Ⅳ. Fill in the blanks (5%)
Olivia: Hi, it’s you, Pansy! I didn’t r1_______ you!
Pansy: Hi, Olivia! Long time no see. I’ve changed a lot, haven’t I?
Olivia: Yes, indeed. You’re slimmer than before.
Pansy: Really? I’m losing w 2_____ .
Olivia: But how? Going on a d 3_______ or ……?
Pansy: I tried to eat less, but failed. You know I’ve got a sweet tooth. Chocolates, ice creams …all my f 4_______ .
Olivia: So?
Pansy: My doctor s 5____ that I do more exercise. You see, as a secretary to the manager, I always sit at the desk doing paperwork.. L 6____ of exercise led to my
g 7_____ weight day by day. So at last, I f 8______ his advice. I’m attending a Yoga(瑜伽) course r 9_____ , twice a week. And I often do jogging(慢跑) in the morning.
Olivia: Can you i 10_______ your Yoga coach to me? I’m quite interested in it.
Pansy: Sure.
Can software bring dead tongues back to life? Probably yes.
A computer algorithm（计算程序）works almost as well as a trained linguist（语言学家） in reconstructing how dead "protolanguages" would have sounded, says a new study.
"Our computer system is doing a basic job right now," says Alex Bouchard-Côté, an assistant professor in the department of statistics at the University of British Columbia and lead author of the paper describing the algorithm. But the program does a good enough job that it may be able to give linguists a head start, the statistician added.
For centuries, scholars have reconstructed languages by hand: looking at the same word in two or more languages and making educated guesses about what that word's "ancestor" may have sounded like. For example, the Spanish word for man （"hombre"） and the French word for man （"homme"） developed from the Latin word "homo." The way linguists compare words from descendant（后代）languages to reconstruct the parent language is called, appropriately, the comparative method.
The early 19th-century linguist Franz Bopp was the first to compare Greek, Latin and Sanskrit using this method. Jacob Grimm, one of the Brothers Grimm of fairy tale fame, used the comparative method to show how Germanic languages developed from a common ancestor.
The difference between that and Bouchard-Côté's program, the statistician says, "is we do it on a larger scale." As a proof of concept, Bouchard-Côté fed words from 637 Austronesian languages （spoken in Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and more） into the new algorithm, and the system came up with a list of what the ancestor words of all those languages would have sounded like. In more than 85 percent of cases, the automated reconstruction came within one character of the ancestor word commonly accepted as true by linguists.
The algorithm won't replace trained human linguists, but could speed up language analysis.
Using a computer to do large-scale reconstruction offers another advantage. Bouchard-Côté says, “With big data sets, you can really start finding regularities … You might find that certain sounds are more likely to change than others."
So Bouchard-Côté's team tested the "functional load hypothesis（假设）," which says that sounds that are more important for two clearly different words are less likely to change over time. A formal test of this hypothesis in 1967 looked at four languages; Bouchard-Côté's algorithm looked at 637.
"The revealed pattern would not be obvious if we had not been able to reconstruct large numbers of protolanguages," Bouchard-Côté and his coauthors write in the new study.
In addition to simply helping linguists understand how people spoke in the past, studying ancient languages can perhaps answer historical questions. For example, Bouchard-Côté says, "Say people are interested in finding out when Europe was settled. If you can figure out if the language of the settling population had a word for wheel, then you can get some idea of the order in which things occurred, because you would have some records that show you when the wheel was invented.”
The underline word “protolanguages” in the first paragraph probably refers to __________.
| A．the languages that couldn’t be reconstructed by hand |
| B．parent languages that existed in the past |
| C．languages developed from a common ancestor |
| D．languages used to explain things that occurred in the past |
We can learn from the fourth and fifth paragraphs that the reconstruction of “protolanguage” by scholars __________.
| A．is commonly accepted as false |
| B．dates back to the 19th century |
| C．focuses on European languages |
| D．is conducted using the comparative method |
According to Bouchard-Côté, reconstructing the dead "protolanguages" might _______.
| A．arouse people’s interest in when Europe was settled |
| B．allow us to find answers to some historical questions |
| C．enable us to picture the way linguists communicated |
| D．help figure out how the wheel was invented |
The author probably wants to prove the computer algorithm program led by Bouchard-Côté ___________.
| A．will bring every dead language back to life |
| B．can take the place of linguists in language analysis |
| C．is of great help to promote language analysis with big data sets |
| D．can merely reconstruct Asian-Pacific “protolanguages” |
My six-year-old came home from school this week with two envelopes. One was for a donation to help people in the Philippines. The other was to help hungry families have a Thanksgiving meal.
“I’ll put a check in each of these. Then you can add your own money from your piggy bank, okay?” I said, thinking he’d be so excited to put his own stamp on things.
“That’s okay, mom. You put money in. I don’t want to waste mine,” he sweetly sang as he colored. “I want to fill my bank all the way up.”
Ack! I guess I know what our dinnertime discussion will be about tonight, I thought.
I had figured that through watching his parents donate items, helping us take toys from time to time to needy kids and putting money in the basket at church, he would just understand why it was important to help people in need — and even want to do it himself.
But of course he doesn’t really understand yet. “There’s a big disconnect between the people ‘over there’ and my piggy bank,” said parenting educator Vicki Hoefle.
“There’s nothing wrong with the child. There’s just no connection.”
As for having that conversation immediately, or forcing my son to put money into the envelopes: “Try not to do it now,” Hoefle said. Teaching a child about donating their own money or toys or time to people in need “should be a gentle introduction into what we hope will be a way of life for our kids.”
She suggested these things to help children understand the importance of giving:
* Just talk about it. Then explore the issue from a perspective he can understand.
* Use the course of a year to introduce kids to opportunities. That way, they won’t be shocked when you ask them to stuff their own money into an envelope （like this writer just did）.
* Pick a family charity for the year and have a conversation about how you all can help throughout the year.
* Think of this not as something you must teach, but as something to expose them to.
At her house, Hoefle said, “When you got something new, you gave something up.” Each birthday, her children would pick what toys they had outgrown and give them away. “There was a comfort in it. It just became a natural part of the kids’ lives.”
So I will fill those envelopes alone this time. But I’ll make sure he understands why they should be filled—gradually.When the writer asked her son to give money to help the poor, he __________.
| A．declined to donate |
| B．sang a sweet song |
| C．put all his money in a bank |
| D．seemed very surprised |
Hoefle’s attitude towards children’s unwillingness to donate money can be best described as “_______”.
| A．critical | B．tolerant | C．positive | D．worried |
Which of the following is Hoefle’s approach to educating kids about charity?
| A．Giving courses about charity. |
| B．Setting a rule for children to give. |
| C．Inviting a lot of poor people home. |
| D．Giving children enough real life chances. |
What can we learn about the writer from the passage?
| A．She often makes donations for people in need. |
| B．She taught her son a lesson over dinner that evening. |
| C．She is at a loss as for what she should do next. |
| D．She invited a parenting educator home for advice. |
What is the best title of the passage?
| A．Kids, please help those in need. |
| B．Why are kids unwilling to donate? |
| C．Kindness is lost in the young generation. |
| D．How can we help kids learn generosity? |
It’s a sad and familiar voice that we often hear in big cities: “Can you spare some change?”
Usually, when faced with that particular , I have feelings of guilt if I pass by giving a coin or two.
I had that feeling in Venice while on a tour of Italy’s famous sites in 2006. I had taken refuge from the in a quiet café. Outside, there was an old woman kneeling on the hard, ancient paving stones, .
Steady of tourists were walking past her. A young backpacker stood away from the crowd, drinking in the vistas（景观、景色）, but I noticed the young traveler was also the old woman.
A tourist group walked along the street, the woman and walked on. group of tourists arrived and walked past the old lady. The backpacker watched everybody else went on their way, focused on the around them. Then, I was preparing to leave when I caught sight of the backpacker stepping forward and some money in the woman’s cup. He did this somewhat just before the arrival of another tourist group. As I , the leader of the group stopped and put some money in the cup. Having been shown the way, other tourists followed suit and some more coins to the cup.
His work done, the young man walked over to the old beggar-woman, patted her on the shoulder and said, “I hope that a little.”
I don’t know if the woman understood his English or what had just happened, but I did.
I placed some money in the woman’s cup and continued my travels, after witnessing such a act of kindness.
A．sound B．question C．excuse D．command
A．beyond B．after C．without D．before
A．many times B．some times C．only once D．once again
A．crowds B．families C．streets D．signs
A．singing B．crying C．begging D．trembling
A．streams B．packs C．masses D．groups
A．simply B．seemingly C．similarly D．specially
A．showing B．following C．checking D．observing
A．glanced at B．laughed at C．rushed at D．stared at
A．One B．More C．Another D．Other
A．if B．since C．because D．as
A．stones B．sights C．signs D．tourists
A．lending B．borrowing C．placing D．taking
A．accidentally B．successfully C．purposefully D．cheerfully
A．watched B．shown C．understood D．walked
A．changed B．charged C．found D．added
A．measures B．helps C．explains D．matters
A．recognized B．caught C．realized D．figured
A．pleasant B．annoyed C．disappointed D．light-hearted
A．beautiful B．smart C．pure D．happy
—Do you think Catherine likes Fred?
—__________. They don’t seem to get on very well together.
| A．It depends | B．I hope so |
| C．I imagine not | D．Sounds reasonable |
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