“停课不停学”：2020高考英语时事热点拓展阅读(四)
Passage1
are in English.
妙哉！大学生首创文言文编程。
词数 310 建议阅读时间 5分钟
World's First Classical Chinese Programming Language
Although programming languages vary in forms and rules, the keywords used for almost all of them
The International Data Corporation (IDC) estimates however that nearly half of the world’s 22.3 million software developers come from the Asia-Pacific region.
China and India alone account for about one third of the world’s total developer population.
In an attempt to add some diversity to the range of available programming languages, Carnegie Mellon University computer science major Lingdong Huang has developed ‘Wenyan-Lang,’ a programming language based on Chinese hanzi characters and the wenyan classical Chinese grammar system.
Huang did not simply replace the English characters with Chinese hanzi, instead he applied NLP techniques to convert (转变) classical Chinese grammar to JavaScript, Python, and Ruby.
He has open sourced the wenyan-lang project on GitHub, where it received a staggering (令人难以相信的)11,900 stars in a week or so.
A fan of classic Chinese literature, Huang came up with the idea of programming in Chinese in order to shed light on the beauty of wenyan and to inherit (继承) the historical imprint left by generations of eminent (非凡的) figures in Chinese history.
But most importantly, Huang believes the goal of communication is to go beyond
the limits of language: “My project still has a lot of room for improvement, but my desire for communication is as strong as some of the historical figures.”
Huang says programming punctuation and line breaks can be removed without affecting the output.
Considering the difficulty converting between classical Chinese and other programming languages, he has provided a “cheat sheet” with tips and conversion rules.
Huang has also included a renderer that can display the program in a manner that resembles (像)pages from ancient books and can parse the resultant SVG file back to the original program.
The Wenyan-Lan project is available on GitHub.
Passage2
关爱败血症患者，这项实验不简单。
词数 370 建议阅读时间 6分钟
Shirt senses sepsis
Sepsis (败血症) is a toxic (中毒的) condition resulting from the spread of infection, which causes 270,000 deaths a year in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While scientists and doctors have been
trying to improve the situation, a group of students at Spanish River High in Florida, US, have invented a piece of wearable technology to monitor sepsis in hospital patients.
The idea for the project came from their biotechnology teacher, Mary Fish, whose father died from sepsis while in the hospital. “This got me thinking. I want to help the patients with sepsis with a tunic (短上衣) – something the patient could wear that would monitor the symptoms of sepsis,” Fish said. Along with their teacher, the students are currently developing “the sensors (感应器) for the detection of sepsis for the continuous monitoring of a patient,” explained Eesha Shah, a team member.
Their challenges also include finding a fabric (布料) that is both comfortable
and conductive, and figuring out how to detect sepsis symptoms in a safer way. However, the biggest challenge is that the students cannot test it on humans. “We are not lab-certified (授予实验许可的),” said Brayant Polanco, 16, another team member. So the group is tasked with inventing an artificial system on which to test it. All of the 22 students have a deep passion for science. Lauren Bishop, 17, hopes to study biomedical engineering in college. “This experience will greatly help since it’s truly what biomedical engineering is, an application of the problem-solving techniques of engineering to medicine. Getting this kind of research opportunity in high school will help me for future research projects at the university level,” she said.
Senior Daniella Bard, 18, is in awe of (惊叹) her team’s efforts. “If everyone on the team weren’t so committed, this would be near impossible to come true.” Like the rest of the team members, she values the leadership of the teacher who worked tirelessly and brought them all together. “Ms Fish is always looking to help us, and we really appreciate that. I am proud of my team and excited to see the result presented next June,” Bard said.
1. What are the students doing to help with sepsis?
A. They are creating sensors to help patients detect sepsis symptoms. B. They are designing a system to monitor sepsis patients remotely. C. They are inventing a new medicine to cure sepsis.
D. They are working with biotechnology experts to improve current treatments. 2. What is the biggest challenge the students faced? A. Making sure the artificial system is safe. B. Finding a suitable fabric for the research. C. Lack of financial support. D. No chances to test it on humans. 3. What can we learn from Bard’s words?
A. She is grateful for the team’s joint efforts.
B. She believes that she could have contributed more to the project. C. She has improved her leadership skills from the experience. D. She is inspired to further study biomedical engineering.
Passage3
The words “protect animals” appear everywhere in books and on screens, because
some animals are even in danger of dying out. But sometimes the reality can be a little different from what people read or watch.
About 300 black bears were killed in Florida, the US, in October, 2015. It’s been the first bear hunt in the state since 1994. Local officers explained that the black bear population (族群) had grown to 3,500 and become a menace to local people. In the past two years, bears have hurt at least four people in Florida.
Months ago, the Swiss government allowed the locals to kill a wolf. This was because the wolf killed 38 sheep, and it was a great loss to some local farmers. Days ago in China, three old men were caught by the police for killing a serow, a kind of protected animal. They said they killed the animal because it ate the plants they grew.
However, these stories don’t always mean that animal protection stops because of human interests especially when it is related to economic development. A man named Zhou Weisen set up a wild animal base in Guilin, Guangxi. He saved over 170 tigers and about 300 bears. His base also offered jobs to local people.
“There may never be a standard answer to the question of whether we should give more attention to the environment or human development,” said Robert May, a British expert at Oxford University. “But we shouldn’t put either one to one side, as the future is uncertain.”
1.What can we learn from the second and third paragraphs? A.3,500 black bears were killed in Florida. B.The wolf can’t be killed in Switzerland. C.The serow is protected in China.
D.Three old Chinese men’s loss was made up for.
2.What does the author want to tell us by mentioning Zhou Weisen’s story? A.Protecting animals needs hard work. B.Zhou was good at feeding wild animals.
C.Zhou had a good relationship with local people. D.Protecting animals can bring economic development. 3.Which of the following might Robert May agree with?
A.Humans can kill animals when their interests are harmed. B.We should pay more attention to the future than the present. C.We should consider both the environmental and human interests. D.It’s easy to find proper ways to solve environmental problems. 4.What’s the best title of the passage?
A.Protecting animals or killing them B.Protecting animals
C.Killing some dangerous animals D.Difficulties in protecting animals
Passage4
完形填空
Ring! Ring! Ring! It was early in the morning and I knew who was 1 as I reached for the telephone. I was a new substitute teacher (代课教师) trying to earn enough money to 2 my family. Each morning, I 3 for a call that would take me to a different classroom. The last three classes had all been determined to 4 me and see just how much bad behavior they could get away with (逃脱惩罚). I had responded by being 5 with the students. I didn’t really 6 to go to work that morning, especially since it was my birthday.
Still, I answered the phone and 7 the job. My family needed the money and I couldn’t 8 to be picky (挑剔的). As I was driving to work, I 9 to try harder to be the best teacher that I could be.
As the class started, the students 10 tried to see what they could get away with. This time, though, I was 11 but fair with them. I did my best to make my lessons 12 . I shared smiles, praised their efforts, and encouraged them to work hard.
The results were 13 . My unruly (难以驾驭的) classroom soon 14 . Students were learning and laughing, and I 15 felt like I was doing my job right. I went home feeling 16 in my heart and enjoyed the rest of my birthday with my family. I remembered something that I once read: “Every day is a new opportunity to 17 again. Every day is your birthday.” Every day is a 18 for us to get things right, to live our lives with love and joy,
2020高考英语时事热点拓展阅读(四)(含答案)
