江苏省2020年高考英语全真模拟试卷八

    There are many reasons why students don't do well in school. Sometimes it's related to, for example, learning challenges, an 1 to connect with an instructor, or simply being bored.

    These reasons are relevant to me as a former at-risk student. In the 10th grade, I failed 6 of 7 classes because I didn't 2 with the teacher's teaching method, and 3 with students who didn't care about school. As a result, I 4 10th grade and was assigned to Ms. Felder's office.

    Ms. Felder made it clear that my 5 behavior wouldn't be allowed. She also provided a(n)6 direction that I didn't want, but really needed at that time. Our ongoing conversations didn't

    7 change my behavior, although it was the first time an educator showed any 8 for me.

    The previous school year I didn't receive any offer of 9 from my teachers. The 10 during my second attempt at 10th grade was Ms. Felder—who was everywhere I didn't want her to be. She was always in my 11: checking-in, providing guidance, and supporting my growth. I didn't want her 12, but it's one of the best things that happened in my life. This seemingly 13 year with Ms. Felder made a change in my thinking and behavior, 14 unfortunately it would take many years before my performance and expectations for myself would slowly change.

    My 15 journey was very difficult. Part of the reason that I 16 pushing forward was that I17 that Ms. Felder told me to do better and have higher expectations for myself. After many years of academic 18, I graduated with my undergraduate degree from a famous university;"Ms. Felder: Thank you for being there, supporting this once 19 youth. Please know that the lessons you taught me are now 20 with at-risk students through my work to help them to be and do better, too."

    Building a company website is one of the most important parts of creating a successful business. But designing a website can be time consuming and expensive. Web designers are difficult to work with, and even though you're paying them. There are cheaper ways to establish your company online, and Wix.com stands out among them.

    Wix.com offers free HTML5 and Flash website design that you can do on your own, without having to pay for a pricey web designer. With unlimited space for as many pages as you want, customized looks, photo galleries, and blog platform capabilities, social networking buttons, Wix has everything a business of any size needs to make an impact online. You get full control over what information fills in the blanks, and you don't have to know a thing about HTML to make this work. The way your website looks says a lot about your company. Wix does that, and it does it for free. Another thing that makes Wix the most affordable option in creating a website is that you don't have to pay for a separate web host—every page created on Wix is hosted on Wix, free of charge.

    The Internet is the marketplace of ideas: your company needs to share what you think. If you think just because you don't sell a product online you don't need a website, you're dead wrong. No matter what kind of business you have, if you want to reach an audience, you want to have a website that speaks to people. Wix lets you do that as quickly and easily as possible for free.

    If you have a bigger budget, Wix has more options than just the free website design. You can choose to upgrade(升级)to the ad-less version which won't fill up your customer's screens when they visit your site. But if the most important thing to you is getting your company's name online right now, try Wix.com today.

    As New York City parents debate how to give all students fair access to good public schools, some advocates in Brooklyn want to abolish middle schools' use of academic criteria to select students.

    Some supporters of the proposal for District 15 from its Diversity Plan Working Group are optimistic they will win, partly because New York City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza has questioned the principle for accepting students by ability. Other parents are cautious, saying they want their hard-working children to have the chance to earn their way into desirable schools.

    District 15, which includes low-income immigrant neighborhoods such as Sunset Park and more-affluent(富裕的)areas like Park Slope, is one of the first in the city trying to change its admission system to better integrate(整合)all of its middle schools. Its Diversity Group, which includes parents and city Department of Education officials, has tried to drum up support by hosting workshops and seeking community input.

    Michele Greenberg, a District 15 parent, calls the proposal more fair than the current selective system, which she said discriminates against students with few resources. "Children shouldn't be rejected because they don't somehow fit," she said.

    Department officials said they will decide on the proposal this summer. If approved, the plan would mark a huge change from today's method. Now, students rank the schools they want to attend, and schools rank students they want to enroll, based on varying criteria such as course grades, test scores, behavior, attendance, punctuality and auditions. The department makes matches. Many parents complain this complex process brings massive anxiety.

    Alina Rodriguez, a special-education teacher who works and lives in District 15, feels torn. As a mother, she believes her daughter would get into a strong middle school through selective admissions. But as a teacher, she worries many of her students aren't prepared for more severe choices. "I want them to be pushed but don't want them to fail," she said.

    Screened(筛选的)admission has led to enrollment disparities(差异)by income and race. About 70% of the district's white students clustered at three top-performing, low-poverty middle schools last year, including M.S.51, Math & Science Exploratory School and New Voices, according to state data. At two lower-performing schools, by contrast, nearly all students were poor and Hispanic. Andrew Robertson, a District 15 parent, said the proposal would equalize the playing field. "The people so frightened by the concept are the modern-day version of people worried about civil rights," he said.

    The world we live in is becoming increasingly complex and uncertain. And with it, the conventional thinking of yesterday is no longer sufficient. Creating real breakthrough opportunities requires a fundamental change in our thinking. As Einstein said, "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

    There's no better example of this than the myth of the four-minute mile.

For centuries, runners had been attempting to run a mile in under four minutes. In the 1950s, the attempt to break the barrier took on renewed importance, and a number of famous runners publicly and unsuccessfully attempted the challenge. Many of the newspapers of the day began to question whether humans would ever be able to run a sub-four-minute mile. Then, in 1954, a man named Roger Bannister did the unthinkable. He broke through the imaginary barrier, running the mile in 3 minutes and 59.4 seconds. It was an amazing achievement.

    But here's what's really interesting: it was only forty-six days later that another runner broke Bannister's record. And the following year, two new runners broke the four-minute mark in the same race. Dozens followed, and as of this writing, more than 1,400 runners have accomplished the goal, including one runner who ran two miles in less than eight minutes.

    Did something change with respect to human body, track conditions, weather patterns, running shoes, or the human diet between the start of Bannister's race and the few years that followed? No. So what explains the sudden and dramatic explosion of athletic achievement?

    The myth's unimaginable power over runners had lifted. What Bunnister had done was not just break the four —minute—mile barrier; he shattered(粉碎)the myth that created the barrier in the first place. This paradigm(榜样)had offered a set of actions available for runners to take. Runners were really free to run through the invented boundary.

    Creating breakthroughs requires shattering the myths that limit our imagination and lock us into conventional thinking. Think about your own situation. What myths are you stuck in? And what would be possible if you had the courage to challenge the myths?

    A recent BBC documentary, The Town That Never Refired sought to show the effects of increasing the state pension age by putting retirees back to work.

    Although the documentary was fun, they need not have bothered. Away from the cameras, a great numbers of older people are staying in work. Since the start of the economy declines that began in 2008. the number of 16-to 24-year-olds in work has fallen by 597,000. Over the same period the number of workers over the age of 65 has increased by 240, 000.

    The graying of the British workforce dates back to around 2001 since when the proportion of older people working has nearly doubled. But it has accelerated since the start of the economy declines.

    There are several reasons why. Happily, people are living longer and healthier lives, which makes staying in work less discouraging than it was. Less happily, low interest rates, a disappointing stock market and the end of many defined-benefit(固定收益)pension schemes make it a financial necessity. And changing attitudes, inspired by rules against age discrimination, are making it easier than ever.

    Most older workers are simply hanging on at the office: 63% of workers over state pension age have been with their employer for more than ten years. Over two-thirds of them work part-time, mostly doing jobs that they once performed full-time. A big advantage is that they need not pay national insurance contributions.

    According to Stephen McNair, director of the Centre for Research into the Older Workforce the flexibility explains why older workers have not suffered so much in the period of economy decline Instead of cutting back on the workforce, as in previous depression, many firms have stopped taking on new workers and cut working hours. At small businesses m particular, keeping on older workers is cheaper and less risky than training replacements. Over half of workers overstate pension age work for businesses with fewer than 25 employees.

    Christopher Nipper, who owns David Nipper, a women's wear manufacturer based in Derbyshire, prizes his semi-retired workers, who can be employed at short notice and do not need to work full-time to survive. Retired machinists can fill in if there is a rise in orders; former sales advisers can work as part-time consultants. As his competitors have moved production abroad, leaving the pool of trained labor behind, continuing to have older workers and their skills has become even more important.

    There is a tendency for the older workforce to expand• Workers over the age of 50 who are made unemployed find it harder to pick up new jobs, which could mean that more of them want to work than are able to. The Office for Budget Responsibility, the fiscal watchdog, reported on July 12th that an ageing, unproductive population is the biggest long-term threat to Britain's economic health.

    Data from the OECD, a think-tank, shows that employment rates among workers approaching retirement age are split in Europe, with old workers hanging on best in the north. Government credit ratings follow a similar pattern. That Britain's ageing workforce more closely resembles Germany's than Italy's could prove the country^'s being saved from harm.

    Regret is as common an emotion as love or fear, and it can be nearly as powerful. We feel it when we either blame ourselves for things that turned out badly, or long to undo a choice we made in the past. The effect regret has on our lives and how we deal with regret are equally important.

    In some cases, regret can be disastrous. In 1995, a British man who regularly played one set of lottery numbers forgot to renew his ticket during the week that his numbers came up. He was so filled with regret and self-blame that he committed suicide. While this is an extreme consequence of regret, it can have many other lesser effects on the mind and body that can still seriously affect our lives.

    According to recent research, women have more regrets about romantic relationships than men do—not surprising, since women "value social relationships more than men". In collectivist culture where many aspects of life are arranged, people feel less regret, since many choices were made for them. There was an even split between regrets about inaction (not doing something)and action(do something you wish you didn't). The research found that some regrets are more likely than others to stay over time: people tend to hang on longer to the regret of inaction or the opportunities they have missed, meanwhile, regrets of action tend to be more recent.

    Held inside for too long, regret can affect the immune system. If one fails to learn and grow from past mistakes, deep feeling of regret can stay locked inside, keeping one from fully engaging with life. This can put stress on relationships, careers, and many other aspects of life, In addition, too many regrets can lead to severe depression, which may require professional help. Therefore, it is important that we understand what regret is and how we can learn to deal with it.

    To cope with regret, be aware that it is there for a reason. Our brain is telling us to take another look at our choices because they may be having negative consequences. Take "I can't believe I crashed my car. I'm so stupid." and turn it into "I'm so lucky I didn't die in the accident." How wonderful However, when the situation can't be changed, and there is nothing left for us to do, we have to let go of the situation and forgive ourselves.

    We have to see that mistakes we make as necessary lessons in life. If we can learn from them and make changes, we can turn our regrets into passive actions. We can use them to improve, guide, and shape our lives for the better.

    There are two factors which determine an individual's intelligence. The first is sort of brain he is born with. Human brains differ considerably, some being more capable than others. But no matter how good a brain he has to begin with, an individual will have a low intelligence unless he has opportunities to learn. So the second factor is what happens to the individual—the sort of the environment in which he is brought up. If an individual is handicapped(受阻碍)environmentally, it is likely that his brain will stop to develop and he will never attain the level of intelligence of which he is capable.

    The importance of environment in determining an individual's intelligence can be proved by the identical twins, Peter and John. When the twins were three months old, their parents died, and they were placed in separate foster(寄养)homes. Peter was reared by parents of low intelligence in an isolated community with poor educational opportunities. John, however, was educated in the home well-to-do parents who had been to college. This environmental difference continued until the twins were in their late teens, when they were given tests to measure their intelligence. John's IQ was 125, twenty-five points higher than the average and fully forty points higher than his brother.

【写作内容】

1）以约30个词概括短文的要点；

2）然后以约120个词就“环境与人的智力发展”的主题发表看法，并包括如下要点：

①你是否赞同“环境决定智力的发展”这一观点？为什么？

②请举出具体事例说明你的观点；

③你认为如何才能最大限度地发展智力？

【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。

【评分标准】

内容完整，语言规范，语篇连贯，词数适当。