北京市海淀区2020届高三英语第二次模拟考试试卷

    To me, the most beautiful thing is the ocean. It is beautiful because it has a calming effect. When  (listen) to the sound of the waves, I feel peaceful.  the age of 10, I went to the beach for the first time. With my feet in the water, I felt totally relaxed, and the sound of the ocean really  (comfort) me. From then on, I often dream of floating in the ocean, feeling carefree.

    Discovering yourself plays  important role in inspiring your confidence. By doing so, you could know  you are weak in. And you may also realize you're quite a great person with great strengths. So when you're in a hard situation, you will believe in  (you) and spend the most difficult time with confidence. Otherwise you may give up and then lose everything. Therefore, the ability  (trust) yourself will decide your future a lot.

    The year 2018 marks the 40^th anniversary of China's reform and opening-up. The past four decades has seen China shift its society from a farmers' community to a digital culture  (successful). Under the leadership of CPC, many  (achievement) can be seen in every field. The life of the Chinese people has improved, with millions of people being lifted out of poverty. The country now has the world's  (large) high-speed rail network. And with around 800 million Internet users, China has become the world's fastest-growing online shopping market.

    I was studying chemistry at college because my family thought it was the key to success. One day, my professor took me aside and asked a very simple question, "Why are you in my class when it's obvious that you have little or no 1 in chemistry?"

    I came up with an explanation by 2 pressure from my dad, but he knew it was just a /an  3 excuse. He gave me the following advice.

    "Success can only be measured by oneself, and each of us is 4. Your success will not be the same as mine, as your neighbor's or your parents'. There is no secret formula(公式), no examination you have to 5, and no guarantee, but there is a secret ingredient­6. To be successful in life in the broadest sense, you must pursue your passion. 7 it is fixing cars or exploring the world, you must be passionate about your 8 and set a path to achieve it. Only then will you find true 9."

    Since I was just nineteen years old, that was pretty profound advice to 10, but I knew instinctively (本能地) that he was 11. I made a conscious self-examination of my short life to 12 where my passion was hiding. It was so 13 that even my kid sister could have told me my true passion was music. It was in my genes. I could play the piano by ear, but had 14 considered music as a hobby.

    Could I be a successful musician? Or a songwriter? Or a music critic? There was only one way to find out, so I took my professor's 15 and switched to the university's music school. I studied harmony and composition, learned how to play a clarinet(单簧管) and 16 the symphony orchestra. I felt as though I was on top of the world, and that 17 has never left me.

    I'm now fifty-four years old, and a very happy and 18 man. As I look at the walls of my small office, I still get a thrill at seeing the records I 19, the photos of the famous musicians I was lucky enough to play with, and the praises from many of the finest instrumentalists in the world who I am honored to call my friends.

    Life was a long journey, and not a/an 20 one, but I followed my passion and succeeded.

    Everyone at Pacsafe is always eager to get out in the world and enjoy new cultures, food, and experiences. With that in mind we asked a few of our top travel bugs for their best travel destination recommendations for 2019. They also included their favorite Pacsafe bag to take on the trip. Enjoy and hopefully get some ideas for your own globe - trotting adventure.

    Sri Lanka - Alison Hanko, Global Marketing Director

    I'm going to Sri Lanka this summer holiday and can't wait. It's close to Hong Kong where I live and I've always wanted to go. The food is supposed to be amazing. It seems really relaxing and I really want to do the Kandy to Badulla train ride, which looks just stunning. We've booked a good mix of beaches, some time in a safari tent to hopefully see elephants in the wild.

    For my bag, I'll most likely take the Quiksilver 40L Pack because it has the built-in wet pack for my bikinis. It's also a great size for a week-long trip in a warm climate.

    Japan - Ben Barras, Creative Director

    Japan is definitely my best travel destination recommendation. The culture, the streets, the architecture, the inspiration you get from all of that is amazing. The food is also fascinating. It's where I'm most planning to go. Tokyo obviously, but also visiting the mountains. You can go snowboarding, which I haven't done for years.

    I have a Vibe 25L Backpack which you can pack a lot in. The thing I like most about it is that it's compact, but still fits plenty in. I'll pair that up with a larger travel bag for the rest of my things and use the backpack to get around day to day.

    Berlin - Phil Hayes, Executive VP of Global Design

    For me, it's definitely Berlin. I'm particularly excited about the fashion, which I hear is pretty full on. Also the art galleries and history. Food, nightlife. Everything I've heard about Berlin is pretty cool, so I'm going to suck as much as I can out of it. World's Global Style Network had the Berlin shopping list that came out recently, so I'm going to follow that through as well.

    Bag wise, it will be the Quiksilver X Collab Bag. It's the 25L Anti-theft Backpack. It's normally my go-to bag for city trips because it's super easy to lock on the plane and in bars, and it's just the right amount of space.

    On March 25, 2010, Kate and David heard the words every parent dreads: Their newborn wasn't going to make it. Their twins­a girl and a boy­were born two minutes apart and 14 weeks premature, weighing just over two pounds each. Doctors had tried to save the boy for 20 minutes but saw no improvement. His heartbeat was nearly gone, and he'd stopped breathing. The baby had just moments to live.

    "I saw him gasp (喘息), but the doctor said it was no use," Kate told the Daily Mail five years later. "I know it sounds stupid, but if he was still gasping, that was a sign of life. I wasn't going to give up easily."

    Still, the couple knew this was likely a goodbye. In an effort to cherish her last minutes with the tiny boy, Kate asked to hold him.

    "I wanted to meet him, and for him to know us," Kate told Today. "We'd resigned ourselves to the fact that we were going to lose him, and we were just trying to make the most of those last, precious moments."

    Kate unwrapped the boy, whom the couple had already named Jamie, from his hospital blanket and asked David to take his shirt off and join them in bed. The first-time parents wanted their son to be as warm as possible and hoped the skin-to-skin contact would improve his condition. They also talked to him.

    "We were trying to persuade him to stay," Kate told the Daily Mail. "We explained his name and that he had a twin that he had to look out for and how hard we had tried to have him."

    Then something miraculous happened. Jamie gasped again­and then he started breathing. Finally, he reached for his father's finger.

    The couple's lost boy had made it.

    "We're the luckiest people in the world," David told Today.

    Eight years later, Jamie and his sister, Emily, are happy and healthy. The couple only recently told the kids the story of their birth. "Emily burst into tears," Kate said. "She was really upset, and she kept hugging Jamie. This whole experience makes you cherish them more."

    It's common knowledge that the woman in Leonardo da Vinci's most famous painting seems to look back at observers, following them with her eyes no matter where they stand in the room. But this common knowledge turns out wrong.

    A new study finds that the woman in the painting is actually looking out at an angle that's 15.4 degrees off to the observer's right­well outside of the range that people normally believe when they think someone is looking right at them. In other words, said the study author, Horstmann, "She's not looking at you." This is somewhat ironic, because the entire phenomenon of a person's gaze (凝视) in a photograph or painting seeming to follow the viewer is called the "Mona Lisa effect" . That effect is absolutely real, Horstmann said. If a person is illustrated or photographed looking straight ahead, even people viewing the portrait from an angle will feel they are being looked at. As long as the angle of the person's gaze is no more than about 5 degrees off to either side, the Mona Lisa effect occurs.

    This is important for human interaction with on-screen characters. If you want someone off to the right side of a room to feel that a person on-screen is looking at him or her, you don't cut the gaze of the character to that side­surprisingly, doing so would make an observer feel like the character isn't looking at anyone in the room at all. Instead, you keep the gaze straight ahead.

    Horstmann and his co-author were studying this effect for its application in the creation of artificial-intelligence avatars(虚拟头像) when Horstmann took a long look at the "Mona Lisa" and realized she wasn't looking at him.

    To make sure it wasn't just him, the researchers asked 24 people to view images of the "Mona Lisa" on a computer screen. They set a ruler between the viewer and the screen and asked the participants to note which number on the ruler intersected Mona Lisa's gaze. To calculate the angle of Mona Lisa's gaze as she looked at the viewer, they moved the ruler farther from or closer to the screen during the study. Consistently, the researchers found, participants judged that the woman in the "Mona Lisa" portrait was not looking straight at them, but slightly off to their right.

    So why do people repeat the belief that her eyes seem to follow the viewer? Horstmann isn't sure. It's possible, he said, that people have the desire to be looked at, so they think the woman is looking straight at them. Or maybe the people who first coined the term "Mona Lisa effect" just thought it was a cool name.

What a Messy Desk Says About You

    For some time, psychologists have been studying how personality traits affect health and health-related choices. Not surprisingly, they have found that people blessed with innate conscientiousness, meaning that they are organized and predictable, typically eat better and live longer than people who are disorderly. They also tend to have immaculate offices.

    What has been less clear is whether neat environments can produce good habits even in those who aren't necessarily innately conscientious. To find out, researchers at the University of Minnesota conducted a series of experiments. In the first experiment, they randomly assigned a group of college-age students to spend time in two office spaces, one of which was very neat, the other wildly cluttered (乱堆) with papers and other work-related stuff. The students spent their time filling out questionnaires unrelated to the study. After 10 minutes, they were told they could leave with an apple or a chocolate bar. Those students who sat in the orderly office were twice as likely to choose the apple as those who sat among the mess.

    A second experiment, however, found that working in chaos has its advantages, too. In this one, college students were placed in a messy or a neat office and asked to dream up new uses for Ping-Pong balls. Those in messy spaces generated ideas that were significantly more creative, according to two independent judges, than those in offices where stacks of papers and other objects were neatly arranged.

    The results were something of a surprise, says Dr. Vohs, the leader of the study. Few previous studies found much virtue in disorder. The broken window theory, proposed decades ago, holds that even slight disorder and neglect can encourage indifference and poor discipline.

    But in the study by Dr. Vohs, disordered offices encouraged originality and a search for novelty. In the final portion of the study, adults were given the choice of adding a health "boost" to their lunchtime smoothie that was labeled either "new" or "classic." The volunteers in the messy space were far more likely to choose the new one; those in the tidy office generally chose the classic version. "Disorderly environments seem to inspire breaking free of tradition," Dr. Vohs and her co-authors conclude in the study, "which can produce fresh insights."

    The implications of these findings are also practical. "My advice would be, if you need to think outside the box for a future project", Dr. Vohs says, "then let the clutter rise and free your imagination. But if your primary goal is to eat well or to go to the gym, pick up around your office first. By doing this, the naturally messy can acquire some of the discipline of the conscientious."

Exam Anxiety

    Has this ever happened to you? You've been studying hard for your midterm, but when you walk into your exam, your mind goes blank, your heart races fast, you get sweaty palms and find it hard to breathe.

    Everyone feels stressed during exams. Usually, it results from a fear of failure, lack of adequate preparation time and bad experiences taking tests in the past. This is normal and often helps you work harder, think faster and generally improve your performance. You may also feel that other people are managing the exam better than you. This can cause you to feel that your mind has "gone blank" on information you know you have revised.

     Some choose to ignore the problem, while others don't review because they think they will do badly anyway and even miss exams due to the anxiety. It can also be really easy to think that if you don't try and then you fail, you won't feel as bad as if you fail after trying really hard.

    So what can you do to fight against the negative mindset and stay calm before and during your test? Yes, this seems obvious, but it's worth repeating. If you feel confident that you've prepared thoroughly, you'll feel more confident walking into the test. The second tip is simple: just start. The blank page can maximize your anxiety.  You can always go back and change things later if needed, but a few quick answers can get the ball rolling. Besides, allocating(分配) your time is equally important. Look through the whole test before getting started. Mentally allocate how much time you'll spend on each section. If there's time to recheck, even better.

A. The first thing you should do is to be prepared.

B. People often deal with exam stress in many unhelpful ways.

C. If these classic signs of exam anxiety sound familiar, you're not alone!

D. Therefore, people need an appropriate amount of pressure to help deal with exams.

E. Realizing time is almost up and that there's still a lot of blank space will make you desperate.

F. However, if you are overly anxious about the result, you may be unable to focus on your work.

G. After you get the paper, dive right in by getting some questions done to build up your confidence.

⒈申请理由；

⒉自身优势；

⒊表达期待。

注意：⒈词数不少于50；⒉开头和结尾已给出，不计入总词数。

Dear Sir/Madam,

Yours,

Li Hua

注意：词数不少于60。