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题型:阅读理解 题类:常考题 难易度:普通

内蒙古赤峰市第二中学2016-2017学年高二下学期英语第二次月考试卷

阅读理解

Visitor Guide to Birch Aquarium General Information

Thank you for respecting the health of our animals and the experience.

◆ Keep voices low in exhibit areas.

◆ No tapping on marine life displays.

As a courtesy, please silence cell phones.

◆ Please use trash and recycling bins.

◆ Birch Aquarium is smoke-free facility.

Photography

    For the safety of our live animals, please do not use flash photography. Visitors may be photographed or videotaped by aquarium staff for professional use, or by the media covering aquarium news. Entry into the aquarium grants permission for use of these images.

Refreshments

    Splash Cafe offers a variety of gourmet, sustainable, and organic sandwiches, snacks, and beverages.

Drinks, food, and gum are not permitted inside the aquarium.

Restrooms & Baby Care

Changing tables are located in both the men's and women's restrooms.

Re-entry

    Please keep your ticket or have hand stamped at the Visitor Service Office if you plan to exit and re-enter the same day , including visits to Splash Coffee Shop.

Visitors with Disabilities

    See the Visitor Information Center for assistance. All exhibits are wheelchair accessible. Wheelchairs are available at no charge.

Emergencies /First Aid/ Lost & Found

Go to the Visitor Service Office or alert the nearest staff member.

Don't Miss!

    Watch a diver hand-feed the fishes—including three species of sharks—during our Kelp Tank Dive Show.

Learn about this unique and beautiful undersea world during a live, interactive presentation. After your visit, view the exhibit at home through our live, online Kelp Cam.

(1)、Which of the following statements is TRUE?

a. Visitors can attract the fish in the tank by knocking on the window of the tank.

b. Visitors can come back to the aquarium with the ticket whenever they need to.

c. Visitors are allowed to refresh themselves with snacks while enjoying the exhibition.

d. You can't smoke freely during your visit to the Birch Aquarium.

e. You can't take photos but can be photographed by the staff.

f. Babies can get changed by either mother or father.

g. The disabled have to pay for the wheelchairs provided by the aquarium.

A、a b B、c e C、d f D、f g
(2)、What does the underlined phrase “as a courtesy” probably mean?
A、To save electricity. B、For your own safety. C、When answering the phone. D、As good manners.
(3)、What information is necessary for visitors but not included in this Visitor Guide?
A、Opening hours B、Animal Feedings C、Membership Cards D、Volunteer Work
(4)、In which section of a newspaper can we probably read this passage?
A、Fashion B、Travel C、Sports D、Science
举一反三
    Considering Australia's size and the fact that early settlements were far apart, Australian society is remarkably homogeneous ( 同种的). Its citizens are fundamentally prosperous and the way of life in the major cities and towns is much the same however many miles divide them. It takes asharp ear to identify regional accents.

    However, there is some difference in lifestyle between city settlers and the country people. Almost 90 percent ofthe population lives in the fast-paced cities along the coast and has little more than a passing familiarity with the desert. The major cities preserve images of colonial heritage, but on the whole the impression is modern, with new buildings reflecting the country's youth. In contrast, therural communities tend to be slow-moving and conservative. For many years, Australia was said to have "ridden on the sheep's back" , are ference to wool being the country's main money earner. However, it is nolonger dominant ( 主宰的). Much of Australia's relatively sound economy is now achieved from natural coal and wheat, and by being the largest diamond producer in the world. Newer industries such as tourism and wine making are also increasingly important. Australians are generally friendly and relaxed, with a modest sense of humor.

    Yet, contrary to wide spread belief, very few Australians have true prisoner origins. Within only one generation of the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, Australia had become a nation of immigrants. Originally coming almost entirely from the British Isles, today one in three Australians comes from elsewhere. Australia's liberal postwar immigration policies led to a flowing of survivors from war-torn Europe. The emphasis has changed in recent years and today the majority of new immigrants are from Southeast Asia. Today Australia is a "mixture of nations" and although some racism exists, it has generally been a successful experiment and the country is reasonably proud to have one of the most harmonious multicultural communities in the world.

阅读理解

    Book 1: Diary of a Fly—By Doreen Cronin

    40 pages, US $15. 99

    This is the diary of a fly. The fly, when she's not landing on your head or swimming in your soup, is trying to escape her 327 siblings who are driving her crazy. Even though she's little—just like her best friends, Worm and Spider— she wants to be a superhero. This is the story of a little fly who's unafraid to dream big.

    Book 2: Iggy Peck, Architect—By Andrea Beaty

    32 pages, US $15.95

    This book is a story about a kid whose head teacher doesn't recognize his great talent (though he makes buildings out of anything at hand, including table cloths, fruit and chalk) until it saves her life. With Andrea Beatty's rhyming text and David Roberts's interesting illustrations (插图), it will charm creative kids everywhere.

    Book 3: The Chicken-Chasing Queen of Lamar County—By Janice N. Harrington

    40 pages, US $16.00

    Our character here loves to run after chickens, particularly Miss Hen, who's very fat. But, as all farming folks know, this is not a good way to produce happy, productive chickens. What will make her change her ways? The author is a professional storyteller and this book is full of fun, and has great illustrations.

Book 4: Cherry and Olive—By Benjamin Lacombe

    32 pages, US $16.95

    Children's books can quickly take little readers into new worlds, such as the big city, 1930s Georgia, or outer space. This book takes us on a little trip to some European capitals. Cherry is fat and likes books, and she has few friends until she meets a SharPei puppy (沙皮狗). She names it Olive. Through it she finds confidence and friendship. But what will happen when its owner returns?

阅读理解

    More students than ever before are taking a gap year (间隔年) before going to university. It used to be called the "year off" between school and university. The gap-year phenomenon originated (起源) with the months left over to Oxbridge applicants between entrance exams in November and the start of the next academic year.

    This year, 25,310 students who have accepted places in higher education institutions have put off their entry until next year, according to statistics on university entrance provided by the University and College Admissions Service (UCAS).

    That is a record 14.7% increase in the number of students taking a gap year. Tony Higgins from UCAS said that the statistics are good news for everyone in higher education. "Students who take a well-planned year out are more likely to be satisfied with, and complete, their chosen course. Students who take a gap year are often more mature and responsible?" he said.

    But not everyone is happy. Owain James, the president of the National Union of Students (NUS), argued that the increase is evidence of student hardship—young people are being forced into earning money before finishing their education. "New students are now aware that they are likely to leave university up to £ 15,000 in debt. It is not surprising that more and more students are taking a gap year to earn money to support their study for the degree. NUS statistics show that over 40% of students are forced to work during term time and the figure increases to 90% during vacation periods," he said.

阅读理解

    Microsoft announced this week that its facial-recognition system is now more accurate in identifying people of color, touting (吹嘘)its progress at tackling one of the technology's biggest biases (偏见).

    But critics, citing Microsoft's work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, quickly seized on how that improved technology might be used. The agency contracts with Microsoft for cloud-computing tools that the tech giant says is largely limited to office work but can also include face recognition.

    Columbia University professor Alondra Nelson tweeted, "We must stop confusing 'inclusion' in more 'diverse' surveillance (监管)systems with justice and equality."

    Facial-recognition systems more often misidentify people of color because of a long-running data problem: The massive sets of facial images they train on skew heavily toward white men. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology study this year of the face-recognition systems designed by Microsoft, IBM and the China-based Face++ found that facial-recognition systems consistently giving the wrong gender for famous women of color including Oprah Winfrey, Serena Williams, Michelle Obama and Shirley Chisholm, the first black female member of Congress.

    The companies have responded in recent months by pouring many more photos into the mix, hoping to train the systems to better tell the differences among more than just white faces. IBM said Wednesday it used 1 million facial images, taken from the photo-sharing site Flickr, to build the "world's largest facial data-set" which it will release publicly for other companies to use.

    IBM and Microsoft say that allowed its systems to recognize gender and skin tone with much more precision. Microsoft said its improved system reduced the error rates for darker-skinned men and women by "up to 20 times," and reduced error rates for all women by nine times.

    Those improvements were heralded(宣布)by some for taking aim at the prejudices in a rapidly spreading technology, including potentially reducing the kinds of false positives that could lead police officers misidentify a criminal suspect.

    But others suggested that the technology's increasing accuracy could also make it more marketable. The system should be accurate, "but that's just the beginning, not the end, of their ethical obligation," said David Robinson, managing director of the think tank Upturn.

    At the center of that debate is Microsoft, whose multimillion-dollar contracts with ICE came under fire amid the agency's separation of migrant parents and children at the Mexican border.

    In an open letter to Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella urging the company to cancel that contract, Microsoft workers pointed to a company blog post in January that said Azure Government would help ICE "accelerate recognition and identification." "We believe that Microsoft must take an ethical stand, and put children and families above profits," the letter said.

    A Microsoft spokesman, pointing to a statement last week from Nadella, said the company's "current cloud engagement" with ICE supports relatively anodyne(温和的)office work such as "mail, calendar, massaging and document management workloads." The company said in a statement that its facial-recognition improvements are "part of our going work to address the industry-wide and societal issues on bias."

    Criticism of face recognition will probably expand as the technology finds its way into more arenas, including airports, stores and schools. The Orlando police department said this week that it would not renew its use of Amazon. com's Rekognition system.

    Companies "have to acknowledge their moral involvement in the downstream use of their technology,"

    Robinson said. "The impulse is that they're going to put a product out there and wash their hands of the consequences. That's unacceptable."

 阅读理解

Elon Musk is a symbol of passion, hard work and success. A person may work hard in his life, but when hard work goes along with passion and a new idea, then something is created that astonishes the world. As the founder of big companies like PayPal, SpaceX and Tesla Motors, Elon Musk is a guide and inspiration for the youth around the world. 

Elon Musk was born on June 28, 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa. He was the eldest of three children. His father Errol Musk, a British-born South African, was an engineer. Musk spent his childhood in South Africa and at the age of 9, he got his first personal computer. This got Elon interested in programming and he started to learn on his own. At the age of 12, he made his first computer game, Blaster, which earned him $500 when he sold the source code to a magazine. 

When he was 17, he decided to leave home and had wanted to move to the United States after graduating from a secondary school in Pretoria. However, he was unable to move to the United States. In 1989, Elon Musk moved to Canada, where his mother's relatives lived. After obtaining Canadian citizenship, Musk went to Montreal. Due to a lack of money, he found a low-paying job. At the age of 19, he entered Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, studying there for two years. Finally, in 1992, his dream came true—he moved to the United States. 

As a teenager, Musk struggled with depression. But then he realized that the most important thing was presenting himself with the right questions. The day he started doing this, everything started to get easier. 

Musk thought that a human being had to expand the limits of his consciousness—to ask the right questions and get answers to them; thus he asked the best question of all: what will have the greatest impact on the future of humans? Musk found that these things were the Internet and space exploration. 

The life of Elon Musk is inspiring. He found success on the Internet, without much formal learning. By reading books and using his willpower and dedication, he reached a level of knowledge that is difficult to imagine. He did not give up until he achieved his dreams. Elon Musk truly stands out among other billionaires because of his leadership abilities, positive attitude, ability to know when to take risks, and belief in futuristic technologies.

 阅读理解

With the summer heat becoming increasingly unbearable over the years due to climate change,the cooling load in the summertime has also been on the rise.Insulation(隔热) is currently the main solution for blocking heat from entering a building,but by applying an additional material that can delay heat penetration(渗透),it can prevent the indoor temperature from rising and in turn lower the cooling load of the building.

A research team in Korea has developed a new material for building walls that can help reduce the penetration of heat from the outside.The team directed by Dr.Sarng Woo Karng from KIST revealed that they have successfully done it through building walls by applying a phase change material(PCM).One of the most common types is paraffin oil,which is used to make candles.

A solid PCM absorbs heat as it transforms into a liquid phase,so by using a case to hold it when it is in a liquid phase without causing any leakage(渗漏),it is possible to apply them to a building wall to block heat from entering inside.

The problem,however,is that the PCM turns into liquid starting from the outermost layer,and the parts that are hot move upward,while the parts that are still relatively cool move downward.Thus,while the upper part may have completely melted,the lower part will have not,and as a result,heat will penetrate into the building through the area where the PCM is in a liquid phase.In the end,the PCM becomes ineffective in controlling the indoor temperature and is rendered useless.

Dr.Karng's team addressed the non-uniform phase change with bubble injections.Injecting bubbles into the bottom part of the PCM enabled uniform circulation(流动)of the PCM in a liquid phase.Dr.Karng said,"We expect that the insulating wall using the PCM bubble generator used in this study will contribute to reducing the amount of energy used to heat or cool a building.Insulation techniques using the PCM help reduce heat penetration,in combination with the building insulating material,and it can also be used as the outer walls of zero-energy buildings."

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