江苏省丹阳市2020届高三下学期英语期初测试卷（含听力音频）

— I don't know, but it was the question ______ last Tuesday by Brian Solis, a noted futurist from Sweden.

—Well, I wasn't feeling well this morning and I was having breakfast ______ a wave of nausea (恶心)________ me. And then I passed out.

— Oh, good heavens! Both my legs are nearly to give out. I ______ for hours like a dog.

— I miss your ______too. We had an amazing year!

— Yes. I bet our life ______the same without them.

— ______.

    An expert suggested that certain criminals should be sent to prison in their own home. When the scheme was first put forward publicly, many people 1  to it or had serious 2  about it. One very experienced social worker opposed the scheme in a television interview. When 3  to explain the basis for his opposition, he thought for a moment and4 confessed, "Well, I guess, because it's novel. That's my5 reason."

    Advocates of the scheme pointed out that courts frequently sentenced first offenders to community service of some kind 6  send them to prison. The shame of having a criminal  7  was an adequate deterrent( 威慑 ), and nothing8 was achieved by sending some types of condemned people to prison.

    Some critics rushed to take extreme cases. " 9  a murderer is allowed free in the community like this, what is to prevent him from 10  somebody else?" This argument 11  the fact that nobody proposed to allow condemned murderers to use the bracelet(手镯)system. One criticism put forward was that an offender could 12  his bracelet and leave it at home or give it to a friend to 13  while he himself went off to commit another crime. The14 to this was that the bracelet would be made15 the computer could   immediately detect any attempts to take it off or tamper with (胡乱摆弄) it.

    A most serious objection to the scheme was that the16 life of prison was intended to be part of the   deterrent to crime. A prisoner who was allowed to live at home would suffer no particular 17  and thus not   be deterred from repeating his crime.

    No immediate 18  was taken on the proposal. It was 19  too revolutionary and needed to be examined very carefully. However, the idea was not rejected. Several governments 20  experts to investigate the scheme and make recommendations for or against it.

    3D TV, Without the Glasses

    If you're thinking about buying a 3D TV, you might want to wait a while. Researchers have developed new 3D technology that doesn't need any special glasses to work its magic. The new technology could advance the development of 3D on mobile devices, too.

    Bioethics Panel Gives Yellow Light to Anthrax Vaccine Trial in Children

    A U.S. bioethics committee has said that the country may consider testing the anthrax vaccine in children. The panel advises that the vaccine be tested in progressively younger age groups and includes the caveat (警告) that testing should only take place if risks are "minimal."

    Evolution via Roadkill

    We usually think of evolution happening over thousands or millions of years, but it can be surprisingly speedy—literally. In just 3 decades, highway-dwelling swallows (燕子)have evolved shorter wingspans (翼展) to better dodge oncoming cars.

    Patients Should Get DNA Information, Report Recommends

    Would you want to know if you were at risk for cancer? What about a fatal heart condition? A group of genetics experts, along with the influential American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics, have recommended that anyone whose genome is sequenced for any medical reason must be told about their genetic susceptibility to serious health problems, regardless of whether they want to know.

    Congress Completes Work on 2013 Spending Bill

    This week, the U.S. Congress passed a bill to fund the government until the end of the fiscal(财政的) year, and research agencies now know how much to spend in 2013. The so-called continuing resolution retains the sequester and its $85 billion cut in discretionary spending. The bill throws NASA's planetary programs a lifeline and gives the National Science Foundation a bit of a boost, but the National Institutes of Health's funding stays flat at 2012 levels—bad news for biomedical research.

    Making Moonshine Safe to Drink

    Home-brew drinkers in developing countries often risk blindness or even death from methanol poisoning when they drink. Now, scientists have made a reusable wireless chip that can analyze a drink's methanol content and warn users of any danger. In 2 years, they hope to develop a product that can send results directly to a cell phone.

    Many electronic parts are made of hard materials that break easily. That makes them tough to use in products that need to bend. Now, Sam Yoon and his team have developed a thin mesh (网状物) that can both bend and conduct electricity.

    His team started out with something called acrylonitrile, a clear liquid often used to make thin plastic fibers. Yoon and his team mixed this material with another liquid, which acted as a solvent. A solvent is something that can make other substances into liquids. Then, they squeezed the mix through a very tiny pipe: As the mixture was sprayed through the air, the solvent evaporated(挥发)and the acrylonitrile molecules linked up to make long chains, creating a type of plastic known as PAN. The researchers continually squeezed the mixture through the pipe. A single long PAN fiber was created. The scientists moved the pipe back and forth as the PAN was squeezed out. It ended up creating a layer that looked something like a spider's web.

    PAN, like most plastics, doesn't conduct electricity. So the team's next step would normally be to add a coating of metal so that electricity could flow through it. But it could be tough sticking such coatings on PAN. So the researchers added an extra step. They sprayed a thin coating of an inert metal onto the PAN. Inert metals, like gold, typically don't react with other materials. The researchers then added another layer of PAN fiber at the top of the first, web-like layer. They provide temporary support, helping the metal-sprayed base resist sinking during the next step.

    The researchers connected the fiber-covered frame to a negatively changed electrode. Then they dipped the fiber-covered frame into a solution that included the liquid copper. The team turned on the electric current for about one minute to make it run through the solution. The copper in the solution was attached to all of the fibers. But it stuck only to those that wore a metal jacket. Besides adding a thin layer of copper that conducts electricity, this process helped bond the PAN strands together at places, where they touched each other, Yoon notes.

    The researchers then attached all of the fibers to a thin, clear layer of plastic, which had sticky backing, like a Band-Aid. Finally, the team dipped all of these into a liquid that made any of the PAN fibers that lacked a copper jacket into liquids. Only those that can be used to conduct electricity were left. Because the fibers were very thin and widely separated, light waves easily travel through the mesh. The copper coating acted just like a wire, permitting electricity to flow freely across it.

    In the United States, experts are calling for major changes to the admission process in higher education.

    The National Center for Educational Statistics (or NCES) reported that U.S colleges and universities received more than million applications between 2013 and 2014 and admitted more than 5 million students. But the problem is not in the number of students, a new report says. The report is called "Turning the Tide—Making Caring Common."

    The report argues that the process schools use to choose students causes major problems. David Hawkins is the Executive Director for Educational Content and Policy. He says that most colleges and universities require many things from students when they apply.

    Schools usually require an essay describing a student's interests or why they want to study at that school. The schools also ask for letters from teachers describing why a student is a good candidate. But, Hawkins says, schools are most concerned with a student's high school grades and standardized test results.

    The Education Conservancy is an organization that fights to make higher education equal and available. Lloyd Thacker is the Executive Director of the Education Conservancy, saying that the college admission process has changed a lot.

    "Over the past 30 years, college admissions have become more complex." He says that ranking systems for colleges and universities are a big part of the problem.

    U.S. News and World Report is a media company that creates a list of what it calls "America's Best Colleges". The company bases the list on information collected from colleges and universities across the country. This information includes results of standardized tests like the SAT from all of a school's students. Higher average test results help put schools higher on the list.

    Thacker claims, "Too many students are learning to do whatever it takes in order to get ahead, even if that means sacrificing their own individuality, their health, their happiness and behavior…"

    "The impact on students and on parents is that college is all about where you go. The rank has nothing to do with the quality of education that goes on at the college".

    The Harvard report states that the best way to change the admission process is by changing college applications.

    The age of adulthood is by definition arbitrary. If everyone matured at the same, fixed rate, it wouldn't be a human process. Indeed, maturation happens at varying speeds across different categories within the same individual, so I'd say I was easily old enough to vote at 16, but nobody should have given me a credit card until I was 32, and I've got the county court judgment to prove it.

    However, we broadly agree that there's a difference between a child and an adult, even if we might argue about the transition point. So the political theorist David Runciman's view that six-year-olds should be allowed to vote goes against any standard argument about the age of civic responsibility. Nobody would say that a six-year-old could be held criminally responsible, could be sent to war, could be capable of consent, could be given responsibility for anything. So allowing them the vote—along with, unavoidably, seven-year-olds who are even sillier, if anything—is quite an amusing proposal.

    Runciman's argument is that this is the only way to rebalance political life, which is currently twisted in favor of the old, who don't (he added) ever need to demonstrate mental capacity, even long after they've lost it.

    The first part of his case is self-evident: pensions are protected while children's centers are closed, concepts such as sovereignty( 最高权威) are prioritized over the far more urgent business of the future: climate change. Nostalgia(怀念) for a past the young wouldn't even recognize plays a central role, which is completely unfair.

    Most of the arguments against giving six-year-old's a vote are that children would end up voting for something damaging and chaotic, if someone made unrealistic promises to them, which could never be realized.

    Well, it's not children's fault.

    Having said that, children do tend towards the progressive, having a natural sense of justice (which kicks in at the age of six months, psychologists have shown, by creating scenes of great unfairness to babies, and making them cry) and an underdeveloped sense of self-interest. My kid, when he was six, made quite a forceful case against private property, on the basis that, since everybody needed a house, they shouldn't cost money, because nobody would want anyone else not to have one. Also, food should be free. It was a kind of pre-Marx communism, where you limit the coverage of the market to only those things that you wouldn't mind someone else not having.

    On that particular day, when we were registered as voters, my kid was quite far to the left of me, but in the normal run of things, we're united, which brings us to the point of the problem: children obey you on almost nothing, but they do seem to believe in your politics until they're adolescent. So giving kids the vote is really just a way of giving parents extra votes. And what can stop us having even more children, once there's so much enfranchisement(选举权) in it for us?

    Now, if parents could be trusted to use their influence wisely, and hammer into children the politics it will take to assure a better future, then I wouldn't necessarily have a problem with that, apart from, obviously, that culture is already wildly twisted towards parents, and I can imagine a few non-parents boiling with fierce anger. But that's not worth talking about anyway, because parents can't be trusted, otherwise we'd all already vote Green(绿党).

    In short: no, six-year-olds should not get the vote; but while we're here, if any votes come up in the near future, which will have an impact on the next five decades of British political life, alongside EU migrants,16-year-olds certainly should be enfranchised.

    There are times when you want to know how to make friends. Maybe you are just not confident because you're afraid that people may not react the way you want them to. But it is not very hard to make friends; it is just what you think it is that makes you not willing to do it. Continue reading to find out how!

    Don't be mean or rude; you do not want to lose any potential friends. Be nice and friendly. If you want to make friends, you first need to put yourself out there somehow in order to meet people. If you just sit alone, friends might come to you, but the odds are much smaller. If you're still in school, sit somewhere with other people. It doesn't have to be the "popular" or "cool" table, or a crowded one, but one with at least two other people. Hang out with many others. The popular kids won't matter when you're older, but a true friend will be there for you forever.

    There is no necessary need to have a lot of common interests with people in order to make friends with them. But if you like a specific topic, try searching for just an organization or a club where you can find people who are also interested in it and become a member of it. It's a great way to meet new local people.

    Volunteering is also a great way for people of all ages to meet others. By working together you build bonds with people, and you might meet others who have a passion for changing things the way you do, that is, a common cause.

    There are many ways to start a conversation—a comment about your immediate environment (The weather is a classic: "At least it's not raining like last week!"), a request for help ("Can you help me carry a few boxes, if you have a minute?" or "Can you help me decide which one of these is a better gift for my mum?") or a compliment ("I love your shoes."). Follow up immediately with a related question: Do you like this warm weather? What kinds of gifts do you

normally buy for your mums? Where did you get shoes like that? Also, make a small talk. Remember the 30% talking and 70% listening ratio during small talk.

    You've probably heard of fair-weather friends. They're the ones who are happy to be around you when things are going well, but are nowhere to be found when you really need them. Part of being a friend is being prepared to make sacrifices of your time and energy in order to help your friends out. If a friend needs help with an unpleasant chore, or if he or she just needs a shoulder to cry on, be there. If your friend tells a joke, laugh with him or her. Never complain about a friend. If you and your friend agree to meet somewhere, don't be late, and do not stand him or her up. If you're not going to make it on time or make it at all, call him or her as soon as you realize it. Apologize and ask to reschedule. Be someone who people know that they can count on.

    In a word, when you get along with people around you, it's important for you to actively approach others, start a small conversation freely and then develop a close relationship with others.

    Running individual official accounts on social-networking app WeChat has become a new channel for Chinese people to express themselves, according to a survey.

    At present, many media organizations, companies and individuals in China have launched official accounts on WeChat, making efforts to attract more subscribers to expand their reach. Over 66 percent of 2,001 respondents said they were willing to set up individual official accounts while 27.2 percent said they had already started such accounts.

    The survey, published by the China Youth Daily, also said expressing feelings and views, as well as gaining popularity, was the top reasons why people wanted individual official accounts. More than half of individual official accounts offered content concerning personal views and feelings, as well as entertainment and recreation information, the survey said.

    Of more than 540 respondents that have individual official accounts on WeChat, 5 percent claimed that they had built popular "self-media" brands using the accounts, while 12.2 percent said they had made money from the accounts through advertising. Meanwhile, 42 percent said their accounts had limited influence with only a few subscribers.

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