【推荐1】Sometimes it takes a work of art to give the inspiration for advances in science. For example, Elon Musk’s dream of humans living on other planets was first inspired by Isaac Asimov’s Foundation book series. Let’s explore some of the technologies from science fiction that have been brought to life.

※Remote control

Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel Dune features a small flying robot device that is piloted remotely, one of the earliest appearances of drones (无人机) in science fiction. With the first permit for commercial drone use in the US given in 2006, drones became a reality, and can now be found taking on multiple roles. They provide new angles for photography, help farmers maintain their crops and are used in the military. Jeff Bezos has even supported the use of drones to deliver packages for his company Amazon, unveiling(公开) a delivery drone back in 2019.

※From thin air

Television show Star Trek, first appearing on screens in 1966, inspired science. One of the most unexpected examples may be the 3D printer. In 2019, researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, US, developed a 3D printer that shapes objects using rays (光线) of light.

They have named the printer the “replicator”, the same name as the device in the program to show their inspiration. The device uses light to alter the density (密度) of resin (树脂), changing the material from a liquid to a solid in order to shape the desired object.

※Starting the heart

One of the first sci-fi novels, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley has had a huge impact on science. Earl Bakken, the inventor of the pacemaker (起搏器), a device placed into the chest that helps the heart to pump blood using small electrical impulses (脉冲), was inspired by the 1931 movie adaptation of the book. “What intrigued me the most… was the creative spark of Dr Frankenstein’s electricity,” Bakken told the Atlantic.

1. Why does Jeff Bezos want to use drones?

A．To transport packages.	B．To guard military sites.
C．To seed and water crops.	D．To snap breathtaking pictures.

2. What do we know about the 3D printer?

A．It came into use in 1966.

B．It is used to print anything.

C．It can change the density of a desired object.

D．It has been named after a device in Star Trek.

3. What is the common feature of the technologies mentioned in the article?

A．They are all based on electricity.

B．They are all invented by famous CEOs.

C．They are all brought to life from science fiction.

D．They are all used for commercial and medical purposes.

【推荐2】Your next car might drive itself. After years of trials on city streets, driverless vehicles are now nearing the production phase. Last month, a driverless bus began carrying passengers through Lyon, France. Most in the automobile industry think self-driving vehicles will be on the road by 2020 or before.

Driverless cars will at first be huddled with human-driven cars. But the first places where they will become dominant（占支配地位的）are dense urban areas-precisely the spots most damaged by the automobile age. Many advanced cities are already reducing the role of human-driven cars. Driverless cars will quicken that process and will bring us great benefits.

Driverless cars will reduce accidents by around 90 percent. That's big-the annual death toll on the world's roads is about 1.2 million a year. Pollution and carbon emissions will drop, because urban driverless cars will be electric. The old, otherwise they would stay at home most of the time and the disabled and teenagers will suddenly gain mobility.

On the other hand, driverless cars will bring catastrophe（灾难）.The best thing about the automobile age is that it employs tens of millions of people to make, market, insure and drive vehicles. Over the next 20 years, most men who now drive trucks, taxis and buses will see their jobs reduced. Carmakers are especially scared. A few cars in the future might be made by tech companies such as Apple, Baidu and Google. Imaging the impact on Germany, where the automotive sector is the largest industry.

Dramatic change is coming, and driverless cars could arrive by 2020. But governments have hardly begun thinking about it. Only 6 percent of the biggest US cities have factored them into their long-term planning.

A decade ago anyone hardly saw the smartphone coming. It has brought an epidemic of mass addiction. Let's hope we do a better job of handling the driverless car.

1. The underlined words "be huddled with "in Paragraph 2 can be replaced by "________".

A．show up with	B．exist together with
C．get rid of	D．take the place of

2. Why can driverless cars reduce pollution and carbon emissions?

A．Driverless cars reduce the number of human-driven cars.

B．Driverless cars will be powered by electricity.

C．Driverless cars save fuel by driving themselves.

D．Driverless cars will reduce too many accidents.

3. What can we know about driverless cars？

A．They will not hit the road until 2020.

B．They will only be used in urban areas.

C．They will not cause any road accident.

D．They aren't still seriously taken by governments.

4. What's the author's attitude toward driverless cars？

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

【推荐3】British programmer Joshua Browder is helping people save much money on legal fees with his latest project — the world’s first robot lawyer. The 19-year-old first started the project last summer as a free website to help people appeal(诉讼)unfair parking tickets. He came up with the idea after getting a series of tickets himself for unimportant reasons. Having wasted several hours on writing appeals to these tickets, he realized that many people have no time or legal knowledge or even the energy to appeal. So he decided to create an automatic appeal generator, which he named DoNotPay.

DoNotPay was a huge success, and the tech genius has now gone a step further with the website, converting(转变)it into a robot lawyer equipped to help with various legal issues. “The robot can currently handle parking ticket appeals and delayed flights/trains. It can also answer some general legal questions like ‘I can’t afford my ticket. What do I do?’” said Browder.

To use the service, users need to go to the website donotpayco. uk and sign up for free. Once signed in, the robot will ask the user a series of questions about their situation. When it has collected enough information, and if the person has legal grounds(依据)for an appeal, the robot will then generate a letter for the person to use.

Browder said he received good advice from his professors at Stanford University, where he is currently a freshman. “Initially, I thought the best way to go about it was to create lots of individual rules for it to follow,” he explained. “However, I quickly failed with this approach because there are thousands of ways to say the same thing and it would be impossible to catch every one. The breakthrough came when I learned how to create a way for the robot to learn and compare phrases itself, so that it doesn’t matter how the user phrases his or her requests.”

So he programmed the robot to use test comparison that includes keywords, word order and pronouns. And the more people use the robot, the better the algorithm(演算法)gets. But there are situations where the robot can’t help. “If the robot can’t answer, it provides helpful message offering the user some sample phrases or the choice of contacting me directly.” Browder said, “On the backend, whenever the robot can’t answer, I get notified and I work as quickly as possible to add functionality for any future requests of a similar nature.”

1. What made Joshua Browder decide to develop the robot lawyer?

A．His interest in law and robot.

B．Being often fined for serious reasons.

C．A waste of much money in appealing.

D．Realizing people’s need to write appeals.

2. According to the text, at present the robot lawyer can _______.

A．teach the users to write a letter of appeal

B．create a computer program to serve its users

C．recommend some useful legal websites to users

D．deal with some common legal issues

3. To use the robot lawyer’s service, a user should first _______.

A．register online	B．pay a small amount of money
C．answer the robot’s questions	D．provide legal grounds for his appeal

4. What did Browder’s professors advise him to do about his robot?

A．Create enough individual rules for it to follow.

B．Teach it to communicate with its users.

C．Enable it to learn and compare phrases on its own.

D．Store enough legal knowledge in it.

5. The underlined word “notified” in the last paragraph can be replaced by “______”.

A．warned

B．informed

C．convinced

D．blamed

【推荐1】B
Wild animals seem to have escaped the Indian Ocean tsunami (海啸), adding weight to the idea that they possess a “sixth sense” for disasters, experts said on Thursday. Sri Lanka wildlife officials have said the giant waves that killed over 24,000 people along the Indian Ocean Island’s coast seemingly missed wild beasts, with no dead animals found.
“No elephants are dead, not even a dead hare or rabbit. I think animals can sense disaster. They have a sixth sense. They know when things are happening,” H.D. Ratnayake, deputy director of Sri Lanka’s Wildlife Department said on Wednesday.
The waves washed floodwaters up to 3 km (2 miles) inland at Yala National Park in the southeast, Sri Lanka’s biggest wildlife reserve (自然保护区) and home to hundreds of wild elephants. “There has been a lot of evidence about dogs barking or birds migrating before volcanic eruptions or earthquakes. But it has not been proved,” said Matthew van Lierop, an animal behaviour specialist at Johannesburg Zoo. “There have been no specific studies because you can’t really test it in a lab or field setting,” he said. Other authorities agreed with this conclusion. “Wildlife seems to be able to pick up certain phenomenon, especially birds. There are many reports of birds detecting coming disasters,” said Clive Walker, who has written several books on African wildlife.
Animals certainly rely on the known senses such as smell or hearing to avoid danger such as predators (食肉动物). The idea of an animal’s “sixth sense” is a lasting one that the evidence on Sri Lanka’s damaged coast is likely to add to.
1. This passage is mainly about _____.

A．the damage that was caused in the Indian Ocean tsunami

B．why animals can save themselves from natural disasters

C．how to protect the wildlife when disaster happens

D．the different opinions about animals’ natural power

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

A．It has been proved that animals have a sixth sense.

B．Research has been made on the special movements of animals before disasters.

C．It’s generally considered that animals can sense the coming of disasters.

D．It can be tested that animals have the known sense to escape from the disasters.

3. What does the term “sixth sense” in the passage mean?

A．It is the natural ability of animals that can’t save them from danger.

B．It is the animal’s imagination in the brain.

C．It is some hidden power to say in advance that something will happen.

D．It is a kind of sense that is the same as smell or hearing.

4. Which section does the passage most probably appear in a newspaper?

A．Entertainment.

B．Discovery.

C．Future.

D．Culture.

【推荐1】If you walk through a park,you may enjoy the scents(气味）of flowers,water and soil.If you are especially lucky,you will get to smell fresh-cut grass.It's a beloved scent that transports many people back to their childhood.But there's a dark side to that smell.Indeed,we are in love with the scent of fear.

Plants have many different chemical defenses.That smell is one of them,as the grass responds to an attack,signaling(向......示意）to the surrounding grass that danger is coming.The fresh,"green”scent of a just-mowed lawn is the lawn trying to save itself,says a story at science website Real-Clear Science.

The smell is produced by a mix of chemicals called green leaf volatiles(GLVs,绿叶挥发物）.When the leafy plants are injured by animals eating them, people cutting them, or any other rough treatment-they give off GLVs into the air.These GLVs are a warning to neighbouring plants that their flowers might be removed,so they can move resources like sugar toward their roots and away from their flowers.This reduces a plant's potential losses and can help it grow back later.

The rush of GLVs does a few other things,too.One chemical helps to close the wound on the damaged plant.Others act as antibiotics(抗生素）and prevent bacterial infections.

Some GLVs may also react with animals that eat plants.Silke All-mann and Ian T.Baldwin, researchers from the University of Amsterdam,Netherlands,found that some caterpillars(毛虫）are changed by the GLV compounds(化合物）when they eat a tobacco plant.Tobacco makes the caterpillars more attractive to predators(捕食者）.For the tobacco plants,this is like having an older brother come to beat up your bully(欺凌者）.

Thankfully,nothing is coming to eat you when you mow the lawn.Instead,we human get treated to some great-smelling GLVs.One is a compound known as"cis-3-hexenal".This is the same chemical that gives strawberries their sweet scent.Similar compounds are also found in apples and olives.

＂Just about all fresh vegetables have some GLV scents to them,"Baldwin told Live Science,and fruits may release the compounds as they soften."Throughout evolutionary history,we've used that information to know when something is ripe,"Baldwin said.Now we can use it to know when grass is frightened.

1. What do we know about GLVs?

A．They are harmful to humans.	B．They are unique to flowering plants.
C．They tend to stay in the air for a long time.	D．They are released when plants get hurt.

2. How may plants react to the GLVs produced by neighbouring plants?

A．They grow more quickly.	B．They produce more flowers.
C．They absorb more water.	D．They transport resources to their roots.

3. In paragraph5,the underlined part"an older brother"refers to

A．a kind of antibiotic

B．a predator.

C．a caterpillar.

D．a tobacco plant.

4. According to Baldwin,GLVs can

A．tell us whether fruits are ready to eat.	B．protect plants from pests.
C．help fruits grow more quickly.	D．help people choose delicious fruits.

【推荐2】The home of the future won't be completely different and we will be living in houses and flats just as we do today. But people will want to shape their homes to match their dreams. No two homes will be the same. People will be able to buy "house kits" containing a basic house structure, with movable walls, doors and windows. They will put together the different parts to create the home they want.

Many jobs that we do today will disappear, others will still exist but will change and new jobs will be created. Skilled workers such as builders, gardeners and electricians won't disappear because machines can't replace them. Teachers will still exist because students need human contact. But they will be using modem technology in class more and students will be working more at home. The medical technology revolution and space travel will create new jobs which we can only imagine today.

Space holidays will develop in the future, but these holidays won't be for everyone because they won't be cheap. Short space trips will develop first; then space hotels will orbit the earth where it will be possible to have a longer vacation. By the end of the next century, there will have been holiday centres on the moon with leisure facilities（休闲设施）for families.

Paper won't exist in the future. Instead, there will be e-paper which people will be able to use over and over again. This will develop in order to save natural resources. E-newspapers and e-magazines will replace traditional newspapers and magazines and we will download information and news articles from the Internet every day onto our reusable paper.

The laws of physics tell us that the earth is going to disappear some time in the future. This isn't going to happen tomorrow but scientists predict that it will happen in five billion years when our sun explodes. We will have to explore the universe and find another home. At some point in the distant future, either we stay on the earth and die with it, or we leave and move to another planet. There won't be any other choice.

1. Homes of the future will         .

A．be completely different from those of today

B．be very similar to our homes

C．all be different from one another

D．be movable as you want

2. What does the second paragraph imply?

A．Skilled workers will face great challenges.

B．The future will witness job changes.

C．Technology will totally replace workforce.

D．An unimaginable life will come into being.

3. Space trips and staying in space hotels will          .

A．become a very common way to spend holidays

B．be the best holiday options for families

C．attract a lot of people

D．be still only for very rich people

4. E-paper will replace traditional paper because       .

A．it will be a symbol of fashion

B．it won't waste natural resource

C．it will be cheaper to produce

D．it will be convenient to carry

【推荐3】Recently the World Health Organization announced that the disease of smallpox(天花)had almost been wiped out in most parts of the world, thanks to widespread vaccination(种牛痘). Most people are vaccinated at least once in their lives and if they wish to travel from one country to another they must be able to prove that they have had a recent vaccination. In this way the disease has been prevented from spreading and today one seldom hears of it at all.

This is mainly because of the great discovery made by a village doctor, Edward Jenner, in about 1798 when he published his report of his new experiment called vaccination (from the word ‘vacca’ meaning a cow). Jenner discovered that people who worked with cattle often suffered from a harmless disease which they caught from the cattle, but these people never seemed to get smallpox. So he experimented by putting the disease into a small opening on the arms of healthy people, and though their arms became painful for a day or two, they soon recovered and none of these people ever got smallpox.

So the news of the wonderful discovery spread to other countries and people rushed to their doctors to be vaccinated. In many countries the simple way to deal with the arm was done on thousands of people, and the terrible smallpox began to disappear.

1. Vaccination against smallpox has been so successful that _________ .

A．the discoverer made a large amount of money

B．Dr Jenner was given a prize by the World Health Organization

C．smallpox has almost disappeared in most countries

D．smallpox was no longer in existence on earth

2. Smallpox has been prevented from spreading through the following measures EXCEPT that ________.

A．most people were vaccinated against the disease at least once

B．people going abroad should promise not to spread the disease

C．people travelling from one country to another must prove they are vaccinated

D．people must be vaccinated shortly before going to foreign countries

3. What led Dr Jenner to experiment with vaccination was that ________ .

A．he wanted to make a great discovery and publish it

B．vaccination could make people's arms safe

C．he tried to cure the farmers of some disease caught from the cattle

D．those who worked with cattle seemed free from getting smallpox

4. The doctor's new discovery was called ‘vaccination’ for the reason that ________ .

A．he discovered smallpox near a farm

B．he experimented with a disease from the cattle

C．he was working with cattle in the countryside

D．people got the disease of smallpox from the cattle

5. The news of the discovery ________.

A．caught people's attention from all corners of the world

B．spread far and near in the western countries

C．made people rush to Dr Jenner for vaccination

D．helped to get rid of the terrible disease of smallpox

【推荐1】Good morning. The program today is about music. The word “music” comes from the Greek word “muse”. The Muses are the goddesses of the arts. Music is only one of the arts. It is like the spoken language, but is uses sounds. Today's program brings together music from different corners of the world. Who invented music? Who sang the first song? No one knows exactly the answers to these questions. But we know that music plays an important part in almost everyone's life. Babies and young children love to hear people singing to them. When they are a little older, they like to sing the songs they have heard. When children go to school, their world of music grows. In the middle grades students take music lessons. When they reach high school, they become interested in listening to pop music.

The records we have chosen for you today are form American country music, Indian music, pop music and so on. Music has meaning for everyone. It can make people happy or it can make them sad. In this program we shall study the language of music. We shall be trying to find out more about how music works. We shall try to find out how music says what people feel.

Now, here comes the music today, I shall explain why they are all good music…

1. The first paragraph is mainly about the__________

A．styles of music

B．history of music

C．taste of music

D．knowledge of music.

2. The speaker is probably__________ ．

A．a host

B．a singer

C．a dancer

D．a teacher

3. Which is TRUE according to the passage？

A．The Muses invented music．

B．Music can bring people some feelings．

C．Music was from a Greek village．

D．Everyone is interested in pop music．

4. What is NOT the purpose of this music program？

A．To study the language of music

B．To learn more about the music

C．To give a complete background to the music

D．To give people some music to listen to

【推荐2】Thanks to the progress of artificial intelligence(AI), robots have won against human players in a number of games, such as chess, Go game and even mahjong. And now, AI-powered robots are showing their talent in professional curling(冰壶).

Recently, a robot team named Curly has drawn much attention as it successfully beat two South Korean national curling teams. Researchers from Korea University in South Korea, and the Berlin Institute of Technology in Germany developed the robot.

Curling is a challenging sport that requires a mix of precision and strategy. In the game, a player called the “thrower” gently slides the stone and releases it before a boundary called the “hogline”. The stone slides down to the target, known as the “house”. An opposing team does the same, so both teams accumulate stones in the same house. At the end of the round, the team with a stone closest to the center of the target gets a point.

This requires the players to figure out the force and angle needed to slide a heavy stone in order to land it in the house or make it into another position. Players also have to form a strategy to prevent the opponent from getting their stones closest to the center of the house. And apparently, Curly has made progress in mastering these skills.

Curly is a team of two robots: One is responsible for observing the position of the stones at the scoring end, while the other does the throwing. But how was this robot programmed to achieve this?

Researchers built a simulation(模拟) of a curling game for the robots to play around. In the simulation, the researchers approximated the physics of the real world as best as they could, considering various conditions, such as the ice surface and the positions of stones. Then, there is curling strategy. The robots were trained in different situations to deal with various throws. The researchers found that Curly adapted to many variables(变量) of the game the same way a person would.

This shows that a robot can observe the real world and act accordingly in a precise and strategic manner, which is a sign of a promising future for the ever-expanding use of AI.

1. What do we know about the team of robots named Curly?

A．It can play different kinds of sports.

B．It defeated human players in sports games.

C．It is more advanced in sports than other robots.

D．It was developed by researchers from South Korea.

2. What does paragraph 3 mainly talk about?

A．The way to play curling.	B．The use of AI in sports competitions.
C．The ways Curly can be improved.	D．The reasons why Curly was invented.

3. What did researchers find out about Curly when it was being trained?

A．It could consider different conditions.	B．It could develop new game strategies.
C．It could build a simulation of a game.	D．It could copy what human players do.

4. What attitude does the author have toward AI technologies?

A．Worried.

B．Unconcerned.

C．Annoyed.

D．Hopeful.

【推荐3】A robot navigates through the strawberries, detecting ripe ones, picking without bruising and placing them in its basket. It sounds futuristic but it is possible now thanks to Rubion, the picking robot for strawberries. This piece of Belgian innovation is not only an answer to the labor shortage in the agricultural industry, but also allows growers to increase the quality of its produce – which in the end benefits the consumer.

Demographic (人口结构的) and socio-economic numbers show that the labor shortage in the agricultural industry is a fact. But for Octinion the focus is clearly on adding quality. “Thanks to robotics, we have so many possibilities, much more than a human could ever do. Harvest prediction, picking according to market needs, simply picking when the berries are ripe instead of when workers are available – these are just a few examples of what is possible now for a grower,” says Tom Coen, CEO of the Octinion Technology Group. “The consumer will also notice the difference, as strawberries will be fresher and show less bruising.”

Introducing robots in an industry where almost everything gets done by hand is more of a revolution than an evolution. It calls for close cooperation with all stakeholders (利益相关者). Tom Coen: “not only have we been working together with growers and test centers across the world for the past couple of years, breeders have also been keen on being part of the technological developments. ”

In 2014 a team of Belgian engineers started the development of the robot. In the meanwhile, Octinion wasn’t the only company presenting a concept. Product Manager Laura Guillaume says it’s not a surprise that the company from Leuven is the first to actually present a commercial product: “by developing the robot from the beginning, we are able to make it practical in greenhouses or tunnels.” Octinion plans on launching harvesting robots for other crops in the upcoming years.

1. What can we know about the robot?

A．It can help solve the problem of labor shortage.

B．It makes little difference to the quality of the fruits.

C．It is developed by a group of Belgian engineers independently.

D．It has been put into use around the globe.

2. What is paragraph 2 mainly about?

A．The good news of the robotic picking.

B．The advantages of the robotic picking.

C．How the robotic picking works.

D．Different attitudes to the robotic picking.

3. What can we infer from the last paragraph?

A．The robot was introduced to the market in 2014.

B．Octinion is the only company to put forward the idea of the robot.

C．The robot can be used in any situation.

D．Various harvesting robots are on the way.

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

A．How robots pick strawberries.

B．Fruits will be picked by Robots.

C．Strawberry-picking robots are presented.

D．A new robot was invented.