河南省濮阳市第一高级中学2023-2024学年高二上学期9月月考英语试题

濮阳市一高2022级高二上学期第一次质量检测

英语试题

(时间：120分钟 满分：150分)

第二部分 阅读理解 (共两节，满分50分)

第一节 (共15小题;每小题2.5分，满分37.5分)

阅读下列短文，从每题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中选出最佳选项。

A

Four Best Language Exchange Apps

HelloTalk

HelloTalk is a language exchange application that allows you to talk with others from around the world for free. You can write a brief summary about yourself in your profile（简介）, choose your native language and select the language and level that you’re currently learning. Then you’re able to search for native language partners from around the world! What sets HelloTalk apart from similar apps is that native speakers can edit your messages and correct your grammar while you chat together.

Lext Talk

Lext Talk is an application that allows users to connect with people from around the world. Once your profile is complete, you can select which language you speak and which language you’d like to learn. A very convenient feature that Lext Talk offers is its map. Users can use Lext Talk’s map to search for language partners in their areas, or find a partner in a specific region.

Doongle

Like the feature of Lext Talk but you have an Android phone? Don’t worry, there’s a similar app for all Android users too! Doongle allows its users to share voice messages, photos and more. Like Lext Talk, Doongle also has a map feature. Doongle offers a particular group chat feature, where you can talk about English grammar or share tips on how to make a pizza with others.

italki

With italki, you get to choose your teachers based on your interests and goals. You pay per lesson but you get what you pay for. You can choose to take lessons anytime and anywhere to your liking. If you don’t know which teacher to choose, don’t worry. All teachers will have a video introduction of themselves and you could also judge by looking through previous re—views from students.

1. What’s special about HelloTalk?

A. It is the best application to learn grammar.

B. Users’ errors can be corrected in the message.

C. HelloTalk offers quality lessons at a low price.

D. Users can choose language partners by gender.

2. Which offers professional guidance to a language learner?

A. HelloTalk. B. Lext Talk. C. Doongle. D. italki.

3. What can be inferred from the text?

A. Doongle doesn’t have a map feature.

B. HelloTalk doesn’t offer a text chat feature.

C. Lext Talk is not suitable for Android users.

D. italki doesn’t offer much detail of teachers.

B

Frederick Phiri is the junk-art king of Zambia: at just 22, he started to earn an international reputation for being able to make complex and elegant sculptures from scrap (废弃的) metal found in his community.

 

Phiri’s father died when he was starting primary school. Then his mother abandoned him and he had to stay with his grandfather. His grandfather paid for his schooling through primary school but when he entered secondary school, he had to get various jobs to pay for his fees. Yet even in school, he was always drawing and making things in class.

After graduating, he did what he could to support himself by making animal sculptures from wires and sold them to tourists. His work was so popular that it caught the eye of Karen Beattie, director of Project Luangwa, a nonprofit organization dedicated to education and economic development in central Africa.

“I introduced him to a local welder (焊工),” Beattie told Newsweek.

In 2017, Phiri worked with welder Moses Mbewe during the rainy season, helping to make a complex set of doors for Project Luangwa. The piece sparked an idea in Beattie’s mind: “I handed him a bunch of scrap metal and said, ‘Make something with this.’ And he did. It was wonderful.”

Today, Phiri continues his art, using pieces of junk people bring him—keys, broken bike chains, old metal plugs and whatever scrap metal is lying around. He then turns the junk into abstract animals—elephants, cranes, giraffes, chameleons—and sells them at Project Luangwa headquarters. The community has recognized his talents.

“My dream is to earn enough to study art at the Evelyn Hone College in Lusaka and be able to make a living from it,” Phiri said “and then to make very large sculptures.”

4. What is Phiri known for?

A. Serving his community. B. Collecting works of art.

C. Being the king of Zambia. D. Turning trash into treasure.

5. What can we learn about Phiri from paragraph 2?

A. He had an unhappy childhood. B. He paid for his primary school.

C. He had to support his grandfather. D. He missed school to do part-time jobs.

6. How does Phiri feel about his future?

A. Uncertain. B. Confident.

C. Depressed. D. Satisfied.

7. What can be a suitable title for the passage?

A. A Successful Path of Art. B. The Junk-art King of Zambia.

C. A Young Man’s Wildest Dream. D. The Modern Junk Works of Art.

C

Whom should you marry? Where should you live? How should you spend your time? For centuries, people have relied on their gut instincts (直觉) to figure out the answers to these life-changing questions. Now, though, there is a better way. We are living through a data explosion, as vast amounts of information about all aspects of human behavior have become more and more accessible. We can use this big data to help determine the best course to chart.

There has long been overwhelming- and often surprising- evidence that algorithms (算法) can be much better than people at making difficult decisions. Researchers have collected data on various kinds of choices people make, the information they base those choices on, and how things turn out. They have found, for example, that a simple data-driven algorithm would have been better than judges at deciding whether a defendant should stay in jail (监狱) or be released; better than doctors at deciding whether a patient should get a procedure; and better than school principals at deciding which teachers should be promoted.

The power of data analysis has been proved in the sports and business worlds, too. As made famous by the book and movie Moneyball, baseball teams found that algorithms were better than scouts (物色优秀运动员的人) at picking players, and better than managers at picking strategies. In finance, the hedge fund (避险基金) Renaissance Technologies dramatically defeated competitors by seeking out patterns in stock market data and using them to inform its investment strategy. Tech firms in Silicon Valley have found that data from experiments provides better insights into how to design their websites than designers could.

These are the early days of the data revolution in decision-making. I am not claiming that we can completely outsource (外包) our lifestyle choices to algorithms, though we might get to that point in the future. I am claiming