江苏省2022-2023学年高二下学期三校联考英语试卷

The term "seal" is often used to refer to both seals and sea lions, but there are several characteristics that set seals and sea lions apart.

Seals and sea lions are both in the order Carnivora and suborder Pinnipedia, thus they are called "pinnipeds." Pinnipeds are mammals that are well-adapted for swimming. They usually have a streamlined barrel shape (桶形) and four flippers at the end of each limb (四肢). They also give birth to live young and nurse their young. Pinnipeds are protected by a thick layer of fat under their skin and fur to keep them warm in water. There are three families of pinnipeds: the Phocidae, the earless or true seals; the Otariidae, the eared seals, and the Odobenidae, the walruses.

Characteristics of Phocidae (Earless or True Seals)

Earless seals have no visible ear flaps, although they still have ears, which may be visible as a dark spot or small hole on the side of their head.

"True" seals:

□Have no external ear flaps.

□Swim with their hind flippers. Their hind flippers always face backward and are furred.

□Have front flippers that are short, furry and thick in appearance.

□Can be found in both marine and freshwater environments.

Characteristics of Otariidae (Eared Seals, Including Fur Seals and Sea Lions)

One of the most noticeable features of eared seals is their ears, but they also move around differently than true seals.

Eared seals:

□Have external ear flaps.

□Are only found in marine environments.

□Swim with their front flippers. Unlike earless seals, their hind flippers can turn forward, and they are able to walk, and even run, on their flippers. The "seals" you may see performing at marine parks are often sea lions.

□May gather in larger groups than true seals. Sea lions are much more vocal than true seals, and make a variety of loud, barking noises.

Characteristics of Walruses

Wondering about walruses, and how they differ from seals and sea lions? Walruses are pinnipeds, but they are in the family, Odobenidae. One obvious difference between walruses, seals and sea lions is that walruses are the only pinnipeds with tusks—a pair of long pointed teeth. These tusks are present in both males and females.

Other than tusks, walruses have some similarities to both seals and sea lions. Like true seals, walruses don't have visible ear flaps. But, like eared seals, walruses can walk on their flippers by rotating their hind flippers under their body.

ChatGPT became the hottest issue due to its ability to produce human-sounding essays, poetry, and screenplays on virtually any subject in seconds. Soon after ChatGPT was released, the potential for it to be misused to do things such as spread misinformation and write junk mails became apparent. Schools and educators also have warned of the potential for students to use it to write essays or other work they have been assigned. Last December, the software passed all three parts of the U.S. Medical Licensing Examination as part of a research experiment. 

So the startup, OpenAI behind the viral chatbot, revealed a tool for detecting text generated by artificial intelligence amid growing concerns the technology will be abused by cheaters, junk mail senders and others. OpenAI said that its so-called AI classifier was designed to help people distinguish between text written by a human versus a range of artificial intelligence programs—not just ChatGPT. 

OpenAI said it had schools in mind when developing its latest classifier tool. "We recognize that identifying AI-written text has been an important point of discussion among educators, and equally important is recognizing the limits and impacts of AI-generated text classifiers in the classroom," it said.

The classifier isn't good enough on its own, though it can be used to go with methods that educators, employers and others rely on to determine the source of a piece of text. In evaluations, the new tool correctly identified 26% of AI-written text as "likely AI-written", while it also had false positives 9% of the time in which it incorrectly labeled human-written text as AI-written. Another problem is that the tool can't easily tell if a list of facts—U.S. state capitals for example—was written by a person or AI, because the correct answer would be the same. AI-written text can also be edited to escape the classifier.

"While it is impossible to reliably detect all AI-written text, classifiers like ours can be updated and re-trained based on successful attacks," OpenAI said. "But it is unclear whether detection has an advantage in the long-term."

All routes to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) degrees run through calculus (微积分) classes. Each year, thousands of college students take introductory calculus. But only a small number ultimately complete a STEM degree, and research about why students abandon such degrees suggests that traditional calculus courses are one of the reasons. With scientific understanding and innovation increasingly central to solving 21st-century problems, this loss of talent is something society can ill afford.

Math departments alone are unlikely to solve this dilemma. Several of the promising calculus reforms were spearheaded by professors outside of math departments. STEM faculty are prioritizing cooperation across disciplines to transform math classes to cultivate a diverse generation of STEM researchers and professionals.

This is not uncharted territory. In 2013, life sciences faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles, developed a two-course sequence that covers classic calculus topics, but also emphasizes their application in a biological context. Creating this course, Mathematics for Life Scientists, wasn't easy. The life sciences faculty involved, none of whom had a joint appointment with the math department, said they turned to designing the course themselves after math faculty rejected their request for cooperation.

In Ohio, Wright State University's Engineering departments also revised math offerings. Rather than changing the content of the calculus course, they focused on preparing students for calculus by emphasizing "engineering motivation for math." The approach enhanced opportunities for students with weaker math backgrounds to succeed in engineering and doubled the average graduation rate of engineering students without reducing the average grade of graduates. Math learning is fundamental to all STEM fields, but the opposite      also appears to be true.

Discoveries in science and technology are thought by "untaught minds" to come in blinding flashes or as the result of dramatic accidents. Sir Alexander Fleming did not, as legend would have it, look at the mold (霉) on a piece of cheese and get the idea for penicillin there and then. He experimented with antibacterial substances for nine years before he made his discovery. Inventions and innovations almost always come out of tough trial and error. Innovation is like soccer; even the best players miss the goal and have their shots blocked much more frequently than they score.

The point is that the players who score most are the ones who take most shots at the goal—and so it goes with innovation in any field of activity. The prime difference between innovation and others is one of approach. Everybody gets ideas, but innovators work consciously on theirs, and they follow them through until they prove practicable or otherwise. What ordinary people see as fanciful abstractions, professional innovators see as solid possibilities.

"Creative thinking may mean simply the realization that there's no particular goodness in doing things the way they have always been done." Wrote Rudolph Flesch, a language authority. This accounts for our reaction to seemingly simple innovations like plastic garbage bags and suitcases on wheels that make life more convenient: "How come nobody thought of that before?"

The creative approach begins with the proposal that nothing be as it appears. Innovators will not accept that there is only one way to do anything. Faced with getting from A to B, the average person will automatically set out on the best-known and apparently simplest route. The innovator will search for alternate courses, which may prove easier in the long run and are sure to be more interesting and challenging even if they lead to dead ends. Highly creative individuals really do march to a different drummer.

People refer to never forgetting how to ride a bike or throw a baseball as examples of "muscle memory", the result of a motor learning. It is a phenomenon that previously trained muscles acquire strength after a period of disuse.

Previous research has shown that the changes actually persist in the muscles themselves. In one study of mice, the results suggest that after nuclei in muscle cells multiply in response to an overload of training, those extra nuclei aren't lost during subsequent periods of inactivity. They are retained（保留）, essentially waiting to be reactivated. If you fell off the fitness wagon（马车）during the pandemic, don't be frustrated. Once you have got additional nuclei, you are banking the capacity. In fact, a recent study revealed that less than eight weeks of retraining were needed to regain your former fitness. It depends on how fit you were initially, how long the layoff was, how old you are and how long you'd been exercising.

 It means you still have a distinct advantage when it comes to regaining your former level of fitness. And the principle applies to both resistance training and endurance training. The best way to regain your muscle memory is to start at a level below what you were accustomed to doing, and then gradually increase in terms of duration, frequency, then intensity. 

Ultimately, muscle memory is a payoff for all the past work you put into learning a sport.  You will never know how much muscle memory you may have until you start training again.

A. The best way to tap into it is to "get back on the horse".

B. Physiologists, on the other hand, define it in a different way.

C. This convinces the researchers that muscle memory may not be long lasting.

D. That is to say, we can do the sports automatically without conscious thought.

E. It is generally safe to increase these elements by 5 percent every week or two.

F. It is evident that the more you exercise, the more muscle memory savings you will have.

G. All this news about muscle memory is encouraging for those who fell off the fitness scheme.

My first year living in Los Angeles, I was a birthday-party clown(小丑). I 1 with my identity because, though I viewed myself as a filmmaker, everyone in my life associated me with this ridiculous day job.

For certain parties, I had to go as a 2 character, so at the party I'd actually be "Mickey Mouse" or "Sponge-Bob SquarePants". One night, I was told that I was going to be Batman. At the time I had a giant mustache but I didn't want to 3 my physical appearance for that job. 4 , for the party, I chose not to shave.

Normally at these parties, you pop in through the front door: "Surprise! Batman's here!" However, my element of 5 was shot because they saw me coming from, like, a quarter of a mile away, which left me plenty of time to 6 my choice not to shave.

Once I got close enough for them to make out the 7  of my face, the entire party 8 in laughter and then into cheers.

After I ran into the party, they were9 me. I saw the birthday boy with his dad, who was laughing, and he said, "You see, I told you, son. Batman has a mustache." He took me to the huge birthday cake with a Batman drawn on it, and the Batman had a mustache. I just stared at it in 10 .

When11 bringing the cake out, instead of just admitting that it was messed up, the parents tried to save 12 and said to the boy, "Batman always has a mustache. He just shaves it for movies." In a 13 of fate, my mustache confirmed what the parents had said and 14 the kids that I was actually Batman.

That day, there was no doubt in my mind what I was. I may not have been the 15  that they ordered and expected. But that day, I was the hero that they needed.

Chinese netizens are passionately discussing the ‘Kong Yiji mindset,' term inspired by an influential figure in modern Chinese literature and used to refer to college (graduate) who consider themselves above manual labor.

(set) a few years after the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the story starts with Kong Yiji being ridiculed by the working-class customers in the tavern he frequents for continuing to wear his long scholar's gown, even though he never passed the imperial exam could have landed him a decent job back in the past.

As The Paper, a Chinese media company based in Shanghai, writes, "Kong Yiji would rather steal than do he considers a menial job（粗活）just to make money. This is relatable in the eyes of some, who think their academic qualifications didn't lead to the job they wanted or deserved."

The related term, ‘Kong Yiji mindset,' refers to those who see Kong in (they) as they face the pressures of a job market that can't keep up with the record-breaking number of college graduates. Kong is a (sympathy) figure to some recent college graduates whose reality is not living up to expectations.

Some netizens are concerned that education itself may one day be seen as superfluous (多余的). "When we were young, we (tell) to study hard, and when we grew up, we would become astronauts and scientists," a Weibo user commented. "Now it has become study hard to screw screws, to be a cleaner, to collect junk. It's not that I look down on those professions—every profession is respectable— it is strange that the wind is blowing in this direction."

In recent years, China has been pushing to expand vocational education as a means to solve the surplus of college graduates. However, the transition remains challenging as the prejudices blue-collar jobs lingers.

注意：
 1. 写作词数应为80左右； 
2. 可适当增加细节，使行文连贯。

参考词汇：动物保护协会 Animal Protection Association；流浪动物 stray animals

"Wanted: Violin. Can't pay much. Contact…"

I rarely read the classified advertisements, so why did I notice that one? I laid the paper on my lap and closed my eyes, remembering what had happened many years before, during the Great Depression when my family struggled to make a living on our farm. I, too, had wanted a violin.

When my older twin sisters began showing an interest in music, Harriet Anne learned to play Grandma's piano, while Suzanne turned to Daddy's violin. Simple tunes became lovely melodies. My baby brother danced; Daddy hummed and Mother whistled. I just listened.

When my arms grew long enough, I tried to play Suzanne's violin. Oh, how I wanted one! But I knew it was out of the question.

One evening as the twins played in the school orchestra. I closed my eyes tight to capture the picture firmly in my mind. Someday, I'll sit up there, I vowed silently.

It was not a good year. At harvest the crops didn't bring as much as we had hoped. Yet even though times were hard, I couldn't wait any longer to ask,"Daddy, may I have a violin of my own?"

"Can't you use Suzanne's?"

"I'd like to be in the orchestra too, and we can't both use the same violin at the same time."

Daddy's face looked sad. That night, and many following nights, I heard him remind God in our family prayers,"…and Lord, Mary Lou wants her own violin."

One evening we all sat round the table. The twins and I studied. Mother sewed and Daddy wrote a letter to his friend, George Finkle, in Columbus, Ohio. Mr Finkle, Daddy said, was a fine violinist.

When Daddy received a letter from Columbus a few weeks later, he asked me,"Mary Lou, do you want to go with me to visit Mr Finkle?"

He drove us to Columbus and we came to a fine, old house. A tall man opened the door. He and Daddy heartily shook hands, both talking at once.

"Mary Lou, I've been hearing things about you. Your Daddy has arranged a surprise for you!"He picked up a case, opened it, lifted out a violin and started to play. The melody surged and spoke like waterfalls. Oh, to play like him, I thought.

Finishing the piece, he turned to Daddy. "I found it in a pawnshop（当铺）for seven dollars. It's a good violin. Mary Lou should be able to make a beautiful music with it."Then he handed the violin to me.

注意：
1. 续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。