江苏省宿迁市2018-2019学年高二下学期英语期末考试试卷

— I can't agree more. You know, Mike is ________ competent than Mary.

—It was in the firm ________ his brother is working.

    Some teachers seem to be bad teachers, but they are not. Take my football coach for example. One day, we were doing some 1 practicing catching the football. He threw me a pass and I dropped it. He started 2 me. I went back in line, 3. My friend was up next. He dropped it, too. But the coach said nothing. Annoyed, I whispered, "Why 4 against me?"

    After practice he came 5 to me and told me the reason he shouted at me 6 the other guy was that he expected more out of me. If he 7 my mistakes, it meant he had quit on me.

    Another teacher 8 my mind was my PhD supervisor, Ken Crowe. He had a(n) 9 for making grown men cry when they disappointed him, but I was 10 by the topic he was working on.

    He gave me a(n)11: to figure out what caused muons to get depolarized (去极化) in liquids. After a week I came to Ken's office to tell him about it. He listened for a few minutes and then 12: "You have no idea what you're talking about! Get out and don't come back until you do!" Now I was starting to get 13, complaining about him as cold-hearted.

    Bent on changing his attitude and 14 more relevant knowledge, I really got into it. 15, I understood it so well that to this day it is my most proud 16. Then I went back to tell Ken what I had figured out. Again he interrupted me a few minutes into my 17, but I carried on. When I finished, he praised me for doing some very original research. From that day forward, he supported and promoted me 18 we became great friends and respected colleagues.

    So don't ever complain about your "19" teachers. They may 20 you to make greater achievement you will be proud of decades later.

    One of the great concerns that ornithologists have is that climate change will throw the nesting activities of birds out of sync (同步) with the availability of food for the raising of chicks. For one species, the pied flycatcher, a new study shows that some of its clan are proving to be remarkably adaptable.

    Upon returning to Europe from their African wintering grounds, the flycatchers time their egg-laying to the short period when juicy caterpillars (毛毛虫) are most abundant. During the past three decades this caterpillar peak has advanced by three weeks. Pied flycatchers initially had difficulty adjusting, but over time have started laying their eggs earlier to grab the caterpillars. Some, though, are doing a lot more to improve their reproductive chances of success, according to a study in the Journal of Avian Biology led by Christian Both of the University of Groningen, in the Netherlands.

    Like most bird species, pied flycatchers have long been thought to lay a single clutch of eggs during the breeding (繁殖) season. This was widely considered to be a trait that wouldn't change. Then, in 2007, a Swiss team led by Dr Ravussin began to suspect that clutch numbers were flexible. They discovered a female pied flycatcher that immediately produced a second brood with a new male after raising an early set of chicks. Aware of Dr Ravussin's findings, Dr Both wondered whether this was just a single, odd instance or if second broods might be happening on a larger scale driven by the arrival of earlier springs. So, they cooperate to delve into the data to find out.

    The team studied pied-flycatcher populations in the Netherlands and Switzerland that were known to be among the earliest nesting members of the species. In total, they tracked the egg-laying times and hatchling-rearing success of 8,848 breeding pairs in the Netherlands and1, 372 in Switzerland between1980 and 2018. They found that since 2006, 11 cases of second broods were observed, all of them among the earliest breeders in both populations.

    Further studies ruled out that the birds were making up for a failed first attempt at raising chicks or that the second group of nestlings suffered.

    With no obvious downside to laying a double clutch, Drs Both and Ravussin conclude that the birds are attempting to double their annual reproductive output. While this behavior is still rare, they argue that if the tendency is driven by heritable genes (which it may well be), then a succession of early springs could make the strategy much more common.

    Children who qualify for free school meals are twice as likely to be out of work in later life as their better off peers, and even when they get good qualifications at school, the employment gap remains, as a research has found.

    A report by Impetus, a charity that supports young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, found that 26% of those on free school meals (FSM) were not in education, employment, or training (Neet) after leaving school. In contrast, only 13% of non-FSM children ended up Neet.

    The study found that young people from disadvantaged backgrounds were less likely to get good qualifications, but even when they had the same qualifications as their better-off peers, they were still 50% more likely to be out of education and employment as other young adults.

    The research is based on analysis of longitudinal education outcomes data from the Department for Education, which reveals the impact of having a disadvantaged background on life chances and connects pupils' school records with their employment.

    "Qualifications play a central role," the report said, "and it is well known that disadvantaged young people have worse qualification outcomes than their better-off peers." It added qualifications alone were not enough to explain the difference in Neet rates. "Disadvantaged young people are around 50% more likely to be Neet than their similarly qualified but better-off peers. This is true at all levels of qualifications and regardless of age. This means that half the gap in Neet rates can be explained by qualifications, but half cannot."

    The study also showed how where you grow up affects your life chances—it found that a disadvantaged young person in north-east England is 50% more likely to end up Neet than a disadvantaged young person in London.

    Andy Ratcliffe, the CEO of Impetus, said: "We are breaking a fundamental promise to young people in this country. We tell them that study hard, get your qualifications and good jobs will follow. For many young people this is true. But for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds it isn't. They are less likely to get those qualifications, and even when they do, less likely to benefit from them."

    Charles Dickens' joy at first arriving in Boston Harbor in 1842 reads like Ebenezer Scrooge's awakening on Christmas morning. Biographer Peter Ackroyd reports that he flew up the steps of the Tremont House Hotel, sprang into the hall and greeted a curious crowd with a bright "Here we are!" He took to the streets that twinkling midnight in his shaggy fur coat, shouting out the names on shop signs, pulling bell-handles of doors as he passed—excited with laughter—and even screamed with (one imagines) astonishment and delight at the sight of the old South Church. He had set at last upon the shores of "the Republic of my imagination."

    Though not quite 30, Dickens was a literary rock star, the most famous writer in the world, who landed like a conquering hero in a country swept up in an extreme "Boz-o-mania". He wrote to his best friend, John Forster, that he didn't know how to describe "the crowds that pour in and out the whole day; of the people that line the streets when I went out; of the cheering when I went to the theatre; letters of congratulations, welcomes of all kinds, balls, dinners, assemblies without end." When Bostonians renamed their city "Boz-town", New Yorkers determined to "outdollar…and outshine them". Their great Boz Ball boasted flags, flowers, a huge portrait of the author with a bald eagle overhead, 22 tableaux (场景) from the great author's works. "If I should live to grow old," Dickens said, "the scenes of this and other evenings will shine as brightly to my dull eyes 50 years hence as now." ①

    The Spirit of the Times wrote of it: "This most extraordinary, fashionable, brilliant, unique, eye-dazzling, heart-delighting, superb, foolish and ridiculous celebration…came off at the Park Theatre, New York, on Monday evening." But, the reporter predicted, "Such were silly-minded Americans, and such the ridiculous respect paid to a foreigner, who will probably return home and write a book abusing the whole nation for the excesses of a few fools." ②

    In fact, Dickens wrote two.

    ③ Apart from the country's great writers, he found Americans ill-mannered and invading his privacy. "I am so surrounded by people that I am exhausted from want of air." Dickens complained to Forster. "I go to church for quiet, and there is a violent rush to the neighborhood of the bench I sit in. I take my seat in a railroad car, and the very conductor won't leave me alone. I can't drink a glass of water without having a hundred people looking down my throat."

    ④ He disliked Americans' table manners and the tobacco spit everywhere he looked—on even the sidewalks of the nation's capital, where he found party politics corrupting everything, its leaders "the lice (虱子) of God's creation," and "despicable (卑鄙的) trickery at elections."

    Even worse, everyone wanted a piece of the action, from Tiffany's selling unauthorized copies of his bust (半身像) , to a barber selling locks of his hair. "I never knew what it was to feel disgust and contempt (蔑视)," Dickens said, "till I traveled in America." When he departed in June, he left behind all notions of an Arcadian realm he now regarded as "a vast counting house" full of nothing but "cheaters and bores." (See: A Christmas Carol.)

    Americans had soured on him, too. Dickens never missed an opportunity to accuse American publishers of openly pirating his novels to sell for mere pennies, with no recompense to the author at all. The press took offense. Within a month of his arrival, Dickens were laughed at for his "foppish" clothing and effeminate hair, described as "no gentleman," "a contemptible Cockney (伦敦佬)."

    A fresh-faced batch of teenagers just began a new school year, but will they get the most out of it? In the mornings, many are forced to get to school much too early. And at night, screens are a temptation that's hard to resist. This double whammy (双重灾难) is a perfect lesson in sleep deprivation (剥夺).

    Three out of every four students in grades 9 to 12 fail to sleep the minimum of eight hours that the American Academy of Medicine recommends for their age group. In most cases, insufficient sleep results in reduced attention, preventing students' progress and lowering grades. More alarmingly, sleep deprivation may lead to physical and emotional problems.

    It is important to understand why teenagers have a particularly hard time getting enough sleep, and what adults need to do to help. First, a reminder of the basic biology: Adolescents are no longer the morning larks of their younger years. They become rewired as night owls, staying awake later and then sleeping in. This is mostly driven by changes in the way the brain responds to light.

    New technology habits aren't helping. More teenagers now turn to activities involving screens at night. The growth in screen time is particularly problematic for sleep. The blue light emitted by LEDs, TVs, tablets and smartphones suppresses the body's secretion (分泌) of melatonin, the hormone that signals it's time to sleep. Overdosing on screens at night effectively tells the brain it's still daytime, delaying the body's cues to sleep even further.

    Parents should inform their kids of the time that can be spent on screens, and praise children who show signs of regulating their own media consumption. In the hour before bedtime, there should be a suspension on bright lights in the home, avoiding devices and harsh LED bulbs in kitchens and bathrooms.

    In 2016, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that middle and high schools start no earlier than 8: 30 a. m., a policy now backed by the American Medical Association and many other health organizations.

    Parents also need to join forces with community leaders, sleep scientists, health professionals and educators to put school start times on the local, then state agendas.

    Whenever schools have managed the transition to a later start time, students get more sleep, attendance goes up, grades improve and there is a significant reduction in car accidents.

    A good book can expose readers to a weird (不可思议的) place—a place which you could call art or fiction. I call it wonder, for those moments where a story—no matter how strange—has some semblance (样子) of truth, and then you're able to believe it. It's not just kids who can get there. Adults can too, and we get there when we read. It's why people will take the walking tour of Bloomsday and see everything that happened in Ulysses. Or people visit Baker Street to see Sherlock Holmes' apartment. We know these characters aren't real, but we have real feelings about them.

    There is a word called metafiction (超小说) and that's just stories about stories. And one metafictive technique is breaking the fourth wall. If I am going to break down the fourth wall, I want fiction to escape and come into the real world. I want a book to be a secret door that opens and lets stories out into reality.

【写作内容】（1）用约30个单词概述上文的主要内容；（2）用约120个单词发表你对好书的看法，内容包括：①好书的影响表现在哪些方面；②就如何挑选一本好书，给出2-3个建议。

【写作要求】①写作过程中不能直接引用原文语句；②作文中不能出现真实姓名和学校名称；③不必写标题。