In the blue-green depths of the sea off the coast of Tuscany, Italy, an unusual seafloor sculpture park is defending its watery setting.
Since fisherman Paolo’s teens, he has been leading out daily to fish in these coastal waters along the Maremma coastline. It was in the 1980s that he began to notice the clear signs: a seabed that was becoming poor, with exhausted fish stocks. Until recently, he was forced to share catches with a threatening part: illegal “bottom trawlers’’(拖网捕鱼的人), who randomly spoil a large quantity of ocean life as they fish, dragging a weighted net along the seafloor behind their boats.
Paolo’s style of artisanal fishing, in contrast,needs to be sustainable as damaging the ecosystem could reduce fisher men’s income. Paolo understood that the success of his fishing activity was linked to the good state of the environment. “If the sea dies, so does the fisherman. You can’t just take. You have to give, too,” said Paolo. The underwater “House of Fish”sculpture park, which was started in 2015, was encouraged by this fisher man’s desire to do something that went beyond the handful of concrete blocks he had previously convinced local authorities and some environmental groups to drop into the sea to try and stop illegal trawling.
Concrete blocks or sculptures can break weighted trawler nets. They can also play a role as artificial reefs, giving corals and other sea life a place to live, and varying shade and lighting to help species flourish. Thanks to the underwater sculptures, some species not seen in a long while such as groupers and lobsters have returned. The sculpture park represents both an artistic statement and a physical barrier to seafloor trawling.
Today, 39 huge,other-worldly stone sculptures dot the seabed along a stretch of Tuscan coastline near the town of Talamone. These artworks have been already coated with algae, a sign that the natural habitat is being revived. In the immediate future, Paolo hopes to continue his beautiful solution in coastal waters. “Man is still destroying the seas,” he says. “And my mission continues.”
1. What threatens Paolo’s work of artisanal fishing?| A．Increasing fishermen. | B．Frequent bad weather. |
| C．Illegal trawling industry. | D．Concrete blocks on the seafloor. |
| A．To show his creativity in carving. |
| B．To protect the ecosystem of the sea. |
| C．To boost the development of local tourism. |
| D．To warn people against fishing in coastal waters. |
| A．The process of building sculpture parks. |
| B．The results of banning seafloor trawling. |
| C．The roles of sculpture parks under the sea. |
| D．The damaging effects of trawling on sea life. |
| A．The First Underwater Park in the World. |
| B．Fanciulli’s Innovation in Cleaning the Ocean. |
| C．Waters with Sculptures: Better Habitats for Fishes. |
| D．Seafloor Parks: Artworks for Protecting Our Sea. |
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【推荐1】If your pilot call "Mayday" on the communication system, you 're in big trouble. In May 2020, the pilot of Pakistan International Airlines Flight PK 8303 gave the horrible "Mayday" alarm. "We have lost two engines. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday," were the pilot's last words, according to "Business Insider". Ninety-seven people died. Mayday is an international distress signal used by airplane pilots, boat captains and the emergency response personnel.
The signal arose just after World War 1, as air traffic between Britain and Europe increased greatly. All nearby nations needed an internationally understood signal that would warn authorities of urgent aircraft problems. Ships communicated through telegraph using Morse code, and this technology made "SOS" unmistakable. However, aircraft pilots used radio calls, and "SOS" owing to its consonants, could be misheard as other letters like "F".
So Frederick Mockford, a senior radio officer in London, was put in charge of finding a proper code word. He reasoned that because so much of the air traffic flew between Croydon and Le Bourget Airport in Paris, it might make sense to use a word that has been developed from a French word. He came up with Mayday, the French pronunciation of“ m'aider”("help me"), which itself is a clear version of "venez m'aider", or "come help me." The U.S. formally adopted "Mayday" as a distress signal in 1927.
Due to radio interference and loud noise, pilots are told to repeat the word three times: "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday." The repetition serves to tell the distress calls from those simple distress calIs.
Given its importance, most people respect the Mayday signal and use it only when absolutely necessary. Sadly, the Coast Guard occasionally deals with hoax calls. As a result, a lot of dollars and countless man-hours may be wasted trying to rescue people who were never in danger. People who misuse this system can be put in prison for up to 10 years.
1. What does the author use the example of the Pakistan pilot to show?| A．"Mayday!" is used for distress calls. | B．Flying may become a terrible air crash. |
| C．"Mayday!" has to be used sometimes. | D．"Mayday!" is mainly used by the pilot. |
| A．It is difficult to understand. | B．It is only used among boat captains. |
| C．It may be misunderstood in radio calls. | D．It is only understood by certain countries. |
| A．It is a French word. | B．It means "a day in May". |
| C．It has different versions | D．It was created by Frederick. |
| A．To use "Mayday" cautiously. | B．To learn the importance of "Mayday". |
| C．To understand the origin of "Mayday". | D．To know the result of misusing "Mayday". |
While repeated performance of Jingle Bells may seem like an innocent attempt to raise customers’ spirits during the nightmare of Christmas shopping, the songs also have a more delicate impact.
“Background music, or “Muzak”, can be used by marketers to impose cultures ---such as the commercialization of Christmas--- onto consumers and influence their behaviour,” experts said.
Dr. Alan Bradshaw of Royal Holloway, University of London, said, “Festive jingles are force-fed to Christmas shoppers in a bid to change their mood, influence their sense of time and what sort of products they buy. In other words, this is an attempt to control your shopping habits in a way that you might hardly be aware of.”
“Often we are told that we have the freedom to choose where we want to shop, but during Christmas the use of music in this way is so common that our freedom to choose disappears.”
Dr. Bradshaw and Prof Morris Holbrook of Columbia University examined the phenomenon and found that retailers often “dumb down” the music played in shops to relax customers, meaning it is easier to control their behaviour.
It is thought that slowing down the rhythm of music in shops can trick customers into thinking less time has passed, and therefore spend more time examining the shelves, for example.
Some providers of background music have been known to promote their services by claiming they can boost profits by controlling the behaviour of customers.
“A common trick is to take a popular current song and record an instrumental version which can be slowed down or sped up at different time of the day to influence behaviour in different ways,” Dr. Bradshaw said.
Background music is often classed as “Muzak” in honor of the Seattle-based company which began producing its soft-sounding melodies in the 1930s.
1. According to Dr. Bradshaw, in what ways does Christmas music influence customers?
①their mood ②their income ③their sense of time ④ the sort of products they buy
| A．①②③ | B．①③④ | C．②③④ | D．①②④ |
| A．let customers spend more time shopping |
| B．make customers and sales assistants relaxed |
| C．let customers enjoy the beautiful music |
| D．help customers find what they really want |
| A．Classical music | B．Popular modern songs. | C．Folk songs. | D．Jazz music. |
| A．Music makes happy Christmas |
| B．Christmas “Muzak” |
| C．How to make Christmas music? |
| D．Christmas music makes us spend more |
【推荐3】Men talk just as much as women —
Research by psychologists at the University of Arizona has shown that the stereotype that women talk more than men may not be true. In the study, hundreds of college students were fitted with recorders, and the total number of words they used during the day was then counted.
The results, published in the New Scientist, showed that women speak about 16,000 words a day and men speak only slightly fewer. In fact, the four most talkative people in the study were all men.
Professor Matthias Mehl, who was in charge of the research, said that he and his colleagues had expected to find that women were more talkative.
However, they had been skeptical of the common belief that women use three times as many words as men. This idea became popular after the publication of a book called The Female Brain (2006) whose author, Louann Brizendine, claimed that “a woman uses about 20,000 words per day, whereas a man uses about 7,000.”
Professor Mehl accepts that many people will find the results difficult to believe. However, he thinks that this research is important because the stereotype, that women talk too much and men keep quiet, is bad not only for women but also for men. “It says that to be a good male, it’s better not to talk-that silence is golden.”
GOSSIP WITH THE GIRLS?
-JUST PICK ANY ONE OF FORTY SUBJECTS
Women are experts at gossiping - and they often talk about trivial things, or at least that’s what men have always thought. However, according to research done by Professor Petra Boynton, a psychologist at University College London, when women talk to women their conversations are not trivial at all, and cover many more topics (up to 40) than when men talk to other men.
Women’s conversations range from health to their houses, from politics to fashion, from movies to family, from education to relationship problems. Almost everything, in fact, except soccer. Men tend to talk about fewer subjects, the most popular being work, sports, jokes, cars, and women.
Professor Boynton interviewed over 1,000 women for her study. She also found that women move quickly from one subject to another in conversation, whereas men usually stick to one subject for longer periods of time.
Professor Boynton also says that men and women talk for different reasons. In social situations, women use conversation to solve problems and reduce stress, while men talk to each other to laugh or to exchange opinions.
1. What was the stereotype that the research by Professor Mehl wanted to investigate ?| A．Women use three times as many words as men. |
| B．Men and women talk for different reasons. |
| C．It is a good idea that silence is golden. |
| D．Women are more talkative than men. |
| A．Men tend to talk about their houses and jobs. |
| B．Women are experts at talking about almost everything. |
| C．Men move quickly from one subject to another in conversation |
| D．Women’s conversations cover numerous more subjects than men’s. |
| A．A linking word used to contrast two facts. |
| B．A verb indicating that something is true. |
| C．A noun leading to new information. |
| D．An adverb which means “really”. |
| A．What’s for small talk? | B．Can it really be true ? |
| C．Modern manners? | D．A golden rule ? |
【推荐1】During the annual political meetings, environmental protection was definitely among the biggest concerns. Actually, it was also an issue that ancient Chinese paid great attention to. In fact, the world’s earliest environmental protection concept, ministry and laws were all born in China. So, what did the ancient Chinese do to protect the environment?
In early ancient China, environmental protection was promoted to the political level. Xunzi, a famous thinker in Warring States Period, brought up the concept of managing state affairs through environmental protection. He stated in his book that vegetation (植被) should not be damaged at will. Guan Zhong, an official 400 years ahead of Xunzi, was also an environmental protection expert. During his term of office, he claimed that “a King who cannot protect his vegetation is not qualified to be a king”.
According to a record in Qing dynasty, the environmental protection ministry in early ancient China was called “Yu”, standing both for the institution and the official title. Although most functions were similar to such ministries today, the administration range of it was much larger, including the mountains, forests, rivers, lakes and so on.
The nine ministries established by Shun, an ancient Chinese king, already included “Yu”, the environmental protection ministry. The first “Yu” official was a man called Boyi, who was indeed an environmental protection expert. He was a capable assistant to Dayu, an ancient Chinese water-control expert. He invented wells, protecting people’s drinking water from pollution. He knew a lot about animals and also called for animal protection.
Environmental protection laws dated back to the ruling period of Dayu, which was more than 4,000 years ago. During his rule, he issued a ban, forbidding people to cut down wood in March or catch fish in June, the time when they were supposed to boom.
In Spring and Autumn and Warring States Period almost 3,000 years ago, “environmental protection laws” appeared in its true sense in Qin, which was recorded in Law of Fields and regarded as China’s earliest environmental protection laws.
1. Which statement would Xunzi probably agree with?| A．Vegetation shouldn’t be damaged at all. |
| B．Much attention should be paid to people’s drinking water. |
| C．The king who failed to protect the environment should be removed. |
| D．Running a country and environmental protection should be combined. |
| A．The Qing dynasty. | B．The ministry of Yu. |
| C．The official title. | D．The modern ministry. |
| A．Fish didn’t taste delicious in June. |
| B．It was too hot to catch fish in June. |
| C．Fish had a period of rapid growth in June. |
| D．Fish-catching time had already passed in June. |
| A．Shun. | B．Boyi. | C．Xunzi. | D．Guan Zhong. |
| A．How the Ancient Chinese Protect the Environment |
| B．Famous Environmental Protection Experts in Ancient China |
| C．Dayu — a Great Environmental Protector |
| D．Measures of the World’s Earliest Environmental Protection |
【推荐2】Not much trash and almost no plastic actually gets recycled. About a third of U.S. garbage gets recycled, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s most recent estimate. The rest goes to landfills, which release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and pollute their surroundings.
To make recycling easier, many U.S. cities don’t ask Americans to separate paper, glass, metal and plastic. ‘They just ask people to put anything recyclable into one bin and let waste plants do the sorting. But waste plants don’t catch everything. AI is now an essential tool for the world’s waste management leaders. Greyparrot, a tech company has already installed more than l00 AI trash spotters in about 50 sorting facilities.
Greyparrot’s device is, basically, a set of visual and infrared (红外线的) cameras hooked up to a computer, which monitors trash as it passes by on a conveyor belt and labels it under 70 categories, from loose bottle caps to books to aluminum cans. Waste plants could connect these AI systems to sorting robots to help them separate trash from recyclables more accurately. They could also use the AI as a quality control system to measure how well they’re sorting trash from recyclables. That could help plant managers adjust their production lines to cover more recyclables, or cheek that a bundle of recyclables is free of pollutants, which would allow them to sell at a higher price.
In the next few years, some recycling companies plan to retrofit (改良) thousands of material- recovery facilities with Al trash - spotting tools. Of these companies, Bollegraaf has built thousands of these facilities, including 340 in North America, accounting for a majority of the recovery plants in the world.
The trash-spotting computers could one day help regulators punish companies that produce tsunamis of non - recyclable packaging because the AI systems are so accurate that they can identify the brands on individual items. Putting the AI tools in thousands of waste plants can raise recycling percentage. If the needle can be moved by even 5 to 10 percent, that would be a phenomenal outcome for greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impact.
1. What does the author want to show in paragraph 1?| A．People pay little attention to environmental protection. |
| B．Greenhouse gas is a major contributor to air pollution. |
| C．Americans show little enthusiasm for recycling. |
| D．All trash has not been recycled in the US. |
| A．By working with sorting robots. |
| B．By adjusting the production line. |
| C．By monitoring the conveyor belt. |
| D．By controlling cameras in a computer. |
| A．They are well received. |
| B．They are highly profitable. |
| C．They have unpredictable prospect. |
| D．They present a challenge for regulators. |
| A．The Use of the Useless |
| B．AI Assistants in Recycling |
| C．A Pressing Trash Issue in US |
| D．AI Tools with Great Potential |
【推荐3】To solve the problem of tiny plastics polluting waterways, chemists in the Czech Republic are thinking small. Their brainchild is a new microrobot which is no bigger than the tip of a sharpened pencil. When sunlight hits them, they produce chemical reactions that push them through water in a specific direction. When they find a piece of plastic, they stick to it and start to break it down.
Chemist Martin Pumera at the Czech University led the project. A decade ago, he chose to focus on the problem posed by microplastics. They’re everywhere—from the bottom of the ocean to air blowing onto ice atop mountains. They’ve turned up in drinking water. Some studies estimate that billions of pieces of plastic end up in the world’s waters. The plastic has many sources, from shopping bags to washing and cleaning wipes.
In lab experiments, the star-shaped swimmers stuck onto each of four different types of plastic. And after a week exposed to light, the robots had reduced the weight of the plastics. It wasn’t much—only by percent. But that was an indication that they were breaking the plastic down. They also caused the surface of the plastic to change from smooth to rough. That’s another sign that the robots were degrading (分解) it. The new study is a proof of concept type. That means it shows something can be done successfully.
In fact, Pumera says they still have a long way to go. There are many types of plastics. And even these microrobots are unlikely to succeed in degrading them all. The researchers also have not yet shown how safe this system is for the environment, although Pumera says that’s their next goal. The first real-world test will be in a wastewater-treatment plant. “Indeed,” says one researcher. “We’ll need a lot of testing to show that they’re safe in open waterways, such as at sea.”
1. What does the underlined word “brainchild” in paragraph 1 refer to?.| A．idea | B．hope | C．project | D．routine |
| A．The purpose of Pumera’s project. |
| B．The preciousness of drinking water. |
| C．The seriousness of plastic pollution. |
| D．The working principle of the microrobots. |
| A．The weight loss of the plastics. |
| B．The disappearance of the plastics. |
| C．The shape change of the microrobots. |
| D．The improvement in the quality of water. |
| A．Ways to Obtain Cleaner Drinking Water |
| B．Microrobots Invented to Treat Wastewater |
| C．New Hope for the Solution to Plastic Pollution |
| D．Technology Widely Applied in Environment Protection |
In discussion of technological changes，the Internet gets most of the attention these days. But the change in medicine can be the real technological event of our times. How long can humans live? Human brains were known to decide the final death. Cells（细胞） are the basic units of all living things，and until recently，scientists were sure that the life of cells could not go much beyond 120 years because the basic materials of cells，such as those of brain cells，would not last forever. But the upper limits will be broken by new medicine. Sometime between 2050 and 2100，medicine will have advanced to the point at which every 10 years or so，people will be able to take medicine to repair their organs（器官）. The medicine，made up of the basic building materials of life，will build new brain cells，heart cells，and so on－in much the same way our bodies make new skin cells to take the place of old ones.
It is exciting to imagine that the advance in technology may be changing the most basic condition of human existence，but many technical problems still must be cleared up on the way to this wonderful future.
1. According to the passage，human death is now mainly caused by ________.
| A．diseases and aging | B．accidents and war |
| C．accidents and aging | D．heart disease and war |
| A．the Internet | B．medicine |
| C．brain cells | D．human organs |
| A．heart disease will be far away from us |
| B．human brains can decide the final death |
| C．the basic materials of cells will last forever |
| D．human organs can be repaired by new medicine |
| A．Over 100 years. |
| B．More than 120 years. |
| C．About 150 years. |
| D．The passage doesn’t tell us. |
【推荐2】“Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” An old tale tells seemingly unbelievable story of a magic mirror, but now the magic is no longer unachievable.
In August 2018, news went viral (广为传播的) that the police had caught criminal suspects who attended Chinese singer Jacky Cheung’s concerts. How did the police pick out the suspects among thousands of screaming fans? The helping hand is Al facial recognition technology. The low-key yet powerful tool is no longer far-fetched, but entering the world of China’s top investors and companies.
Facial recognition is a technology able to identify a person from digital image or a frame from a video source. Tang Wenbin, CTO of Face++, an Al computer vision technology company in China, vividly explained the workflow. According to him, facial recognition is the identification of our appearance, including knowing the sex, age and identity of a person. You may think it is like a brain or a neural network. You use data to train it, and then, it learns the pattern.
Facial recognition technology has been traditionally allied with the security work but today there is active expansion into other industries including mobile phones, marketing and finance.
Chinese start-ups have seen the potential of AI facial recognition for simplifying and speeding up tasks in multiple industries. And the market is now crowded and competitive.
China is starting the Al revolution and has made breakthroughs in facial recognition. “If applying AI to different industries is a marathon, the companies there probably have just got off the blocks.” said Tian Feng, director of Alibaba Cloud Research Center. He also thinks that in the future, everybody will be able to use AI as it will soon become a basic tool for work and life.
1. Why does the author mention mirrors in Paragraph 1?| A．To imply that such magical mirror is achievable. |
| B．To lead to the topic that such magic has become reality. |
| C．To prove that old tales are based on true stories. |
| D．To describe the background of facial recognition. |
| A．Content with. | B．Compared with. | C．Burdened with. | D．Associated with. |
| A．Favorable. | B．Pessimistic. | C．Indifferent. | D．Objective. |
| A．Breakthroughs of Chinese Technology | B．Effects of AI Technology |
| C．The Eye of AI in China | D．Facial Recognition in Security |
【推荐3】“She looks the same, smells the same, and has most of the same habits.” Those are the words of the family of Nubia, the first puppy (幼犬) to be cloned (克隆) in the United States.
“People are making a big mistake if they think they’re going to get their old pet back.”
Those are the words of an Ivy League animal ethics (伦理学) professor who has serious concerns about the effects of cloning.
James A. Serpell, PhD, professor of Animal Ethics & Welfare at the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, wanted people to understand what they are doing. “Think twice,” he said.
Dr. Serpell said the process of cloning is not easy and there are still many errors — lots of embryos (胚胎) die or are born with serious abnormalities. “This brings up animal happiness considerations,” he said. “There are also considerations for the egg donor (捐赠者) animals and surrogates (代母). Companies often use purpose-bred (专门繁殖的) female dogs as surrogates. And it’s not really clear what happens to them afterwards.”
He also has concerns about the health of the clones “because we don’t have a long enough track record to know whether they’re likely to live long and healthy lives.”
The problem which is the most serious, according to Dr. Serpell, is when “people are made to believe that the animal they get back will be an exact copy of the original pet. That’s a huge mistake .They may be the same genetically, but a lot can happen after conception (受孕). It’s classic nature versus nurture (先天与后天), and with dogs and cats a larger part is nurture.”
Dr. Serpell said, “It’s fair for vets to explain to pet owners that they’re making a big mistake if they think they’re going to get their old pet back. Vets must make the pet owner understand what goes into cloning and know what happens to the other embryos. They should also be aware that the surrogate dogs may have a very uncertain future. Also, they should realize that our society already has plenty of dogs, just waiting to be adopted (收养).
Attempting to remove emotion from the mix, a more sensible (明智的，合理的) application of cloning could include “working animals”, suggested Dr. Serpell. Since these dogs are routinely neutered (绝育) but later are found to have fine service abilities, cloning is a practical solution. “This would be an opportunity to recreate some very successful dogs. That would be more ethically acceptable.” said Dr. Serpell.
1. The main function of the first paragraph is ________| A．to stress the importance of cloning. |
| B．to show the amazing result of cloning. |
| C．to introduce the topic of the passage. |
| D．to describe the state of the 1st cloned puppy. |
| A．Because it may result in a lot of trouble. |
| B．Because it is illegal in the United States. |
| C．Because it will do harm to human beings. |
| D．Because it is morally (道德上) wrong though beneficial. |
| A．The lives of the clones are full of great uncertainties. |
| B．The owners are not made aware of the great role of nurture. |
| C．The clones may be genetically different from the original pets. |
| D．The clones are created purposely and may turn out to be terrible. |
| A．It is easy to clone a working dog. |
| B．They are not available for adoption. |
| C．They are much more useful than other dogs. |
| D．It is hard for these dogs to reproduce naturally. |
