2017-2018金中期中英语

they were __48__ walking.

We do not lose our children—not __49__ we are very unlucky, or very bad parents. If our desires to __50__ our children really took root, and were acted out, it would be a disaster. Over-parented children could not __51__ leave home, ever.

We must learn to let go. And __52__ they, too, must let go, as their parents __53__ out of this life, at first gradually then entirely. I have already “lost” my children many times—as babies, as toddlers, as infants. Each time, they are made anew—and yet are always, __54__， the same. Parallel changes are happening to me, too, if I am doing it right. __55__， I am always losing my children only in the sense that I am always losing myself.

( )36. A. permanently B. eventually C. absolutely D. occasionally ( )37. A. instead B. otherwise C. rather D. else ( )38. A. but B. so C. while D. or

( )39. A. mourning B. celebrating C. stressing D. worshipping ( )40. A. deliver B. pay C. offer D. show

( )41. A. inspires B. thrills C. burdens D. reduces

( )42. A. As usual B. As such C. As expected D. As follows

( )43. A. unnecessary B. fundamental C. unconditional D. artificial ( )44. A. Ambiguity B. Gravity C. Frequency D. Inconsistency ( )45. A. challenges B. regards C. strikes D. describes ( )46. A. dilemma B. beauty C. ambition D. virtue

( )47. A. separated B. substituted C. wrestled D. compromised ( )48. A. barely B. merely C. simply D. thoroughly ( )49. A. if B. unless C. although D. until

( )50. A. get through to B. catch up on C. hold on to D. date back to ( )51. A. apparently B. intentionally C. emotionally D. randomly ( )52. A. on and on B. time from time C. one by one D. by and by ( )53. A. pass B. wander C. migrate D. run

( )54. A. in that case B. at some level C. at no time D. by all means

( )55. A. On top of that B. No wonder C. On the other hand D. In other words 第三部分 阅读理解(共15小题；每小题2分，满分30分)

请认真阅读下列短文，从短文后各题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出最佳选项。

A

Public speaking fills most people with dread. Humiliation is the greatest fear; self-exposure

and failing to appeal to the audience come a close second. Women hate it most, since girls are pressurized from an early age to be concerned with appearances of all kinds.

Most people have plenty of insecurities, and this seems like a situation that will bring them out. If you were under pressure to be perfect, you are terrified of failing in the most public of ways.

While extroverts will feel less fear before the ordeal, it does not mean they will necessarily do it better. Some very shy people manage to shine. When I met the British comedian Julian Clary, he was shy and cautious, yet his TV performances are perfect.

In fact, personality is not the best predictor of who does it well. Regardless of what you are like in real life, the key seems to be to act yourself.

Actual acting, as in performing the scripted lines of a character other than yourself, does not

do the job. While politicians may limit damage by having carefully rehearsed, written scripts to speak from, there is always a hidden awareness among the audience that the words might not be true.

Likewise, the incredibly perfect speeches of many American academics are far from natural. You may end up buying their book on the way out, but soon afterwards, it is much like fast food, and you get a nameless sense that you've been cheated.

Although, as Earl Spencer proved at his sister Princess Diana's funeral, it is possible both to prepare every word and to act naturally. A script rarely works and it is used to help most speakers.

But, being yourself doesn't work either. If you spoke as if you were in your kitchen, it would be too authentic, too unaware of the need to communicate with an audience.

I remember going to see British psychiatrist R．D. Laing speak in public. He behaved like a seriously odd person, talking off the top of his head. Although he was talking about madness and he wrote on mental illness, he seemed to be exhibiting rather than explaining it.

The best psychological place from which to speak is an unselfconscious self-consciousness, providing the illusion of being natural. Studies suggest that this state of “flow”， as psychologists call it, is very satisfying.

( )56. “This” in paragraph two refers to ________.

A. insecurity. B. sense of failure. C. public speaking. D. pressure. ( )57. What is the author's view on personality?

A. Personality is the key to success in public speaking. B. Outgoing persons are better public speakers.

C. Shy persons have to learn harder to be good speakers. D. Factors other than personality ensure better performance.

( )58. In the last paragraph the author recommends that ________.

A. you forget about your nervousness B. you feel natural and speak naturally

C. you may feel nervous, but appear naturally D. you may pretend yourself to be natural

B

One of the few successes of truth against propaganda(宣传，鼓吹) in recent years has been the rebranding of the “sharing economy” as the “gig economy”.

Marketing geniuses from Silicon Valley want us to believe the ad-hoc sale of labour is a form of utopian paradise, where capitalistic relations are replaced by egalitarianism(平等主义) and “sharing”. The phrase “gig economy” has rightly refocused the debate onto the implications for jobs and labour rights.

But the victory has only been half-won. Too many people still talk about the casualisation(雇佣临时工制) of work as an innovation, as an impersonal, technological and irresistible force to which we must adapt if humanity is to continue its march into the future. Instead of moving back to more exploitative form of labour relations, driven by the wealthy people who own and operate companies, we are told the “gig economy” is merely the inevitable outcome of inventions like the smartphone.

The two main flag-bearers for the “gig economy” in the UK are Uber, a taxi company, and Deliveroo, a food delivery startup. Both use mobile technology to control their workers and careful legal arrangements to avoid giving them the fights and protections due to employees. Uber is older. It was founded in 2009 and launched in the UK in 2012. Deliveroo, a British business, has only been around for four years. Both were born after the financial crisis and

economic decline, which put millions of people out of work and depressed real wages for more than a decade.

These services rely on a number of things: the existence of smartphones that enable the requests to be made and responded to; digital mapping technology so people know where to go; algorithims(算法) that make the most efficient matching and routing choices; and buckets of cash to grease the wheels until there is sufficient self-sustaining supply and demand. Most importantly,

Uber, Deliveroo, and other on-demand service providers rely on an ample supply of drivers/couriers to respond to requests quickly.

The key question for any discussion about the gig economy, therefore, is whether the scarcity of well-paid, stable jobs is a bigger factor in its rise than the emergence of mobile phones with precision mapping technology.

If we are to have a conversation about how society must adapt to the unavoidable “rise of the gig economy”， we will also have to ask what exactly has been invented and what is simply a conscious choice by investors and entrepreneurs to escape laws that exist to protect workers.

We also have to question whether something fundamental about the nature of life has changed in the 21st century. Set wages and hours, along with sick pay and holiday, have a simple purpose: They provide people with the predictability and stability they need to live and plan their lives. Workers with “flexible” pay are just as exposed to the inflexible costs of food and rent as they were before the “gig economy” was dreamt up.

It may be that this new form of work is superior, and that the old world of regular pay cheques is a cruel restraint on human ingenuity and creativity. But until that can be shown, we shouldn't have a conversation about how we can adjust to this change in our economy. We should have a conversation about whether we want the change in the first place.

( )59. What is the author's attitude towards the development of “gig economy”？ A. Supportive. B. Doubtful. C. Critical. D. Uncertain.

( )60. Which factor doesn't contribute to the foundation of these services? A. Existence of smartphones. B. Advanced technology. C. Efficient matching and choosing. D. Legal regulations.

( )61. Which does the author value most when considering nature of life? A. Fixed wages and perfect system. B. Quick responses to requests. C. Equality in labor relations. D. Sense of predictability. ( )62. Which statement is incorrect according to the passage? A. “Gig economy” may be welcomed by certain entrepreneurs.

B. “Gig economy” does good to casualisation in terms of labour fights. C. It's wrong to advocate “gig economy” in our society.

D. There are a number of risks relating to employment law in “gig economy”.

C

Can electricity cause cancer? In a society that literally runs on electric power, the very idea seems absurd. But for more than a decade, a growing group of scientists and journalists has pointed to studies that seem to link exposure to electromagnetic(电磁的) fields with increased risk of leukemia and other malignancies. The implications are unsettling, to say the least, since everyone comes into contact with such fields, which are generated by everything electrical. Because evidence on the subject is inconclusive and often contradictory, it has been hard to decide whether concern about the health effects of electricity is reasonable.

Now the alarmists have gained some qualified support from the U．S. Environmental Protection Agency. In the summary of a new scientific review, released last week, the EPA has raised what amounts to the most serious government warning to date. The agency tentatively concludes that scientific evidence “suggests a casual link” between extremely low-frequency

electromagnetic fields—those having very longwave-lengths—and leukemia, lymphoma and brain

cancer, while the report falls short of classifying ELF fields as probable carcinogens(致癌物), it does identify the common 60-hertz magnetic field as “a possible, but not proven, cause of cancer in humans.”

The report is no reason to panic—or even to lost sleep. If there is a cancer risk, it is a small one. The evidence is still so controversial that the draft caused a great deal of debate within the Bush Administration, and the EPA released it over strong objections from the Pentagon and the White House. But now no one can deny that the issue must be taken seriously and that much more research is needed.

At the heart of the debate is a simple and well-understood physical phenomenon: When an electric current passes through a wire, it generates an electromagnetic field that has forces on surrounding objects. For many years, scientists dismissed any suggestion that such forces might be harmful, primarily because they are so extraordinarily weak. The ELF magnetic field generated by a video terminal measures only a few milligauss, or about one-hundredth the strength of the earth's own magnetic field. The electric fields surrounding a power line can be as high as 10 kilovolts per meter, but the corresponding field induced in human cells will be only about I millivolt per meter. This is far less than the electric fields that the cells themselves generate.

How could such insignificant forces pose a health danger? The consensus used to be that they could not, and for decades scientists concentrated on more powerful kinds of radiation, like X-rays, that pack sufficient force to knock electrons out of the molecules that make up the human body. Such “ionizing” radiations have been clearly linked to increased cancer risks and there are regulations to control emissions.

But epidemiological studies, which find statistical associations between sets of data, do not prove cause and effect. Though there is a body of laboratory work showing that exposure to ELF fields can have biological effects on animal tissues, a mechanism by which those effects could lead to cancerous growths has never been found.

The Pentagon is for from persuaded. In a 33-page critique of the EPA report, Air Force scientists charge its authors with having “biased the entire document” toward proving a link. “Our reviewers are convinced that there is no suggestion that(electromagnetic fields) present in the environment induce or promote cancer，” the Air Force concludes. “It is astonishing that the EPA would lend its approval on this report.” Then Pentagon's concern is understandable. There is hardly a unit of the modern military that does not depend on the heavy use of some kind of electronic equipment, from huge ground-based radar towers to the defense systems built into every

warship and plane.

( )63. The main idea of this passage is ________. A. studies on the cause of cancer

B. controversial view-points in the cause of cancer C. the relationship between electricity and cancer

D. different ideas about the effect of electricity on cancer ( )64. The view-point of the EPA is that ________.