天津市滨海新区2023-2024学年高二上学期第二次月考英语试题

—________.

I've always taught piano lessons in my spare time. Over the years I found that children have 1 musical abilities. Although I've taught some gifted students, I've also met so-called "musically 2 " pupils. One such student is Robby.

Robby was already 11 years old when his mother sent him for his first 3 lesson. I prefer that students begin at an earlier age. I 4 it to Robby, but he said it had always been his mother's 5 to hear him play the piano. So I took him as a student.

6 Robby tried very hard, he didn't have the basic sense of music. However, he 7 and he would always say, "My mom's going to hear me play some day." But it seemed 8 , and I was disappointed by his slow progress. Then one day Robby didn't come. He 9 me his mother was sick. I was glad that he stopped coming, since he was really a bad 10 for my teaching!

Several weeks later I was 11 my students for the music show when Robby came and said, "Miss Handorf, I've wanted to play." I don't know what made me 12 him to do that. Maybe it was his 13 that touched me.

The night for the show came. It went well. Then Robby came up on stage. I was 14  when he said he had chosen one of the most difficult pieces of Mozart. But I was not prepared for what I heard next. His fingers were light on the keys. They 15  danced on the keys. He played so well that everyone was 16  excitedly.

In tears I 17 up to stage. "Oh, Robby! How would you do it?" "Well, Miss Handorf, I 18 practicing at home. Remember I told you my mom was sick? In fact she had cancer and passed away this morning. And she was born 19 , she could never hear me play the piano, but tonight was the first time she ever heard me. I wanted to make it 20 ."

Sydney Cinemas in Historic Buildings

The Orpheum

Running since 1935, the Orpheum is of beautiful art design. When it was built, the Orpheum was used as a theatre with a stage and dressing rooms. It could seat 1,735 people. Later, the theatre was turned into a shopping mall. However, in 1986 the theatre was bought by Mike Walsh OBE and turned into a theatre again. Now this six-screen cinema shows old and new films to people. And you can still enjoy live (现场的) music on weekends.

Where: Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace, 380 a Military a Road, Cremorne

The Ritz

This family-owned cinema was built in 1937. At first, the cinema had a number of owners until, in 1993, when the owners planned to pull down the building, the local government ordered people to protect it forever. Since then, another five screens have been added, making the Ritz one of Sydney's oldest multiscreen cinemas. It's known for its beautiful architecture (建筑风格) and low ticket prices.

Where: 45 St. Pauls Street, Randwick

Golden Age Cinema and Bar (酒吧)

Golden Age Cinema has been carefully rebuilt. It now includes a wonderful bar that serves wines, beers and cocktails, and serves snacks and food specials to match the cinema program. Also in the building Golden Stage features live music acts. A trip to Golden Age Cinema is a relaxing experience for visitors.

Where: 80 Commonwealth Street, Surry Hills

Brenda Bongos was a happy, artistic girl. She had one big ambition—to play the drums in a band. But one big problem lay in her way. To be good enough to play in a band, Brenda had to practice a lot, but she lived next-door to a lot of old people. Many of them are sick. She knew that the sound of beating drums would really get on their nerves. So, she had tried playing in the strangest places: a basement, a kitchen, and even in a shower. But there was always someone it would annoy.

One day, while watching a science documentary on TV, she heard that sound cannot travel in space, because there's no air. At that moment, Brenda Bongos decided to become a sort of musical astronaut.

 With the help of a lot of time, books and work, Brenda built a space bubble. This was a big glass ball connected to a machine which sucked out all the air inside. All that would be left inside was a drum kit(成套设备)and a chair. Brenda got into the space suit she had made, entered the bubble, turned on the machine, and played those drums like a wild child.

 It wasn't long before Brenda Bongos came very famous. Many people came to see her play in her space bubble. Shortly afterwards she came out of the bubble and started giving concerts. Her fame spread so much that the government suggested that she be part of a unique space journey. Finally, Brenda was a real musical astronaut, and had gone far beyond her first ambition of playing drums in a band.

Years later, when asked how she had achieved all this, she thought for a moment, and said: ''If those old people next – door hadn't mattered so much to me, I wouldn't have found a solution, and none of this would have ever happened.''

Every one of us may have been hurt by others—either by their words or actions. The best way to deal with the problem is to "forgive and forget".

"It is well established that learning to forgive others can have positive benefits for one's physical and mental health" Saima Noreen, a scientist at the University of St. Andrews, UK, told the Huffington Post.

Recently, Noreen and her research team have found one more reason that you should stick to this principle—forgiving somebody who has hurt you makes it easier for you to forget the unhappy memory, according to their new study.

In the study, researchers asked volunteers to read descriptions of 40 different situations that contained bad actions such as stealing, lying and cheating. Imagining being the victims (受害者), volunteers then had to decide whether they would be able to forgive. Two weeks later, volunteers took part in a memory test. In the test, they were shown a series of words related to the situations they had read about and then were asked to recall certain ones.

The results showed that people were less likely to remember the details of the unpleasant experiences if they had found forgiveness in their hearts. In contrast if they hadn't forgiven the mistake, they could always remember what had happened.

However, forgiving someone who has hurt you is always easier said than done. So Noreen hopes that one day in the near future research will give rise to powerful therapeutic (有疗效的) tools that will enable people to "forgive and forget" more effectively.

When my father was celebrating a milestone (里程碑), birthday, I pulled together a surprised gift that he would never forget.

On his 60th birthday, I had a fun idea: What if I could get the memories people had of him, put each one into an envelope (信封) — 60 in total — and have him open them, one by one, on his birthday? So I wrote an e-mail to family and friends, explaining my idea.

I sent the e-mail and waited. And then the replies started coming in and I was very, very astonished. There were so many memories, and they were all so lovely. They came from the ′50s, ′60s, ′70s, from every decade (十年) between now and the day my dad was born. They came from my mother, my siblings, my grandma, my dad's friends from high school, his sister, my dad's first boss, a colleague at his first job, from people who hadn't seen my dad in 40 years, from people I myself hadn't even informed. They typed them and hand-wrote them. They mailed them and e-mailed them.

The night before Dad's birthday, my sister and I stayed up late, putting the mails into envelopes.

The next morning, after breakfast and presents and cake, we gave the pile of envelopes to him. "Just one more thing for you," we said.

It took him along time to open them and read. Each one was a brief ticket to another time, a leap (跳跃) backward over years and decades. There was a lot of laughter and a few tears in his face.

I was kind of sad when the project of the memories about my .father was over because it was, great fun to collect these memories.

要点提示：1. 城市垃圾的危害。2. 建议：垃圾分类、报纸和玻璃的再利用、有害垃圾的处理等。

参考词汇：城市化urbanization;加速acceleration;将……分类sort；回收recycle

注意：1. 可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯；2. 词数不少于100，信的格式已给出，不计入总词数。

Dear editor,

With the acceleration of urbanization, city waste problem is getting worse. 

Yours,

Li Hua