贵州都匀一中2015-2016学年高二下学期英语开学考试试卷

    I was living a life in my screen and hardly noticed what was around me. So when my friends invited me to go camping for a long weekend without the cell service, I thought this was exactly what I needed. Here's how keeping away from my phone for 48 hours changed me.

    I realized my bedtime routine was usually centered on one thing: my phone. Right before I went to sleep, I browsed through news websites and checked my emails. When I woke up in the middle of the night, I did the same thing. The problem with this was I felt anxious every night. I felt free without my phone at that weekend camp. I felt asleep listening to the sound of crickets.

    When I had my phone, I was always checking the time and thinking of future plans. My thought was: “Who's going to text me now? What will I do next?” Without my phone, I truly savored what I was doing in the moment, sitting by the river, riding a bike, or singing the old songs. There was no need to rush through any of it. I listened to what my body wanted instead of what my phone was telling me to do.

    You know that moment when you're hanging out with a group of people and no one has anything to say? The typical response: Everyone immediately pulls out their phones. So what did we do without a phone to avoid embarrassing silences? We actually talked to each other. Instead of burying our faces in our screens, we looked one another in the eye, had a moment of pure human connection and then continued talking. And you know what? People actually listened.

    So, now what? Now I'm back to the real world.

    If you live in the U.S., you're probably used to throwing banana peel into the trash. But people in other countries, including India, have been taking advantages of their nutritional benefits for many years.

    While the flesh of a banana is soft and sweet, the skin is thick, hard and slightly bitter. To eat the peel, you can fry, bake, or boil it for at least 10 minutes. Also, the riper bananas get, the thinner and sweeter banana peel will become. That's because of a natural plant hormone(激素) called ethylene(乙烯) that fruits release as they ripen. Ethylene interacts with the sugars and fiber in the banana skin, changing complex sugars into simple sugars and breaking down pectin, a form of fiber in bananas that keeps them stiff. That's why the older your banana is, the flimsier(不结实的) it feels.

    The sweet flesh of a medium-sized banana contains great percentages of your daily recommended intake of various nutrients, such as:

·12% of your daily fiber, which helps with digestion and may help lower your risk of diabetes(糖尿病)

·17% of your vitamin C, which is important for your immune system as well as your growth

·20% of your vitamin B6, which aids the body's ability to turn food into energy

·12% of your potassium, which helps with the development of cells, tissues, and organs throughout the body

    If you eat the skin along with the flesh, you will get an even bigger increase in these same nutrients.

    Eating the peel is not only good for your body but also better for the earth. The average American ate 11.4 pounds of bananas in 2014. Since a medium-sized banana weighs about 0.3 pounds, that equates to about 38 bananas per person, or about 12 billion for the whole of the U.S. And since most of us throw away the peel, that also means a lot of organic waste.

    Imagine being a crew member, hundreds of years ago, sailing in southern waters. Your captain is searching for food while exploring unfamiliar waters. Your job is to watch the sea off the ship's side for ice. The wind is cold on your face. Alongside the ship, a fish darts past. Another slows to a stop and raises its head above the water to look at you. How could a fish do that?

    Did the sailors see fish with feathers or swimming birds? Today, we know that the sailors saw birds that developed the ability to swim. Their wings became flippers, and they could “fly” through the water with amazing speed.

    There are many types of penguins. Only two kinds raise their young on the continent of Antarctic. Adelie penguins grow up to 29 inches tall and have a white ring around each eye. Emperor penguins have yellow orange color near their necks. Standing about 35 inches tall, they are the tallest penguins living today.

    Emperor penguins have nests on top of their feet. Father Emperor penguins keep the egg on top of their feet for more than two months, until the egg is ready to hatch. The mother penguin goes out for food during that time. Imagine holding an egg on your feet for two months until someone returns with food!

    Male and female penguins are both good parents. Once the chicks hatch, both parents travel long distances to find food for them in the sea. It may be days before the parents return and the chicks eat again. When they return with food, the fun really begins. Chicks chase their parents, begging for food. Penguin chicks eat huge amounts at one time.

    Eventually, the adult penguins stop feeding the chicks. This is nature's way of forcing children to grow up. When the penguin chicks are hungry enough, they find their way to the sea. Without any swimming lessons, they make their way into the icy waters and swim as only penguins do.

    Once upon a time in a land far far away, there was a 1old man who loved everything. Animals, spiders, insects…

    One day2 walking through the woods the nice old man found a cocoon(茧) of a butterfly. He 3 it home. A few days later, a small 4 appeared；he sat and watched the butterfly for several hours 5 it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to 6making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go 7farther.

    Then the old man decided to help the 8, so he took a pair of scissors and9 the remaining bit of the cocoon.

    The butterfly then came out 10.

    11 it had a swollen body and small, shriveled(皱缩的) wings. The old man 12 to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would 13 to be able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened ! 14 , the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling(爬行) around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to 15.

    What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting 16 and the struggle required for the butterfly to 17 the tiny opening were nature's way of forcing fluid(液体) from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its 18 from the cocoon.

    Sometimes 19 are exactly what we need in our life. If we were allowed to go through our life without any challenges, it would weaken us. We would not be as 20 as what we could have been. And we could never fly.

Testing the five-second rule

    You may have seen a friend drop food on the floor, pick it up, and eat it, while declaring, “Five-second rule! ” It's said that food dropped on the floor for five seconds or less is still likely to be clean. .

    Students at Britain's Aston University, led by microbiology professor Anthony Hilton, tested the rule and found it to have some scientific basis. The study's results show that food dropped for five seconds is less likely to contain bacteria than if it sits there for longer, according to Hilton.

    The students also found that the type of flooring where the dropped food lands has an effect. Bacteria are most likely to transfer from tiled (铺瓷砖的) surfaces to moist food when the food has stood there for more than five seconds.

    Therefore, consumers should still be cautious. “However, the findings of this study will bring some light relief to those who have been employing the five-second rule for years, despite a general consensus that it is purely a myth,” professor Hilton said in a statement.

    The research team at Aston also surveyed 500 people to find out who employs the five-second rule. Of the people surveyed, 87% said they would eat food dropped on the floor, or have done so in the past. “Our study showed people are also more likely to follow the five-second rule, which our research has shown to be much more than an old wives' tale,” Hilton says.

    Still, scientists say you should be careful about eating food dropped on the floor, especially if you have doubts about the cleanliness of the surface.

A. But is that true?

B. Carpeted surfaces posed the lowest risk.

C. Of those people, the majority were women.

D. We've just lost our last excuse to eat food off the floor.

E. Usually people recover from the infection in five to ten days.

F. There is still a risk of infection if certain bacteria are present on the dropped surface.

G. A biologist points out that one in six Americans get sick from food poisoning every year.

Reporter：You also voiced Batman in the upcoming The LEGO Movie. Was that a childhood dream realized ?

Will ：  Yes. Batman is such a typical character. So the opportunity to do that was just a dream come .

Reporter：You have two young sons. How are you at LEGO building?

Will ： I'm pretty good I have a lot of practice.

Reporter：You also (film) a role in the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. How was experience of filming an action movie in New York?

Will ：That was great. Of course, that story has always been set in New York. So to be there in my adopted hometown and shoot that film with this typical comic story and characters was really excellent. Working with the guys are going to be the turtles was really fun.

Reporter：What do you enjoy most about (be) a part of movies for kids and families?

Will ：  Having two boys of my own, I watch a lot of kids' TV shows and films. I have a new found (appreciate) for family films that I feel (comfort) letting my kids watch. I really appreciate when people make great shows and films for kids that have a good message and keep kids engaged. When I was a kid, there wasn't much out there for kids, there were all these great stories. When I was seven, Star Wars came out, and that had a lasting impact on me.