2020届《高考英语学科复习关键问题指导与训练》第一次选送

一、存在问题

《2019 年普通高等学校招生全国统一考试大纲》：“阅读理解是我国学生接触外语的主要途径，它不仅有助于学生获取大量的有效信息，了解世界各国，特别是英语国家在教育、科技、文化等领域的发展成果，学习外国的先进经验，培养国际意识，同时，还会在很大程度上影响学生听、说、读、写水平的提高。”因此，阅读理解长期以来一直出现在高考英语试卷中，且被赋予了较多的内容和较高的分值。

近几年，英语阅读理解题的难度在不断增大,考生们也大多知难而进，在英语试卷中，阅读理解在分数上占到大部分，所以起到至关重要的作用。阅读理解考查学生对英语单词、语法、语感的综合把握，主要考查学生能否正确理解阅读文本并从文本中找到解决问题的答案的能力。对学生英语学科素养要求较高，是高中英语的重点难点，也是失分最严重的板块之一。

目前，在高三复习阶段教学和测试中，阅读理解中语篇整体意义、逻辑关系和内在连贯等综合阅读能力的把握不足，寻找关键词能力较差，联系前后句、根据上下文意思把握不准，即使找到信息也无法较好地对信息进行概括、整合与分析。语篇中长难句依然是学生阅读理解过程中最大的障碍。在高考中考生在阅读理解中D篇得分率较低；通过问卷调查和复习、测试，师生发现试卷中阅读理解语篇D篇答题失分尤其突出。

二、全国卷I阅读理解D篇分析

1）试题的体裁和题材

年代

体裁

题材

词数

语篇

2017

说明文

利用太阳能自制蒸馏饮用水

377

D

2018

说明文

旧设备比新设备浪费能源

355

D

2019

说明文

结合个人成长经历介绍一份关于讨人喜欢与追求地位的不同校园习惯对未来人际关系交往不同的影响的调查报告

357

D

2）篇章语言结构特点：出现较多学术用语，生词，派生词，句子结构较为复杂，长难句较多等。

3）试题的命题特点

阅读理解D篇通常为社科类说明文，语篇较长，信息丰富，要求较强的逻辑推理和判断能力。因此，设题多数为推理判断题；即使考查细节理解，也需较高的综合理解和分析能力。其中17年和19年阅读理解D篇的每道试题难度值均低于0.5，是阅读理解中最难、得分率最低的语篇。

4）得分率低原因分析

(1) 生词多，文章不易读懂；

（2）文本结构比较复杂；

（3）长难句解读有困难；

（4）话题比较陌生；

（5）缺乏应有的科普知识；

（6）平时较少阅读此类文章；

（7）缺乏相应的阅读技巧和策略；

（8）针对性阅读的输入量不足等。

三、应对措施和策略

1）重视阅读教学，帮助学生排除阅读障碍，做好文本解读，使学生构成阅读语言图式、内容图式和形式图式。引领学生先疏通词汇，明理文章的轮廓及大概，再研究文章的结构，弄清文章的内部联系，然后深入重点，剖析语言，分析内容，把握文章的重点，最后综合归纳，领会作者的意图，提高学生的英语阅读理解力。
‎ 2）加强阅读指导，注重阅读中的长难句结构分析。科普文章往往学术词汇多，派生词汇多，复合句较多，这必然造成学生理解上的困难。因此，在此类文本解读时，教师应注重长难句结构分析，并给予适当的答题指导,做到讲得准，讲得透，导之有方，导之有效。

3）增加指向性阅读训练，培养阅读理解答题能力，让学生掌握各种题材的结构类型，迅速掌握文中信息的具体分布，有较强的针对性；也能使学生更好地把握文章的逻辑线索，对文章的信息做出概括和归纳，阅读的速度以及效率就会随之提高。

现提供以下精选的60篇语篇，供学生训练。

(一)

The Indian government may use 3D paintings as virtual speed breakers (减速带) on major highways and roads, in order to check speeding and careless driving, and finally make its deadly roads a little safer. “We are trying out 3D paintings used as virtual speed breakers to avoid unnecessary requirements of speed breakers,” India’s transport minister Nitin Gadkari wrote.

The optical illusions (视觉错觉) are supposed to encourage drivers to slow down automatically. Earlier, India had ordered the removal of all speed breakers from highways, which are considered to be a safety hazard for high-speed vehicles. India has the highest number of road accident deaths in the world. According to the World Health Organisation, over 200,000 people are killed by road accidents.

The use of optical illusions as speed breakers was first pioneered in the American city of Philadelphia in 2008, as part of a campaign against speeding motorists. The technique has also been tried out in China to create floating 3D crossings. In India, cities such as Ahmedabad and Chennai have already experimented with 3D zebra crossings in the last one year. In Ahmedabad for instance, a mother and her daughter, both artists, have painted 3D crosswalks in the first few months of 2016. The artists say their motto is “to increase the attention of drivers”, and that the concept has been successfully tested in accident-prone zones on a highway.

However, critics argue that once drivers know that these speed breakers are visual illusions, they may ignore them. Others also point out that India’s decision does not consider the safety of a large number of pedestrians. In the end, the new policy may be just one step towards improving road safety.

1. Why are 3D paintings used on main highways and roads?

A. To make the surroundings more beautiful.

B. To attract the attention of tourists.

C. To show the advanced technology.

D. To reduce the rate of traffic accidents.

2. Which of the following words is closest to the meaning of “hazard” in paragraph 2?

A. ReminderB. Regulation C. Threat D. Theory

3. What can we learn from Paragraph 3 and 4?

A. Philadelphia is the second place to use virtual speed breakers in the US.

B. The use of optical illusions as speed breakers is controversial in India.

C. The idea tested in Ahmedabad recently has been a failure.

D. The new policy of 3D zebra crossings must be carried out.

4. What do we know about 3D zebra crossings from the text?

A. They are designed to increase drivers’ attention.

B. They can immediately lower the death rate.

C. They have been widely used in India so far.

D. They are welcomed by both drivers and pedestrians.

参考答案：D C B A

(二)

The third-generation hybrid rice (杂交水稻) which was developed by Yuan Longping, the “father of hybrid rice”, and his team underwent its first public yield（产量) monitoring from Monday to Tuesday and achieved high output. The final yield of the tested variety, G3-1S/P19, came to 1046.3 kg per mu (about 667 square meters), based on two plots of land in Qingzhu Village under the city of Hengyang in central China’s Hunan Province.

“Some previous high-yielding hybrid rice varieties in China took 160 to even 180 days from sowing to harvesting, while the figure was shortened to around 125 days for the new variety. This is one of the most important characteristics of the third-generation hybrid rice that can reduce the use of pesticides and fertilizers, thus reducing cost and improving production efficiency.” said Qian Qian, the deputy director of the China National Rice Research Institute.

Unlike the previous two generations that required a large amount of water and fertilizers as well as demanding growing conditions and technological support, the third-generation hybrid rice is easier to be cultivated (种植) by ordinary farmers. So the soil, altitude and climate of the test site were not “ideal conditions” carefully selected beforehand but were close to the paddies of ordinary farmers.

Nowadays, China’s average yield of rice is about 500 kg per mu. Ordinary farmers can produce 600 kg to 700 kg of rice per mu by growing some excellent second-generation hybrid rice varieties. However, under the same planting conditions and environment, the yield of the third-generation hybrid rice could reach 800 kg per mu. China now feeds around 20 percent of the world’s population with less than 9 percent of the world’s arable (可耕种的) land.

At present, Yuan’s team has nine third-generation hybrid rice combinations under trial, which are expected to achieve commercial seed production in the following three to four years and hope to ap ply the technology into the research of sea rice. The third-generation hybrid rice has the comprehensive strength to promote a greener and more sustainable development of China’s rice production with higher quality and yield.

1. What feature of the new hybrid rice does Qian Qian mainly talk about?

A. It saves a lot more water.B. It achieves a higher yield.

C. It saves much more farmland.D. It has a shorter growing period.

2. Why is the new hybrid rice not tested in ideal areas?

A. The ordinary farmers master planting technology.

B. The researchers want to reduce the experiment cost.

C. The growing conditions the new hybrid rice needs are simple.

D. The previous rice farming provides researchers with experience.

3. What is the fourth paragraph mainly about?

A. The high output of the third-generation hybrid rice.

B. The promising future of the new hybrid rice variety.

C. The advanced technology of the research on hybrid rice.

D. The differences between the three hybrid rice varieties.

4. Which one could be the best title of the text?

A. The Development of China’s Rice

B. The Contribution of the Great Scientist

C. The High Yield of the New Hybrid Rice

D. The Way to Feed the World’s Population

参考答案：D C A C

(三)

Google’s new camera, called Clips, is a small, smart device. It comes with a case that has a clip (夹子), but it’s not designed to be worn on your clothing. Most interestingly, it uses artificial intelligence to take photography out of your hands so it can capture moments on its own.

This roughly 2-inch by 2-inch camera, with a three-hour battery life and Gorilla Glass for toughness, is intended for candid moments, like when a child does something cute that may happen too quickly for you to pull out your smartphone.

Onboard the Clips device, it uses machine learning algorithms (计算程序) to help capture scenes. Those algorithms include face recognition. “Once it learns that there’s a face you see frequently, it’ll try to get nice photos of those faces,” said Juston Payne, the device’s product manager. And they also want it to recognize facial expressions, which involved “training it to know what happiness looks like”. The Google team also trained it to recognize what not to shoot—like when a child’s hand is over the lens, or if it is tossed in a dark purse.

The only way to see the images is by connecting the camera with your phone, as it has no screen for viewing or editing.

Were people concerned it could seem strange? Yes, Payne admitted. But they said they addressed that by making it obvious what it is. A green light on the front signals that it is on. Besides, unlike a camera meant to monitor your home, it is not connected to the Internet.

“This product is only possible because of the way that silicon has advanced,” Payne said, noting that it was only in the past year or so that they could squeeze the technology down into a device this size. Going forward, we’re likely to get more assistance from the artificial intelligence packed into our apps and gadgets.

1. What is the most outstanding feature of Clips?

A. It is equipped with tough glass.

B. It enables easy Internet access.

C. It allows of hands-free photography.

D. It can be worn on your clothing.

2. What does the underlined word “candid” in Paragraph 2 mean?

A. Brief. B. Touching. C. Unforgettable.D. Embarrassing.

3. What makes Clips a reality according to Juston Payne?

A. The popularity of the Internet.

B. The advance in technology.

C. The rise of the smartphone industry.

D. The reduction in the price of lens.

4. What is the best title for the text?

A. A New Digital Camera from Google.

B. New Gadgets in the Age of Apps.

C. Artificial Intelligence in Everyday Life.

D. An Alternative Way to Photograph.

参考答案：C A B A

(四)

You can’t always predict a heavy rain or remember your umbrella. But designer Mikhail Belyaev doesn’t think that forgetting to check the weather forecast before heading out should result in you getting wet. That’s why he created Lampbrella, a lamp post with its own rain-sensing umbrella.

The designer says he came up with the idea after watching people get wet on streets in Russia. “Once, I was driving on a central Saint Petersburg street and saw the street lamps lighting up people trying to hide from the rain. I thought it would be appropriate to have a canopy (伞蓬) built into a street lamp,” he said.

The Lampbrella is a standard-looking street lamp fitted with an umbrella canopy. It has a built-in electric motor which can open or close the umbrella on demand Sensors (传感器) then ensure that the umbrella offers pedestrians shelter whenever it starts raining.

In addition to the rain sensor, there’s also a 360° motion sensor on the fiberglass street lamp which detects whether anyone is using the Lampbrella. After three minutes of not being used the canopy is closed.

According to the designer, the Lampbrella would move at a relatively low speed, so as not to cause harm to the pedestrians. Besides, it would be grounded to protect from possible lightning strike. Each Lampbrella would offer enough shelter for several people. Being installed (安装) at 2 metres off the ground, it would only be a danger for the tallest of pedestrians.

While there are no plans to take the Lampbrella into production, Belyaev says he recently introduced his creation to one Moscow Department, and insists his creation could be installed on any street where a lot of people walk but there are no canopies to provide shelter.

1. For what purpose did Belyaev create the Lampbrella?
‎ A. To predict a heavy rain.

B. To check the weather forecast.

C. To protect people from the rain.

D. To remind people to take an umbrella

2. What do we know from Belyaev’s words in Paragraph 2?

A. His creation was inspired by an experience.

B. It rains a lot in the city of Saint Petersburg.

C. Street lamps are protected by canopies.

D. He enjoyed taking walks in the rain.

3. What does Paragraph 5 mainly tell us about the Lampbrella?

A. Its moving speed.B. Its appearance.

C. Its installation.D. Its safety.

4. What can be inferred from the last paragraph?

A. The designer will open a company to promote his product.

B. The Lampbrella could be put into immediate production.

C. The designer is confident that his creation is practical.

D. The Lampbrella would be put on show in Moscow.

参考答案：C A D C

(五)

Plastic-Eating Worms

Humans produce more than 300 million tons of plastic every year. Almost half of that winds up in landfills (垃圾填埋场), and up to 12 million tons pollute the oceans. So far there is no effective way to get rid of it, but a new study suggests an answer may lie in the stomachs of some hungry worms.

Researchers in Spain and England recently found that the worms of the greater wax moth can break down polyethylene, which accounts for 40% of plastics. The team left 100 wax worms on a commercial polyethylene shopping bag for 12 hours, and the worms consumed and broke down about 92 milligrams, or almost 3% of it. To confirm that the worms’ chewing alone was not responsible for the polyethylene breakdown, the researchers made some worms into paste (糊状物) and applied it to plastic films. 14 hours later the films had lost 13% of their mass — apparently broken down by enzymes (酶) from the worms’ stomachs. Their findings were published in Current Biology in 2017.

Federica Bertocchini, co-author of the study, says the worms’ ability to break down their everyday food — beeswax — also allows them to break down plastic. “Wax is a complex mixture, but the basic bond in polyethylene, the carbon-carbon bond, is there as well,”she explains, “The wax worm evolved a method or system to break this bond. ”

Jennifer DeBruyn, a microbiologist at the University of Tennessee, who was not involved in the study, says it is not surprising that such worms can break down polyethylene. But compared with previous studies, she finds the speed of breaking down in this one exciting. The next step, DeBruyn says, will be to identify the cause of the breakdown. Is it an enzyme produced by the worm itself or by its gut microbes (肠道微生物)?

Bertocchini agrees and hopes her team’s findings might one day help employ the enzyme to break down plastics in landfills. But she expects using the chemical in some kind of industrial process — not simply “millions of worms thrown on top of the plastic.”

1. What can we learn about the worms in the study?

A. They take plastics as their everyday food.

B. They are newly evolved creatures.

C. They can consume plastics.

D. They wind up in landfills.

2. According to Jennifer DeBruyn, the next step of the study is to ____.

A. identify other means of the breakdown

B. find out the source of the enzyme
‎ C. confirm the research findings

D. increase the breakdown speed

3. It can be inferred from the last paragraph that the chemical might ____.

A. help to raise worms B. help make plastic bags

C. be used to clean the oceans D. be produced in factories in future

4. What is the main purpose of the passage?

A. To explain a study method on worms.

B. To introduce the diet of a special worm.

C. To present a way to break down plastics.

D. To propose new means to keep eco-balance.

参考答案：C B D C

(六)

We may think we’re a culture that gets rid of our worn technology at the first sight of something shiny and new, but a new study shows that we keep using our old devices (装置) well after they go out of style. That’s bad news for the environment — and our wallets — as these outdated devices consume much more energy than the newer ones that do the same things.

To figure out how much power these devices are using, Callie Babbitt and her colleagues at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York tracked the environmental costs for each product throughout its life—from when its minerals are mined to when we stop using the device. This method provided a readout for how home energy use has evolved since the early 1990s. Devices were grouped by generation. Desktop computers, basic mobile phones, and box-set TVs defined 1992. Digital cameras arrived on the scene in 1997. And MP3 players, smart phones, and LCD TVs entered homes in 2002, before tablets and e-readers showed up in 2007.

As we accumulated more devices, however, we didn’t throw out our old ones. “The living-room television is replaced and gets planted in the kids’ room, and suddenly one day, you have a TV in every room of the house,” said one researcher. The average number of electronic devices rose from four per household in 1992 to 13 in 2007. We’re not just keeping these old devices—we continue to use them. According to the analysis of Babbitt’s team, old desktop monitors and box TVs with cathode ray tubes are the worst devices with their energy consumption and contribution to greenhouse gas emissions (排放) more than doubling during the 1992 to 2007 window.

So what’s the solution (解决方案)? The team’s data only went up to 2007, but the researchers also explored what would happen if consumers replaced old products with new electronics that serve more than one function, such as a tablet for word processing and TV viewing. They found that more on-demand entertainment viewing on tablets instead of TVs and desktop computers could cut energy consumption by 44%.

1. What does the author think of new devices?

A. They are environment-friendly.

B. They are no better than the old.

C. They cost more to use at home.

D. They go out of style quickly.

2. Why did Babbitt’s team conduct the research?

A. To reduce the cost of minerals.

B. To test the life cycle of a product.

C. To update consumers on new technology.

D. To find out electricity consumption of the devices.

3. Which of the following uses the least energy?

A. The box-set TV.B. The tablet.

C. The LCD TV.D. The desktop computer.

4. What does the text suggest people do about old electronic devices?

A. Stop using them.B. Take them apart.

C. Upgrade them.D. Recycle them.

参考答案：A D B A

(七)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is making it possible for companies to monitor workers’ behavior in great detail and in real time. Start to slack off (懈怠), and AI could talk to your boss.

One company offering such services is London-based start-up Status Today. Its AI platform relies on a regular supply of employee data, including everything from the files you access to when you use a key card.

From this, it builds a picture of how employees normally function and signals any unusual performance. The idea is to spot when someone might become a security risk by doing something different from their usual behavioral patterns. “All of this gives us a fingerprint of a user, so if we think the fingerprint doesn’t match, we raise a warning,” says Mircea Dumitrescu, the company’s chief technology officer.

The system also aims to catch employee actions that could accidentally cause a security breach (漏洞), like opening malware (恶意软件). “We’re not monitoring if your computer has a virus.” says Dumitrescu. “We’re monitoring human behavior.”

But catching the security breach means monitoring everyone, and the AI can also be used to track employee productivity. “It seems like they are just using the reputation of AI to give an air of lawfulness to old-fashioned workplace surveillance (监视),” says Javier Ruiz Diaz of digital campaigning organization the Open Rights Group. “You have a right to privacy and you shouldn’t be expected to givethatup at work.”

Exactly how companies use the system will be up to them, but it’s hard to shake the picture of an AI constantly looking over employees’ shoulders. “It will bother people, and that could be counterproductive if it affects their behavior,” says Paul Bemal at the University of East Anglia.

Phil Legg at the University of the West of England says it will never catch every security risk. “If people know they’re being monitored, they can change their behavior,” he says.

1.What does the underlined part “a fingerprint of a user” in Paragraph 3 refer to?

A. An employee’s general behavior. B. Evidence against an employee.

C. An employee’s best record D. Access to an employee.

2.What’s Javier Ruiz Diaz’ s attitude towards the system?

A.Curious. B. Appreciative. C. Casual. D. Negative.

3.What is Phil Legg’s concern for the system?

A. It is too risky to be used at work.

B. It will affect employees’ emotions.

C. It may not be so effective as expected.

D. It cannot change employees’ behavior.

4.What’s the best title for the text?

A. Watch out for security breaches

B. It’s time to improve your job performance

C. Be aware of your privacy in the workplace

D. Workplace AI may tell your boss if you’re slacking.

参考答案：A D C D

(八)

Self­driving vehicles will rely on cameras，sensors and artificial intelligence (AI) to recognize and respond to road and traffic conditions，but sensing is the most effective for objects and movement in the neighborhood of the vehicle. Not everything important in a car’s environment will be caught by the vehicle’s camera. Another vehicle approaching at high speed on a collision (碰撞) track might not be visible until it’s too late. This is why vehicle­to­vehicle communication is undergoing rapid development. Our research shows that cars will need to be able to chat and cooperate on the road，although the technical challenges are considerable.

Applications for vehicle­to­vehicle communication range from vehicles driving together in a row，to safety messages about nearby emergency vehicles. Vehicles could alert each other to avoid collisions or share notices about passers­by and bicycles.

From as far as several hundred meters away，vehicles could exchange messages with one another or receive information from roadside units (RSUs) about nearby incidents or dangerous road conditions through 4G network. A high level of AI seems required for such vehicles，not only to self­drive from A to B, but also to react intelligently to messages received. Vehicles will need to plan, reason, strategize and adapt in the light of information received in real time and to carry out cooperative behaviors. For example, a group of autonomous vehicles might avoid a route together because of potential risks, or a vehicle could decide to drop someone off earlier due to messages received, a foreseen crowding ahead.

Further applications of vehicle­to­vehicle communication are still being researched, including how to perform cooperative behavior.

1. What is the first paragraph mainly about?

A. The reasons for the accidents by self­driving vehicles.

B. The research about applications for self­driving vehicles.

C. The importance of artificial intelligence of self­driving vehicles.

D. The reasons for developing communication between self­driving vehicles.

2. What does the underlined word “alert” mean in Paragraph 2?

A. Alarm. B. Condemn. C. Ignore. D. Govern.

3. What can we learn about roadside units (RSUs)?

A. They classify the vehicles on the road.

B. They can improve bad road conditions.

C. They take over the passing vehicles.

D. They serve as efficient information stations.

4. What is the best title for the text?

A. When Do Vehicles Communicate?

B. The Reasons Why a High Level of AI Is Important

C. Vehicle­to­vehicle Communication Is Coming

D. What Do Applications for Vehicle­to­vehicle Communication Need?

参考答案：D A D C

(九)

Researchers continue to show the power behind our sense of smell. Recent studies have found, among other things, that the smell of foods like pizza can cause uncontrollable anger in drivers on roads.

The study explains that smell is unique in its effects on the brain. According to Conrad King, the researcher who carried out the study, “more than any other senses, the sense of smell goes through the logical part of the brain and acts on the systems concerned with feelings. This is why the smell of baking bread can destroy the best intentions of a dieter.”

Smell, which determines the unbelievable complexity of food tastes, has always been the least understood of our senses. Our noses are able to detect up to 10,000 distinct smells. Our ability to smell and taste this extremely large range of smells is controlled by something like 1,000 genes (基因), which make up an amazing 3% of the human genome.

According to Conrad King’s study, smelling fresh pizza or even the packaging of fast foods can be enough to make drivers feel impatient with other road users. They are then more likely to speed and experience uncontrollable anger on roads. The most reasonable explanation is that these can all make drivers feel hungry, and therefore desperate to satisfy their appetites. In contrast, the smells of peppermint and cinnamon were shown to improve concentration levels as well as reduce drivers’ impatience. Similarly, the smells of lemon and coffee appeared to promote clear thinking and mental focus.

However, the way genes control smell differs from person to person. A study by researchers in Israel has identified at least 50 olfactory (嗅觉) genes which are switched on in some people and not in others. They believe this may explain why some of us love some smells and tastes while others hate them. The Israel researchers say their study shows that nearly every human being shows a different pattern of active and inactive smell-detecting receptors.

1. What does the author think of human sense of smell?

A. It is powerful.B. It is uncontrollable.

C. It is changeable.D. It is complex.

2. Why did Conrad King conduct the research about smell?

A. To find out how smell influences people.

B. To teach people how to choose proper food.

C. To study why some food like pizza harm people.

D. To explain why different people love different foods.

3. What can we conclude from the last paragraph?

A. Only a few genes decide our sense of smell.

B. Different genes have different effect on people.

C. Different people are sensitive to different smells.

D. Every person owns at least 50 different olfactory genes.

4. What is the passage mainly about?

A. Logic and behavior.

B. Smell and its influence.

C. Sense ability and food tastes.

D. Olfactory genes and our olfactory system.

参考答案： A A C B

(十)

As the saying goes, man struggles upward；water flows downward. Water runs downhill from mountaintops to streams, rivers, and oceans. But it isn’t the only way that water moves. A new study measures how water travels from country to country for human consumption. This flow isn’t the type we usually think about. These scientists looked at the water used to grow and make the products which get shipped from nation to nation as imports or exports. They call this a flow of “virtual water (虚拟水)”.

We typically think about water as the liquid that flows from a tap. However, 92％of the water used by people goes into growing crops, according to water researcher Arjen Hoekstra. He recently studied the hidden travels of virtual water used in products made from things like crops and meats. These products are shipped around the world.

For example, consider a sugary soft drink. Hoekstra estimated that to produce one half-liter of the drink requires between 170 and 310 liters of the water—about 95％ is used to grow and process the ingredients (原料). Another 4％goes into the packaging and labeling. In Hoekstra’s calculation, when one country produces a half-liter of soda and sells it abroad, the virtual water it exports would fill a large refrigerator.

According to Hoekstra’s new report, dry countries like Israel and Kuwait, both in the Middle East, get the majority of their virtual water from other countries, through imported products. More surprisingly, some wetter countries, like the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, also get the majority of their virtual water from other places. That means that most of the water used to grow or produce the products and food consumed in those countries came from other countries. In the United States most of the virtual water used comes from American sources. In China even less of the water is associated with its products.

1. The example of a sugary soft drink in Paragraph 3 is given to show ______.

A. how drinks are shipped B. how virtual water is exported

C. how virtual water is used D. how drinks are made

2. In which countries does most part of virtual water come from outside?

A. Kuwait and the Netherlands. B. China and the United Kingdom.

C. America and the Netherlands. D. Israel and America.

3. What is the best title for the passage?

A. Crops and Virtual Water B. Water’s Worldwide Travels

C. Benefits of Virtual Water D. Import and Export of Water

4. The passage is most probably from a ____.

A. science news report B. science fiction story

C. newspaper advertisement D. book review

参考答案：C A B A

(十一)

There are billions of people on this planet, and many of us love to eat meat. Can the demand be filled in a sustainable（可持续的） and affordable way? A bunch of businessmen are not only optimistic but are working to make this happen sooner than you may think.

The environmental effects caused by meat consumption （食用）—waste, animal treatment, health problems and even the greenhouse gas effects that are potentially caused by methane gas produced by cows—have given rise to a number of startups（新兴公司）looking to develop meats in different ways.

For example, San Francisco-based Memphis Meats is developing cell-based meats in its labs without requiring any animals. Israel’s Future Meat Technologies is doing the same by producing fat and muscle cells that are being tested by chefs in Jerusalem. All of these companies use special processes to harvest cells from animals and grow them in a lab.

But don’t worry if you’re not a meat lover. Startups such as Jet Eat, which is also based in Israel, are working on food products grown in labs that are plant-based and replicate （复制） meats using natural elements while still keeping flavor, consistency and the “overall sensory experience”, according to a report on NoCamels. Jet Eat, which was founded in early 2018, aims to 3D-print their lab-grown products by 2020.

As you can imagine, there are plenty of barriers facing the industry. Educating the public is a big one. Another controversial issue is the labeling of the products. Recently both the USDA and the Food and Drug Administration（FDA） announced that they will begin jointly controlling the new “cell-based meat” category.

Many of us have concerns about the challenges facing future generations as our global population increases and the earth’s natural resources decreases. The good news is that there are plenty of businessmen around the world—like those producing lab-grown meats—who are working to solve some of these problems and make a little money in the process. Nothing wrong with that.

1. Why do some companies begin to develop new kinds of meats?

A. To analyse the causes of air pollution.

B. To stress the importance of protecting wild animals.

C. To make people less interested in eating meat and more healthy.

D. To meet people’s demand for meat in environmentally friendly ways.

2. What’s special about the lab-grown meats of Jet Eat?

A. They cost less. B. They are plant-based.

C. They are more delicious. D. They are available on the market now.

3. Which of the following is a barrier lab-grown meat industries must deal with?

A. How to let people accept the meat.

B. How to give the meat an elegant name.

C. How to produce the meat in large amounts.

D. How to reduce the cost of making the meat.

4. What’s the author’s attitude towards lab-grown meats?

A. Supportive. B. Opposing. C. Ambiguous. D. Cautious.

参考答案：D B A A

(十二)

NASA’s Curiosity vehicle recently recorded the largest level of methane（甲烷）ever measured during its seven-year Mars mission. The discovery is exciting because the existence of methane gas could support the case for life on Mars.

Methane has no color or smell. A special instrument on Curiosity’s Mars Science Laboratory recorded the increased gas level. The device, called a laser spectrometer, measures levels of chemical elements and gases in the Martian atmosphere. In addition to methane, the instrument can record levels of water andCO2. Nearly all the methane gas found in Earth’s atmosphere is produced by biological activity. It usually comes from animal and plant life. But it can also be formed by geological (地质的) processes, such as interactions between rocks and water. NASA said the increased methane was measured to be about 21 parts per billion by volume (ppbv). One ppbv means that if you take a volume of air on Mars, one billionth of the volume of air is methane.

It was not the first time Curiosity has found methane gas in the Martian atmosphere. About a year ago, NASA announced that Curiosity had discovered sharp seasonal increases in the gas. This time, NASA said the measured methane gas level was clearly larger than any others observed in the past. NASA officials even temporarily stopped Curiosity’s other activities to investigate further.

“It’s exciting because microbial (微生物的) life is an important source of methane on Earth,” NASA said in a statement announcing the discovery. However, Curiosity’s team carried out a follow-up methane experiment that showed a sharp drop in levels of the gas. The second examination found the level was less than one part per billion by volume. That number was close to the background levels Curiosity sees all the time. The rise and fall of the methane gas levels left NASA scientists with more questions than answers. The scientists are continuing to study possible causes for the sudden increase. The methane mystery continues.

Curiosity does not have instruments that can exactly identify whether the source of the methane is biological or geological. One leading theory is that methane is being released from underground areas created by possible life forms that disappeared long ago. Even though Mars has no active volcanoes, scientists believe it is also possible that methane is being produced by reactions involving carbon materials and water.

A clearer understanding of methane levels over time could help scientists determine where they’re located on Mars. Scientists hope this understanding will come as Curiosity continues to collect methane data in its search for possible life.

1. What did Curiosity discover?

A. The largest methane gas level ever on Mars.

B. The existence of life on Mars.

C. The reason for the increased methane.

D. Interactions between rocks and water

2.Why did NASA officials once stop Curiosity’s other activities?

A. To seek possible life existing on Mars.

B. To check the quality of Curiosity’s mission.

C. To find seasonal increases in the methane gas.

D. To further examine the methane gas level on Mars.

3.What can we learn from the last three paragraphs?

A. Causes for the change of methane have been proved by Curiosity.

B. Curiosity has proved the location of methane by instruments.

C. Scientists think underground materials’ reactions may produce methane.

D. Identifying the source of methane helps scientists find possible life on Mars.

4.Where is the passage probably taken from？

A. a geography textbook B. a science newspaper

C.a health magazine D. a travel brochure

参考答案：A D C B

(十三)

Monkeys seem to have a way with numbers.

A team of researchers trained three Rhesus monkeys to associate 26 clearly different symbols consisting of numbers and selective letters with 0-25 drops of water or juice as a reward. The researchers then tested how the monkeys combined—or added—the symbols to get the reward.

Here’s how Harvard Medical School scientist Margaret Livingstone, who led the team, described the experiment: In their cages the monkeys were provided with touch screens. On one part of the screen, a symbol would appear, and on the other side two symbols inside a circle were shown. For example, the number 7 would flash on one side of the screen and the other end would have 9 and 8.If the monkeys touched the left side of the screen they would be rewarded with seven drops of water or juice; if they went for the circle, they would be rewarded with the sum of the numbers—17 in this example.

After running hundreds of tests, the researchers noted that the monkeys would go for the higher values more than half the time, indicating that they were performing a calculation, not just memorizing the value of each combination.

When the team examined the results of the experiment more closely, they noticed that the monkeys tended to underestimate (低估)a sum compared with a single symbol when the two were close in value—sometimes choosing, for example, a 13 over the sum of 8 and 6. The underestimation was systematic: When adding two numbers, the monkeys always paid attention to the larger of the two, and then added only a fraction (小部分)of the smaller number to it.

“This indicates that there is a certain way quantity is represented in their brains,” Dr. Livingstone says. “But in this experiment what they’re doing is paying more attention to the big number than the little one.”

1. What did the researchers do to the monkeys before testing them?

A. They fed them. B. They named them.

C. They trained them.D. They measured them.

2. How did the monkeys get their reward in the experiment?

A. By drawing a circle. B. By touching a screen.

C. By watching videos. D. By mixing two drinks.

3. What did Livingstone’s team find about the monkeys?

A. They could perform basic addition.

B. They could understand simple words.

C. They could memorize numbers easily.

D. They could hold their attention for long.

4. In which section of a newspaper may this text appear?

A. Entertainment.B. Health.C. Education.D. Science.

参考答案: CBAD

(十四)

When your alarm clock rings and you drag yourself out of bed, you probably wonder :Why on earth does school have to start so early ?

Fortunately ,there is a new law to back you up-or better still, science.

A law in California, passed on Oct 13, requires that public middle schools begin classes no earlier than 8:00 am and that high schools start no earlier than 8:30. am. The law will go into effect by July1, 2022.

Starting school at 8;00 or 8:30 in the morning may not sound like too big of a change, but it could mean one more hour of sleep for students who used to start school at 7:30 or even earlier.

“The effect of that one hour is something they will be feeling as 40-year-old adults,” Sumit Bhargava, a sleep expert at Stanford University, told The New York Times. He said that not having enough sleep can affect students’ mental health and increase the risk of obesity (肥胖) and diabetes (糖尿病).

In the short run, students’ school performances should improve almost immediately. Kyla Wahlstrom, a researcher at the University of Minne-sota’s College of Education, found that students who have enough sleep are more alert (机敏的) in class and get better grades

Some might say that urging students to go to bed earlier could have been a much easier solution than changing the school timetable across an entire state. But according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, teenagers go through biological changes when they enter puberty (青春期)，which makes it difficult for them to fall asleep before 11:00 pm. So when school starts at 8:00 or earlier, they can hardly get the ideal 8.5-9.5 hours of sleep that experts suggest they need to do their best in the daytime.

This is why when the new law came out, its author, Anthony Portantino, said, “Generations of children will come to appreciate this historic day and our governor for taking bold (大胆的) action”

Choose the best answer

1. When should public schools start classes according to the California’s new law?

A. No earlier than 7:30 amB. No earlier than 8:00 am

C. No earlier than 8:30 amD. No earlier than 9:00 am

2. What can we learn from Bhargava’s words?

A. The amount of sleep people need changes with age

B. Lack of sleep affects adults more than children

C. Sleep problems are one of the leading causes of diabetes

D. Lack of sleep could lead to health problems

3. What do we know about teenagers’ sleep patterns?

A. Less sleep is needed when they enter puberty

B. Ideally, they need eight hours of sleep a night

C. They may have difficulty falling asleep before 11:00 pm

D. They often wake up at midnight due to biological changes

参考答案：C D C

(十五)

Gold is one of the rarest materials on Earth and has always been considered a valuable and precious resource. It’s very likely that someone in your family owns something made of gold, especially since China is one of the world’s biggest buyers of gold jewellery. It’s even in our smartphones—they contain parts made from this expensive material.

But where does this beautiful metal actually come from? The answer: outer space.

This August, Chinese scientists became the first in the world to witness gravitational waves(引力波)caused by the collision of neutron (中子)stars, reported Xinhua News Agency.

The sight was witnessed at China’s Kunlun Antarctic Station at the South Pole, and Insight, China’s first X-ray astronomical satellite, also contributed to the discovery.

Although collisions of black holes have been recorded before, this was the first time that two neutron stars were known to have collided. It’s believed that such collisions lead to huge explosions of energy, and even to the creation of precious metals such as gold and silver.

“The collision of neutron stars is like a very large gold factory in the universe,” Jin Zhiping, a researcher at the Purple Mountain Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told Xinhua.

According to an article published by space.com, scientists have long believed gold and other materials are created in this way, but it wasn’t until the recent collision that their theory was confirmed.

“The origin of the really heaviest chemical elements in the universe had confused the scientific community for quite a long time,” Hans-Thomas Janka, a senior scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Germany, said in a news release. “Now, we have the first observational proof for neutron star mergers(合并) as sources.”

Indeed, the recently observed collision is thought to have produced an amount of gold that would weigh 10 times more than Earth, according to New Scientist.

Don’t expect to be showered in gold any time soon, however. The collision actually took place 130 million years ago, taking all that time for the event’s light to reach Earth.

But at least if you want to see a piece of space up close, all you have to do is to look at the ring on your mom’s finger - or the smartphone in your pocket.

1. What’s the author’s purpose of writing the first two paragraphs?

A. To emphasize the rareness of gold.

B. To list some uses of gold in daily life.

C. To explain the reasons for the popularity of gold.

D. To interest readers about the source of gold.

2. What would the collision of neutron stars lead to according to Xinhua?

A. The creation of black holes.

B. The death of the stars.

C. The disappearance of gravitational waves.

D. The creation of gold.

3. What’s the text mainly about?

A. China’s Kunlun Antarctic Station does research into gold.

B. Collisions between two neutron stars result in gold.

C. Collisions between two neutron stars result in gold.

D. Gold is considered a valuable and precious rescource.

4. What can we learn from the article?

A. The amount of gold produced by the collision was very small.

B. The collision was the largest reported in history.

C. China played a big role in the new discovery.

D. The collision took place 130 years ago.

参考答案：D D B C

(十六)

The long, white robot weighs more than 450 kilograms. Like other robots, it is equipped with cameras and mechanical arms toautomaticallyperform many different jobs.

Angus is a major part of operations at Alexander’s indoor robot farm about 40 kilometers south of San Francisco. The 743-square meter farm uses a hydroponic systemthat grows plants without soil. The plants grow inside equipment that provides a continuous flow of water. The indoor farm uses electrical light instead of sunlight.

This kind of farm uses much less water and does not require human labor to run. The main job for Angus is to move thousands of plants around the farm, from small containers to larger ones as they grow. Angus also carries plants to another robot that does not have a name yet. Angus moves slowly to complete its work. But the robot is very strong and can lift about 300 kilograms.

For now, the farm uses humans to collect vegetables and other crops when they are ready. But Alexander says he is working on a robot that will eventually take over that job too.

Alexander helped start the companyIron Oxafter leaving Google, where he worked on robotics at the company’sGoogle Xproject. He teamed up with another former Google employee, Jon Binney. Together theyfoundedIron Ox.

Iron Ox’s website says the hydroponic growing system uses 90 percent less water. It also said the growing method is up to 30 times more productive than growing crops on land.

Alexander said growing food robotically throughout the year in major cities will provide a moreconsistentand fresh product. Most of the vegetables sold in the U.S. are grown in California, Arizona, Mexico and other nations. That means that many people in U.S. cities are eating vegetables that are nearly a week old by the time they arrive in stores.

Indoor farms operate all year and are not generally affected by bad weather. This will permit the company to provide a steady flow of goods without major price changes.

1. How does Angus work in the farm?

A. It provides a continuous flow of water for the plants.

B. It directs other robots to work in the farm.

C. It works on collecting vegetables.

D. It is in charge of transferring plants.

2. What do we know about Alexander?

A. He used to work on robotics at Google.

B. He started a company studying robotics with Binney.

C. He works on collecting crops when they are ready.

D. He started Iron Ox by himself.

3. What’s the advantage of Alexander’s farm?

A. The vegetables from this farm sell in higher price.

B. The vegetables from this farm are more nutritious.

C. It uses electrical light instead of sunlight.

D. It uses less water but produces more.

4. Which of the following can be a suitable title for the passage?

A. Robot Farm, the Future of the Agriculture

B. Robot Farm, Aiming to Bring Fresher Food to US Cities

C. Alexander, an Extraordinary Scientist on Robotics

D. Hydroponic System, the New Way of Farming

参考答案: D A D B

(十七)

While weather forecasters can make fairly accurate predictions, there’s always the riskyou’ll be caught out while driving in the rain. But the days of having to quickly close your sunroof could soon be a thing of the past thanks to JaguarLandRovefslatest technology.The firm is developing cars that can adapt automatically by closing windows and roofs or starting the heater if they detect bad weather is on the way. The weather forecasting system uses a set of air pressure, humidity(湿度) and light sensors(传感器) to help its vehicles predict changes in conditions and adapt to them. Cars equipped with the system could make slight changes to the air conditioning if it finds the weather is getting warmer during a journey or increase the cabin temperature if it will get colder.

The forecast may indicate there is a possibility of one or more weather conditions, such as rain, within a period of time, such as five minutes. The vehicle may then adapt to the local weather conditions. In particular, itmay close one or more windows, or close a roof of the vehicle in response to a forecast being a sign of rain. Similarly windows could be darkened usingelectrochromic (电致变色的) glass to improve visibility if bright sunshine is forecast.

Although its unclear whether this technology will make its way to a production vehicle anytime soon, such a system would be advantageous on autonomous vehicles. Since there’s no human driver present, the system will allow the vehicle to make it comfortable for its passengers, based on current weather conditions. It can also make the vehicle safer if it knows rain or snow is coming.

1. How will Jaguar LandRovefslatest technology benefit drivers?

A.Vehicles can automatically drive themselves.

B.Vehicles can find positions and routes themselves,

C.Vehicles can act as mobile weather forecasting stations.

D.Vehicles can open windows and sunroofs automatically.

2. What is the feature of the glass of a vehicle with the new technology?

A. It can help adjust the temperature.

B. It can still be clear in rainy days.

C. It is too strong to break into pieces.

D. Itscolorcan change with the sunshine.

3. What can we know about the weather forecasting system from the text?

A. It is intelligent enough to stop raining・

B. It makes the driver more comfortable.

C. It can’t predict the weather accurately.

D. It makes autonomous cars safer in bad weather.

4. Where might the text be taken from?

A.A book review.B. A science report.

C. A science fiction.D. A travel brochure.

参考答案：C D D B

(十八)

The world’s nights are getting alarmingly brighter — bad news for all kinds of creatures, humans included — as light pollution invades darkness almost everywhere. Satellite observations made by researchers show Earth’s artificially lit outdoor area grew by 2% a year from 2012 to 2016.

Light pollution was even worse than that, according to the German-led team, because the sensor (传感器) used cannot detect some of the LED lighting that is becoming more widespread, specifically blue light. The observations indicate stable levels of night light in the US, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy. But light pollution is almost certainly on the rise in those countries given this blue light, according to Christopher Kyba of the GFZ German research centre for geosciences.

“Honestly, I had thought and hoped that with LEDs we were turning the corner. There’s also a lot more awareness of light pollution,” Kyba told reporters by phone from Potsdam. “It is quite disappointing.”

The biological influence from light pollution is also strong, according to the researchers. People’s sleep can be disturbed, which in turncan affect their health. The migration and reproduction of birds, fish, and insects can be disordered. Plants can have abnormally extended growing periods.

Australia reported a big drop, but that was because wildfires were going on early in the study. Researchers were unable to separate the bright burning light. Asia, Africa and South America, for the most part, saw an increase in artificial night lighting. More and more places are equipped with outdoor lighting, the scientists noted. Urban areas are also moving farther out. The suburbs (市郊) of major cities in developing nations were brightening quite rapidly, Kyba said. Other especially bright hot spots included greenhouses in the Netherlands and areas of agriculture.

“Many people are using light at night without really thinking about the cost,” said Franz Holker, one of the researchers. Not just the economic cost, “but also the ecological, environmental cost.” Kyba and his colleagues recommend avoiding shining lights whenever possible—choosing amber over so-called white LEDs —and using more effective ways to light places such as parking areas or city streets. For example, soft, closely spaced lights are more likely to provide better visibility (可见度) than bright lights that are more spread out.

1. What did the research find?

A. LED lighting accounts for 2% of light.

B. Earth’s creatures are affected by light.

C. Light pollution is getting worse.

D. Earth’s nights are shortening.

2. What’s the real condition of night light levels in the US?

A. Unclear. B. Falling. C. Steady. D. Rising.

3. What’s the influence of the light problem?

A. It affects creatures’ normal life.

B. It is partly the reason for wildfires.

C. It promotes urban areas’ extension.

D. It increases agricultural production.

4. What’s Kyba’s solution to the problem?

A. Cutting costs on lighting.

B. Choosing LEDs in public areas.

C. Improving the efficiency of lights.

D. Using soft lights instead of bright lights.

参考答案：C D A D

(十九)

Why is it often so calm before a storm?

According to the US website HowStuffWorks, a calm period occurs because many storms, tornadoes and hurricanes draw in all the warm and humid (潮湿的) air from the surrounding area. As the air rises into the storm clouds, it cools and acts as “fuel for the storm, like petrol in a car”.

Once the storm has taken all the energy it can from the air, it is pushed out from the top of the storm clouds and falls back down to ground level. As the air goes down, it becomes warm and dry. Warm and dry air is stable, so once it covers an area, it causes a calm period before the storm.

This same process also causes the “eye of the storm” in hurricanes and tornadoes. In these conditions, the calm occurs in the center of the storm because of the strong circling winds.

The Weather Network has a tip for working out how far away a storm is. First count how many seconds there are between a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder, roughly three seconds equal one kilometer. So, for example, if you count nine seconds, the storm is about three kilometers away. A good judge is that if your count is below 30 seconds, you should seek shelter straight away.

However, due to the complexity of storm system, not all storms are proceeded by (被领先) calm. Given the right conditions, some storms announce themselves with heavy rain and icy winds.So, your best bet is to keep yourself updated with weather reports for any predictions regarding a coming storm in your area. That’s the most reliable and sensible way to predict the next display of nature’s temper.

1. What do the 2nd and the 3rd paragraphs mainly tell us?

A. How a storm comes into being.

B. Why research is done on storm clouds.

C. Why a peaceful period occurs before a storm.

D. How dangerous a storm can be in certain situations.

2. How far away is the storm if you count 18 seconds between a flash of lightning and a thunder clap?

A. Three kilometers. B. Four kilometers.

C. Five kilometers. D. Six kilometers.

3. What can we learn from the text?

A. Storms have a big influence on life.

B. It is not always quiet before a storm.

C. Weather reports may fail to predict a storm.

D. Heavy storms don’t usually last for a long time.

4. Where is the text probably taken from?

A. A weather report.B. A science report.

C. A storybook. D. An advertisement.

参考答案：C D B B

(二十)

Most autonomous vehicles test-driving in cities navigate (导航) by using 3-D maps marking every edge of roadside with almost centimeter-level accuracy. But few places have been mapped in such detail, which has left most areas like smaller towns inaccessible to those driverless cars.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) now have developed a new navigation system that guides autonomous vehicles without such accurate maps. This technology can help driverless cars travel almost anywhere.

The navigation system maps out a course down unfamiliar roads much as a human driver would by continually scanning its surroundings, with a laser (激光) sensor to measure how close it is to the edges of the road. Meanwhile, the car also follows a tool like a smart phone map app that provides directions to its destination, as well as information about the rules of the road, such as speed limits and the positions of stoplights. Teddy Ort, a roboticist at MIT, test-drove a car equipped with this navigation system on a one-way road. It slowly traveled one kilometer without any human assistance.

This system assumes that a car has a clear path down the road, but it can be paired with other existing computing technology to discover in-road barriers, says Ort. The researchers also plan to build a version of this system which can spot markings painted on streets, so that the car can drive on two-way roads. “Self-driving cars with this navigation system may need other sensors to work in different conditions,” says Alexander Wyglinski, an electrical engineer at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. “Since laser sensors don’t work well in rain or snow, these cars might need additional imaging technologies to drive safely in bad weather.”

1. What may be a problem for most driverless cars?

A. Their maps are out-dated. B. They fail in test-driving.

C. Their guides are unreliable. D. They run in limited areas.

2. What can we infer about the MIT navigation system?

A. It removes in-road barriers. B. It includes accurate maps.

C. It works by detecting the road. D. It features a smart phone app.

3. What is the purpose of Paragraph 4?

A. To confirm the test-drive results.

B. To indicate further research areas.

C. To recognize scientists’ achievements.

D. To show the creativity of driverless cars.

4. What is the main idea of the text?

A. Autonomous cars beat human drivers on country roads.

B. Navigating self-driving cars may work in different conditions.

C. Smart mapping technology adds to the functions of self-driving cars.

D. A new navigation system helps autonomous cars drive remote roads.

参考答案: D C B D

(二十一)

The Intelligent Transport team at Newcastle University have turned an electric car into a mobile laboratory named “Drive LAB” in order to understand the challenges faced by older drivers and to discover where the key stress points are.

Research shows that giving up driving is one of the key reasons for a fall in health and well-being among older people, leading to them becoming more isolated and inactive.

Led by Professor Phil Blythe, the Newcastle team are developing in-vehicle technologies for older drivers which they hope could help them to continue driving into later life. These include custom-made navigation tools，night vision systems and intelligent speed adaptations. Phil Blythe explains: “For many older people, particularly those living alone or in the country, driving is important for preserving their independence, giving them the freedom to get out and about without having to rely on others.”

“But we all have to accept that as we get older our reactions slow down and this often results in people avoiding any potentially challenging driving conditions and losing confidence in their driving skills. The result is that people stop driving before they really need to.

Dr Amy Guo, the leading researcher on the older driver study, explains, “The DriveLAB is helping us to understand what the key stress points and difficulties are for older drivers and how we might use technology to address these problems.

“For example, most of us would expect older drivers always go slower than everyone else but surprisingly, we found that in 30mph zones they struggled to keep at a constant speed and so were more likely to break the speed limit and be at risk of getting fined. We’re looking at the benefits of systems which control their speed as a way of preventing that.

“We hope that our work will help with technological solutions (解决方案) to ensure that older drivers stay safer behind the wheel.”

1. What is the purpose of the Drive LAB?

A. To explore new means of transport.B. To design new types of cars.

C. To find out older driver′s problems.D. To teach people traffic rules.

2. Why is driving important for older people according to Phil Blythe？

A. It keeps them independent.B. It helps them save time.

C. It builds up their strength.D. It cures their mental illnesses.

3. What do researchers hope to do for older drivers?

A. Improve their driving skills.B. Develop driver-assist technologies.

C. Provide tips on repairing their cars.D. Organize regular physical checkups. 4. What is the best title for the text?

A. A New Model Electric CarB. A Solution to Traffic Problems

C. Driving Services for EldersD. Keeping Older Drivers on the Road

参考答案: CABD

(二十二)

New App Helps People Remember Faces

Large gatherings such as weddings and conferences can be socially overwhelming. Pressure to learn people’s names only adds to the stress. A new facial-recognition app could come to the rescue, but privacy experts recommend proceeding with caution.

The app, called SocialRecall, connects names with faces via smartphone cameras

and facial recognition, potentially avoiding the need for formal introductions. “It breaks down these social barriers we all have when meeting somebody,” says Barry Sandrew, who created the app and tested it at an event attended by about 1, 000 people.

After receiving an invitation to download SocialRrecall from an event organizer, the user is asked to take two selfies (自拍) and sign in via social media. At the event, the app is active within a previously defined geographical area. When a user points his or her phone camera at an attendee’s face, the app identifies the individual, displays the person’s name, and links to his or her social media profile. To protect privacy, it recognizes only those who have agreed to participate. And the app’s creators say it automatically deletes users’ data after an event.

Ann Cavoukian, a privacy expert who runs the Privacy by Design Centre of Excellence, praises the apps creators for these protective measures. She says, however, that when people choose to share their personal information with the app, they should know “there may be unintended consequences down the road with that information being used in another context that might come back to bite you.”

The start-up has also developed a version of the app for individuals who suffer from prosopagnosia, or “face blindness”, a condition that prevents people from recognizing individuals they have met. To use this app, a person first acquires an image of someone’s face, from either the smartphones camera or a photograph, and then tags it with a name. When the camera spots that same face in real life, the previously entered information is displayed. The collected data are stored only on a user’s phone, according to the team behind the app.

1. What is SocialRecall used to do?

A. Take photos. B. Identify people.

C. Organize events. D. Make friends.

2. What is Paragraph 3 mainly about ?

A. How the app works B. How the app was created

C. What makes the app popular D. What people can do with the app

3. How does SocialRecall help people with prosopagnosia?

A. By giving names to the photos in their smartphones.

B. By collecting information previously entered in the phone.

C. By providing the information of a person when they first meet.

D. By showing the persons information when it spots a stored face.

4. What can we learn about SocialRecall from the passage?

A. It may put people’s privacy at risk.

B. It has caused unintended consequences.

C. It can prevent some communication disorders.

D. It is praised by users for its protective measures.

参考答案: B A D A

(二十三)

Some colors people see late at night could cause signs of clinical (临床的) depression. That was the finding of a study that builds on earlier study findings. They show that individuals who live or work in low levels of light overnight can develop clinical depression. Doctors use the word “clinical depression” to describe severe form of depression. Signs may include loss of interest or pleasure in most activities, low energy levels and thoughts of death or suicide.

In the new study, American investigators designed an experiment that exposed hamsters (仓鼠) to different colors. The researchers chose hamsters because they are nocturnal, which means they sleep during the day and are active at night.

The animals were separated into four groups. One group of hamsters was kept in the dark during their night-time period. Another group was placed in front of a blue light, a third group slept in front of a white light, while a fourth was put in front of a red light. After four weeks, the researchers noted how much sugary water the hamsters drank. They found that the most depressed animals drank the least amount of water.

Randy Nelson heads the Department of Neuroscience at Ohio State University. He says animals that slept in blue and white light appeared to be the most depressed. “What we saw is that these animals didn’t show any sleep uneasiness at all but they did mess up biological clock genes and they did show depressive sign while if they were in the dim red light, they did not.”

Randy Nelson notes that photosensitive (感光的) cells in the eyes have little to do with eyesight. He says these cells send signals to the area of the brain that controls what has been called the natural sleep-wake cycle.

He says there’s a lot of blue in white light. This explains why the blue light and white light hamsters appear to be more depressed than the hamsters seeing red light or darkness.

1. Why do researchers use hamsters in the experiment?

A. They are easy to observe and study.

B. They are similar to humans in dealing with colors.

C. They are sensitive to colors like human beings.

D. They are active at night and sleep during the day.

2. What sign shows that the hamsters are being depressed?

A. They drink less sugary water.B. They don’t sleep well.

C. Their eyesight becomes worse.D. Their energy level becomes low.

3.What tends to cause hamsters to be depressed according to the text?

A. Dim light B. Red light C. Blue light D. Darkness

4. What can help people who work late at night to avoid being depressed?

A. Not being exposed to dim red light when using computers.

B. Equipping their computer screens to put it more in the reddish light.

C. Living or working in low levels of light overnight.

D. Going to see doctors of clinical depression regularly for help.

参考答案: D A C B

(二十四)

If you wear glasses, chances are you are smarter. Research published in the famous British journal Nature Communications has found that people who displayed higher levels of intelligence were almost 30 percent more likely to wear glasses.

The scientists studied the genes of thousands of people between the ages of 16 and 102.The study showed intelligence can be connected to physical characteristics. One characteristic was eyesight. In out of 10 people who were more intelligent, there was a higher chance they needed glasses. Scientists also said being smarter has other benefits. It is connected to better health.

It is important to remember these are connections which are not proven causes. Scientists call this correlation. Just because something is connected to something else does not mean one of those things caused the other. And it’s worth noting that what constitutes intelligence is subjective and can be difficult, if not impossible, to measure.

Forget genes though. Plenty of proof shows wearing glasses makes people think you are more intelligent, even if you do not need glasses. A number of studies have found people who wear glasses are seen as smarter, hard-working and honest. Many lawyers use this idea to help win their cases. Lawyer Harvey Solves explained this. Glasses soften their appearance. He said Sometimes there has been a huge amount of proof showing that people he was defending broke the law. He had them wear glasses and they weren’t found guilty.

Glasses are also used to show someone is intelligent in movies and on TV. Ideas about people who wear glasses have begun to shift. People who do not need glasses sometimes wear them for fashion only. They want to look worldly or cool. But not everyone is impressed by this idea, though. GQ magazine said people who wear glasses for fashion are trying too hard to look smart and hip (时髦的). However, that hasn’t stopped many celebrities from happily wearing glasses even if they do not need them. Justin Bieber is just one high-profile fan of fashion glasses.

1. What does the new study show?

A. People wearing glasses are smarter.

B. People wearing glasses are healthier.

C. Wearing glasses can make people cleverer.

D. Wearing glasses is associated with higher IQ.

2. What does the underlined word in Paragraph 3 mean?

A. Shift.B. Link. C. Proof. D. Consequence.

3. Why do some lawyers ask their clients to wear glasses in court?

A. It can create a moral image. B. It can mislead the witnesses.

C. It can highlight clients’ qualities. D. It can prove the clients’ innocence.

4. What is the general attitude to those who wear glasses for fashion?

A. Positive. B. Negative. C. MixedD. Indifferent.

参考答案: D B A C

(二十五)

There’s a new frontier in 3D printing that’s beginning to come into focus: food. Recent development has made possible machines that print, cook, and serve foods on a mass scale. And the industry isn’t stopping there.

Food production

With a 3D printer, a cook can print complicated chocolate sculptures and beautiful pieces for decoration on a wedding cake. Not everybody can do that — it takes years of experience, but a printer makes it easy. A restaurant in Spain uses a Foodini to “re-create forms and pieces” of food that are “exactly the same,” freeing cooks to complete other tasks. In another restaurant, all of the dishes and desserts it serves are 3D-printed, rather than farm to table.

Sustainability

The global population is expected to grow to 9.6 billion by 2050, and some analysts estimate that food production will need to be raised by 50 percent to maintain current levels. Sustainability is becoming a necessity. 3D food printing could probably contribute to the solution. Some experts believe printers could use hydrocolloids (水解胶体) from plentiful renewable like algae (藻类) and grass to replace the familiar ingredients (烹饪原料). 3D printing can reduce fuel use and emissions. Grocery stores of the future might stock “food” that lasts years on end, freeing up shelf space and reducing transportation and storage requirements.

Nutrition

Future 3D food printers could make processed food healthier. Hod Lipson, a professor at Columbia University, said, “Food printing could allow consumers to print food with customized nutritional content, like vitamins. So instead of eating a piece of yesterday’s bread from the supermarket, you’d eat something baked just for you on demand.”

Challenges

Despite recent advancements in 3D food printing, the industry has many challenges to overcome. Currently, most ingredients must be changed to a paste (糊状物) before a printer can use them, and the printing process is quite time-consuming, because ingredients interact with each other in very complex ways. On top of that, most of the 3D food printers now are restricted to dry ingredients, because meat and milk products may easily go bad. Some experts are skeptical about 3D food printers, believing they are better suited for fast food restaurants than homes and high-end restaurants.

1. What benefit does 3D printing bring to food production?

A. It helps cooks to create new dishes.

B. It saves time and effort in cooking.

C. It improves the cooking conditions.

D. It contributes to restaurant decorations.

2. What can we learn about 3D food printing from Paragraphs 3?

A. It solves food shortages easily.

B. It quickens the transportation of food.

C. It needs no space for the storage of food.

D. It uses renewable materials as sources of food.

3. How can 3D printing help protect the environmental according to Paragraph 3?

A. By using hydrocolloids.B. By replacing the common ingredients.

C. By reducing fuel use and emissions. D. By freeing up shelf space.

D. can keep all the nutrition in raw materials

4. What is the main factor that prevents 3D food printing from spreading widely?

A. The printing process is complicated. B. 3D food printers are too expensive.

C. Food materials have to be dry.D. Some experts doubt 3D food printing.

参考答案: B D C C

(二十六)

Healthfoodisageneraltermappliedtoallkindsoffoodthatisconsideredmorehealthy than the types of food sold in supermarkets. For example, whole grains, dried beans, and corn oil are health food.Anarrower classification ofhealth food is natural food.Thisterm isused todistinguishbetween types ofthesamefood. Rawhoney is a natural sweetener,whilerefinedsugar is not.Fresh fruit is anatural food, but canned fruit,withsugarsandotheradditives(添加剂),isinto.Themostexacttermofallandthenarrowestclassificationwithinhealthfoodisorganicfood,usedtodescribefoodthat has been grown on a particular kind of farm. Fruits and vegetables that are grown ingardens,that are treated only withorganic fertilizers,that are notsprayed with poisonous insecticides (杀虫剂), and that are not refined after harvest, are organic food. Meat, fish, dairy and poultry products from animals that are fed only on organically-grown feed and that are not injected with hormones are organic food.

In choosing the type of food you eat, then, you have basically two choices: inorganic, processed food, or organic, unprocessed food. A wise decision should include studyofthe reasonwhyprocessedfoodcontainschemicals,someof which are proved to be poisonous and that vitamin content is greatly reduced in processed food.Bread is typically used by health food supporters as an example of a processed food. First,theseedsfromwhichthegrainisgrownaretreatedwithachemicalwhichis extremelyharmful.Later.Thegrainissprayedwithanumberofverydeadly insecticides.Afterthegrainhasbeenmadeintoflour,itismadewhitewithanother chemicalwhichisalsopoisonous.Next,adoughconditionerisaddedalongwitha softener.Theconditionerandsoftenerarepoisons,andinfact,thesoftenerhas sickened and killed experimental animals.

Averypoisonoussee, we buy our food on the basis of smell, color,and texture, instead ofvitamincontent, and manufacturers giveus whatwewant, even if itispoisonous. The alternative? Eat health foods, preferably the organic variety.

1. What is the passage mainly about?

A. Health food.B. The processing of bread

C. Processed foodD. Poisons from the food.

2. What do all of the additives in bread have in common?

A. They are poisonous.B. They are organic.

C. They canprevent moldiness.D. They can kill laboratory animals.

3. What happens to food when it is processed?

A. The basic content remains the same.

B. Vitamin is not available after processing.

C. The vitamin content increases a bit.

D. The vitamin content is greatly reduced.

4. We normally buy food on the basis of ____.

A.organic varietyB. beauty

C. refined contentsD. color and texture

参考答案: A A D D

(二十七)

When it comes to modern communication, security is a big concern. It seems like we’re forever hearing about hackers (黑客) leaking (泄) emails, passwords and other important personal information.

But thanks to a breakthrough by Chinese scientists, who won the 2018 Newcomb Cleveland Prize in February, we may soon never have to worry about our data again，duo to the satellite called Micius that uses cutting-edge technology to send and receive information.

So what exactly makes the information sent to and from Micius so secure? Micius is the first satellite of its kind to usequantum key distribution (量子密钥分发)，which uses particles that transmit light to transfer information from one point to another. Currently, it can communicate with two base stations, both of which are located high up in the mountains in two different areas of Tibet, around 1,200 kilometers apart. Data is sent between the satellite and one of the base stations in the form of a ray of light，which makes it almost impossible for data sent and received using quantum satellite technology to be stolen, as the connection will be broken if someone tries to hack it.

“Any eavesdropper (偷听者) on the quantum channel attempting to gain information… can be found by the communicating users ,” the scientists wrote in the paper. However, the technology does have a few limitations. For example, the process only works at night, as the information isn’t able to pass through sunlight. And there’s currently only a 10-minute window each day during which Micius can communicate with each of the base stations, according to Xinhua. This is because the satellite and base station need to be close enough to each other for the information to successfully make it to and from outer space.

Despite these small issues, the scientific community across the world has reacted positively to China’s achievements in this groundbreaking project. “This Chinese experiment is a quite remarkable technological achievement,” Artur Ekert, a professor of quantum physics at the University of Oxford, told BBC News. And Karl Ziemelis, an editor for Nature, told Xinhua, “It’s a testament to China’s investments an significant efforts in the physical sciences that this group has been able to push research in practical quantum communication technologies to such an astronomical height.

1. What is the article mainly about ?

A. The security problems of modern communication.

B. Mozi’s impact on the development of technology.

C. The wide applications of quantum key distribution.

D. How Micius secures communication and its limitations.

2. Why it is safe to use quantum key distribution to transfer information?

A. The process usually works at night.

B. The connection will be broken if it is hacked.

C. It transfers data too fast for it to be stolen.

D. The data is transferred between two secure base stations.

3. What does the underlined word in the last paragraph probably mean?

A. Pioneering B. EncouragingC. BackwardD. Exciting

4. What does the scientific world think of the satellite Micius?

A. It remains to be seen whether it will be beneficial.

B. It is an extraordinary technological breakthrough.

C. The cost for quantum communication technologies is huge.

D. It doesn’t deserve a lot of attention given its limitations.

参考答案：D B A.B

(二十八)

Researchers have created a backpack that has a computer and medicines in it that can help even untrained soldiers save the lives of wounded troops. Wounded soldiers have a better chance of survival if they get help soon after being hurt and are quickly taken to a hospital or clinic. But soldiers who do not have medical training may not know how to help their injured friends.

Doctors and engineers have developed what they call an “intelligent backpack”. It has a computer and electronic measuring devices. The backpack also has robotic instruments and medicines ready to give to injured troops.

About 16 doctors and engineers from the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University and several other places are working on the project. The U. S. Department of Defense has given money to the project. Ron Poropatich leads the project. He is a retired army surgeon. He says the backpack will help soldiers care for those who are injured. The devices included in the backpack can monitor a person’s heart rate and blood pressure. The robotic instruments can even tell whether the soldier has a collapsed lung.

The intelligent backpack’s computer can compare information gathered about the injured soldier with thousands of similar cases, and quickly tell the best methods to use to save the soldier’s life.

Sometimes, it is not always possible to quickly remove the injured soldier from the battlefield. So, Dr. Poropatich says, the researchers hope to create a backpack that will have devices that can keep a soldier alive for a long time. Dr. Poropatich hopes the backpack and its instruments will be ready for testing animals in about three years.

1. What can we learn from the first paragraph?

A. Soldiers should have taken medical training.

B. Most of the soldiers can’t use the backpack correctly.

C. The backpack can play a big part in the battlefield.

D. War or battle has brought harm to the world.

2. How many kinds of items are mentioned in the backpack?

A. 2. B. 3. C. 4. D. 5.

3. What can we know according to Ron Poropatich?

A. The project got support from the whole world.

B. The robotic instruments can monitor lungs.

C. The injurer’s heart disease can he cured.

D. The devices can adjust soldiers’ blood pressure.

4. Which of the following is the best title for the passage?

A. Researchers and Their Wonderful Discovery

B. Medical Care Tested on the Wounded Soldiers

C. Robotic Devices Used in the Battlefield

D. Emergency Medical Care in a Backpack

参考答案: C C B D

(二十九)

Have you ever felt so tired after staying up for a night that even coffee doesn’t give you the energy that you need? You may have an energy drink, but the benefits of drinking one are heavily outweighed by the risks.

In the past years, more and more studies have found the deadly effects of energy drinks on your bodies. The sugar, caffeine and energy supplements in energy drinks make up a deadly mixture of ingredients that can affect your heart function and send you to the hospital!

A study by the University of Bonn, Germany found that frequent consumption of energy drinks can greatly change the way your heart functions. The study went on to say that consuming energy drinks often causes significantly increased heart contractions in adults, which has the potential of putting you at risk of irregular heartbeats.

It is possible that many people are unaware of the alarming side effects of energy drinks because of the way they are labeled. Most energy drinks contain between 80 milligrams to over 350 milligrams of caffeine, sugar and energy supplements. When an energy drink is marketed as a diet supplement it may be distributed without a “nutrition facts” label, which would show the harmful supplements that are in the drink. However, even if energy drinks are Food and Drug Administration(FDA) approved, they don’t have to show the number of supplements.

Energy drinks may be widely available but they aren’t the healthiest or safest choice for your body. Stay naturally energized, get organized and stay on top of your work so that you don’t have to stay up all night to complete assigned tasks. If you’d like a natural energy boost, you could make time for a short workout, which will give you all of the energy you need!

1. Which of the following is the side effect of the energy drinks?

A. Making people thinner

B. Making people’s heart bigger

C. Making people run a risk of falling ill.

D. Making people suffer from heart attacks

2. Why are many people unaware of the harmful effects of energy drinks?

A. The harmful materials are not labeled

B. FDA thinks they are healthy drinks

C. They don’t read the label carefully

D. Factories of energy drinks lie to drinkers

3. What is the last paragraph mainly about?

A. The effects of energy drinks B. The benefits of doing exercise

C. The better choice of right drinks D. The way to have enough energy

4. What is the main idea of the text?

A. Don’t drink energy drinks

B. Many people enjoy energy drinks

C. The food materials are harmless.

D. Energy drinks could send you to hospital

参考答案: C A D D

(三十)

The need to feed a growing population is putting much pressure on the world’s supply of water. With 97% of the world’s water too salty to be drunk or used in agriculture, the worldwide supply of water needs careful management, especially in agriculture. Although the idea of a water shortage seems strange to someone fortunate enough to live in a high rainfall country, many of the world’s agricultural industries experience constant water shortages.

Although dams can be built to store water for agricultural use in dry areas and dry seasons, the costs of water redistribution are very high. Not only is there the cost of the engineering itself, but there is also an environmental cost to be considered. Where valleys (山谷) are flooded to create dams, houses are lost and wildlife homes destroyed. Besides, water may flow easily through pipes to fields, but it cannot be transported from one side of the world to the other. Each country must therefore rely on the management of its own water to supply its farming requirements.

This is particularly troubling for countries with agricultural industries in areas dependent on irrigation . In Texas, farmers’ overuse of irrigation water has resulted in a 25% reduction of the water stores. In the Central Valley area of southwestern USA, a huge water engineering project provided water for farming in dry valleys, but much of the water use has been poorly managed.

Saudi Arabia’s attempts to grow wheat in desert areas have seen the pumping of huge quantities of irrigation water from underground reserves. Because there is no rainfall in these areas, such reserves can only decrease, and it is believed that fifty years of pumping will see them run dry.

1. What can we learn from the first two paragraphs ?

A. Much of the world’s water is available for use.

B. People in high rainfall countries feel lucky.

C. The costs of water redistribution should be considered.

D. Water can be easily carried through pipes across the world.

2. Which of the following is true according to the passage?

A. The water stores in Texas have been reduced by 75%.

B. Most industries in the world suffer from water shortages.

C. The underground water in Saudi Arabia might run out in 50 years.

D. The project in the Central Valley solved the management problem.

3. What is most likely to be discussed in the paragraph that follows?

A. Steps to improving water use management.

B. Ways to reduce the costs of building dams.

C. Measures to deal with worldwide water shortages.

D. Approaches to handling the pressure on water supply.

4. What is the text mainly about?

A. water supply and increasing population

B. water use management and agriculture

C. water redistribution and wildlife protection

D. water shortages and environmental protection

参考答案: C C A B

(三十一)

Sometimes, the simplest ideas are the best. For example, to absorb heat from the sun to heat water, you need large, flat, black surfaces. One way to do that is to build those surfaces specially, on the roofs of buildings. But why go to all that trouble when cities are full of black surfaces already, in the form of asphalt(柏油) roads?

Ten years ago, this thought came into the mind of Arian de Bondt, a Dutch engineer. He finally persuaded his boss to follow it up. The result is that their building is now heated in winter and cooled in summer by a system that relies on the surface of the road outside.

The heat-collector is a system of connected water pipes. Most of them run from one side of the street to the other, just under the asphalt road. Some, however, dive deep into the ground.

When the street surface gets hot in summer, water pumped through the pipes picks up this heat and takes it underground through one of the diving pipes. At a depth of 100 metres lies a natural aquifer (蓄水层) into which several heat exchangers (交换器) have been built. The hot water from the street runs through these exchangers, warming the ground-water, before returning to the surface through another pipe. The aquifer is thus used as a heat store.

In winter, the working system is changed slightly. Water is pumped through the heat exchangers to pick up the heat stored during summer. This water goes into the building and is used to warm the place up. After performing that task, it is pumped under the asphalt and its remaining heat keeps the road free of snow and ice.

1. Which of the following is true according to the first two paragraphs?

A. Arian de Bondt got his idea from his boss.

B. Large, flat, black surfaces need to be built in cities.

C. The Dutch engineer’s system has been widely used.

D. Heat can also be collected from asphalt roads.

2. For what purpose are the diving pipes used?

A. To absorb heat from the sun.

B. To store heat for future use.

C. To turn solar energy into heat energy.

D. To carry heat down below the surface.

3. From the last paragraph we can learn that ____.

A. some pipes have to be re-arranged in winter

B. the system can do more than warming up the building

C. the exchangers will pick up heat from the street surface

D. less heat may be collected in winter than in summer

4. What is most likely to be discussed in the paragraph that follows?

A. What we shall do if the system goes wrong.

B. What we shall do if there are no asphalt roads.

C. How the system cools the building in summer.

D. How the system collects heat in spring and autumn.

参考答案: D D B C

(三十二)

Children stuck in hospital no longer have to miss out on schoolwork，following the launch of an avatar robot that helps kids attend class from their hospital bed. In the robotic revolution, where Artificial Intelligence (AI) is gradually being combined in various parts of society, it seems that robots could also be playing an important role in the future of education. The news came a day before Education Secretary, Damian Hinds, announced his commitment to help place technology at the most significant position of children’s learning.

Mr. Hinds is now calling for tech companies, such as Apple and Microsoft, to help make his vision a reality. He said, “Schools have the power to choose the tech tools which are best for them and their budgets. But they cannot do this alone. It is only by building a strong partnership between the government, technology companies and the education field that there will be a sustainable，focused solution which will finally support and inspire the learners of today and tomorrow.”

This East-midland-based avatar robot project will receive a fund of $544,143 from the Department of Education. To carry out the project, 90 “tele-visual” robots will attend lessons in schools and act as a substitute for the unwell student. The avatar robot, called AV1, is also able to take part in classroom discussions and even communicate with friends.

The child, suffering from a long-term illness, can operate the robot from the hospital through an iPad and listen to the conversations occurring in the lessons, by simply rotating (旋转) the robot’s head to get a full view of the classroom. If the child wants to ask a question, the AV1’s head flashes blue. Additional features include a whispering mode that permits the child to converse in a lower voice, allowing only the children within close range to hear the robot.

Roboticists are hopeful that the AV1 machine will help children in hospital feel less isolated (孤独的), and simplify their return to school. Announcing the project, Minister for School Standards Nick Gibb said: “Every child, no matter the challenges they face in their life, should have the opportunity to reach their potential through an excellent education. School standards in this country are rising, but for children who cannot attend mainstream or special schools, this quality varies greatly, with low expectations about their outcomes and futures.”

1. How can AI finally help the students learn according to Mr. Hinds?

A. By placing AI technologies at the center of education.

B. By getting tech companies to make it a reality.

C. By planning budgets to choose the best tech tools.

D. By close teamwork between related organizations.

2. What might not be a task of AV1?

A. Acting as a substitute in the hospital.

B. Joining in classroom discussions.

C. Attending lessons in schools.

D. Chatting with the unwell kids’ friends.

3. What can we know from Paragraph 4 ?

A. The hospitalized kid continues his school life.

B. The hospitalized kid can ask questions when he needs.

C. The hospitalized kid can attend lessons in the classroom.

D. The hospitalized kid talks with classmates through the robot.

4. Why do Roboticists design AV1 for kids in hospital?

A. To help them face their challenges positively

B. To make them regain their health in a short time.

C. To make them feel less lonely and well-prepared for school.

D. To get them the chance to reach their full potential.

参考答案: D A C C

(三十三)

An international team of astronomers in Washington D.C. announced Wednesday it had successfully captured the first-ever image of a black hole and published it.

The picture shows the black hole having a dark center, encircled by a bright orange and yellow ring spreading outward. Black holesare areas in space where gravity is so strong that nothing – not even light – can escape them. They are believed to be formed by collapsed (陨落的) stars. The presence of black holes affects the surrounding environment in extreme ways. They are not easy to capture on camera because they are surrounded by thick dust material and extremely hot gases.

But scientists say they were able to produce the new image from data collected from a series of radio telescopes around the world. Harvard University scientist Sheperd Doeleman, who leads the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project, announced the image discovery. “We are delighted to be able to report today that we have seen what we thought was unseeable. We have also taken a picture of it.” He explained that the image resulted from a combined effort involving all eight of the EHT radio telescopes working at the same time. It has a mass 6.5 billion times greater than Earth’s sun.

Researchers said that the EHT project created an Earth-sized “virtual (虚拟的) telescope” to capture the highest possible image quality. The size and shape of the shadow matches the precise predictions of Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

Sheperd Doeleman said the new image provides the first visual evidence to confirm that theory. It also helps to unlock the mystery of black holes. “We didn’t see something that was unexpected. We saw something that really had a ring to it.”

Even though the data was first gathered in 2017, it required a huge effort to produce the image published on Wednesday.

1. Which is True about the black hole？

A. It has a dark surface.

B. It consists of thick dust.

C. It is visible to the eye.

D. It swallows everything approaching it.

2. What does the underlined word “They” in Paragraph 2 refer to?

A. Black holes.B. Collapsed stars.C. Extreme ways.D. Hot gases.

3. How did scientists get the image?

A. By collecting available data.

B. Through the cooperation of radio telescopes.

C. With the help of a huge camera.

D. From Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

4. What does the image discovery contribute to?

A. Uncovering the secret of black holes.

B. Confirming people’s wisdom.

C. Testing the function of virtualtelescopes.

D. Providing first-hand evidence for astronomers.

参考答案：D A B A

(三十四)

When a leafy plant is under attack, it doesn’t sit quietly. Back in 1983, two scientists, Jack Schultz and Ian Baldwin, reported that young maple trees getting bitten by insects send out a particular smell that neighboring plants can get. These chemicals come from the injured parts of the plant and seem to be an alarm. What the plants pump through the air is a mixture of chemicals known as volatile organic compounds, VOCs for short.

Scientists have found that all kinds of plants give out VOCs when being attacked. It’s a plant’s way of crying out. But is anyone listening? Apparently. Because we can watch the neighbors react.

Some plants pump out smelly chemicals to keep insects away. But others do double duty. They pump out perfumes designed to attract different insects who are natural enemies to the attackers. Once they arrive, the tables are turned. The attacker who was lunching now becomes lunch.

In study after study, it appears that these chemical conversations help the neighbors. The damage is usually more serious on the first plant, but the neighbors, relatively speaking, stay safer because they heard the alarm and knew what to do.

Does this mean that plants talk to each other? Scientists don’t know. Maybe the first plant just made a cry of pain or was sending a message to its own branches, and so, in effect, was talking to itself. Perhaps the neighbors just happened to “overhear” the cry. So information was exchanged, but it wasn’t a true, intentional back and forth.

Charles Darwin, over 150 years ago, imagined a world far busier, noisier and more intimate (亲密的) than the world we can see and hear. Our senses are weak. There’s a whole lot going on.

1. What does a plant do when it is under attack?

A. It makes noises. B. It gets help from other plants.

C. It stands quietly. D. It sends out certain chemicals.

2. What does the author mean by “the tables are turned” in Paragraph 3?

A. The attackers get attacked.

B. The insects gather under the table.

C. The plants get ready to fight back.

D. The perfumes attract natural enemies.

3. Scientists find from their studies that plants can .

A. predict natural disastersB. protect themselves against insects

C. talk to one another intentionallyD. help their neighbors when necessary

4. What can we infer from the last paragraph?

A. The world is changing faster than ever.

B. People have stronger senses than before.

C. The world is more complex than it seems.

D. People in Darwin’s time were more imaginative.

参考答案: D A B C

（三十五）

Your house may have an effect on your figure. Experts say the way you design your home could play a role in whether you pack on the pounds or keep them off. You can make your environment work for you instead of against you. Here are some ways to turn your home into part of your diet plan.

Open the curtains and turn up the lights. Dark environments are more likely to encourage overeating. for people are often less self-conscious (难为情) when they’re in poorly lit places-and so more likely to eat lots of food. If your home doesn’t have enough window light, get more lamps and flood the place with brightness.

Mind the colors. Research suggests warm colors fuel our appetites. In one study, people who ate meals in a blue room consumed 33 percent less than those in a yellow or red room. Warm colors like yellow make food appear more appetizing. while cold colors make us feel less hungry. So when it’s time to repair, go blue.

Don’t forget the clock -or the radio. People who eat slowly tend to consume about 70 fewer calories per meal than those who rush through their meals. Begin keeping track of the time, and try to make dinner last at least 30 minutes, And while you’re at it, actually sit down to eat. If you need some help slowing down, turn on relaxing music. It makes you less likely to rush through a meal.

Downsize the dishes. Big serving bowls and plates can easily make us fat. We eat about 22 percent more when using a 12-inch plate instead of a 10-inch plate. When we choose a large spoon over a smaller one, total intake (摄入) jumps by 14 percent. And we’ll pour about 30 percent more liquid into a short, wide glass than a tall, skinny glass.

1. The text is especially helpful for those who care about ____.

A. their home comforts. B. their body shape

C. house buying D. healthy diets

2. A home environment in blue can help people ____.

A. digest food better B. reduce food intake

C. burn more calories D. regain their appetites

3. What are people advised to do at mealtimes?

A. Eat quickly B. Play fast music

C. Use smaller spoons D. Turn down the light

4 What can be a suitable title for the text?

A. Is Your House Making You Fat?B. Ways of Serving Dinner

C. Elects of Self-consciousnessD. Is Your Home Environment Relaxing?

参考答案： B B C A

(三十六)

A build-it-yourself solar still (蒸馏器) is one of the best ways to obtain drinking water in areas where the liquid is not readily available. Developed by two doctors in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, it’s an excellent water collector. Unfortunately, you must carry the necessary equipment with you, since it’s all but impossible to find natural substitutes. The only components required, though, are a 5’ × 5’ sheet of clear or slightly milky plastic, six feet of plastic tube, and a container— perhaps just a drinking cup — to catch the water. These pieces can be folded into a neat little pack and fastened on your belt.

To construct a working still, use a sharp stick or rock to dig a hole four feet acrossand three feet deep. Try to make the hole in a damp area to increase the water catcher’s productivity. Place your cup in the deepest part of the hole. Then lay the tube in place so that one end rests all the way in the cup and the rest of the line runs up — and out — the side of the hole.

Next, cover the hole with the plastic sheet, securing the edges of the plastic with dirt and weighting the sheet’s center down with a rock. The plastic should now form a cone (圆锥体) with 45-degree-angled sides. The low point of the sheet must be centered directly over, and no more than three inches above, the cup.

The solar still works by creating a greenhouse under the plastic. Ground water evaporates (蒸发) and collects on the sheet until small drops of water form, run down the material and fall off into the cup. When the container is full, you can suck the refreshment out through the tube, and won’t have to break down the still every time you need a drink.

1. What do we know about the solar still equipment from the first paragraph?

A. It’s delicate. B. It’s expensive.C. It’s complex.D. It’s portable.

2. What does the underlined phrase “the water catcher” in Paragraph 2 refer to?

A. The tube. B. The still.C. The hole. D. The cup.

3. What’s the last step of constructing a working solar still?

A. Dig a hole of a certain size. B. Put the cup in place.

C. Weight the sheet’s center down. D. Cover the hole with the plastic sheet.

4. When a solar still works, drops of water come into the cup from ____.

A. the plastic tube B. outside the hole

C. the open air D. beneath the sheet

参考答案：D B C D

（三十七）

As Internet users become more dependent on the Internet to store information, are people remembering less? If you know your computer will save information, why store it in your own personal memory, your brain? Experts are wondering if the Internet is changing what we remember and how.

In a recent study, Professor Betsy Sparrow conducted some experiments. She and her research team wanted to know how the Internet is changing memory. In the first experiment, they gave people 40 unimportant facts to type into a computer. The first group of people understood that the computer would save the information. The second group understood that the computer would not save it. Later, the second group remembered the information better. People in the first group knew they could find the information again, so they did not try to remember it.

In another experiment, the researchers gave people facts to remember, and told them where to find the information on the computer. The information was in a specific computer folder (文件夹).Surprisingly, people later remembered the folder location (位置)better than the facts. When people use the Internet, they do not remember the information. Rather, they remember how to find it. This is called “ transactive memory (交互记忆)”.

According to Sparrow, we are not becoming people with poor memories as a result of the Internet. Instead, computer users are developing stronger transactive memories; that is, people are learning how to organize huge quantities of information so that they are able to access it at a later date. This doesn’t mean we are becoming either more or less intelligent, but there is no doubt that the way we use memory is changing.

1. The passage begins with two questions to ____.

A. introduce the main topic B. show the author’s attitude

C..describe how to use the Internet D. explain how to store information

2. What can we learn about the first experiment?

A. The Sparrow’s team typed the information into a computer.

B. The two groups remembered the information equally well.

C. The first group did not try to remember the information.

D. The second group did not understand the information.

3. In transactive memory, people ____.

A. keep the information in mind

B. change the quantity of information

C. organize information like a computer

D. remember how to find the information

4. What is the effect of the Internet according to Sparrow’s research?

A. We are using memory differently.

B. We are becoming more intelligent.

C. We have poorer memories than before.

D. We need a better way to access information.

参考答案： A C D A

(三十八)

Scientists have solved the mystery of why the overwhelming majority of mammoth fossils (化石) are male.

Much like wild elephants today, young male Ice Age mammoths probably travelled around alone and more often got themselves into risky situations where they were swept into rivers, or fell through ice or into mud, lakes or sinkholes that preserved their bones for thousands of years, scientists say.

Females, on the other hand, travelled in groups led by an older matriarch who knew the landscape and directed her group away from danger.

Without the benefit of living in a herd led by an experienced female, male mammoths had a much higher risk of dying in natural traps such as mud holes, rock cracks and lakes,”said co-author Love Dalen of the Swedish Museum of Natural History in a report published on Thursday in the journal Current Biology.

The study used genetic data to determine the sex of 98 woolly mammoth fossils in Siberia Researchers found that 69% of the samples were male, a heavily unbalanced sex ratio, assuming that the sexes were fairly even at birth.

“We were very surprised because there was no reason to expect a sex bias in the fossil record,” said first author Patricia Pecnerova, also of the Swedish Museum of Natural History. “Therefore, researchers believe that something about the way they lived influenced the way they died. Most bones, tusks, and teeth from mammoths and other Ice Age animals haven’t survived,” explained Dalen.

It is highly likely that the remains that are found in Siberia these days have been preserved because they have been buried, and thus protected from weathering.

These giant, tusked plant eaters disappeared about 4, 000 years ago. While there is no scientific agreement about the causes of their disappearance from the planet, most believe that climate change excessive hunting by humans and the spread of other animals into mammoth feeding grounds were influential factors.

1. The underlined word “matriarch” in paragraph means _______.

A. figure head B. female leader

C. experienced animal D. mature mammoth

2. Why do the majority of mammoth fossils come from male animals?

A. Scientists find it easier to study male fossilized bones.

B. There were more male mammoths in comparison to females.

C. Male mammoths were better able to adapt to the changing circumstances.

D. Male mammoths more frequently died in places where fossils could form.

3. Which of the following is suggested as a reason for mammoths dying out?

A. The increasing competition for food.

B. The cooling of the earth’s temperature

C. The disappearance of male mammoths.

D The risky behavior of younger mammoths.

4. What is the text type of the passage?

A. A newspaper article. B. An academic essay.

C. A historical description. D. A science fiction story.

参考答案：B D A A

(三十九)

If a diver surfaces too quickly, he may suffer the bends. Nitrogen (氮) dissolved in his blood is suddenly liberated by the reduction of pressure. The consequence, if the bubbles accumulate in a joint, is sharp pain and a bent body—thus the name. If the bubbles form in his lungs or his brain, the consequence can be death.

Other air-breathing animals also suffer this decompression (减压) sickness if they surface too fast: whales, for example. And so, long ago, did ichthyosaurs. That these ancient sea animals got the bends can be seen from their bones. If bubbles of nitrogen form inside the bone they can cut off its blood supply. This kills the cells in the bone, and consequently weakens it, sometimes to the point of collapse. Fossil bones that have caved in on themselves are thus a sign that the animal once had the bends.
‎ Bruce Rothschild of the University of Kansas knew all this when he began a study of ichthyosaur bones to find out how widespread the problem was in the past. What he particularly wanted to investigate was how ichthyosaurs adapted to the problem of decompression over the 150 million years. To this end, he and his colleagues traveled the world’s natural-history museums, looking at hundreds of ichthyosaurs from the Triassic period and from the later Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

When he started, he assumed that signs of the bends would be rarer in younger fossils, reflecting their gradual evolution of measures to deal with decompression. Instead, he was astonished to discover the opposite. More than 15% of Jurassic and Cretaceous ichthyosaurs had suffered the bends before they died, but not a single Triassic specimen showed evidence of that sort of injury.

If ichthyosaurs did evolve an anti-decompression means, they clearly did so quickly—and, most strangely, they lost it afterwards. But that is not what Dr Rothschild thinks happened. He suspects it was evolution in other animals that caused the change.

Whales that suffer the bends often do so because they have surfaced to escape a predator such as a large shark. One of the features of Jurassic oceans was an abundance of large sharks and crocodiles, both of which were fond of ichthyosaur lunches. Triassic oceans, by contrast, were mercifully shark- and crocodile-free. In the Triassic, then, ichthyosaurs were top of the food chain. In the Jurassic and Cretaceous, they were prey as well as predator—and often had to make a speedy exit as a result.

1. Which of the following is a typical symptom of the bends?

A. A twisted body. B. A gradual decrease in blood supply.

C. A sudden release of nitrogen in blood. D. A drop in blood pressure.

2. The purpose of Rothschild’s study is to see ____.

A. how often ichthyosaurs caught the bends

B. how ichthyosaurs adapted to decompression

C. why ichthyosaurs bent their bodies

D. when ichthyosaurs broke their bones

3. Rothschild’s finding stated in Paragraph 4 ____.

A. confirmed his assumption B. speeded up his research process

C. disagreed with his assumptionD. changed his research objectives

4. Rothschild might have concluded that ichthyosaurs ______.

A. failed to evolve an anti-decompression means

B. gradually developed measures against the bends

C. died out because of large sharks and crocodiles

D. evolved an anti-decompression means but soon lost it

参考答案：ABCA

(四十)

Who cares if people think wrongly that the Internet has had more important influences than the washing machine? Why does it matter that people are more impressed by the most recent changes?

It would not matter if these misjudgments were just a matter of people’s opinions. However, they have real impacts, as they result in misguided use of scarce resources.

The fascination with the ICT (Information and Communication Technology) revolution, represented by the Internet, has made some rich countries wrongly conclude that making things is so “yesterday” that they should try to live on ideas. This belief in “post-industrial society” has led those countries to neglect their manufacturing sector (制造业) with negative consequences for their economies.

Even more worryingly, the fascination with the Internet by people in rich countries has moved the international community to worry about the “digital divide” between the rich countries and the poor countries. This has led companies and individuals to donate money to developing countries to buy computer equipment and Internet facilities. The question, however, is whether this is what the developing countries need the most. Perhaps giving money for those less fashionable things such as digging wells, extending electricity networks and making more affordable washing machines would have improved people’s lives more than giving every child a laptop computer or setting up Internet centres in rural villages, I am not saying that those things are necessarily more important, but many donators have rushed into fancy programmes without carefully assessing the relative long-term costs and benefits of alternative uses of their money.

In yet another example, a fascination with the new has led people to believe that the recent changes in the technologies of communications and transportation are so revolutionary that now we live in a “borderless world”. As a result, in the last twenty years or so, many people have come to believe that whatever change is happening today is the result of great technological progress, going against which will be like trying to turn the clock back. Believing in such a world, many governments have put an end to some of the very necessary regulations on cross-border flows of capital, labour and goods, with poor results.

Understanding technological trends is very important for correctly designing economic policies, both at the national and the international levels, and for making the right career choices at the individual level. However, our fascination with the latest, and our under valuation of what has already become common, can, and has, led us in all sorts of wrong directions.

1. Misjudgments on the influences of new technology can lead to ____.

A. a lack of confidence in technology B. a slow progress in technology

C. a conflict of public opinions D. a waste of limited resources

2. The example in Paragraph 4 suggests that donators should ____.

A. take people’s essential needs into account

B. make their programs attractive to people

C. ensure that each child gets financial support

D. provide more affordable internet facilities

3. What has led many governments to remove necessary regulations?

A. Neglecting the impacts of technological advances.

B. Believing that the world has become borderless.

C. Ignoring the power of economic development.

D. Over-emphasizing the role of international communication.

4. What can we learn from the passage?

A. People should be encouraged to make more donations.

B. Traditional technology still has a place nowadays.

C. Making right career choices is crucial to personal success.

D. Economic policies should follow technological trends.

参考答案：D A B B

(四十一)

Scientists blame greenhouse gases for being a major cause of climate change around the world. This is because greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere and make the planet warmer.

Carbon dioxide is one of the major greenhouse gases. Most of this heat-trapping gas is produced through human activities related to burning fossil fuels. Several major industries have attempted to move away from fossil fuels in favor of cleaner energy solutions.

Now, a team of researchers from Rice University in the US has announced a successful experiment that turned carbon dioxide into useful liquid fuel and the research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy. The researchers created a device, called a reactor, which changes carbon dioxide into a pure form of formic acid, a substance (物质) found in ants and some other insects, as well as in many plants.

Traditional methods for turning carbon dioxide into formic acid require intense purification processes. Such methods are very costly and require a lot of energy. The Rice University team said it was able to reduce the number of steps used in the traditional process to create a low-cost, energy-saving method.

The researchers noted that the technology could be a big help in solving how to store large amounts of power in small places. Wang, a lead scientist, said formic acid can be used as a better storage material for hydrogen. The team’s findings suggest formic acid can hold nearly 1,000 times the energy as the same amount of hydrogen. Since hydrogen is difficult to shrink down and store, it currently presents a big challenge for hydrogen fuel-cell cars.

He added that the team plans to keep working to improve the process. The team also aims to reduce the cost in hopes of bringing the technology to places around the world to help fight climate change.

1. What did the researchers have to do before the experiment?

A. Make a reactor. B. Find many insects.

C. Produce formic acid. D. Heat carbon dioxide.

2. What is Wang’s attitude towards the new purification process?

A. Doubtful.B. Objective. C. Confident. D. Uncertain.

3. Where is the passage most likely from?

A. A diary. B. A journal. C. A novel. D.A book review.

4. What can be the best title for the passage?

A. The benefit of turning carbon dioxide into formic acid

B. The cause of global warming

C. The way to store large amounts of power in small places.

D. The way to turn carbon dioxide into valuablefuel

参考答案: A C B D

(四十二)

Do you live in a city where looking up the air quality forecast is just as important as checking the weather forecast for the day? Many places around the world have terrible pollution problems. But now new research suggests that we might be able to protect ourselves，naturally and easily— simply by taking vitamin B.

The study was conducted by a team of international researchers. Their focus was on a pollutant known as PM2.5. Its size, approximately l/40th the width of a human hair, makes it particularly dangerous because it is readily inhaled and small enough to spread through the body via the blood. This can cause damage to the lungs if PM2.5 is being breathed in regularly.

The current experiment involved subjects being exposed to clean air and a placebo (安慰剂) to record baseline responses. They were given the placebo for four weeks, then exposed through a face mask to air from a highly polluted area in downtown Toronto. The researchers measured methylation (甲基化) changes to DNA; the damage increased in each participant. However, in the repeated experiment, when the volunteers were given a vitamin supplement containing 1 milligram of vitamin B12, 50 mg of vitamin B6, and 2.5 mg of folic acid daily for four weeks, it reduced the damage to the DNA by a range of 28 to 76 percent.

The results indicate how prevention at an individual level could be used to fight the harmful effects of PM2.5. However, researchers stressed that research was in its early stages. Future studies, especially in heavily polluted areas, are urgently needed and they’ll finally develop preventive measures using B vitamins to prevent the health effects of air pollution.

1. What does the underlined word “inhaled” in Paragraph 2 refer to?

A. breathed.B. smelt.C. approached.D. discovered.

2. How does the author introduce the current experiment?

A. By analyzing causes.B. By giving examples.

C. By making comparisons.D. By describing effects.

3. What can we learn about the researchers in the last paragraph?

A. They warned people of heavy pollution.

B. They regretted not using enough volunteers.

C. They’ll soon find more ways to test B vitamins.

D. They’ll confirm the findings in highly polluted areas.

4. What can be the best title of the text?

A. PM2.5 Is Most Deadly

B. Vitamin B Benefits People Most

C. Vitamin B Offers Air Pollution Protection

D. Air Quality Forecast Is Extremely Important

参考答案： A C D C

(四十三)

Welcome to Glass of Venice, the number one importer and retailer of authentic Murano Glass in the US and one of the top names among Murano Glass retailers worldwide. We work directly with artisans (工匠) from Murano, Italy to bring you the unique centuries old art rooted in tradition and skill. Every item is handcrafted with passion using ancient techniques that made Murano glassmakers world-famous since the 8th century. Now you needn’t make a trip to Murano to own an authentic piece of art as beautiful as Venice itself.

At the time of mass-produced products that carry no special meaning, Murano Glass gives you an opportunity to express your individuality. Every piece is unique.

Murano Glass is 100% handcrafted in Venice. Be a part of the centuries-old Venetian tradition!

A piece of the artisan’s heart and soul is captured in every Murano Glass creation. Crafting Murano Glass jewelry, vases, sculptures and other functional and decorative pieces is a complicated process from silica, minerals, water, and fire. Venetian artisans create masterpieces. The techniques they use are centuries old, and artisans have been trained for many years in their fathers’ and grandfathers, workshops before they can attain a revered status of the true master of the craft.

Murano Glass masters are not just artisans; they are artists. Ever since Murano glassmakers guild (公会) was established on this Venetian island in 1291, they have been innovating, seeking new methods of creating glass, and pushing forward to express new philosophies and artistic visions through glass. This made Murano Glass get its own art form, and it has been recognized at international expositions and top art museums and galleries worldwide. Today the famous glass masters working on Murano Island are first and foremost artists, and Glass of Venice is proud to offer artistic masterpieces from top Murano glass workshops.

1. What can be inferred about Murano Glass?

A. It is made by using modern machines.B. Every piece is made in the US.

C. Every piece has a special style.D. It was designed in the 8th century.

2. The underlined word “revered” in Paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to “____.”

A. considerateB. relieved C. complexD. respected

3. What were Murano Glass masters devoted to doing according to the text?

A. Exploring ways to develop the creation of glass.

B. Exporting Murano Glass to many foreign countries.

C. Building art museums to show the beauty of Murano Glass.

D. Creating a special art form to express their philosophies of life.

4. What is the author’s attitude to Murano Glass masters’ works?

A. Critical.B. Admirable. C. Cautious.D. Aggressive.

参考答案： C D A B

(四十四)

Over a hundred years ago in 1911, something strange was found in the glaciers of Antarctica. Crilffith Taylor—an Australian geologist, had discovered a blood-red stream pouring out of the ice cascades (瀑布) of Talor Glacier!

Popularly known as the Blood Falls, scientists had not been able to find the reason behind the blood-red liquid flowing through the ice—until recently. The mystery of the Blood Falls had finally been solved.

When these falls were first discovered, scientists had believed that the red color came from a large amount of red algae (海藻) concentrated in the water. Red algae contain a pigment (色素) which reflects red light, making the algae appear red.

This theory made sense, until it was later found that algae do not play a part in the red color of the flowing liquid at all. What really causes Talor Glacier’s waters to appear blood-red is the presence of iron oxide in the liquid. The waters of the blood falls are rich in salt and iron content, and when this water comes in contact with the air, it turns red--just like rust! The water in these falls is often referred to as “brine” by scientists because of the high salt content in the water.

This reasoning behind the red colors of the falls was found back in 2003. However, the entire mystery had not yet been solved. How is it then that the Blood Falls are not frozen?

Researchers at the University of Colorado and University of Alaska found that inside the glacier, there was a network of channels and reservoirs that move the water around. Salt water has a lower freezing temperature. In addition, when any substance undergoes a change in state, it gives off heat. Therefore, the brine actually warm itself up while it’s freezing! How this works is that when the brine is flowing through the Talor Glacier, some of it does freeze. As a result of changing state from liquid to ice, the brine gives off heat. This heat is enough to keep the rest of the brine in liquid form, which is why it flows out of the glacier.

Incredible new chemistry facts found, and mystery solved!

1. According to the text, the red algae theory was once considered ____.

A. ridiculous B. impractical C. reasonable D. complex

2. Why does the Blood Falls look red in color?

A. Because its liquid is rich in red algae.

B. Because the flowing liquid reflects red sunlight.

C. Because the air is thin and rare in Antarctica.

D. Because there is too much salt and iron in its water

3. What is the main reason for the Blood Falls’ not freezing?

A. The water continued flowing constantly.

B. There is too much salt in the water.

C. The brine gives off heat while freezing.

D. Temperatures aren’t high enough for flowing water.

4. What is the passage mainly about?

A. The mystery of the Blood Falls. B. The discovery of the blood glacier.

C. The birth of the Talor Glacier. D. The flowing red waterin Antarctica.

参考答案：C D C A

(四十五)

Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and Leonardo da Vinci ... the art world has never lacked talent. And now, a new painter is ready to join the list, although this one isn’t even human.

Next month, the auction house Christie’s Prints and Multiples will make history by offering the first piece of art work created by artificial intelligence (AI) for sale. The painting is a portrait of a man called Edmond De Belamy, and is expected to be sold for up to $10,000.

The work, which features a man with a mysterious look on his face, was created by software developed by the French art group Obvious. Laugero-Lasserre, an art collector, called the work “grotesqueand amazing at the same time”. This isn’t the first example of AI-produced artwork, as AI has already been used to write poems and compose songs. However, many people doubt whether it should be called art at all.

According to Russian writer Leo Tolstroy (1828 -1910), art is about creating emotion (情感). It’s “a means of … joining people together in the same feelings,” he once said.

So, if the emotion behind art is what makes it, the ability to create and use tools is what makes human beings different from other species. And as a tool itself, the AI technology used to create the portrait is the result of a lot of effort made by several designers. Together, they “fed” the AI a huge collection of paintings from the 14th to the 18th centuries, until it was able to work out how to make similar paintings of its own.

The introduction of AI art could be the beginning of a new artistic movement. However, not everyone is ready to welcome these high-tech artists just yet.

“The human mind is what’s behind the AI technology. And the human mind is not a cold, hard fact,” said Oscar Schwartz, a professor of AI. “Rather, it is something that’s created with our opinions and something that changes over time.”

1.Why does the author mention the artists in Paragraph 1?

A. To introduce their works. B. To make an advertisement.

C. To present a piece of news. D. To focus the topic on the AI.

2. What does the underlined would “grotesque” in Paragraph 3 mean?

A.Strange. B. Simple. C. Messy. D. Understandable.

3. What can we learn about the AI-produced artwork according to Paragraph 5?

A. It comes from human works.

B. It shows human ability to create.

C. It expresses human feelings effectively.

D. It is beyond the imagination of humans.

4. What does Oscar Schwartz think the human mind is compared with the AI ?

A. Limited. B. Decisive. C. Useless. D. Meaningful.

参考答案：D A A B

(四十六)

It’s common knowledge that the woman inLeonardo 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 right—well 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, theMona Lisa effectoccurs.

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 side—surprisingly, 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 ofartificial-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 thatthe 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.

1. It is generally believed that the woman in the painting “Mona Lisa” ____.

A. attracts the viewers to look back

B. seems mysterious because of her eyes

C. fixes her eyes on the back of the viewers

D. looks at the viewers wherever they stand

2. What gaze range in a painting will cause the Mona Lisa effect?

A B C D

3. The experiment involving 24 people was conducted to ____.

A. confirm Horstmann’s belief

B. create artificial-intelligence avatars

C. calculate the angle of Mona Lisa’s gaze

D. explain how the Mona Lisa effect can be applied

4. What can we learn from the passage?

A. Horstmann thinks it’s cool to coin the term “Mona Lisa effect”.

B. The Mona Lisa effect contributes to the creation ofartificial intelligence.

C. Feeling being gazed at by Mona Lisa may be caused by the desire for attention.

D. The position of the ruler in the experiment will influence the viewers’ judgment.

参考答案：D B A C

(四十七)

What’s small, buzzes here and there and visits flowers? If you said bees or hummingbirds, you got it. You wouldn’t be the first if you mixed the two up. Now a group of researchers even say we should embrace our history of considering the two together in the same group. The way scientists study bees could help them study hummingbird behavior, too.

Scientists first compared the two back in the 1970s when studying how animals search for food. The idea is that animals use a kind of math to make choices in order to minimize the work it takes to earn maximum rewards. Researchers at the time focused on movement rules, like the order in which they visited flowers, and where flowers were located relative to others. It was “almost like an algorithm (算法)” for efficient searching, said David Pritchard, a biologist at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Hummingbirds and bees had similar solutions.

As the field of animal cognition (认知) appeared, hummingbird and bee research parted. Neuroscientists and behavioral ecologists developed ways to study bee behavior in naturalistic settings. Hummingbird researchers compared hummingbirds to other birds and borrowed methods from psychology to study their ability to learn in the lab. To be fair, hummingbirds and bees differ. For example, hummingbirds have more advanced eyes and brains than bees. Honeybees and bumblebees are social; hummingbirds typically aren’t.

But however they perceive (感知) or process information, they both experience similar information, Dr. Pritchard said. In day-to-day searching for food, for example, hummingbirds may rely on more of a bee’s-eye view than a bird’s-eye view. Like other birds, they rely on landmarks, distances and directions to make maps when travelling long distances, but they don’t use these cues to find flowers. Move a flower just an inch or so away from where a hummingbird thought it was and it will hover over the flower’s original location. Dr. Pritchard is investigating if, like bees, hummingbirds engage in view matching — hovering, scanning snapshots of a place to its memory and using those as references later.

1. What is the center of research on hummingbirds and bees in the 1970s?

A. Memory.B. Movement rules.

C. Reward calculating.D. Information processing.

2. Which subject’s research methods were adopted to study the learning ability of Hummingbirds?

A. Math.B. Biology.C. Ecology.D. Psychology.

3. How do researchers find out that hummingbirds are not like birds?

A. By setting them free.B. By moving flowers.

C. By matching view.D. By making maps.

4. Which of the following can be the best title for the text?

A. Hummingbirds and BeesB. Hummingbirds in the Lab

C. New Trends in Studying BeesD. Thinking of Hummingbirds as Bees

参考答案：B D B D

(四十八)

Scientists think that growing garden grass could be the secret to solving our energy needs, and we may soon be able to replace our gasoline with “grassoline”.

The team, including experts from Cardiff University in Wales, has shown that hydrogen can be taken from grass in useful amounts with the help of sunlight and a cheap catalyst (催化剂) —something that speeds up a chemical reaction without being used up.

It is the first time that this has been shown and it could lead to a sustainable (可持续的) way of making hydrogen, reported Asian News International. This could be an important kind of renewable energy because it is high in energy and it does not give out harmful gases when it is burned.

Study co-author Michael Bowker said, “This is really a green source of energy. Hydrogen is seen as an important future energy carrier as the world moves from fossil fuels to renewable energy, and our research has shown that even garden grass could be a good way of getting it. ”

Cellulose (纤维素) , which is a key part of plants and the biopolymer (生物聚合物) found in the largest numbers on the earth, could be a great source of hydrogen.

In its study, the team looked at the possibility of getting hydrogen from cellulose using sunlight and a simple catalyst.

This is called photocatalysis (光催化作用) and in it, the sunlight starts the catalyst, which then makes cellulose and water into hydrogen. The researchers studied the effectiveness of three metal-based catalysts, of which nickel (镍) especially interested the researchers, as it is a much more common metal than gold and palladium (钯) and it saves more money.

According to Bowker, producing hydrogen from cellulose using photocatalysis has not been studied in detail. The team, s research shows that large amounts of hydrogen can be produced using this method with the help of a bit of sunlight and a cheap catalyst.

The study shows that it is effective to use real grass taken from a garden. “This is important as it avoids the need to separate and clean up cellulose, which can be both difficult and costly,” said Bowker.

1. What are needed to get hydrogen from grass?

A. A catalyst and palladium. B. Water and cellulose.

C. Sunlight and a biopolymer. D. Sunlight and a catalyst.

2. Why is the new way of making hydrogen considered significant?

A. It is cheap, green and sustainable.

B. It is the best to produce the renewable energy.

C. It is more productive and efficient than other methods.

D. It can replace the way to make fossil fuels completely.

3. Why does nickel interest the researchers in making hydrogen from cellulose?

A. It can produce the largest amount of hydrogen.

B. It can avoid separating and cleaning up cellulose.

C. It is more common than other metals and costs less.

D. It works quicker than other metals during photocatalysis.

4. What does the author intend to tell us mainly in this passage?

A. Catalysts that could be taken from grass.

B. A new way of making hydrogen from cellulose.

C. The potential of hydrogen as a renewable energy.

D. The connection between hydrogen and photocatalysis.

参考答案：D A C B

(四十九)

People have different ways of dealing with a common cold. Some take over-the-counter (非处方的) medicines such as aspirin while others try popular home remedies(冶疗)like herbal tea or chicken soup. Yet here is the tough truth about the common cold： nothing really cures it.

So why do people sometimes believe that their remedies work? According to James Taylor, professor at the University of Washington, colds usually go away on their own in about a week, improving a little each day after symptoms peak, so it’ s easy to believe it’s medicine rather than time that deserves the credit, USA Today reported.

It still seems hard to believe that we can deal with more serious diseases yet are powerless against something so common as a cold. Recently, scientists came closer to figuring out why. To understand it, you first need to know how antiviral (抗病毒的) drugs work. They attack the virus by attaching to and changing the surface structures of the virus. To do that, the drug must fit and lock into the virus like the right piece of a jigsaw (拼图) , which means scientists have to identify the virus and build a 3-D model to study its surface before they can design an antiviral drug that is effective enough.

The two cold viruses that scientists had long known about were rhinovirus (鼻病毒) A and B. But they didn’t find out about the existence of a third virus, rhinovirus C, until 2006. All three of them contribute to the common cold, but drugs that work well against rhinovirus A and B have little effect when used against C.

“This explains most of the previous failures of drug trials against rhinovirus,” study leader Professor Ann Palmenberg at University of Wisconsin -Madison, US, told Science Daily.

Now, more than 10 years after the discovery of rhinovirus C, scientists have finally built a highly-detailed 3-D model of the virus, showing that the surface of the virus is, as expected, different from that of other cold viruses.

With the model in hand, hopefully a real cure for a common cold is on its way. Soon, we may no longer have to waste our money on medicines that don’ t really work.

1. What does the author think of popular remedies for a common cold?

A. They are quite effective. B. They are slightly helpful.

C. They actually have no effect. D. They still need to be improved.

2. How do antiviral drugs work?

A. By breaking up cold viruses directly.

B. By changing the surface structures of the cold viruses.

C. By preventing colds from developing into serious diseases.

D. By absorbing different kinds of cold viruses at the same time.

3. What can we infer from the passage?

A. The surface of cold viruses looks quite similar.

B. Scientists have already found a cure for the common cold.

C. Scientists were not aware of the existence of rhinovirus C until recently.

D. Knowing the structure of cold viruses is the key to developing an effective cure.

4. What is the best title for this passage?

A. Drugs against cold viruses B. Helpful home remedies

C. No current cure for common cold D. Research on cold viruses

参考答案：C B D C

(五十)

City trees grow faster and die younger than trees in rural forestry, a new study finds. Over their lifetimes, then, urban trees will likely absorb less CO2 from the air than forest trees.

As we all know, the earth would be freezing or burning hot without CO2. However, CO2 is a greenhouse gas, meaning it traps energy from the sun as/heat. That makes temperatures near the ground rise. Human activities, especially the widespread burning-of fossil (化石) fuels, have been sending extra greenhouse gases into the air. This has led to a rise in average temperatures across the globe.

Studies had shown forests readily absorb CO2, but there hadn ’ t been much data on whether city trees grow, die and absorb CO2 at the same rate as forest trees do. So some researchers decided to find out.

To figure out how quickly trees were growing, researchers tracked their diameters (the width of their trunks) between 2005 and 2014. A tree’s diameter increases as it grows, just as a person’s waist size increases as they gain weight. About half the weight of a tree is carbon, research has shown. Most of the rest is water. Over the nine years’ tracking, the researchers found city trees absorbed four times as much carbon from the air as forest trees. However, they were twice as likely to die. So over the lifetime of each type of tree, forest trees actually absorbed more CO2.

City trees grew faster because they had less competition for light from their neighbors. In a forest, trees tend to grow close together, shading their neighbors. Street trees also benefit from higher levels of nitrogen (氮) in rainwater. Nitrogen helps plants grow. Waste gases from gas-burning cars also contain nitrogen, thus enriching city air with nitrogen. Later, rainwater may wash much of it to the ground. Some street trees may also have better access to water than trees in the country because the underground water pipes can leak.

1. What can he known about CO2 from Paragraph 2?

A. It is one of the side effects of greenhouses.

B. It greatly accelerates the process of global warming.

C. It results from the widespread burning of fossil fuels.

D. It prevents the earth from becoming unsuitable to live on.

2. Why did researchers track the diameters of trees?

A. To know about their growth rates.

B. To find out how much they weigh.

C. To check whether they were healthy.

D. To assess the carbon amounts in them.

3. What advantage do city trees have over forest trees?

A. They are better at competing for light.

B. They can enjoy more shade from neighbors.

C. They can enjoy more water coming from the air.

D. They are more likely to access growth promoters.

4. What will probably be talked about if the passage is continued?

A. How urban trees can live longer.

B. Why city living makes trees die young.

C. How trees respond to dry soil conditions.

D. Why faster-growing trees absorb more CO2.

参考答案：D A D B

(五十一)

The seabird population on a small British island off the coast Devon and South Wales has increased quickly following the removal of rats.

There has been a growth in the numbers of Manx shearwater, puffins and guillemots on Lundy Island 15 years after a conservation project to remove its rats ended. The project was launched ’in 2003 by the Landmark Trust, the National Trust and The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), and aimed to kill the rats because they were the biggest threat to the survival of the birds. A cull (选择性宰杀) costing 50,000 pounds was used to get rid of 40,000 rats on the island when puffin numbers fell to fewer than 10 pairs.

Helen Booker, senior conservation officer for RSPB in south-west England, said the organization is delighted with the results. “This study clearly shows how quickly and positively seabirds respond to the removal of non-native predators (捕猎者),” she said. “Of course, we had expected major population increases when the project was launched, but the scale of this recovery has far beyond our expectations.”

Dean Jones, the inspector on Lundy, which is managed by the Landmark Trust, said the recovery of the seabirds as a positive, but that it is important to remain cautious. “It is exciting to see this level of recovery in Manx shearwaters, one of our most important seabirds. In spring the island comes alive at night with the sound of these amazing birds. The increases in puffins, guillemots and razorbills are also very encouraging for the future of seabirds on Lundy and we are maintaining our attention to ensure rats cannot return to the island. ”

A recent study found that nearly 10 percent of endangered bird, mammal, amphibian and reptile species could be saved by culling invasive (入侵的) mammals such as cats and rats on 169 islands. But rat removal programs have been controversial with some animal rights activists, who have argued that the black rat is one of the country’s most endangered mammals.

1. Why did British carry out the project to remove rats?

A. To kill invasive species. B. To save seabirds in danger.

C. To keep balance in nature. D. To decrease the rat’s number.

2. What can we infer about the rat removal project?

A. It is favored by animal rights groups.

B. It started when guillemot is nearly dying out.

C. It has protected 10% of species on UK’s 169 islands.

D. It contributes to more increases in seabirds than expected.

3. What will be done next according to Dean Jones?

A. Plan the future of seabirds. B. Speed up the recovery of seabirds.

C. Keep a careful watch for rats. D. Continue to drive away ratsandcats.

4. Where is the text most likely from?

A. A news report. B.A research paper.

C.A biology textbook. D.A medical magazine.

参考答案：B D C A

(五十二)

Technology offers conveniences such as opening the garage door from your car or changing the television station without touching the TV.

Now one American company is offering its employees a new convenience: a microchip implanted in their hands. Employees who have these chips can do all kinds of things just by waving their hands. Three Square Market is offering to implant microchips in all of their employees for free. Each chip costs $300 and Three Square Market will pay for the chip. Employees can volunteer to have the chips implanted in their hands. About 50 out of 80 employees have chosen to do so. The president of the company, his wife and their children are also getting chips implanted in their hands.

The chip is about the size of a grain of rice. Implanting the chip only takes about a second and is said to hurt only very briefly. The chips go under the skin between the thumb and forefinger. With a chip in the hand, a person can enter the office building, buy food, sign into computers and more, simply by waving that hand near a scanner. The chips will he also used to identify employees. Employees who want convenience, but do not want to have a microchip implanted under their skin, can wear a wristband (腕带) or a ring with a chip instead. They can perform the same tasks with a wave of their hands as if they had an implanted chip.

Three Square Market is the first company in the United States to offer to implant chips in its employees. Epicenter, a company in Sweden, has been implanting chips in its employees for a while.

Three Square Market says the chip cannot track the employees. The company says scanners can read the chips only when they are within a few inches of them. “The chips protect against identity theft, similar to credit cards.” The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the chips back in 2004, so they should be safe for humans, according to the company.

In the future, people with the chips may be able to do more with them, even outside the office. Todd Westby is Chief Executive Officer of Three Square Market. He says, “Eventually, this technology will become standardized allowing you to use this as your passport, public transit, all purchasing opportunities, etc.”

1. What is the third paragraph mainly about?

A.The substitutes of the chips.

B.The potential risks of implanting the chips.

C.The places to implant the chips.

D.The advantages of the chips.

2. What does the underlined word “them” in Paragraph 5 refer to?

A.the handsB.the scanners

C.the employeesD.the credit cards

3. We can infer that ____.

A.the chips have magic powers

B.the price of the chips is reasonable

C.the chips are very popular among the employees

D.most people suspect the application of the chips

4. Which of the following best describes Todd Westby’s attitude towards the chips?

A.Defensive. B.Disappointing.C.Casual. D.Optimistic.

参考答案：D B C D

(五十三)

Picture an iceberg (冰山).You’ll probably imagine something white as snow rising up out of a blue sea. But icebergs can be all sorts of shades. They can be from a frosty blue to an attractive green.

Researchers and sailors have observed emerald (翠绿色) icebergs for years. A large piece of ice “mast-high” and “green as emerald” even appears in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 1834 poem. But they haven’t found out exactly why these icebergs look the way they do.

A new paper led by Stephen Warren was published. It all has to do with what icebergs are made out of. Icebergs break off glaciers (冰川)or ice shelves, which happens mainly around Antarctica and Greenland. They begin their lives as snowfall that accumulates over time. So icebergs contain air pockets with the form of bubbles that spread light. With some exceptions and rare lines, glacier ice tends to look bluish white.

At first, Warren guessed that the green was a product of melt carbon. And it came from rotting plants or sea animals. But samples (样本) didn’t prove it. Another idea started to take shape after they had found a high concentration of iron in a sample of sea ice from the Amery Ice Shelf.

When glaciers rub across land, they produce what’s known as glacier flour. It is a product of bedrock being ground clown by the moving mass. As glaciers move away, these remains are usually washed out into water. The particles are sometimes too small to be noticeable to your eyes. But on land, soil and rocks contain iron oxides that often have rosy colors, like reds, yellows, and browns—and since the sea ice contained 500 times more iron than the glacier ice, Warren wondered whether the remains were responsible for icebergs taking on a green appearance.

He doesn’t know for sure. He’s hoping to secure money so that he can return to the area and study the icebergs themselves.

1. Why is Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem mentioned in the text?

A. It tells why icebergs look the way they do.

B. It describes vividly what icebergs are like.

C. It says causes of the appearance of icebergs.

D. It proves the existence of colorful icebergs.

2. What can we know about Stephen Warren’s paper?

A. It draws on researchers’ and sailors’ views.

B. It is the record of the movement of icebergs.

C. It talks about how icebergs come into being.

D. It is a collection of various social phenomena.

3. What does the underlined word “it” in Paragraph 4 refer to?

A. A sample of sea ice.B. Warren’s first guess.

C. Warren’s idea on iron. D. A product of melt carbon.

4. What is paragraph 5 mainly about?

A. The possible reason why icebergs look green.

B. Where most of icebergs eventually disappear.

C. How icebergs take in the colors from glaciers.

D. The way in which icebergs breaks off glaciers.

参考答案：D C B A

(五十四)

Scientists at the University of Oxford have developed new artificial intelligence (AI) software to recognize and follow up the faces of chimpanzees (黑猩猩) in the wild. The new software will allow researchers and wildlife conservationists to significantly cut back on time spent analyzing videos, according to the new paper published in Science Advances.

For species (物种) like chimpanzees, which have complex social lives and live for many years, getting photos of their behavior taken from short-term field research can only tell us so much,’’says Dan Schofield, researcher and D. Phil student at Oxford University’s Private Models Lab, School of Anthropology. “By taking advantage of the power of machine learning to unlock large video files, it makes it possible to measure behavior over the long term.’’

The computer model was trained using over 10 million images (影像):from Kyoto University’s Primate Research Institute (PRI) video files of wild chimpanzees in Guinea, West Africa. The new software is the first to continuously track and recognize individual a wide range of poses, performing with high accuracy in difficult conditions such as low lighting and poor image quality.

“Access to this large video file has allowed us to use deep neural networks to train models to a degree that was previously not possible,” says Arsha Nagrad, co-auther of the study and D. Phil student at the Department of Engineer Science,University of Oxford.“Additionally, our new software differs from previous primate face recognition software in that it can be applied to videos with limited manual intervention (人工干预) , saving hours of time.”

The technology can be potentially used to monitor species for conservation Although the present application focuses on chimpanzees, the AI software provided will be applied to other species, and help drive the adoption of AI systems to solve (解决) a range of problems in the wildlife sciences.

1.What is the purpose of developing the new soft?

A. To save wildlife researchers’ time spent in the labs.

B. To keep track of wildlife conservationists’ behaviors.

C. To protect chimpanzees and help them to live longer .

D. To recognize and track the faces of wild chimpanzees.

2. What does the underlined word “it”in Paragraph 2 refer to?

A. Getting photos.B. Analyzing videos.

C. A powerful machineD. The new AI software.

3. What does paragraph 4 mainly talk about?

A. The working principle of the new software.

B. Some limitations of using the new software.

C. The unique advantages of the new software.

D. Controversial attitudes to the new software.

4. What can be known from the last paragraph?

A. Technology advance is the final goal of science

B. The new software won’t just be applied to chimpanzees.

C. AI systems are widely used in the wildlife sciences.

D. The application of the new technology isn’t easy.

参考答案：D D C B

(五十五)

If maths is the language of the universe, bees may have just uttered their first words. New research suggests these busybodies of the insect world are capable of addition and subtraction (减法)—using colors in the place of plus and minus symbols.

In the animal kingdom, the ability to count—or at least distinguish between differing quantities—isn’t unusual: It has been seen in frogs, spiders, and even fish. But solving equations (方程式) using symbols is rare, so far only achieved by famously brainy animals such as chimpanzees and African grey parrots.

Building on previous research that says the social insects can count to four andunderstand the concept of zero, researchers wanted to test the limits of what their tiny brains can do.

Scientists trained 14 bees to link the colors blue and yellow to addition and subtraction, respectively. They placed the bees at the entrance of a Y-shaped maze (迷宫), where they were shown several shapes in either yellow or blue. If the shapes were blue, bees got a reward if they went to the end of the maze with one more blue shape (the other end had one less blue shape); if the shapes were yellow, they got a reward if they went to the end of the maze with one less yellow shape.

The testing worked the same way: Bees that “subtracted” one shape when they saw yellow, or “added” one shape when they saw blue were considered to have aced the test.The bees got the right answer 63% to 72% of the time, depending on the type of equation and the direction of the right answer—much better than random guesses would allow—the researchers report today in Science Advances.

Though the results came from just 14 bees, researchers say the advance is exciting. If a brain about 20,000 times smaller than ours can perform maths using symbols, it could pave the way to novel approaches in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Just don’t ask the bees to do your homework anytime soon.

1. Why do the scientists conduct the research?

A. To teach them maths. B. To test the power of tiny brains.

C. To explain the meaning of colors. D. To get access to machine learning.

2. What does the underlined word “aced” in Paragraph 5 probably mean?

A. Given up. B. Entered for. C. Got through. D. Checked over.

3. What might the research make contributions to?

A. Language acquisition. B. Arithmetic learning.

C. Protection of animals. D. Development of AI.

4. What can bethe besttitle for the text?

A. Bees “Like” Counting

B. Bees “Tell” Colors Apart

C. Bees “Perform” Maths Using Shapes

D. Bees “Get” Addition and Subtraction

参考答案：B C D D

(五十六)

An international team of scientists involving The University of Western Australia’s School of Molecular Sciences, the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology and Lund University has made the surprising discovery that a plant’s reaction to rain is close to one of panic.

The research, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, revealed complex chemical signals are triggered when water lands on a plant to help it prepare for the dangers of rain.

UWA Professor Harvey Millar said after spraying plants with water and observing the effect, the researchers noticed a chain reaction in the plant caused by a protein called Myc2.

“When Myc2 is activated, thousands of genes spring into action preparing the plant’s defenses,” Professor Millar said. “These warning signals travel from leaf to leaf and induce a range of protective effects.”

“As to why plants would need to panic when it rains, strange as it sounds, rain is actually the leading cause of disease spreading between plants.”

“When a raindrop splashes across a leaf, tiny droplets of water ricochet in all directions. These droplets can contain bacteria, viruses, or fungal spores. A single droplet can spread these up to 10 meters to surrounding plants.”

Evidence also suggests that when it rains, the same signals spreading across leaves are transmitted to nearby plants through the air.

“One of the chemicals produced is a hormone called jasmonic acid that is used to send signals between plants,” Professor Millar said.

“If a plant’s neighbors have their defense mechanisms turned on, they are less likely to spread disease, so it’s in their best interest for plants to spread the warning to nearby plants.

“When danger occurs, plants are not able to move out of the way so instead they rely on complex signaling systems to protect themselves.”

Professor Millar said it was clear plants had an intriguing relationship with water, with rain a major carrier of disease but also vital for a plant’s survival.

1.Myc2 is activated to ____.

A. cause panicB. defend the plant

C. spread the diseaseD. spring into action

2. We can learn from the last 5 paragraphs that .

A. Signals are transmitted to nearby plants through raindrops.

B. Jasmonic acid is used to send signals among leafs.

C. It’s useless for plants to spread the warning to nearby plants.

D. Plants defend themselves using very complicated signaling systems.

3. What does the underlined word “intriguing” in the last paragraph probably mean?

A. interesting B. important C. disappointing D. frustrating

4. Which of the following can be the best title of the passage?

A. A Plant’s Reaction To Rain B. Signals Triggered When Water Lands

C. Why Plants Panic When It Rains D. Plants And Raindrops

参考答案：B D A C

(五十七)

Record fires sweeping across the Amazon this month have been grabbing global headlines as scientists and environmental groups are worried that they will aggravate climate change crisis and threaten biodiversity (生物多样性) .

As the largest rainforest in the world, the Amazon is often called “the lungs of the world”. It is also home to about 3 million species of plants and animals, and 1 million indigenous (当地的) people. The vast swaths (大片土地) of rainforest play an important role in the world’s ecosystem because they absorb heat instead of it being reflected back into the atmosphere. They also store carbon dioxide and produce oxygen, ensuring that less carbon is released,mitigatingthe effects of climate change.

“Any forest destroyed is a threat to biodiversity and the people who use that biodiversity,”Thomas Lovejoy, an ecologist at George Mason University toldNational Geographic. “The overwhelming threat is that a lot of carbon goes into the atmosphere,” he stressed. “In the midst of the global climate crisis, we cannot afford more damage to a major source of oxygen and biodiversity. The Amazon must be protected,” U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said.

Data from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) show that the number of forest fires in Brazil quickly increased by 82 percent from January to August this year from a year ago. A total of 71,497 forest fires were registered in the country in the first eight months of 2019, up from 39,194 in the same period in 2018, INPE said. “We estimate that the forest areas in the Brazilian Amazon have decreased something between 20 and 30 percent compared to the last 12 months,” Carlos Nobre, a researcher at the University of Sao Paulo, told German broadcasterDeutsche Welle.

Brazil owns about 60 percent of the Amazon rainforest, whose degradation could have severe consequences for global climate and rainfall. The extent of the area ruined by fires has yet to be determined, but the emergency has transcended (超出) Brazil’s borders, reaching Peruvian, Paraguayan and Bolivian regions.

1. What is the second paragraph mainly talking about?

A. The effects of climate change.

B. The role of the Amazon rainforest.

C. The results of the Amazon rainforest fires.

D. The causes of the decreasing biodiversity.

2. Which of the following best explains “mitigating” underlined in Paragraph 2?

A. Easing. B. Causing. C. Worsening. D. Benefitting.

3. What can we learn from Thomas’s and Antonio’s words?

A. The biodiversity makes the rainforests unique.

B. The rainforest fires result in serious consequences.

C. The global climate crisis brings more rainforest fires.

D. The dry weather leads to the rainforest fires.

4. Why does the author list the numbers in Paragraph 4?

A. To prove the importance of rainforest.

B. To show the influence of forest fires.

C. To explain the process of the research.

D. To present the reduction of rainforest areas.

参考答案：B A B D

(五十八)

Getting stuck in a traffic jam is one of the most boring problems for people living in big cities. The fact that you’re moving so slowly leads too stress, anger and the wish that your car could just fly over the traffic like an airplane.

Soon, however, that wish could come true. On May 8, US car-renting company Uber showed off what it described as “the transportation mode of the future: on-demand air transport,” reported ABC News.

According to Nikhill Goel, head of products for Uber Air, the company’s air taxi service may launch test flights in the US cities of Dallas and Los Angeles, as well as Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, as early as 2020. If everything goes according to plan, passengers will be able to fly to work by 2023.

When the Olympics comes to Los Angeles in 2028. Uber “expects to have hundreds, if not thousands, of its aircraft in the skies.” Goel told Newsweek.

So what would Uber’s flying vehicles be like?

They are small, electric aircraft that take off and land vertically (垂直地) , and they give off zero emissions (排放) and are quiet enough to operate in cities.

Just like an airplane, the vehicles will have fixed wings to help them glide. But while a helicopter has just one big fixed rotor (定量). Uber’s vehicles will have multiple rotors , which will help increase fuel efficiency (效率) while reducing emissions and noise.

Because of these fixed wines and multiple rotors. Uber’s flying taxis “should be quieter and safer than a helicopter.” reported ABC News.

However, the service still has a long way to go before it’s ready to accept passengers. For example, to avoid any potential accidents. Uber is working with NASA to study air traffic control problems associated with low-flying aircraft. But just as Dubai’s Mayor Betty Price said in a news release. “This program is revolutionary and future -oriented (面向未来的).”

1. Uber’s flying taxis are expected to start to take passengers in ____.

A. 2020 B. 2023 C. 2028 D. 2030

2. How are Uber’s flying taxis different from helicopters?

A. They have one big rotor B. They need more fuel to fly.

C. They have fewer fixed wings D. They should be quieter and safer

3. Which is true about the flying cars according to the passage?

A. They can be as efficient as airplanes and helicopters

B. They must be in larger number a few years later.

C. They nearly do no harm to the environment.

D. They will surely help passengers avoid accidents.

4. What is the passage mainly about?

A. Ubers plan to launch flying taxis

B. The advantages of Ubers flying taxis

C. Different opinions about Uber’s flying taxis.

D. The difficulties Uber is facing in testing flying vehicles

参考答案：B D C A

(五十九)

Brrriiinnng. The alarm clock announces the start of another busy weekday in the morning. You jump out of bed, rush into the shower, into your clothes and out the door with hardly a moment to think. A stressful journey to work gets your blood pressure climbing. Once at the office, you glance through the newspaper with depressing stories or reports of disasters. In that sort of mood, who can get down to work, particularly some creative, original problem-solving work?

The way most of us spend our mornings is exactly opposite to the conditions that promote flexible, open-minded thinking. Imaginative ideas are most likely to come to us when we’re unfocused. If you are one of those energetic morning people, your most inventive time comes in the early evening when you are relaxed. Sleepy people’s lack of focus leads to an increase in creative problem solving. By not giving yourself time to tune into your wandering mind, you’re missing out on the surprising solutions it may offer.

The trip you take to work doesn’t help, either. The stress slows down the speed with which signals travel between neurons (神经细胞), making inspirations less likely to occur. And while we all should read a lot about what’s going on in the world, it would not make you feel good for sure, so put that news website or newspaper aside until after the day’s work is done.

So what would our mornings look like if we wanted to start them with a full capacity for creative problem solving? We’d set the alarm a few minutes early and lie awake in bed, following our thoughts where they lead. We’d stand a little longer under the warm water of the shower, stopping thinking about tasks in favor of a few more minutes of relaxation. We’d take some deep breaths on our way to work, instead of complaining about heavy traffic. And once in the office—after we get a cup of coffee—we’d click on links not to the news of the day but to the funniest videos the web has to offer.

1. According to the author, we are more creative when we are ____.

A. focused B. relaxedC. awake D. busy

2. What does the author imply about newspapers?

A. They are solution providers.

B. They are a source of inspiration.

C. They are normally full of bad news.

D. They are more educational than websites.

3. By “tune into your wandering mind”(in Para. 2), the author means “____”.

A. wander into the wildB. listen to a beautiful tune

C. switch to the traffic channelD. stop concentrating on anything

4. The author writes the last paragraph in order to ____.

A. offer practical suggestionsB. summarize past experiences

C. advocate diverse ways of life D. establish a routine for the future

参考答案：B C D A

(六十)

Cao Yuan, a PhD student from China, had two papers published on strange behaviour in atom-thick layers of carbon that have opened up a new field of physics.

Pablo Jarillo-Herrero’s group at MIT was already layering and rotating (旋转) sheets of carbon at different angles when Cao joined the lab in 2014. Cao’s job was to find out what happened when one graphene (石墨烯) sheet was twisted only slightly with respect to the other, which one theory predicted would thoroughly change the material’s behavior.

Many physicists doubted the idea. But when Cao set out to create the subtly twisted stacks, he spotted something strange. Exposed to a small electric field and cooled to 1.7 degrees above absolute zero, the graphene—which ordinarily conducts electricity—became an insulator. That by itself was surprising. But the best was yet to come: with a slight change to the field, the twisted sheets became a superconductor, in which electricity flowed without resistance.

The ability to get atom-thick carbon into a complex electronic state through a simple rotation now has physics demanding to engineer exciting behavior in other twisted 2D materials. Some even hope that graphene could shed light on how more-complex materials superconduct at much higher temperatures. “There are so many things we can do,” says Cory Dean, a physicist at Columbia University. “The opportunities at hand now are almost irresistible.”

Hitting graphene’s “magic angle”—a rotation between parallel sheets of around 1.1°—involved some trial and error, but Cao was soon able to do it reliably. His experimental skill was extremely important, says his supervisor Jarillo-Herrero. Cao pioneered a method of tearing a single sheet of graphene so that he could create a stack of two layers, from which he could then fine-tune alignment (微调校准).

Cao loves to take things apart and rebuild them. A heart, he is “a tinkerer”, his supervisor says. On his own time, this means photographing the night sky using homemade cameras and telescopes—pieces of which usually lie across Cao’s office. “Every time I go in, it’s a huge mess, with computers taken apart and pieces of telescope all over his desk,”says Jarillo-Herrero.

1.What is Cao Yuan’s achievement?

A. Creating a method of piling carbon.

B. Finding the superconductivity of graphene.

C. Making equipment to twist graphene.

D. Starting research on a new field of physics.

2. What do we know from Cory Dean’s words?

A. The finding can be applied to all materials.

B. It is certain that many new discoveries are on the way.

C. The discovery suggests potential for other twisted 2D materials.

D. Physicists have been pushed to find more atom-thick carbon layers.

3. What does Jarillo-Herrero think is key to Cao Yuan’s discovery?

A. His method of tearing sheets.B. His knowledge of physics．

C. His curiosity about graphene.D. His skill in experiments．

4. What can we infer about Jarillo-Herrero?

A. He is an expert in telescope.B. He thinks highly of Cao Yuan.

C. He appreciates messy offices.D. He follows Cao Yuan’s research.

参考答案：B C D B