湖北省荆州市沙市区高级中学校2021-2022学年高二下学期6月月考英语试题

Top Reads to Shine on Your Shelf

FACELESS

by Alyssa B Sheinmel

This is an amazing book about a girl named Maisie, who gets in an accident, and ends up having a face transplant. Part of Maisie's face got burnt off in a fire, so now she has her cheeks and nose replaced by a different girl's cheeks and nose. However, if you think about it, the idea seems quite scary. All in all, I really enjoyed this book, and it had me hanging on its every word.

WE ARE ALL MADE OF MOLECULES

by Susin Nielsen

The story focuses on two main characters, Stewart and Ashley. Despite missing his mother, Stewart decides to make a new life with Ashley when he and his dad move into her house. Ashley doesn't like Stewart for his personality, but things turn even more complicated when a schoolmate, Jared, enters their lives. I LOVE this book because it teaches us that if we all put aside all of our differences, we can work together to solve problems in the world, no matter how big or small the problem might be.

HOUSE OF WINDOWS

by Alexia Casale

This book is about a 15-year-old boy named Nick who is at Cambridge University. While there he faces many problems, he is not helped by the fact that his mum is dead and his dad cares more for his work than for him. Luckily, this book has a happy ending.

MIND YOUR HEAD

by Juno Dawson

This book is a great mix of humour and advice, differing from the more formal help books that you might read. It won't necessarily defeat your problem, but it will hand you the sword and encourage you to do it yourself.

Chinese traditional painting and dance are two vital parts of the art world. But what about when they meet each other?

This year, a dance drama titled Poetic Dance: The Journey of a Legendary Landscape Painting (《只此青绿》)was staged on CCTV's Spring Festival Gala and went viral.

According to CCTV, this poetic dance program was inspired by the 900-year-old Chinese painting A Panorama of Rivers and Mountains (《千里江山图》). Created by Song Dynasty painter Wang Ximeng at about 18, the painting is amazing in its sweeping size, rich coloration and the expressive details, reported CCTV. It shows a Chinese blue-green landscape: "mountains and groupings of infinite rise and fall between cloudless sky and rippling water".

When the dancers moved elegantly, audiences seemed to be looking at the moving mountains and rivers. "It brings me a pure experience of beauty. It is not only a drama but also an ‘exhibition'. Vast mountains and rivers are coming to life!" Internet user Mo Weisha wrote in a review. "More than a thousand years later, green mountains and rivers still wow people as they did long ago."

Some people even decided to watch the dance again when it was staged in the theaters later. In fact, in recent years, more and more modern shows highlight Chinese traditional culture and have received warm welcome. As for why, it is due to people's great love for traditional culture.

"The younger generations have grown up with a more open mindset. They embrace Chinese culture and are proud of it." Yao Wei, director of Henan TV Station's Innovation Center, told China Daily.

Can you really find out where someone is from based on how they queue? And why — across the world — do some queues seem to take forever, while others, even of the same waiting time, seem to go relatively quickly?

Richard Larson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and a world expert on queues, as well as various social scientists, believes how you queue does, in fact, often give away your origin. In the United States, how people queue even depends on which city they are from. "One of my findings is that you can tell a lot about the social culture of citizens by watching their micro behavior in queues. People in Boston, New York and Washington D. C. all queue in different ways," he says. "In Washington, people queue at a random point in a sidewalk. These are government workers who know that the bus stops at this place at 4:05, so they queue up dutifully — first come first serve. I have never seen any such behavior in New York or Boston."

No matter how "good" the queuers are, though, scientists agree that for the queue to function, it needs to be fair. As long as people are served in the order they are lined up, queue anger can be avoided.

This is the idea behind the winding queue behind ropes or barriers where, when you reach the front, you are directed to the next available server. It's no faster than having individual lines all the way through. But it does mean that no one arriving after you will get served before you.

The final moments of the queue are also important. Research by INSEAD business school professor Ziv Carmon and Princeton University psychology professor Daniel Kahneman found that if our wait ends on a happy note — for instance, if the queue speeds up at the end — we will view that experience more positively, even if for most of the time we were very uncomfortable, quietly cursing (诅咒) the person in front.

The food people eat is often brought in from miles away and stored using traditional cooling systems before the products hit store shelves. Ice is the most common cooling method that is used. When ice melts, it's not reusable. Luxin Wang, one of the project's leaders, saw the massive amounts of unrecyclable ice being used to store the fish at a fishing processing plant and the cross-contamination (交叉污染) that melted water could spread among products or down the drain. This inspired her to look for a sustainable solution. The team got to work and created what they refer to as "jelly ice cubes".

The ice cubes can take on various shapes and sizes and withstand temperature and pressure changes. That means that the jelly ice cubes won't melt in hotter temperatures but rather the technology will change colors to indicate that the ice cube needs to be refrozen. The cubes won't lose their form either. The novelty cubes can be used for 13 hours of storage and can easily be washed with bleach (漂白剂), and frozen again for reuse.

The research team knows that using these has huge potential to reduce water waste and food waste across the food supply chain. Food contamination is one of the biggest factors in food waste and can happen at any stage. Once ice turns to water, it can pick up bacteria and subsequently spread it between neighboring produce. However, if the jelly ice cubes are used, they can offer a reusable solution to conserve water and have a big impact on reducing food waste. These solid cubes can prevent cross-contamination that comes from melted ice.

Already easing two major threats facing food production, the team plans to take their research one step further and use agricultural waste and byproducts as the cooling agents (冷却剂) in their future ice cube designs. And these new innovative jelly ice cubes appear to be real winners in helping create greener food industry.

It's common to read sayings urging people to be kind to others without thinking or planning ahead. But several studies suggest there are some very good reasons to think about ways to be kind and nicely plan out that type of behavior.  Researchers also say kindness played an important part in how humans developed. In other words, they say scientific evidence suggests that we are designed to be kind.

Oliver Curry is the research director at Kindlab, a non-profit organization.  Curry claims that "kindness is much older than religion." "The basic reason why people are kind is that we are social animals." he explained.

 University of London psychologist Anat Bardi studies value systems in people. In one study, researchers gave people a list of values—such as kindness, creativity, ambition, tradition, security, and seeking social justice. When asked to pick the most important, kindness won.

Other research shows that our bodies can also reward us for being kind. University of California Riverside psychology professor Sonja has tested this idea in many experiments over the past 20 years. In one experiment, she asked people to perform three acts of kindness for other individuals each week. She asked a different group to do three acts of self-kindness.  The people who were kind to others reported feeling happier and more connected to the world.

 Sonja studied a group of people with the disease multiple sclerosis (多发性硬化). She found that they felt better physically when helping others. Her research also showed that people who performed more acts of kindness had less inflammation (发炎) in their bodies.

A. Research has shown that many people prize kindness over other values.

B. Research shows that kindness can be good for many species

C. These acts could be small, like opening a door for someone.

D. Its goal is to educate and urge people to choose kindness.

E. Research shows that acts of kindness can improve our health.

F. But it is not just emotional but also physical.

G. That is why we help strangers in need.

It's often the simple things in life that make the most significant impact on us. It was late one afternoon in mid-September. My three-month-old son was napping in his 1. As I wandered through our living room, I happened to 2 my balcony window. Puddles (水坑) had 3 on the ground and the rain had slowed.

Down below 4 a boy of about four. Filled with a mixture of fascination and happiness, he stomped (踩)through the puddle, mud and 5 flying. He walked, stomped, splashed through that puddle 6, happily enjoying what mother nature had left for him.

Not more than ten feet away stood his mother. She didn't scold him. 7, she watched with a pleasant smile on her face and stood 8. As for me, it was a (n) 9 moment that changed the way I will forever view my role as a mother.

The little boy probably will 10 each afternoon that his mother takes him outside, as he 11. He may not remember each little thing that happens each time his mother lets him 12 his world. But he will remember that his mother 13 him and he will know that she helps him to learn and grow in a pleasant and fun environment.

Maybe we can all learn from the innocence of 14 that views a rainstorm not as something to run through or to avoid, but something meant to explore, to 15 and to love.

Mount Wutai, located in the northeastern part of Shanxi province, is 230 kilometers away from the provincial capital city Taiyuan. It was named after five peaks that resemble five giant columns（柱子）(rise) straight from the ground. With its high peaks, snow covers for much of the year. Even in midsummer days it remains cool and pleasant,has given rise to another name: Qingliang Mountain as ideal place for escaping summer heat.

Mount Wutai is a (unique) beautiful mountain landscape with a cultural heritage that is at least as (value) as the mountain's natural beauty. (refer) to as one of the four sacred Buddhist mountains of China, it is home forty-one monasteries(寺院). Within their walls(be) a rich collection of over 100,000 superb sculptures and paintings, along with a great quantity of Buddhist cultural relics. For example, the east main hall of the Foguang Temple is the highest wooden building in China that(survive) since the Tang Dynasty.

Wutai Mountain displays its outstanding(combine) of the natural landscape and Buddhist culture, religious belief in the natural landscape and Chinese philosophical thinking on the harmony between man and nature.

1）阐述学生阅读的现状(阅读量少，阅读时间有限.... ;)

2）分享个人阅读的收获;

3）激励学生终身阅读。

注意：1）写作词数应为80左右;开头和结尾已给出，不计入总字数;

2）可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。

Be a Lifelong Reader

Hello, everyone! I'm Li Hua, an enthusiastic reader.

……

That's all. Thank you.

I love to play the piano and I greatly enjoy performing my songs, so when the annual winter recital (音乐会) was canceled, I was disappointed. I had looked forward to it for a long time and had already prepared two of my best songs.

My mom had a wonderful idea, however, to turn this disappointing letdown into something worthwhile. "You can perform your songs at Carriage House Senior Living," my mom suggested brightly. "I'm sure the seniors there who do not have families visit them that often, would really appreciate the music and you could play more than just two songs."

I immediately thought this was a great idea. One of the things I did not like about the recitals was that I was limited to playing just a couple of songs. Playing the piano at Carriage House seemed like a win-win situation because not only would I get to play more songs, but I would also have the chance to cheer up the residents there with some lively tunes.

My mom called Carriage House and made arrangements for me to perform. In the coming days, I worked especially hard to polish up fifteen pieces that I thought the crowd would enjoy, including many old classics.

When the much-anticipated day finally arrived, my family and I drove to Carriage House. Walking through the enormous double doors, we stepped into an entryway that overlooked the spacious grand dining room. Right at the entrance to the dining room stood the piano as if it were just waiting to make some music to liven the place up a bit. At nearly every table several gray-haired women or men were seated enjoying their dinner and the company that the crowded room provided. Despite the conversations going on at various tables though, isolation hung like a dark cloud in the room.

Almost immediately, we were greeted by an old woman with a walker who introduced herself as Phyllis in charge of Carriage House. She welcomed me and led me to the stage.

注意:

1）  续写词数应为 150 左右;

2）请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。

Paragraph 1:

As I sat down on the bench, I pressed a key on the piano and was surprised to hear no sound.

Paragraph 2:

Nervousness melted away and I started to enjoy the performance with the old.