ) craft, which often runs in families. The craft of thatching as it is practiced today has changed very little since the Middle Ages. Over 800 full-time thatchers are employed in England and Wales today, maintaining and renewing the old rods as well as thatching newer houses. Many property owners choose thatch not only for its beauty but became they know it will keep them cool in summer and warm in winter. In fact, if we look at developing countries, over half the world lives under thatch, but they all do it in different ways. People in developing countries are often reluctant to go back to traditional materials and would prefer modern buildings. However, they may lack the money to allow them to import the necessary materials. Their temporary mud huts with thatched roofs of wild grasses often only last six months. Thatch which has been done the British way lasts from twenty to sixty years, and is an effective defence against the heat.

阅读理解TEXT 1 Study requires a students undivided attention

阅读理解Questions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage

阅读理解New Year’s detox products that purport to rid the body of harmful chemicals accumulated through seasonal over-indulgence are a waste of time and money, leading scientists said recently. Most of the pills, juices, teas and oils that are sold for their detoxifying effects on the body have no scientific foundation for their claims, according to toxicologists and dieticians. They will not influence the rate at which the body rids itself of toxins, and any beneficial effects would be matched at much lower cost by drinking plenty of tap water, eating fruit and vegetables and getting a few early nights. The entire market for detox products, which is worth tens of millions of pounds a year, rests on myths about the human body that are hitting consumers in the wallet, the experts’report has found. “Among these myths is the idea that in some way the body accumulates noxious chemicals during everyday life, and that they need to be expunged by some mysterious process of detoxification, often once a year after Christmas excess. The detox fad — or fads, as there are many methods — is an example of the capacity of people to believe in (and pay for) magic despite the lack of any sound evidence.”said Martin Wiseman, Visiting Professor of Human Nutrition at the University of Southampton. The criticism of the detox industry has emerged from an inquiry into public perceptions of chemicals and toxicity by a working party of 11 scientists. The full report, Making Sense of Chemical Stories, will be published later this month by the charity Sense About Science. It found that popular ideas about detox are based on misconceptions about how the human body responds to chemicals in the diet. The liver and kidneys are highly efficient organs that have evolved to break down and remove toxins from the bloodstream, and their function is not helped by products such as Gillian McKeith’s ￡ 19.99 “24 hour detox programme,”which claims to “assist the natural detoxification process in your body.”“Our bodies are very good at eliminating all the nasties that we might digest over the festive season,”said John Emsley, of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Sir Colin Berry, Professor Emeritus of Pathology at Queen Mary, University of London, said: “Even if you drink an almost lethal dose of alcohol (which I don’t recommend) your liver will clear it in 36 hours without assistance from detox tablets.”

阅读理解Passage 3 Concerned about efforts to open more emergency shelters to accommodate a growing homeless population the New York City Council appears likely to adopt legislation requiring the city to alert local communities to any plans for new shelters there

阅读理解When you take a pill, you and your doctor hope it will workand that helps it work

阅读理解Text 2 Forests give us shade, quiet and one of the harder callenges in the fight against climate change

阅读理解 Corals are approaching a brink. Warming oceans, acidification and a constellation of other man-made stressors mean coral reefs may face extinction within the century. And with around 25 percent of all sea life, dependent on the health of coral reefs, if the corals go down, they're taking a huge swath of marine biodiversity with them. But in a paper published in the journal Science, a team of scientists made a hopeful discovery: Heat tolerance in corals can be inherited, and at a remarkably high rate of success too; 87 percent of all differences in survival rates among the heat-stressed coral they studied was explained by how heat-tolerant the corals' parents were. 'This implies that heat tolerance could not only evolve, but evolve fast,' explained Mikhail Matz, an associate professor of integrative biology and an author on the paper. In other words, some corals are already capable of genetically adapting to warmer oceans. If heat-tolerant coral parents can have heat-tolerant coral babies, then interbreeding between more and less heat-tolerant corals has the potential to help genetically rescue the next generation of a colony. Humans, the authors posit, could potentially harness the natural genetic variation among corals to help save them. More resilient coral could be born out of 'something as simple as exchange of coral immigrants across latitudes,' said Line Bay, an evolutionary ecologist and another author on the paper. If humans strategically move heat-tolerant, reproductively active corals to vulnerable reefs, the process of 'genetic rescue' might be jump-started. 'This is occasion for hope and optimism about coral reefs and the marine life that thrive there,' Matz said. Meanwhile, a multitude of other problems face coral reefs. For example, as the paper notes, corals live a long time; from decades to centuries. With climate change poised to measurably warm and acidified oceans within the next several decades, and pollution causing oxygen depletion and 'dead zones' in some areas, 'it has been argued that in such long-lived organisms acclimatization rather than genetic adaptation will play the leading role in their response to climate change,' the paper reads. In other words, to save reefs, something needs to be done for the coral that already exist. 'Existing genetic variation is by no means a magic bullet that will solve the problem once and for all,' Matz said. 'The good news is that genetic variation will buy us some time; but it will eventually 'run out' when the warming progresses beyond the high levels seen now in natural populations. So if we want to save corals (as well as the rest of biodiversity) we will still need to come up with a solution to curb global warming as a global problem.'

阅读理解Questions 36-40 are based on the following passage: A white kid sells a bag of cocaine at his suburban high school

阅读理解 The first line reads: 'She sits on the bed with a helpless expression. What is your name? Auguste. Last name? Auguste. What is your husband's name? Auguste, I think.' The 32 pages of medical records that follow are the oldest medical description of Alzheimer's disease. Psychiatrist Konrad Maurer and his colleagues at Johann Wolfgan Goethe University in Frankfurt found the file in their hospital's archive, where it had been missing for nearly 90 years, and published excerpts from it last May in The Lancet. The notes, in a cramped, archaic German script, were written by Alois Alzheimer—the physician who first described the disease. His patient, Auguste D, was a 51-year-old woman who had suffered fits of paranoid jealousy and memory lapses so disturbing that her family finally brought her to a local hospital known as the Castle of the Insane. Over the next four years Alzheimer tracked her condition. Upon her death he examined her brain tissue and found the distinctive lesion that are now hallmark of the disease. Today Alzheimer's afflicts some 4 million Americans. Although it still cannot be cured, or even treated very well, several recent studies hint that some treatments—from estrogen to vitamin E to anti-inflammatory drugs—can reduce either the risk of developing the disorder or its symptoms. And more is being learned about its distinctive pathology. This past year, for instance, researchers discovered a new kind of lesion in Alzheimer's patients. A genetic study also pinpointed a mutation that is present in some 60 percent of them—a mutation in the DNA of mitochondria, the energy-producing organelles of the cells. But nearly a century ago, it was Alois Alzheimer who first described the disease and in so doing became one of the first physicians to offer a biological basis for a psychiatric condition. Finding the file, Maurer says, 'is like holding history in your hands.'

阅读理解Passage 4 Occasional self-medication has always been part of normal living

阅读理解Passage F In recent years, a growing body of research has shown that our appetite and food intake are influenced by a large number of factors besides our biological need for energy, including our eating environment and our perception of the food in front of us