【推荐1】If you could change your child’s DNA in the future to protect them against diseases, would you? It could be possible because of technology known as CRISPR-Cas, or just CRISPR.

CRISPR involves a piece of RNA, a chemical messenger, designed to work on one part of DNA; it also uses an enzyme (酶) that can take unwanted genes out and put new ones in, according to The Economist. There are other ways of editing DNA, but CRISPR will do it very simply, quickly, and exactly.

The uses of CRISPR could mean that cures are developed for everything from Alzheimer’s to cancer to HIV. By allowing doctors to put just the right cancer-killing genes into a patient’s immune system, the technology could help greatly.

In April scientists in China said they had tried using CRISPR to edit the genomes (基因组) of human embryos. Though the embryos would never turn into humans, this was the first time anyone had ever tried to edit DNA from human beings. With this in mind, the US’ National Academy of Sciences plans to discuss questions about CRISPR’s ethics (伦理问题).

For example, CRISPR doesn’t work properly yet. As well as cutting the DNA it is looking for, it often cuts other DNA, too. In addition, we currently seem to have too little understanding of what DNA gives people what qualities.

There are also moral questions around “playing God”. Of course, medicine already stops natural things from happening —— for example, it saves people from infections. The opportunities to treat diseases make it hard to say we shouldn’t keep going.

A harder question is whether it is ever right to edit human germ-line (种系) cells and make changes that are passed on to children. This is banned in 40 countries and restricted in many others. However, CRISPR means that if genes can be edited out, they can also be edited back in. It may be up to us as a society to decide when and where editing the genome is wrong.

Also, according to The Economist, gene editing may mean that parents make choices that are not obviously in the best interests of their children: “Deaf parents may prefer their children to be deaf too; parents might want to make their children more intelligent at all costs.”

In the end, more research is still needed to see what we can and can’t do with CRISPR. “It’s still a huge mystery how we work,” Craig Mello, a UMass Medical School biologist and Nobel Prize winner, told The Boston Globe. “We’re just trying to figure out this amazingly complicated thing we call life.”

1. What is the article mainly about?

A．How CRISPR was developed by scientists.

B．What we can and can’t do with CRISPR.

C．Chinese scientists’ experiment of using CRISPR to edit human embryos.

D．The advantages of CRISPR and arguments about its ethics.

2. According to the article, the technology of CRISPR ________.

A．is very safe because it only cuts the DNA it is looking for

B．is banned in 42 countries and restricted in many others

C．could cause parents to make unwise choices for their children

D．could help us discover the link between DNA and the qualities it gives people

3. It can be concluded from the article that CRISPR ________.

A．could be helpful in the treatment of cancer and HIV

B．allows scientists to edit genomes for the first time

C．is a technology that uses an enzyme to work on RNA and DNA

D．has proven to be the most effective way to protect children against diseases

4. What is the author’s attitude toward CRISPR?

A．Supportive.	B．Worried.
C．Negative.	D．Objective.

【推荐2】When people think of a typical mineral mine, it’s probably underground. It’s unlikely that the picture of plants and soft greenery would cross their minds. Now, new explorations into phytomining (植物采矿) may change that viewpoint. Instead of traditionally mining metals from rocks, phytomining uses plants as an alternative source for them. Using plants to extract metals can have significant environmental benefits over rock mining.

Phytomining was first studied in 1983, but it hasn’t yet been adopted by the metals industry. In 2004, Indonesian soil scientist Tjoa took her research to Sorowako, a small town in Indonesia with one of the largest nickel (镍) mining areas, to look into plants that continued to live after years of mining. She brought samples back to her lab and found that these super plants were more than just surviving — they were growing.

The plants were absorbing and storing nickel from the soil. Large amounts of metals kill most plants, but these, known as hyper-accumulators (超富集植物), were learning to adapt. If these plants were storing metal, that meant science could find a way to extract the minerals for use and quite frankly, scientists easily did. When the shoots are harvested and burned, the metals are separated from the plant material in the ashes.

Tjoa returned to Sorowako and spent years searching for new hyper-accumulator species. After a plant is considered a possibility, there’s a simple test paper that turns pink when placed against the leaf of a hyper-accumulator plant. Two local Indonesian plants were found but there are many others still to be discovered.

Tjoa’s research caught the attention of Bijasksana, a professor of rock magnetism. Together they designed an experiment to understand magnetic susceptibility (磁化率) when plants accumulate more nickel. Their research led to the discovery of two new species of hyper-accumulators. Besides, this research serves as the basis for the potential that plants can give to the mining industry, offering great advantages to our ecosystem and toward building a more sustainable future.

1. Why did Tjoa go to Sorowako in 2004?

A．To work with the local government.	B．To study the plants surviving mining.
C．To improve the soil of the small town.	D．To research into underground mining.

2. What can be known about hyper-accumulators from the text?

A．They are rich in metals.	B．They are free of minerals.
C．They are very easy to discover.	D．They are too fragile to survive.

3. What was a result of Tjoa and Bijasksana’s experiment?

A．Helping more plants to survive.	B．Testing out the mining industry.
C．Improving the extraction efficiency.	D．Finding more hyper-accumulators.

4. What is the best title of the passage?

A．New Creative Mining Way Meets Challenges.

B．Plants Can Act as Sources of Many Metals.

C．Scientists Can Extract Minerals from Plants.

D．Phytomining Replaces Traditional Mining.

【推荐1】The managing editor is usually the person in charge of the daytoday editorial process of a newspaper. He or she makes sure that the newspaper comes out on time each day and that costs are kept within a budget (预算). He or she is usually responsible for hiring and firing news room staff, and serves as the spokesperson for the newspaper. The managing editor may also be involved in story, photo and graphics (图形) selection, assignments, laying out pages, and editing copy and writing headlines.

The news editor is in charge of the news pages of the newspaper. He or she makes decisions on which stories are used and which are not. The news editor and his or her assistants also lay out pages of the paper.

The copy editor edits wire and local stories and writes headlines. The copy editor is often the last person to see a story before it actually appears in print.

The city editor makes sure that the news in the city is covered and that as many local stories as possible get into each edition.The city editor supervises (监督) the local general assignment, beat and speciality reporters.

The state editor supervises reporters who cover communities and areas outside the city but still within the circulation (流通) area of the newspaper.

The national editor supervises reporters in bureaus in cities outside the circulation area of the newspaper. Most newspapers rely on the wire services for national news, but some have correspondents who work in other cities and report to the national editor.

1. If you want to apply for a job in a newspaper news room, you are likely to be interviewed by ________.

A．the news editor	B．the national editor
C．the city editor	D．the managing editor

2. From the passage, we can learn that ________.

A．the managing editor is mainly responsible for laying out pages of the paper

B．the news editor determines which stories are used

C．the copy editor is often the first person to see the story

D．the national editor supervises the local general assignment, beat and speciality reporters

3. The underlined word “correspondents” in the last paragraph probably means “________”.

A．reporters	B．postmen
C．writers	D．messengers

4. What’s mainly discussed in this passage?

A．How newspapers are made.	B．People in a newspaper news room.
C．How news is collected and edited.	D．People in charge of the newspaper industry.

【推荐3】By analyzing the movement of the smile across a person’s face, the software developed by researchers at the University of Bradford can determine whether or not the expression is true. The most significant movements detected by the software were around the eyes, supporting popular theories that a true smile is one that can be seen in a person’s eyes.

“A smile is perhaps the most common of facial expressions and is a powerful way of signaling positive emotions (情绪)” says Hassan Ugail, Professor of Visual Computing at the University of Bradford, who led the research. “Techniques for analyzing human facial expressions have advanced a lot in recent years but distinguishing between true and false smiles remains a challenge because humans are not good at picking up the relevant messages.”

The software works by first mapping a person's face from within a video recording, and identifying the mouth, cheeks and eyes of the subject. It then measures how they move through the progress of the smile and calculates the differences in movement between the video pieces showing true and false smiles. They found significant differences in the way the subjects' mouths and cheeks moved when comparing the true and the false expressions. The movements around the subjects’ eyes, however, showed the most striking difference, with true smiles producing at least 10 percent more movement in these muscles (肌肉).

“We use two main sets of muscles when we smile — the zygomaticus major, which is responsible for the movements upwards of the mouth and the orbicularis oculi which causes movements around our eyes,” explains Professor Ugail. In false smiles it is often only the mouth muscles that move but, as humans we often don’t spot the lack of movement around the eyes.

He adds, “An objective way of analyzing whether or not a smile is true could help us develop improved interactions (互动) between computers and humans. It could also be important to scientists aiming to gain more understanding into human behavior and emotion.”

1. Why is it hard for humans to recognize a false smile?

A．Humans are good at hiding their smiles.

B．The relevant details are hard to catch for our eyes.

C．Humans often put on too many facial expressions.

D．Techniques for analyzing facial expressions are hard to develop.

2. What do the researchers find by the software?

A．People usually use two main sets of muscles when smiling.

B．True smiles produce more muscle movement around eyes.

C．Mouths and cheeks move the same for true and false smiles.

D．True smiles are a powerful way of signaling positive emotions.

3. What can we infer from Professor Hassan Ugail?

A．There are different sets of muscles on every human’s face.

B．The software can improve humans’ behavior and emotion.

C．Humans can spot the movement around the eyes in true smiles.

D．The interactions between computers and humans remain to be improved.

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．Eyes Can Smile

B．Smiles Can Show One's Personality

C．More Smiles, Longer lives

D．True Smiles, False Movements

【推荐1】For as long as there have been gifts, we naturally make choices based on the recipient (接受者). But what if we have been wrong all along and that we could turn things around, which not only made gift buying easier, but the recipient happier?

In 2015, psychologists Lauren Human and Lara Aknin conducted an online survey, which suggested that when people buy gifts, they prefer to choose something based on the recipient’s personality and tastes. Most people also said that they preferred receiving gifts bought with them in mind: gifts for them.

But Human and Aknin wondered if this approach to giving failed to take advantage of the way we connect as people. So they sent 78 volunteers into a shopping centre before Mother’s Day. Half were told to buy a card that “reveals(揭示) your knowledge of the recipient” while the others set out to buy a card that “reveals your true self”. After the purchase, the givers who had thought partly of themselves reported feeling emotionally closer to their mothers.

To find out how that approach goes down with recipients, the psychologists did another test, asking more than 100 students to choose a song on iTunes to give to a friend, partner or family member. Each half of the group received the same instructions as the card buyers. Results revealed that recipients of songs that revealed something of the givers felt closer to them than those who received gifts bought only with them in mind.

Human and Aknin suggest it might apply to all gifts. “If building stronger social connections is the underlying (潜在的)goal” of a gift and surely it should be — then we “may well be advised to offer more self-reflective gifts”. In short, for a present to be meaningful, you need to give away a bit of yourself, even if there is a risk that the gift might not so closely suit the recipient’s practical needs or tastes as one acquired purely with that in mind.

Moreover, giving something of oneself can be a safer act, the psychologists added. Because it reduces the risk of revealing poor knowledge of a recipient by attempting to buy something that fits their character — and failing.

But a note of caution here: what the research does not examine is the potential risk in repeated, unsympathetic giver-centered giving, which, according to Human and Aknin “could signal self-obsession” — and nobody wants to reveal that about themselves.

1. From the Mother’s Day card test, we can conclude that .

A．gifts chosen with the giver in mind work well on the giver

B．most people choose gifts with the recipient in mind

C．most people choose gifts based on their personal tastes

D．gifts chosen with the giver in mind work well on the recipient

2. What does the author think is the significance of gift giving?

A．Making the giver’s life happier.

B．Showing one’s knowledge of the recipient.

C．Establishing and strengthening social connections.

D．Meeting the recipient’s practical needs.

3. Which of the following is Human and Aknin’s advice on gift giving?

A．Choose gifts that reflect more of yourself.

B．Just focus on your own tastes when choosing gifts.

C．Buy something that fits the recipient’s character most.

D．Be careful not to signal your true personality.

4. Which is the best title of this passage?

A．The tradition of gift giving	B．The purpose of gift giving
C．The effect of gift giving	D．The psychology of gift giving

【推荐2】After paying £20 for my racing red ukulele at a Denmark Street music shop, I happily turned up to the “Ukulele Hootenany” at a club near Liverpool Street. The host came around and tuned it for me. I went to get a drink from the bar and was about to start playing when the little man approached again and said, “Let me tune that again for you.” I hesitated, wanting to reassure him that I’d not touched it since its last tuning but he took it and returned a few minutes later saying, “I’ve tuned it, but it won’t be worth it—use this one instead. And he handed me a racing red version of a more expensive ukulele that I happily handled clumsily with that night.

You can master the basics online and come along expecting to be able to play the most commonly used chords. Just don’t expect to fluently flip (弹) between them without any mistakes. It is easier said than done.

What makes this hobby unique is the fact that it’s not seen as “serious” or “proper” instrument, so it all tracts those more likely to pick it up for fun. That night’s crew were a random collection of around 30 people ranging from 20 to 60, with various shaped and sized ukuleles and various levels of ability.

We sat around a table, with two song books in front of us, and the “leader” called out a page number as we flipper through to a well-known Johnny Cash or Queen tune and did our best to keep up. Later on we got to argue—a Lady Gaga here, an Eric Clapton there.

But the part I enjoyed the most and that I wasn’t expecting was the singalong. Everyone sang, and as no one eared about your singing abilities, people had lot of fun when they were harmonizing and putting on a heavy Southern accent even if it’s not a country song. What it resulted in was a hobby with a unique mix and thus one of my favorites; it was cheap, social, and above all great fun.

1. Which of the following words can best describe the host?

A．Strict and responsible.	B．Considerate and generous
C．Friendly and stubborn.	D．Ambitious and professional

2. Who does the ukulele appeal to most?

A．People who are serious musicians.

B．People who are keen on classical music.

C．People who seek pleasure in playing despite mistakes.

D．People who expect social interactions with strangers.

3. What can you infer from the passage?

A．Each member of the crew played excellent tunes.

B．They couldn’t produce a consistent rhythm while playing.

C．The author was good at singing country songs.

D．The author couldn’t catch up with others during the singalong part.

4. How did the author feel that night?

A．embarrassed

B．moody

C．cheerful

D．optimistic

【推荐3】As far back as the age of dinosaurs millions of years ago, turtles(海龟) wandered around the Earth. Even nowadays, it is generally assumed that turtles are the world's steadiest creature.

However, a new research shows 61 percent of the 356 species of turtles are already threatened or no longer exist. The destruction of their homes, disease, climate change and other reasons have caused their population to drop sharply. In a new study published in the journal BioScience, a team of scientists from various institutions claims that turtles are one of the most threatened among the major vertebrate(脊椎动物) groups.

This could, the authors say, have serious consequences for the ecology. Turtles contribute to the health of many environments, including desert, wetland, freshwater and marine ecosystems, and the decline may lead to bad effects on other species, including humans, they explain. Whit Gibbons, seruor author and professor at the Utuversity of Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, says in a statement that the intention of the study is to inform people about the vital ecological roles of turtles.

One of the important qualities of turtles is how diverse they are when it comes to food. This allows them to have a major impact on food webs of their homes all over the world. In some areas, the density(密度) of the turtle population makes them an important part of the ecosystem. With their gathering, other species that feed on them and their eggs are sure to have a large pool of food.

For plants, turtles are also extremely important as they distribute the seeds of many plant species. When they eat some seeds are not destroyed by the digestive process and instead make their way out of the animals' body. Some turtles are the main dispersal(传播 ) agents of certain plants and their seeds.

These are only a few yet very vital roles that turtles play in the ecological landscape. Unfortunately, many species are in serious decline and in danger of disappearing completely.

1. What does the new study aim to do?

A．To save the grand vertebrate groups on earth.          .

B．To warn people of turtles' terrible situation.

C．To make the importance of turtles' roles known.

D．To claim turtles may be related to dinosaurs.

2. How might the disappearance of turtles influence certain plants?

A．Speed up these plants' disappearing.

B．Put an end to these plants' seeds spreading.

C．Allow more. seeds to grow into plants.

D．Give these plants no chance of survival.        .

3. Which of the following shows the structure of the text?
I:Introduction P:Point Sp: Sub-point(次要点 ) C:Conclusion

A．	B．
C．	D．

4. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A．Turtles Are Sure to Stop Existing.

B．The Ecology Will Change with Turtles.

C．Decline of Turtles Threatens the World.

D．Turtles' Dying Out Worldwide Matters a Lot.

【推荐1】Building on the success of the digital series of One World: Together at Home, Global Citizen and the World Health Organisation (WHO) are partnering for a special one-night event of the same name, which will screen across BET/Comedy Central/MTV/MTV base on Sunday, April 19. On MTV Base, DStv channel 322 and GOtv channel 72, it would air by 1am. (WAT), with a repeat broadcast same day by 8pm. (WAT).

Launched with Chris Martin of Coldplay on March 16, 2020, Together at Home has become an outlet for artistes to share music with their fans for a purpose to educate and inform millions around WHO’s critical effort to prevent, detect and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, One World: Together at Home is not a charity event, but a broad global entertainment special to support the World Health Organisation and the global fight to end COVID-19. The show will feature A-list superstars such as Lady Gaga, John Legend, Billie Eilish, and more.

The two-hour program will be hosted by marquee personalities from each of the major networks. It will include both live and pre-taped performances from the world’s most prominent artists with multimillion-naira pledges to the WHO’s Solidarity Response Fund.

The show will lift viewer’s spirits in these trying times with exclusive and unique cameos from the worlds of music and arts, sports superstars, and comedic sketches, while always drawing back to its core purpose to educate and inform on COVID-19 risks, prevention and response. The broadcast will also feature interviews with experts from WHO as well as stories of frontline healthcare workers from around the world.

With the confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the United States rising each day, the rich and famous aren’t staying quiet about their diagnoses. Instead, celebrities are speaking out on social media not only to keep fans informed but in some cases, to urge followers to stay home in order to help reduce the risk of transmission.

1. What will you see at this concert?

A．Covid-19 treatment method	B．Marquee production method
C．Anti-epidemic stories of medical staff	D．Music interview

2. What is the purpose of this event?

A．Let the audience understand the music

B．Show the charm of superstars

C．Call on the public to raise awareness of health protection

D．Introducing Covid-19

3. What can we infer from the text?

A．The stars participating in this activity have a sense of social responsibility

B．The performances are all live

C．World Health Organization donates to this event

D．American people are unaware of Covid-19

4. Where is the text most likely from?

A．The Medical Magazine	B．The Music Magazine
C．The Adevertisment	D．The Newspaper

【推荐2】This year marks exactly two centuries since the publication of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Even before the invention of the electric light bulb, the author produced a remarkable work of fiction that would foresee many ethical(道德的) questions to be raised by technologies yet to come. Today the rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI) raises fundamental questions: “What is intelligence, identity, or consciousness? What makes human conscience(良知)？”

What is being called artificial general intelligence, machines that would imitate the way humans think, continues to evade(难倒) scientists. Yet humans remain fascinated by the idea of robots that would look, move, and respond like humans, similar to those recently on popular sci-fi TV series such as “West World” and “Humans”.

How people think is still far too complex to be understood, let alone reproduced, says David Eagleman, a Stanford University neuroscientist. “We are just in a situation where there are no good theories explaining what consciousness actually is and how you could ever build a machine to get there.”

But that doesn’t mean essential ethical issues involving AI aren’t at hand. The coming use of autonomous vehicles, for example, raises difficult ethical questions. Human drivers sometimes must make split-second decisions. Their reactions may be a complex combination of instant reflections, input from past driving experiences, and what their eyes and ears tell them in that moment. AI “vision” today is not nearly as complicated as that of humans. And to foresee every imaginable driving situation is a difficult programming problem.

Whenever decisions are based on masses of data, “you quickly get into a lot of ethical questions,” notes Tan Kiat How, chief executive of a Singapore-based agency that is helping the government develop a voluntary code for the ethical use of AI. Along with Singapore, other governments and mega-corporations are beginning to establish their own guidelines. Britain is setting up a data ethics center. India released its AI ethics strategy this spring.

Only when we can make sure that the thinking of intelligent machines reflects humanity’s highest values will they be useful servants and not Frankenstein’s out-of-control monster.

1. Why did the author mention Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein at the beginning of the passage?

A．Because it has remained popular for as long as 200 years.

B．Because it fascinates AI scientists all over the world.

C．Because it has sparked serious ethical controversies.

D．Because it involves some concerns raised by AI today.

2. In David Eagleman’s opinion, our current knowledge of consciousness ________

A．helps explain artificial intelligence.	B．can be misleading to robot making.
C．inspires popular sci-fi TV series.	D．is too limited for us to reproduce it.

3. The solution to the ethical issues brought by autonomous vehicles ________

A．can hardly ever be found.	B．is still beyond our power.
C．causes little public concern.	D．has aroused much curiosity.

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

A．AI’s Future: In the Hands of Tech Giants

B．Frankenstein, the Novel Predicting the Age of AI

C．The Conscience of AI: Complex But Unavoidable

D．AI Shall Be Killers Once Out of Control

【推荐3】This is what's known as a 'Buddy' or Friendship Bench'. They're needed because playgrounds can be lonely places sometimes. And these benches can help pupils feeling lonely to find a friend. Benches like this have been around for a while now in many schools. But in Ireland, they are trying to do something a bit different with them.

This school in Cork in the south of Ireland is the 247th to get one from a social enterprise called Buddy Bench Ireland that doesn't just provide schools with benches, it also runs special workshops with trained child psychiatrists（精神病专家）.They use the bench as an opportunity to start conversations about mental well-being. They talk about the importance of being aware of your feelings and those of others. The children need to understand what the bench is about, what it symbolizes--- friendship, inclusion, listening to each other and the most important thing, that it's important to express feelings.

But do children actually use the bench? It's something an independent academic study has been looking at. We found that 40% of the children told us that they had actually used the benches at the time of the study. And over 90% said that they would talk to a child if that child was sitting on the bench. So, certainly there doesn't appear to be any issues around stigma. Children's mental health at school is increasingly a concern in many countries. In Ireland, they're hoping these benches will not only tackle issues like social isolation and bullying but also give a future generation the confidence to open up about their feelings.

1. Why the school in Cork in the south of Ireland uses the bench?

A．To start conversations about mental well-being.

B．To replace the old benches in school.

C．To cut the cost of school's facility.

D．To help children with psychological problems fully recover.

2. What makes the bench work in Ireland schools?

A．Teachers and parents encourage children to try it.

B．Most children are willing to express feelings.

C．All the children understand what the bench is about.

D．The bench helps children get rid of loneliness.

3. What do schools expect of the bench?

A．It will deal with social isolation and bullying completely.

B．It will motivate a future generation to bravely convey their feelings.

C．It will make children prefer the bench to old one.

D．It will spread in most schools in Ireland soon.

4. Where is the text most likely from?

A．A fiction	B．A guidebook
C．A diary	D．A magazine