Don, was weeding the flower bed in front of our house, he was surprised to discover a small evergreen plant.

We decided to leave it alone. The determined tree kept growing, making it right through the long winter. When it got too big for the flower bed we moved it to the back of our lot. As the tree grew, so did our family, including four grandchildren. One day the men from the electric company came to trim (修剪) our trees. One of them said it was a shame that someday our nice evergreen would have to be cut down. We just couldn’t let that happen to our faithful — if accidental — Christmas tree.

We decided to move it again, this time to Sandy and her husband Joel’s new house in the country. My husband helped Joel dig the evergreen out. It wasn’t ready to let go without a fight. Finally, five hours later, the tree came loose. They wrapped the roots as best as they could and put the whole thing in Joel’s truck. After an hour’s drive they planted the tree. I’m happy to report our brave evergreen is still growing, now producing pine cones of its own.

24. What was a Christmas tradition for the family?

A. Making dishes with pine cones. B. Making wreaths together with Sandy. C. Hanging Sandy’s handiwork on the door. D. Decorating the Christmas tree together. 25. What is Paragraph 2 mainly about?

A. What the good old days were like.

B. How the family took care of the wreaths. C. What their attitude toward Christmas was. D. How the family “treasure” came into being.

26. What does the underlined word “that” in Paragraph 3 mean?

A. Cutting down the evergreen.

B. Leaving the evergreen alone. D. Having the evergreen trimmed again.

C. The man’s judging the family. 27. What’s the best title for the passage?

A. My family tradition

B. My daughter’s growth D. A special pine cone wreath

C. A beloved Christmas tree

C

With a starting price of $999, the iPhone X has the highest-price of any iPhone ever offered. Yet Apple said demand for its latest smartphone has so far been \

One of the most-talked about features of the iPhone X is the new front and back-facing cameras. Apple says its TrueDepth technology greatly improves performance for photographs and video. The camera is also trained to recognize faces and expressions. The company says this gives users power to open up the phone just by looking at it.

The new Face ID recognition system replaces the Touch ID on other Apple devices that used a fingerprint to unlock the phone. It works by projecting more than 30,000 dots on the face of users to create a kind of map. An infrared (红外线的) camera then reads these marks to create an image that can be confirmed as having the same appearance.

Apple says the system is also designed to continually learn. Each time the face is used to unlock the phone, it is supposed to note any changes, such as facial hair or the person getting older. The system can then remember the changes to keep recognizing the person over time.

Reviewers reported successful tests in which the phone recognized the face in different situations and unlocked the device. But most reviewers also said the feature did not work perfectly all the time.

One fairly common failure was that the Face ID sometimes did not unlock the iPhone X if the user wore a certain kind of sunglasses. Not surprisingly, wearing any kind of disguise — even one covering just part of the face — caused Face ID to fail. It was found to work correctly when the user was wearing headphones or a hat.

Apple has also admitted that Face ID could fail when used with young people who look very much alike. But Apple says its research shows there is only a one in a million chance of another person being able to unlock someone else's iPhone X with Face ID. The company has promised the system will become \

28. How can users unlock an iPhone X?

A. By using a fingerprint. B. By taking a picture. C. By looking at the iPhone X . D. By recognizing user’s faces.

29. From the text, we know the new Face ID recognition ________.

A. will recognize users by reading the dots projected on their faces B. will recognize users by using the dots on their faces C. won’t recognize users when they get older D. is no better than the Touch ID technology

30. Users can’t unlock an iPhone X if they wear ________.

A. glasses B. masks C. hats D. headphones 31. What can we infer from the last paragraph?

A. Young people can’t use the Face ID successfully. B. The system has become “the new gold standard”. C. A million people are using the iPhone X. D. Apple thinks the Face ID system is very successful.

D

A team of scientists found a new planet in space by accident. It was a discovery that could change science. “We hit the jackpot here,” said scientist Guillem Anglada-Escude about the discovery of the planet more or less like Earth that is orbiting Proxima Centauri (半人马座比邻星), the star nearest to our solar system.

What do we know about this exciting new Earth? Well, Proxima b, or “Earth II” as you could call it, is a little bigger than our Earth, and its revolution only takes 11 days. Also, since it is so much closer to its red dwarf star than Earth to the sun, the sky there is orange without any blue at all, creating a forever sunset effect. But there are a lot of questions about life forms that could live on this new planet.

The discovery of the planet made the Chicago Tribune newspaper wonder if anyone had seen or heard of the US’s space postcards from its Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 spaceship, which were pictures of a man and a woman, along with diagrams of the solar system. If there were aliens (外星人) on Proxima b, they would have found images showing the incredible diversity of Earth.

Aliens might also have heard the message from former US President Jimmy Carter: “This is a present from a small distant world… We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic (银

河的) civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.”

It might not be time to plan a visit to Proxima b just yet — even if it has an atmosphere — at first, we would need to invent a way to get there in less than 78,000 years it would take at 36,000 mph (about 57,900 km/h).

32. What does the underlined phrase “hit the jackpot” probably mean?

A. Make a bet.

B. Take a risk.

C. Succeed by chance.

D. Miss the boat.

33. What does the author say about Proxima b? A. It has a shorter period of revolution.

B. It is of the similar weight to Earth.

C. It is a newly-found planet in the solar system.

D. Its sky looks orange for being closer to the sun. 34. What do President Jimmy Carter’s words suggest?

A. Human’s eagerness to meet creatures from outer space. B. The great progress made in space exploration. C. The best wishes for America’s space program. D. Human’s determination to explore outer space. 35. What’s the main purpose of the text?

A. To give advice on how to visit a new planet. B. To prove that aliens really exist on other planets. C. To report on the discovery of an interesting new planet. D. To show the excitement of moving to a new planet in space. 第二节（共5小题，每小题2分，满分10分）

根据短文内容，从短文后的选项中选出能填入空白处的最佳选项。选项中有两项为多余选项。

One of my earliest memories was watching my mom talk on our old phone. I was fascinated that she could talk to someone who wasn’t actually in the room with her. 36 I was wondering how she managed to talk with someone she couldn’t see.

37 Later, we had mobile phones that could be carried around the room. Then came