If you believe that scientists and artists are most creative when they're young, you are missing an important part of the story. A new study published in De Economist looked at Nobel Prize winners in the field of economics. It found there are two different peaks of creativity. One comes early in a person's career, while another comes later.
The research supports previous work by the authors that found similar patterns in the arts and other sciences.
"We believe what we found in this study isn't limited to economics, but could apply to creativity more generally," said Bruce Weinberg, lead author of the study and professor of economics at The Ohio State University.
"Many people believe that creativity is exclusively associated with youth,but it really depends on what kind of creativity you're talking about."
In the study, those who did their most groundbreaking work early in their careers tended to be "conceptual" innovators(创新者).
These type of innovators "think outside the box", challenging conventional wisdom and suddenly coming up with new ideas. Conceptual innovators are not yet immersed(沉浸于)in the accepted theories of their field, Weinberg said.
But there is another kind of creativity, he said, which is found among "experimental" innovators. These innovators accumulate knowledge through their careers and find new ways to understand it.
The long periods of trial and error for important experimental innovations come later in a Nobel laureate's(荣誉获得者的)career.
"Whether you hit your creative peak early or late in your career depends on whether you have a conceptual or experimental approach," Weinberg said.
The researchers took a novel, empirical(经验主义的)approach to the study, which involved 31 laureates. They arranged the laureates on a list from the most experimental to most conceptual.
This ranking was based on the laureates' most important work, classifying them into "conceptual" or "experimental".
After classifying the laureates, the researchers determined the age at which each laureate made his most important contribution to economics and could be considered at his creative peak.
They found that conceptual laureates peaked between ages 25 and 29. Experimental laureates peaked when they were roughly twice as old, in their mid-50s.
"Our research suggests that when you're most creative is more about how you approach your work."
1. What did the study published in De Economist find?| A．Creativity comes at any age, young or old. |
| B．Creativity tends to decrease as people get older. |
| C．Economists, artists and other scientists have much in common. |
| D．Economists are more creative than artists and other scientists. |
| A．Follow rules strictly. |
| B．Experiment on boxes. |
| C．Break old thought patterns. |
| D．Figure out how to escape from a box. |
| A．They usually come up with new ideas all of a sudden. |
| B．They make discoveries through constant trial and error. |
| C．The majority of them reach their creative peak in their twenties. |
| D．They make more contributions than "conceptual" innovators. |
| A．One's personality type. |
| B．What kind of job one takes. |
| C．How one handles their work. |
| D．One's attitude toward their work. |
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【推荐1】Meng Wang is a professor of human genetics. She’s been doing experiments about one of the most exciting new areas of medicine — our microbiome (微生物群).
You can’t see it with the naked eye, but our microbiome is all over (and inside of) us. Recent studies show that it can influence how we behave and even how well we respond to different drugs. Wang says, “Sometimes our microbiomes make us sick, but on the other hand, they also play a very important role in keeping us healthy.”
Wang wanted to know whether our microbiome could influence aging. To test it, she decided to work with a kind of worm (虫子) that lives only two or three weeks. Her question was, what would happen if you changed a worm’s microbiome. Would it be able to live for longer?
Wang chose one of the types of bacteria (细菌) that lives inside a worm, changed its genes (基因) so as to make different varieties, and then fed this bacteria to the worms. Three weeks later — by the time they should have all died — she checked on them. To her excitement, she found that the worms had not died. Older worms usually act slowly. The ones with the new microbiomes, however, not only moved around more quickly in their old age, but were less likely affected by illness too.
Wang is now carrying out tests on mice to see whether changing their microbiomes can influence their lives in a similar way. There is a chance that one day we might take pills which do the same of us. How much longer could this possibly allow us to live for? “Personally, I think 100 is already a good number,” says Wang.
1. What influence does Microbiome have on us according to recent studies?| A．Impacting our behavior. | B．Lengthening lifespan. |
| C．Increasing drug resistance. | D．Leading to deadly illness. |
| A．The worms grew bigger in size. |
| B．The worms kept active at old age. |
| C．The worms were free from illness. |
| D．The worms developed into new varieties. |
| A．Man can live as long as 100. | B．Microbiome works on mice similarly. |
| C．More tests need to be made. | D．Wang will develop anti-aging pills soon. |
| A．Microbiome: the hope of longer life? | B．Tips for scientific research |
| C．Meng Wang: leading scientist of genetics | D．Into the world of Microbiome |
【推荐2】Dogs greet other dogs nose-first, as it were sniffing each other from fore to (especially) aft. People are not quite so open about the process of sniffing each other out. But there is also evidence that human beings can infer kinship (亲属关系), deduce emotional states and even detect disease via the sense of smell.
Now, Inbal Ravreby, Kobi Snitz and Noam Sobel of the Weizmann Institute of Science, in Israel, have gone a step further.
They have shown, admittedly in a fairly small sample of individuals, that friends actually smell alike. They have also shown that people pick friends at least partly on the basis of body odour (气味).
As they report in Science Advances, Dr Ravreby, Dr Snitz and Dr Sobel started their research by testing the odours of 20 pairs of established, non-romantic, same-sex friends. They employed an electronic nose (e-nose) and two groups of specially recruited (招聘的) human “smellers”. The e-nose used a set of metal-oxide gas sensors to assess t-shirts worn by participants.
One group of human smellers were given pairs of these shirts and asked to rate how similar they smelt. Those in the other group were asked to rate the odours of individual t-shirts on five subjective dimensions: pleasantness, intensity, sexual attractiveness, competence and warmth. All three approaches yielded the same result. The t-shirts of friends smelt more similar to each other than did the t-shirts of strangers.
Friends, in other words, do indeed smell alike.
To further understand whether friendship causes similarity of smell, or similarity of smell causes friendship, Dr Ravreby, Dr Snitz and Dr Sobel investigated whether e-nose measurements could predict positive interactions between strangers to develop a new friendship.
They gathered another 17 volunteers, gave them t-shirts to wear to collect their body odours, ran those odours past the e-nose, and then asked the participants to play a game.
Participants were paired up at random and their reactions recorded. After each interaction, they demonstrated how close they felt to their fellow game by overlapping (重叠) two circles (one representing themselves, the other their partner) on a screen. It showed that the more similar the two electronic smell signatures were, the greater the overlap.
1. What is the author’s purpose in mentioning dogs at the beginning of the passage?| A．To raise some doubts. | B．To illustrate a point. |
| C．To introduce the topic. | D．To impress the readers. |
| A．By analyzing the charts | B．By describing the details. |
| C．By comparing the results. | D．By explaining the theories. |
a. Participants were paired randomly.
b. Seventeen volunteers wore t-shirts.
c. Participants overlapped two circles.
d. The researchers ran smells past the e-nose.
| A．b-c-d-a. | B．c-d-a-b. | C．d-c-b-a. | D．b-d-a-c. |
| A．Pleasant body odours attract friends. |
| B．Similar smells strengthen friendship. |
| C．Friendship is based on same interests. |
| D．Friends tend to have similar body odours. |
【推荐3】A few minutes of looking into a deep red light could have a dramatic effect on preventing eyesight decline as we age, according to a newstudy published this week in the Journals of Gerontology.
“You don’t need to use it for very long to start getting a strong result.” said lead author Glen Jeffery, a professor of neuroscience at University College London’s Institute of Ophthalmology. The study was small, an experimental study to test the concept. Researchers recruited 12 men and 12 women, whose ages ranged from 28 to 72. Each participant was given a small handheld flashlight that emitted a red light with a wavelength of 670 nanometers. They spent three minutes each day looking into the light over a period of two weeks.
The lights work on both cones (视锥细胞) and rods (视杆细胞) in the eye. Cones are photo receptor cells that detect color and work best in well-lit situations. Rods, which are much more plentiful, are retina cells that specialize in helping us see in dim light, according to the American of Ophthalmology. Researchers measured the cone function in subjects’ eyes by having them identify colored letters with low contrast. And they measured their eyes’ rod sensitivity by asking them to detect light signals in the dark.
There was a 14% improvement in the ability to see colors, or cone color contrast sensitivity, for the entire two dozen participants. Improvement, however, was most significant in study participants over age 40. For those ages, cone color contrast sensitivity rose by 20% over the course of the study.
That age group also saw significant increases in rod threshold, that is the ability to see in low light. Study participants under 40 also experienced some improvement, but didn’t see the same jump as older subjects. Younger eyes haven’t declined as much as older eyes.
“The retina ages faster than any other organ in your body.” Jeffery said. “From an evolutionary viewpoint, they fundamentally have never lived past 40. Now, of course, we regularly live well beyond that age, and need ways to care for the organs that have been the most likely to wear out earliest in life. But more studies are needed to prove it helps.”
1. What do we know about the study?| A．24 old people took part in the test. |
| B．Each participant has good eyesight. |
| C．All the participants were tested for their eyes’ cone and rod sensitivity. |
| D．The participants were asked to detect light signal in well-lit situation. |
| A．Cone sensitivity rose by 20% for those under 40. |
| B．Younger participants haven’t get any improvement. |
| C．Older eyes haven’t declined as much as younger eyes. |
| D．The participants over 40 have increases in the ability to see in the dark. |
| A．It’s easy to protect our organs. | B．He will carry out further research. |
| C．Our organs never last past 40 years. | D．The research has benefits many people. |
| A．Using a flashlight can improve people’s eyesight. |
| B．Looking into a red light can lead to good eyesight. |
| C．Declining eyesight can be improved by looking at a red light. |
| D．Light can raise eyes’ cone and rod sensitivity. |
【推荐1】Ireland has had a very difficult history. The problems started in the 16th century when England tried to rule Ireland. For hundreds of years, the Irish people fought against the English. Finally, in 1921, the British government was forced to give independence to the south of Ireland. The result is that today there are two “Irelands”. Northern Ireland, in the north, is part of the United Kingdom. The Republic of Ireland, in the south, is an independent country.
In the 1840s the main crop, potatoes, was affected by disease and about 750,000 people died of hunger. This, and a shortage of work, forced many people to leave Ireland and live in the USA, the UK, Australia and Canada. As a result, the population fell from 8.2 million in 1841 to 6.6 million in 1851.
For many years, the majority of Irish people earned their living as farmers. Though many people still follow the routine nowadays, more and more people are moving to the cities to work in factories and offices. Life in the cities is very different from life in the countryside, where things move at a quieter and slower pace.
The Irish are famous for being warm-hearted and friendly. Oscar Wilde, a famous Irish writer, once said that the Irish were “the greatest talkers since the Greeks”. Since independence, Ireland has revived its own culture of music, language, literature and singing. Different areas have different styles of old Irish songs which are sung without instruments. Other kinds of Irish music use many different instruments such as the violin, whistles, etc.
1. What can we learn from Paragraph 1?| A．England ruled Ireland in the 16th century. |
| B．The Irish people fought for the English. |
| C．Northern Ireland belongs to the UK. |
| D．Ireland is an independent country. |
| A．The Irish were killed by the English rulers. |
| B．The Irish were affected by a deadly disease. |
| C．The Irish were not eager to give birth to babies. |
| D．The Irish suffered from food and work shortage. |
| A．By working on the fields. | B．By working in offices. |
| C．By working in factories. | D．By performing instruments. |
| A．The History of Ireland | B．The Introduction of Ireland |
| C．The People of Ireland | D．The Independence of Ireland |
【推荐2】With video meetings, taking selfies (自拍) and posting on social media, it’s easier to see one’s own image online. And for some people, this can lead to feelings of appearance dissatisfaction. In the past few years, screen time has increased for both adults and children. What’s worse, recent research suggests that the video and photo images we see of ourselves are distorted (扭曲的).
One study found that those who spent more time comparing their appearance during a video call experienced lower appearance satisfaction. This study also found that people who used more photo-editing features in video chat were more likely to compare themselves with others and spend more time looking at themselves on video calls.
A 2023 study found that discomfort with one’s appearance during video meetings led to an increased attention to appearance, which in turn led to poor work performance. Researchers also suggest that appearance dissatisfaction is connected with boredom in online meetings. The research reports that this could be due to negative attention to oneself and worry about being looked at or being negatively treated based on appearance.
If you find yourself criticizing (批评) your appearance every time in a video call, it may be time to be intentional about paying more attention to what other people are saying instead of looking at your own face.
When it comes to helping others who have difficulty with appearance dissatisfaction, it is important to care more about the person’s qualities beyond appearance. When viewing yourself or your partners on video and social media, try viewing the person as a whole and not as parts of a body.
Reducing screen time can make a difference as well. Research shows that reducing social media use by 50% can improve appearance satisfaction in both teens and adults. When used in a right way, video chatting and social media are tools to connect us with others, which finally is a key piece in satisfaction and well-being.
1. Who is more likely to suffer from appearance dissatisfaction?| A．Children who like taking selfies. |
| B．Adults who often attend video meetings. |
| C．Teenagers who enjoy posting on social media. |
| D．People who always compare appearance in video chatting. |
| A．Less focus on one’s own image. |
| B．Harmful effects on work performance. |
| C．Anger about being looked at by others. |
| D．Boredom of looking at one’s own face. |
| A．By taking their words seriously. | B．By caring much about their faces. |
| C．By viewing them as parts of a body. | D．By placing importance on their qualities. |
| A．Unconcerned. | B．Positive. | C．Balanced. | D．Worried |
【推荐3】Raegan Byrd tries to complete her homework every night. But the high school student in Hartford, Connecticut, has to use her mobile phone to search for the necessary information because she does not have an Internet connection at home.
In May, the US Department of Education (ED) published its findings that the number of homes without access to the Internet has been getting smaller, but 14 percent of homes in city areas and 18 percent of homes in the countryside still do not have Internet connections.
In some states, the problem is much more serious. For example, in the countryside of northern Mississippi, a third of the 294 homes in Maben do not have computers. And close to half have no access to the Internet whether they can pay for it or not.
Sharon Stidham, a mother in Maben, has to take her four boys to the school library at East Webster High School. Her husband works there, so the children can use the Internet for their schoolwork. A signal tower can be seen through the trees from their home, but they could not put aside any money for the Internet.
Research results from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) have shown that students with the Internet at home get much better scores in reading, math and science than the ones without.
Some teachers call this problem “the homework divide”. Jessica Rosenworcel, an NCES member, said, “The so-called homework divide is the cruelest part of the digital age and it is hurting the poor students and creating a big obstacle to their dreams.”
Local communities(社区) have started to help. They made lists of restaurants and other businesses with Wi-Fi places where children are welcome to come and do their homework. And many public libraries have also planned to provide free access for the students next year.
1. What has ED found out in its survey?| A．Students with the Internet at home are doing better at school. |
| B．Compared with city areas, 4% more homes in the countryside don’t have Internet access. |
| C．About 33% of the students in Mississippi do not have the Internet at home. |
| D．An increasing number of students do not have access to the Internet at home. |
| A．Her husband is a teacher in the library. |
| B．She does not want to pay for the Internet at home. |
| C．She wants her sons to study in a better environment. |
| D．Her sons have to use the Internet to do their schoolwork. |
| A．Block. | B．Help. |
| C．Goal. | D．Chance. |
| A．Local communities are called on to take actions. |
| B．Libraries have opened their doors to the students. |
| C．Restaurants have volunteered to take in the children. |
| D．Help is coming from the public and the local communities. |
【推荐1】As one of the mostwatched programs in China, the CCTV Spring Festival Gala has been an integral part of the Chinese New Year celebrations. From the television era to the digital age, people's expectations always run high for the event.
Having a big family dinner with relatives on the eve is a must for New Year celebrations for almost every family. The annual Spring Festival Gala usually lasts over four hours, just in time when the Chinese people gather to have their festive dinner. Featuring musicals, dances, comic skits and dramas, the gala is aimed at entertaining viewers of all ages.
This year, more than 621.4 million people in China and another 24.8 million overseas watched the show on television, while a number of viewers—527 million—watched it on new media platforms: apps, websites, videostreaming sites and social media.
The first CCTV Spring Festival Gala was live broadcast via television on February 12, 1983. However, not all Chinese people had a chance to watch the show at home as nearly 80 percent of families did not possess their own TV set. In 1983, the director of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala set four telephones backstage so viewers could ask the actors to perform the requested items. As the ondemand calls were so popular, the lines would literally be overheated, causing staff members to stand by with a fire extinguisher ready to put out any possible fire.
The gala traditionally concludes with the song “Can't Forget Tonight”. The song has been performed for 23 times over the past 36 years. Its original performer Li Guyi has also held a record of singing the most songs during a gala. In 1983, she sang a total of seven songs.
Cheung Mingman was the first singer from Hong Kong to perform at the CCTV Spring Festival Gala. He sang a patriotic song, “My Chinese Heart,” in 1984 and won millions of hearts, especially those who were living abroad.
The longest running performance in the history of the gala is called “Time”. In 2016, Yang Caiqi performed on stage for four hours until the New Year's bell rang.
1. How many people watched the 2019 CCTV Spring Festival Gala?| A．About 1,148 million. | B．About 646 million. |
| C．About 1,173 million. | D．About 552 million. |
| A．“Time” lasted over four hours in the gala of 2016. |
| B．Cheung Mingman sang a patriotic song in the first gala. |
| C．The song “Can't Forget Tonight” is performed annually in the gala. |
| D．Backstage staff of the first gala kept cautious in case the telephone lines caught fire. |
| A．To share some facts about the gala. |
| B．To look back on the past of the gala. |
| C．To attract more viewers to watch the show. |
| D．To promote the traditional Chinese festival. |
Recent decades have seen China make many scientific achievements. One of them is the development of its space program. Chinese people have gone to space while Chinese robots have landed on the moon and soon will reach Mars.
On Oct 15, 2003, the nation carried out its first manned space mission, sending Yang Liwei on a 21-hour journey around Earth in the Shenzhou V spacecraft. Chinese astronauts have traveled more than 46 million kilometers in
space and conducted more than 100 experiments. According to government plans, the nation will start putting together its first manned space station around 2020. The multi-module station, named Tiangong, or Heavenly Palace, is expected to be up and running by 2022. It's planned to have a useful life of about 15 years, says the China Academy of Space Technology.
China has launched four lunar probes (探测器) since 2007. The latest and most remarkable, the ongoing Chang'e 4 mission, is the first attempt by any nation to observe the moon's far side, which never faces Earth. In early December 2018, the Chang'e 4 robotic probe was lifted atop a Long March 3B rocket, making a soft landing on the moon's far side on Jan 3. The next step in China's lunar exploration agenda, the Chang'e 5 mission, is coming up. It will land a rover (月球车) to collect soil samples and bring them back to Earth. If the mission is successful, it will make China the third nation to bring back lunar samples, after the United States and Russia.
Now, China aims to explore deep space. Mars will be the key concentration of China's future deep-space plans. Researchers are preparing for the country's first exploratory mission to the red planet, scheduled for 2020. According to the China National Space Administration (CNSA), China's first Martian probe will look at the Martian soil, environment, atmosphere and water. In the next part of China's Mars program, a larger probe will go to the red planet around 2030，according to Wu Yanhua, deputy director of the space administration.
1. What do we know about the Heavenly Palace?| A．It's the second manned space station for China. |
| B．It is expected to be up and running by 2020. |
| C．It is planned to be used about 15 years. |
| D．It has conducted more than 100 experiments. |
| A．China has launched four lunar probes since 2007. |
| B．Chang'e 4 softly landed on the moon's far side. |
| C．Chang'e 5 will land a rover to collect soil samples. |
| D．China has become the third nation to bring back lunar samples. |
| A．manned space mission | B．lunar probes |
| C．space station | D．Mars exploration |
| A．The development of space program in China. |
| B．Chinese robots have landed on the moon's far side. |
| C．China has made great scientific achievements. |
| D．China aims to explore deep space. |
【推荐3】It's now time to get dressed for the Central Missouri Renaissance Festival 10 a. m. to 6 p.m., October 19-20, in Kingdom City.
The festival is in its 15th year and its footprint at its location at 4274 County Road 220 has grown in the past six years, said Kevin Briscoe, festival casting director and board of directors member.
"When I first started at the fair years ago it was just tiny,” Briscoe said. “The acts were more localized and now we see some nationally recognized acts, and we have probably three times the size of the original grounds. We're starting to see permanent shopping structures. It has been unbelievable.”
The fair has around 60 shops and craftspeople(匠人) making products from medieval(中世纪的) renaissance and other time periods, said Briscoe. It gives people a chance to experience life from these periods. There are also musical acts, comedy acts, magicians, food trucks and stands. The festival also takes food donations,which are then given out to area food kitchens. A board of seven directors work year-in-year-out to prepare for the three festival weekends, one in April, May and October. The final weekend in October is the big weekend.
"We volunteer, we go out and cut grass, we build, and we do all of the work out there because we are a nonprofit fair, so everything we do is done through volunteers and it works," Briscoe said. People can expect a lot of fun, laughter, music entertainment, shopping, good food and drinks. "We try to offer something for everybody. We have a fairyland for all the kids. We want you to be entertained." he said.
Briscoe lives and breathes renaissance festivals. If there is such a fair happening somewhere and it's his weekend off from work, he's likely going there. "I go to St. Louis Renaissance Festival on my weekends off, when I'm not in Kansas City Renaissance Festival working at its fair and just go hang out, " he said. "That's how much I love what I'm doing.”
1. What did Briscoe say about the fair in Paragraph 3?| A．It faces challenges. | B．It needs more support. |
| C．It should be made local. | D．It has developed quickly. |
| A．It provides visitors with free food. | B．It is based on volunteers' efforts. |
| C．It lasts for the whole of October. | D．It is held mainly for children. |
| A．He is very confident about the fair. |
| B．He has little time to work at the fair. |
| C．He is enthusiastic about renaissance festivals. |
| D．He works for two renaissance fairs in St. Louis |
| A．A fair manager. | B．A news reporter. |
| C．A casting director. | D．A skilled craftsman. |
【推荐1】This is always a busy time of year, but please don’t forget to recycle as much as you can.
| Put in Your Recycling Bins: Cardboard — this includes all the boxes your presents came in but please remove any plastic packaging. Plastic bottles — all plastic bottles including fizzy drinks and cider bottles, as well as milk, shampoo, cleaning and washing-up liquid bottles. |
| Christmas trees can be recycled in your fortnightly Garden Waste Collection Service as long as they are small trees chopped into pieces no bigger than 3 inches or 75mm in diameter. For large trees please take them to your local Household Waste and Recycling Centers. Please note the Garden Waste Collection Service is suspended (暂停的) between Dec 26th and Jan 6th . |
| Glass bottles and jars — empty wine bottles can be taken to the bottle bank together with beer bottles and pickle (泡菜) jars. Clothes and shoes — for your old clothes, take them to your local clothing recycling bank. |
| Please Do NOT Place in Your Recycling Bins: Gift wrap — Christmas gift wrapping does not contain much paper. It is often layered with foil (箔纸) and plastic which can’t be recycled. Plastic carrier bags — please do not put your recyclables in these as it makes it difficult to sort the contents. Plastic packaging — Although plastic packaging may have symbols which suggest it can be recycled, it is made of different types of plastic and there are no cost-effective ways to recycle it at present. |
1. What should we do before putting the cardboard into recycling bins?
| A．Cutting it into pieces. | B．Collecting the gifts. |
| C．Taking off its plastic packages. | D．Emptying the packages. |
| A．Because it is hard to sort the content. |
| B．Because it is made of different type of foil. |
| C．Because the symbols on it advise us not to do so. |
| D．Because cost-effective ways to recycle it haven’t been found. |
| A．The Christmas is the season for recycling. |
| B．Christmas trees must be kept for the future. |
| C．All the empty bottles can be put into the recycling bins. |
| D．There is a recycling center for the old clothes and shoes. |
【推荐2】According to a study published in the pre-print website bioRxiv, a team of Israeli scientists recorded tomato and tobacco plants producing sound frequencies which humans cannot hear in stressful situations-such as when they experienced a lack of water or their stems were cut. The team identified the sounds with microphones placed around 10 centimeters (around four inches) away from the plants, though the scientists say the noises could potentially be heard several feet away by some mammals and insects, such as mice.
Plants exposed to drought stress have been shown to experience cavitation—a process where air bubbles form, expand and explode inside tissue that transports water. These explosions produce sound, but they have only ever been recorded using devices directly connected to the plants. The latest study, meanwhile, is the first to identify plants making sounds which can be detected over a distance. And the researchers say that cavitation could potentially be the source of these sounds.
The team detected the tomato plants made 35 sounds an hour on average when they were exposed to drought conditions, while the tobacco plants produced 11. When the stems of the plants were cut, the tomato plants made 25 sounds an hour on average and the tobacco plants produced 15.As a comparison, unstressed plants made less than one sound hour on average, according to the study.
The team say that while they only tested tomato and tobacco. It's possible that other plants could also produce sounds, adding that the latest findings could have implications for agriculture. “Plant sound emissions could offer a novel way for monitoring crops' water state- a question of vital importance in agriculture,” the authors wrote in the study. “more Precise irrigation can save up to 50 percent of the water consumption and increase the output, with dramatic economic implications.”
“According to Anne Visscher from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the U.K, the idea that the sounds could be used in precision agriculture is, practical' though she urges caution regarding the Israeli team's suggestion that other animals could hear the sounds at a distance,” New Scientist reported.
1. What does the Israeli scientists find about plants?| A．Stressed plants tend to lack water. |
| B．The stressed plants can make sounds. |
| C．Some plants can understand humans' sounds. |
| D．Some mammals and insects can communicate with plants. |
| A．It may lead to plants experiencing drought. | B．It may contribute to the plants' sounds. |
| C．It is determined by the number of air bubbles. | D．It was identified and recorded for the first time. |
| A．35 | B．11 | C．25 | D．15 |
| A．critical | B．cautious | C．reserved | D．supportive |
【推荐3】Sirio Persichetti, seventeen years old, can not speak and feed himself. Sirio has spastic tetraplegia, a disease that affects movement in three of a person's four legs and arms. His mouth is permanently open, which prevents him from forming words correctly or swallowing. He is fed liquid nutrition through a tube in his stomach. And he has had a tracheotomy to help him breathe.
But he deals with his condition with such a love for life that his mother, Valentina, decided to create a website for him. He made accounts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to share his everyday life. He shares heart-warming videos of himself under the title Sirio and the Tetrabonds. The videos have touched the hearts of people all over the world. “I wanted to tell the story of disability in a different way, tell it for what it is and give people alike hope,” Sirio said.
The public’s reaction to young Sirio has been huge. Some of his videos have been watched more than130, 000 times. “In a short time, the response, especially from families living in similar situations, was powerful and exciting so we decided to keep going,” his mother said. Sirio’s followers respond with a countless number of “likes” and messages of support.
Sirio said he wanted to end the stigma —- or unfair beliefs— that often surrounds disability. I wanted to show that children with special needs can still have fun and lead a happy life. Valentina said she never expected her son to become famous on social media. “But we realized that is useful,” she added, “that it helps and is a necessary step to make the life of many people much more normal.”
1. What do we know about Sirio from Paragraph 1?| A．He was born with the disease. |
| B．He is unable to use his arms and legs. |
| C．He relies on liquid nutrition to support life. |
| D．His disease has cost his family a great deal. |
| A．To inspire others like him. |
| B．To raise money for his disease. |
| C．To find a possible cure for his disease. |
| D．To escape from his bitter life for the time being. |
| A．Optimistic. | B．Ambitious. | C．Cooperative. | D．Obedient. |
| A．An Unusual Disease Changes a Teenager’s Life |
| B．A Student with Disability Has Taken off on the Internet |
| C．Those at a Disadvantage Tend to Arouse People’s Sympathy |
| D．A Special Teenager Tries to Change People’s Ideas about Disabilities |
