北京市朝阳区2020届高三上学期英语期末考试试卷

    To celebrate his sixtieth birthday, Devon's father organized a family vacationto Alaska. On the long northward flight, Devon (think) that she would have preferred a tropical (热带的) island. But she changed her mind on their third day, they hiked out onto Root Glacier (冰川) with a guide. Standing inside an ice cave beneath the glacier's surface, Devon stared in amazement at the glowing neon (氖) blue of the glacial ice surrounding her. This was (definite) worth the trip!

    While bottled water is convenient, it is also really bad for the environment. Not only does it create rubbish, but it also uses more resources because it (ship) to the shore. To be more eco-friendly, make it a habit (carry) a reusable water bottle with you everywhere so that you can drink water on the go. Plastic bottles are usually the (light) and most convenient. You can also find glass water bottles that are a great choice if don't like using plastic.

    The debate junk food in schools has gone for many years, and people on both sides feel very strongly. Some people believe junk food, such as candy, cookies, potato chips, and soda, (taste) good, but it's not good for the human body. This is they have made an effort to ban it from schools. They think taking junk food out of schools will make kids healthier.

    Others, however, believe this kind of ban doesn't make much of a difference. Instead of banning junk food, they suggest students should be given choices between healthy and unhealthy ones. (learn) to make healthier choices on their own is an important part of growing up.

New Distractions (使人分心的事)

    Madeline's family vacation to the beach was usually the highlight of her summer. This year however, her parents announced a new1no phones allowed for the entire week. "No distractions," they said. "But my friends will be2updates," Madeline protested. "They'll have to3," her mom said. "What if something bad happens?" Madeline changed her4Her mom shook her head as she opened a drawer. Madeline saw that her parents' phones were already in it. Madeline had to5her phone in, too. The drive to the beach house took most of the day. That night after dinner, Madeline wandered into the kitchen, where her father was6dishes. "Still hungry?" he asked. "No," she answered. Then she gave him a7look and said in her sweetest voice, "Couldn't I have my phone back? Just so I can tell everyone what a(n)8time I'm having?" "Can't," he said. "It's not here. Remember?9out the bookcase in the living room," he suggested. "Might find something you like." She walked into the living room and spotted a jigsaw puzzle (拼图玩具) on the bookcase. She took it, put the pieces on the table, and began to10them. After what seemed like minutes, she looked up. It was past ten o'clock. She had been11for almost two hours! The puzzle was less than half done. It would have been nice to12a picture of the puzzle with her friends, she thought. The next morning, a golden sun was rising over the blue ocean. The sky was cloudless. The scene13Madeline of a photo that Brandi had shared. Her friends had oohed and ahhed over it. This view was even better. It would leave everyone14Madeline's hand15to the bedside table, but there was nothing there.

    That evening, Madeline lost herself in the jigsaw puzzle again. She felt a little excited every time the shapes16. Soon, all that were left were a few gaps. She quickly put the remaining pieces into place. The puzzle was17.

    She stepped back to18the finished puzzle. The picture showed an old painting of several farmhands working in a brown field and there was a giant rainbow arching across the sky.

    Madeline enjoyed the puzzle for a few minutes, trying to19the image in her mind. Then, she quietly started taking it20. That, she thought, was just for me.

Membership Card

    Fighting Fit is a members-only club. When you first join, we give you a computerized card. It has your name, photo and membership number on.

    Please have your card with you every time you use the club. The card is for your use only, and there is a small charge to provide a new one if you lose it. Members are permitted to bring guests to use the facilities at the club. A visiting guest fee is charged for each guest.

    Fitness Programs

    Your Fitness Program includes a meeting with one of our skilled instructors. This will happen two or three weeks after you have joined. The instructor looks at your health, your current needs and the way you live, and organizes a program suitable for you.

    Gymnasium

    Our gymnasiums are the most modern in the area and have high quality exercise equipment. For safety reasons, you must wear sportswear and trainers while exercising, and please remember to take a small towel too. It is one of our rules that you wipe the equipment after use.

    There is no limit to how long you spend in the gymnasiums, but we ask you to respect other members by only spending 20 minutes on each piece of equipment. There are experienced staff helping you in the gymnasiums at any time.

    Locker Rooms

    We have large male and female locker rooms. Please ensure that your property is kept in your locker at all times. Any belongings which are found in a locker overnight will be removed and taken to Lost Property.

    Café

    The Café offers free tea, coffee and soft drinks.

    Suggestion Box

    Members' suggestions are always welcome, and the suggestion box and forms can be found at reception. We try to respond within two days.

A Dream Chaser in a Wheelchair

    Since the age of three, Chelsie Hill had dreamed of becoming a dancer. That ambition nearly ended in 2010 when Hill was in a car accident, which put the 17- year-old high school senior in hospital for 51 days and left her paralyzed from the waist down. For most people, that would have destroyed any hope of a dancing career. But for Hill, it was the beginning. Far from being a barrier, her wheelchair encouraged her to fight. "I want to prove to everyone including myself that I'm still normal," she said, "whatever normal means."

    Normal for her meant dancing, so Hill did it in her wheelchair alongside her nondisabled high school dance team. Half of her body was taken away from her, so she had to move it with her hands. It took much learning and patience.

    After graduation from high school, Hill wanted to expand her dance network to include women like her. She met people online who were fighting for the dream of dancing against various spinal(脊椎的)injuries, and invited them to dance with her. To reach more people in a larger city, Hill moved to Los Angeles in 2014 and formed a team of dancers with disabilities she called the Rollettes.

    Every year Hill holds a dance camp called the Rollettes Experience for wheelchair users to help them bring out their acting talent. In 2019, 173 participants from ten countries attended. For many, it was the first time they'd felt they belonged. Edna Serrano said that being part of the Rollettes team gave her the courage to get behind the wheel of a car. "I didn't know I could do so many things that my fellow teammates had taught me." she said. "I didn't know I could be sexy. It's so powerful to have my teammates in my life, because they're my teachers. I have more confidence."

    Chelsie Hill attained what many of us never will: her childhood dream. She has been chasing her dream in the wheelchair. She's a dancer. The Rollettes have helped her find something else just as fulfilling.

    In the first few years of their lives, children brought up in English-speaking homes successfully master the use of hundreds of words, including those for objects, actions, emotions, and many other aspects of the physical world. However, when it comes to learning colour words, the same children perform very badly. If shown a blue cup and asked about its colour, typical two-year-olds seem as likely to come up with "red" as "blue".

    Cognitive (认知) scientists at Stanford University in California supposed that children's incompetence at colour-word learning may be directly linked to the way these words are used in English. They are used mostly in pre-nominal position (e.g. "blue cup"), in contrast to post-nominal position (e.g. "The cup is blue."). The difficulty children have may simply come down to the challenge of having to make predictions from colour words to the objects they refer to, rather than from the objects to the colour words.

    To explore this idea further, the research team recruited 40 English children aged between 23 and 29 months and carried out a three-phase experiment. It considered of a pre-test, followed by training in the use of colour words, and finally a post-test that was identical to the pre-test. The pre- and post- test materials comprised six objects that were unfamiliar to the children. There were three examples of each object in each of three colours — red, yellow and blue. The objects were presented on trays (托盘), and in both tests, the children were asked to pick out objects in response to requests in which the colour word was either a pre-nominal ("Which is the red one?") or a post-nominal ("Which one is red?").

    In the training, the children were introduced to five sets of familiar items (balls, cups, crayons, glasses, and toy bears) in each of the three colours. Half the children were presented with the items one by one and heard them labeled with colour words used pre-nominally, while the other half were introduced to the same items described with a post-nominal colour word. After the training, the children repeated the selection task on the novel items in the post-test. Correct choices on items that were consistent across the pre- and post-tests were used to measure children's colour knowledge.

    According to the assessment, children's performance was consistent when they were both trained and tested on post-nominal adjectives, and worst when trained on pre-nominal adjectives and tested on post-nominal adjectives. Comparing the pre- and post-test scores across each condition revealed a significant decline in performance when children were both pre- and post-tested with questions that placed the colour words pre-nominally.

    In the picture Landscape with Diogenes by the 17th century French artist Poussin, the ancient philosopher Diogenes is described casting away his last possession, a drinking bowl. He realizes he doesn't need it after seeing a youth cupping a hand to drink from a river. The significance for us is that Diogenes' spiritual descendants (后代) known as "new minimalists" are now everywhere, if not as completely possession-free as he was.

    There are hundreds of websites praising the virtues of tidy living. Everyone is trying to cut down on things these days. People are trying to reduce their carbon footprints, their waistlines, and their monthly outgoings. What's more, there's a general fear that people are becoming choked by their possessions, and this is fueled by the knowledge that the leading hobby these days seems to be shopping. It's true, sales of e-readers and e-books go beyond those of paperbacks. As a result, the need for bookshelves is cut out.

    However, today's new minimalists don't urge us to burn our books and destroy our CDs, but just make sure we have them as digital files. So, for example, I have digitised versions of some of my old vinyl LP (黑胶) records and haven't, as yet, stimulated myself to take the LPs to the nearest charity shop – and I admit I shall probably go on keeping them. Technology has gone beyond our dreams and there is always the doubt that our hard drives will crash and all will be lost. Far more important, however, is the fact that our memories are so inseparably tied to our possessions that we can't get rid of stuff. We are not exactly suffering withdrawal symptoms (症状) as we try to break our addiction to objects. We are just acquiring new stuff, which means we can bin or recycle our old stuff.

    I'm happy to have found another website which seems to solve a whole lot of problems at once – a thriving online advice service offering storage solutions. The interior (室内的) designer responsible for this does not suggest getting rid of stuff, but rather recommends buying more stuff such as elegant flexible baskets or colourful lidded containers to hide the first lot of stuff from view. I love this philosophy – convince yourself you've got your desire for possessions under control, without having to lose a thing. After all, we aren't merciless enough to follow Diogenes and cast away all our possessions.

Happier Babies Have an Edge

    Parents and teachers want children to grow up to be happy and successful.

A wide range of research, however, indicates happiness brings success in adults, and achievements do not always make adults happier.

    Recently in new study, John K. Coffey II, assistant professor of psychology at Sewanee, the University of the South, found that happiness during infancy (婴儿期) predicted childhood IQ and adult educational success.

    In his 29-year study, Coffey used the Fullerton Longitudinal Study (FLS). In 1978 the FLS research team recruited 130 parents with babies for a study that now has run for more than 30 years. When each baby was 18 months old, one parent reported how often his or her baby expressed positive and negative emotions and researchers measured the infant's IQ. When babies were children (ages 6 to 8), they completed IQ tests. When babies had grown into 29-year-old adults, they reported how many years of education they had completed and their life satisfaction.

    As expected, Coffey found that regardless of intelligence during infancy or parents' wealth, happier babies were more likely to graduate from high school and college. It suggests that happier babies learn more between infancy and childhood.

    Parents wishing to help their children enjoy greater happiness can focus on small changes they can make in their day-to-day lives to create more positive moments. Parents do not need to aim for intense experiences or "best day ever" for their children. Although peak experiences can be fun, they also tend to be tiring for both children and their parents, which can lead to anxiety and conflict.

    Currently, Coffey and other researchers are exploring when and why some children are happier than others or whether we can increase it. Happiness during infancy and childhood is predicted by relationships with caregivers and teachers or by learning new skills. Inexpensive and easy-to-do activities like practising acts of kindness or appreciation can boost happiness.

A. We often think that achieving success will ultimately make us happy.

B. We can use these activities to help children grow into happy and successful adults.

C. To test his theory, Coffey looked at how intensely children's emotions are experienced.

D. These happy babies aren't just growing up to be successful, but they are also happy adults.

E. Further, happier babies had more growth in their IQ scores between infancy and childhood.

F. Another important clarification is that happiness is about how often emotions are experienced.

G. Early on, parents reported on their background, for instance, education level and employment.

1）介绍英文演讲比赛的相关信息（主题、目的……）；

2）说明你的困难。

注意：1）词数不少于 50；

2）开头和结尾已给出，不计入总词数。

Dear Jim,

Yours,

Li Hua