湖南省麓山国际实验学校2024-2025学年高二下学期期中考试英语试题

2024-2025-2麓山国际高二下期中考试

英    语

时量：120分钟                满分：150分

命题人：曾素辉、陈智颖、李倩、李诗乐 审题人：李诗乐

第一部分  听力（共两节，满分30分）略

 

第二部分  阅读（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

Who are you? It’s a simple but hard-to-answer question. A handful of notable books coming out this week, each in its own way, offers a deeper understanding of the questions involved.

Audition, by Katie Kitamura

Who, exactly, are the two leads of this story? That’s not so easy to figure out, as what begins as a dull lunch between an actress and a young man soon gathers layer and layer of plot. It’s fair to say this story has some surprises in store for characters and reader alike.

Authority: Essays, by Andrea Long Chu

This collection pulls together many of the highlights published by the New York magazine essayist and Pulitzer Prize-winner for criticism. It is the critic’s first book since Females, a meditation on gender identity released in 2019.

To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other, by Viet Thanh Nguyen

This collection of essays began as a series of lectures that the Pulitzer Prize-winner delivered at Harvard University in 2023-2024. Born in Vietnam, raised a refugee in the United States, Nguyen has always found himself caught in a contradiction: the split identity of an American and a Vietnamese person.

Sky Daddy, by Kate Folk

Linda, star of Folk’s first published novel, is constantly at the airport because she wants to get to know airplanes. There’s plenty more to be said about this odd, surprisingly earnest novel but, frankly, if that outline alone is not enough to arouse your interest or scare you off, I don’t think there’s anything else I can say that will.

21. What can be learned about Audition from the text?

 A. It starts with an exciting action scene.

 B. Its characters face unexpected situations.

 C. The author explores cultural identity in it.

 D. It is a collection of award-winning essays.

22. Which author’s complex cultural background is mentioned?

 A. Katie Kitamura.  B. Andrea Long Chu.

 C. Viet Thanh Nguyen.  D. Kate Folk.

23. What is the main purpose of the passage?

 A. To recommend award-winning novels to readers.

 B. To analyze the challenges of understanding oneself.

 C. To compare different writing styles of modern authors.

 D. To introduce newly published books exploring identity.

B

One of my earliest memories is of my father sitting me down at our kitchen table with canvases, paints, and brushes. He taught me how to blend colors and use different materials. Whenever we felt inspired, we set out all our

materials and painted what our hearts desired.

My father grew up in a small village in the Dominican Republic. Despite not having many materials available, he created art with whatever he had. My father saved his money to buy paints and colored pencils to draw on the walls around his home. When he was 15, he arrived in America alone and stayed with his aunt in Florida for a while before finishing high school in New York with another aunt. He studied very hard. Eventually, my father was able to obtain his citizenship.

As I got older, he continued to give me lessons, teaching me different brush strokes and how to take care of my art supplies. He taught me to find beauty in everything and everyone around me. I grew to love drawing people, as I could highlight the physical features that make everyone unique and beautiful. It wasn’t until I began looking carefully into my father’s paintings and the work of popular artists on Instagram that I started to be more critical of my work. I started to worry that I could never live up to my father’s talent. My simple, two-dimensional drawings felt flat compared to his realistic landscapes. Going through his sketchbooks and portfolios(画夹), I found fault in all my drawings. Art was my favorite thing in the world but I started to believe I wasn’t good at it. Instead of working toward improving, I decided to give up drawing.

My father noticed that I had been drawing and painting less and told me, “Mia, you should audition for the school. I wish I’d had an opportunity to study art like this when I was a kid.” My father’s bravery and strength are things that I desire to have. So over the next few months, I worked on my portfolio. Looking back at my pictures, I can see how much I have improved since then. The school must have seen potential in my drawings because I got in! It was eye-opening to attend a college that specialized in the arts. I learned to embrace my individuality and my talent. I have become more open about sharing my artworks and receiving constructive criticism, which raises my self-belief in my art.

24. Why does the author introduce her father’s experience in paragraph 2?

 A. To prove that art is a way to fight poverty.

 B. To illustrate the roots of her father’s influence on her.

 C. To criticize the lack of educational chances in rural areas.

 D. To contrast her life with the difficulties her father experienced.

25. What do the underlined words “fell flat” in paragraph 3 mean?

 A. Lacked visual appeal.  B. Outshone other works.

 C. Had complex structures.  D. Looked incredibly realistic.

26. What kind of person is the author’s father?

 A. Brave and carefree.  B. Persistent and supportive.

 C. Ambitious but dependent. D. Creative but stubborn.

27. What can we learn from the last paragraph?

 A. Talent guarantees admission to art programs.

 B. Confidence comes from accepting imperfection.

 C. Art is about following established rules.

 D. Progress can be achieved through trial and error.

C

As the planet warms up and oceans rise, extreme weather events are becoming the norm. Getting notified in time to prepare for a disastrous hurricane or heat wave could be the disparity between life and death. AI can help. Two studies published in the journal Nature described the benefit of two AI models that could improve weather forecasting.

The first AI-based system is called Pangu-Weather, which was developed by the Huawei Cloud team. It was capable of predicting global weather a week in advance. A majority of countries use numerical(数值) weather prediction models. These models use math formulas to create computer models of the atmosphere and oceans for predicting future weather with data from them. What makes Pangu-Weather different is that the Pangu-Weather

model is deeply trained with the help of 39-year global weather data, preparing it to forecast temperature, pressure, and wind speed. When compared to the numerical weather prediction method, Pangu-Weather was 10,000 times faster and no less accurate. Pangu-Weather also contains a 3D model, unlike past AI forecasting systems, that allows it to record atmospheric states at different pressure levels to further increase its accuracy.

Pangu-Weather can predict weather patterns 5-7 days in advance. However, it can’t forecast precipitation(降水). As precipitation prediction is vital for extreme weather forecasting, a second Nature model, NowcastNet, fills this gap. It can accurately predict rainfall 6 hours ahead, helping meteorologists(气象学家) study weather patterns in real-time more effectively.

NowcastNet focuses on detailed, realistic descriptions of extreme rainfall patterns in local regions. It uses radar observations from the US and China, as well as deep learning methods, to predict precipitation rates over a 1.6-million-square-mile region of the eastern and central US up to 3 hours in advance. 62 meteorologists from China tested NowcastNet and ranked it first, out of four other leading weather forecasting methods, in reliably predicting heavy rain, which it did 71 percent of the time.

While generative AI models have good prospects in weather forecasting, experts point out that replacing existing systems has many challenges. However, in 5-10 years, these models may surprise us.

28. What does the underlined word “disparity” in paragraph 1 probably mean?

 A. Struggle. B. Difference. C. Decision. D. Settlement.

29. What is the advantage of Pangu-Weather compared with the numerical weather prediction method?

 A. It can record more detailed atmospheric states.

 B. It can predict precipitation more accurately.

 C. It can provide a 3D view of the weather.

 D. It is much faster and equally accurate.

30. What can we learn about NowcastNet from the text?

 A. It was developed by 62 meteorologists from China.

 B. It is mainly used to predict global weather patterns.

 C. It ranks first among all weather forecasting methods in predicting heavy rain.

 D. It uses radar observations and deep learning to predict precipitation in the US.

31. What is the text mainly about?

 A. The challenges in using generative AI in weather forecasting.

 B. The impacts of climate change on extreme weather events.

 C. The introduction of two AI-based weather-forecasting models and their features.

 D. The explanation of the traditional numerical weather-prediction method.

D

How might you make your mark on the world forever? Write a play greater than Shakespeare’s, or score the winning World Cup goal? There’s an easier way — just live your everyday life. You’ll likely leave a fascinating legacy(遗产) that might last a billion years.

As palaeontologists(古生物学家), we have studied the fossil record of the deep past. We’ve now turned our attention to the everyday objects, to see what kind of future fossils — we call them technofossils — they will make. We’ve written about this in our new book, Discarded: how technofossils will be our ultimate legacy. Here are some key messages:

The first things that’ll catch the eye of any far-future palaeontologist are our manufactured objects — buildings, roads, machines. In recent decades, they have rocketed in amount and now outweigh all living things on Earth. That’s a lot of raw material for generating future fossils.

Then, most things are designed to be durable and are significantly tougher than the average bone or shell. Some, like aluminium(铝) cans, are geological novelties. Discarded aluminium cans are now everywhere. Though resistant, buried cans will slowly break down, leaving can-shaped impressions, lined with tiny minerals. Their plastic liner may