重庆市缙云教育联盟2023-2024学年高二上学期12月月考英语试题

Kaibab National Forest

The vast majority of areas and activities in the Kaibab National Forest are free to enjoy by the public. However, there are some fees for recreational (娱乐的) sites and activities such as campgrounds, cabin rentals and recreational vehicle facilities. 

Annual Pass

It covers the pass owner and three accompanying adults at sites where per person entrance fees are charged. Good for one year from the month of purchase. $80 for one year. 

Senior Pass

You must be 62 years of age or older to purchase. Passes are $20 for one year or $80 for a lifetime. An Interagency (跨部门的) Annual Pass can be used on many different federal lands across the nation. 

Volunteer Pass

It is awarded to those individuals who volunteer 250 hours at one or more recreational sites managed by 5 federal agencies as a way to say "thank you"! The Volunteer Pass is valid (有效的) for 12 months from the month of issuance.

4th Graders

This free pass is available to 4th Graders, 4th Grade Teachers, home school and free-choice learners 10 years of age. Good from Sept. to Aug. of your 4th Grade school year. 

Access Pass

People who are living with disabilities can request this $10 lifetime pass. It can be used at many different federal lands across the nation. 

For detailed information on fees associated with any Kaibab National Forest recreational site or activity, please visit its website and locate the specific site or activity of interest. 

Foreign visitors to the UK might be disappointed when they learn that not everyone there speaks like Harry Potter and his friends. Usually, there's an assumption by many non-Brits that everyone in Britain speaks with what's known as a Received Pronunciation (RP，标准发音) accent, also called "the Queen's English". However, while many people do talk this way, most Britons speak in their own regional accents (口音).

Scouse, Glaswegian and Black Country — from Liverpool, Glasgow and the West Midlands — are just three of the countless non-RP accents that British people speak with. There are even differences in accents between towns or cities just 30 kilometers apart. What is even more disappointing is that not speaking in a RP accent may mean a British person is judged and even treated differently in their everyday life. 

In a 2015 study by The University of South Wales, videos of people reading a passage in three different UK accents were shown to a second group of people. The group then rated how intelligent they thought the readers sounded. The lowestrated accent was Brummie, native to people from Birmingham, a city whose accent is considered working class. 

However, there is no need to be disappointed though you are not speaking in a RP accent. In fact, doing the opposite may even give you strength. 

Kong Seongjae, 25, is an Internet celebrity from Seoul. After studying in the UK, he picked up several regional accents. He's now famous for his online videos, where he shows off the various accents he's learned. "British people usually get really excited when I use some of their local dialect words, and they become much friendlier. I think it makes a bit of bond between local people and foreigners to speak in their local accent," he said.

So if you're working on perfecting your British accent, try to speak like someone from Liverpool, Glasgow or Birmingham. You may not sound like Harry Potter, but you are likely to make more friends.

In 1945, two sculptures meant to represent the average man called Norman and woman called Norma in the United States went on exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History. 

That same year, a contest was launched to find a living representation of Norma. Normal is often used to mean "typical", "expected", or even "correct". By that logic, most people should fit the description of normal. And yet, not one of almost 4,000 women who participated in the contest matched Norma, the supposedly "normal" woman.

This puzzle isn't unique to Norma and Norman, either — time and time again, so-called normal descriptions of our bodies, minds, and perceptions have turned out to match almost no one. So what does normal actually mean — and should we be relying on it so much?

In statistics, a normal distribution describes a set of values that fall along a bell curve (曲线). The average, or mean, of all the values is at the very center, and most other values fall within the hump (驼峰) of the bell. Normal doesn't describe a single data point, but a pattern of diversity. Many human traits, like height, follow a normal distribution. Some people are very tall or very short, but most people fall close to the overall average. Outside of statistics, normal often refers to an average like the single number pulled from the fattest part of the bell curve that excludes all the nuances of the normal distribution. Norma and Norman's proportions (比例) came from such averages.

Applied to individuals, whether someone is considered normal usually depends on how closely they get to this average. At best, such definitions of normal fail to capture variation. When limited or inaccurate definitions of normal are used to make decisions that impact people's lives, they can do real harm. There were examples in history.

To this day, people are often targeted and discriminated against on the basis of disabilities, mental health issues, and other features considered "not normal". But the reality is that the differences in our bodies, minds, perceptions, and ideas about the world around us — in short, diversity — is the true normal.

The Mona Lisa is the famous Leonardo da Vinci painting of a woman with a mysterious smile. This week, the painting gave up a secret. 

Scientists using X-rays to examine the chemical structure of a small part of the painting discovered a technique Leonardo used in the work. An oil paint used for it was a special, new chemical mixture, which suggests that the Italian artist was in an experimental mood when he worked on the painting in the 16th century. 

"He loved to experiment, and each of his paintings is completely different technically,"said Victor Gonzalez, a chemist who has studied the chemical element (成分) of several works by Leonardo and other artists. The researchers found a rare lead compound (铅化合物) — plumbonacrite, in Leonardo's first layer of paint. The discovery proved that da Vinci most likely used lead oxide to thicken and help dry his paint. The paint in the study is about the thickness of a human hair, lying in the top right area of the painting.

The scientists looked into its atomic structure using X-rays, moving particles at the speed of light, permitting researchers to look deeper into the paint structure. " Plumbonacrite is really a fingerprint of his recipe, as it's the first time we can chemically confirm it," Gonzalez said.

Dutch artist Rembrandt may have used a similar mixture when he was painting in the 17th century. Gonzalez and other researchers have found plumbonacrite in his work, too. Leonardo is thought to have put lead oxide powder, which has an orange color, in the oil to make it thicker and dry faster. "What you will get is an oil that has a very nice golden color," Gonzalez said. "It flows more like honey. "

But the Mona Lisa — said by the Louvre to be a portrait (肖像) of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine silk businessman — and additional works by Leonardo still have other secrets to tell. "What we are saying is just a little brick in the knowledge," Gonzalez said.

Some speaking activities do not give an exact picture of your true language skill. But storytelling does. Storytelling is the retelling of a story. It can be a short piece of invented story; or it can be the retelling of a news event. Or you can talk about something that happened in your own life.On the other hand, an activity requiring your opinion can slow you down.

For the storytelling activity, try to provide as much information as possible and aim for a recording of three minutes or fewer. Don't just say, "I studied at the library." Say, "

And most of the seats were taken, so I looked around and finally found a place, but it was near the window. It was cold, so I had to keep my coat on," or something like that.

Instead, it is to speak at a faster speed because you do not have to stop and think of each idea separately. Before the activity, you'd better speak out loud to yourself a few times to make sure you have your main points in mind.

When listening to the recording, do not expect to find all or even most grammar or vocabulary mistakes.  After the first recording, record yourself telling the same story at least once more and take note of your progress. But avoid memorizing your speech.

A.Put your speech into written or typed form.

B.The goal of giving such information is not to fill the time.

C.I walked into the library and thought about where I should sit.

D.That is because it forces you to think about your ideas as you say them.

E.Choose a place that you know well, like your home or a nearby bus station.

F.But you can easily find some mistakes, such as wrong verb and noun endings.

G.Storytelling frees you from forming complex ideas and lets you speak easily in English .

Five years ago, my husband and I bought a farm. 

As we restore the land, I feel my well-being 1 . I think the farm is also working its magic on our son. Since he was 20, he has lived with mental illness. Just when it couldn't get any worse, an unexpected 2 occurred in my life. We 3 the farm.

It has taken a couple of years to 4 the land, seed the lawn and build garden beds. The farm was holding our 5 together. Before my son went to treatment, we planted a "guild" (同一目的协会) in the old farm to support the health of trees by grouping other helpful plants around them. We dug around the 6 trees and placed in garlic, wildflowers, etc and the garden seems to grow well.

We also learned how to 7  others. Our workman worked steadily and helped when I asked. Asking for help is a principle in the recovery community, a lesson my son is 8  . The desire to recover this land has 9  in me. I have seen this 10  towards restoration in my son as well. It truly does take a village to rebuild a farm and a(an) 11  . And my son has found his own kind of guild that 12  him. 

Owning a farm was never our 13  , but it came when our family needed a 14  project. Digging is an act of faith, hope and 15  of what will appear next. 

Local (official) in Beijing promised to further protect the city's cultural heritage, in particular the narrow streets known as hutongs.

Hutongs are  (common) found in the cities of North China, but they are in danger. Beijing is currently believed to have fewer than 1,000 hutongs, most of  are near the Forbidden City. Only 60 years ago, the number of the hutongs  (be) 3,250. 

"Every year more than 100, 000 people visit the Forbidden City during the National Day holidays. The visits put pressure on protection of cultural relics," said Huang Yan, director of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Urban Planning, (add) that hutongs should be protected from human damage.

The government concentrated  how the protection plans were carried out and how the management of cultural heritage worked. Wang Shaofeng, head of the Xicheng District Government, said the area has 182 cultural relics, and many of them were built as far back as the Yuan Dynasty. The district of Xicheng has 

1. 28 million residents in (it) 57 square kilometers of land. "The most efficient way is to decrease the local population to reduce the possibility of causing harm to the heritage," Wang said. "Each community has been required (report) the status of its cultural heritage. " No one knows for sure how many hutongs (leave) in the coming 100 years.

注意：1. 词数100左右；2. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。

NOTICE

One pleasant New-year morning, Edward rose, and washed and dressed himself in a hurry. He wanted to be first to wish a happy New Year to his family. He turned up at every door of the house, and shouted the words of "Happy New Year" in an excited voice. After a quick breakfast, he hopped along the street like a happy bird, greeted and repeated the words to those he met.

When he came back, his father gave him 50 dollars, saying he could buy whatever he had been wishing for. His face lighted up as he took them. He had wished for a long time to buy some interesting books that he had seen at the bookstore. He thanked his father and danced out of the house again with a light heart, wanting to buy those books. 

As he ran down the street, he noticed a poor German family, the father, mother, and three children trembling with cold. "I wish you a happy New Year," said Edward, as he was happily passing on. The man took a look at the happy boy and shook his head sadly.

Edward stopped and said, "It seems that you do not belong to this country" The man again shook his head, a confused expression appeared over his face, for he could not understand or speak English.

But the poor man pointed to his mouth, and to the children with hungry looks, as if to say, "These little ones have had nothing to eat for a long time. "

Edward quickly understood that these poor people were in difficult situation. 

注意：1. 续写词数应为150左右;2. 请按如下格式在相应位置作答。

Paragraph 1:

He took out his dollars, and gave them all to the man. 

Paragraph 2:

When Edward went home, his father asked what book he had bought.