One October morning, in a protest(抗议) led by Bike Grid Now, a Chicago-based group of cyclists, three dozen cyclists gathered outside Chicago’s downtown, before cycling together to City Hall. They spread across all three lanes, before pausing outside the entrance to block car traffic. After a police officer on a bicycle appeared, they rang their bells and headed for bike lanes, and then went to their jobs in the nearby offices.
Such protests now happen in Chicago almost weekly, demanding more safety for cyclists. In September, on “World Car Free Day”, several hundred cyclists blocked an eight-lane highway running alongside Lake Michigan. Similar protests have been held in many other American cities.
Bike activism is hardly new, yet the pace has accelerated, largely thanks to trends caused by COVID-19. Since the pandemic(疫情), more cyclists are on America’s roads than ever. Bicycle sales have risen—electric bikes outsold electric cars last year and cycle hire plans in American cities recorded more users than ever this past summer.
As more people are getting on bikes, they realize how unsafe many American streets are. Though bike lanes are proliferating in many cities, they aren’t protected. In 2020, 1,260 people nationwide were killed in crashes on bikes, a 44% increase on a decade before, according to the National Safety Council, a non-profit group. Some of that increase may be because more bikes are on the roads, but it also seems that people are driving more dangerously, too. Last year almost 43,000 people were killed in car crashes of all sorts, the highest figure since 2005.
Christina set up a website, Bike Lane Uprising, to report people who park in Chicago’s bike lanes. She says the site has been filled with such reports, but cyclists are making an effort to force changes. The city has, for example, put concrete barriers in some bike lanes to stop drivers from entering them. She says officials did this in response to protests. “There are so many bikers who are becoming single-issue voters,” she says. They may be starting a virtuous cycle.
1. What impression do we get about the protesters in paragraph 1?| A．They were in great anger. | B．They were office leaders. |
| C．They disobeyed the police. | D．They were well organized. |
| A．It worsens the road conditions for cyclists. |
| B．It sees an increase in the number of cyclists. |
| C．It brings about strict traffic rules on cyclists. |
| D．It brings forth rules to restrict their travels. |
| A．Decreasing. | B．Popularizing. |
| C．Increasing. | D．Separating. |
| A．To get more people interested in cycling. |
| B．To urge officials to protect the rights of cyclists. |
| C．To show the government’s concerns for cyclists. |
| D．To present the virtue the cyclist protesters show. |
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【推荐1】Health and Social Care Secretary Jeremy Hunt has announced that the UK will host the first ever Global Ministerial Mental Health Summit(峰会) in London this October.This global summit aims to put mental-health care on an equal footing with the physical kind.
But there is a long way to go. One in four people will experience a mental-health problem at some point in life. In rich countries mental illnesses account for more suffering and premature death than heart disease, strokes(中风) or cancer. Meanwhile the central-African countries have just one mental-health professional per 100,000 people, a fiftieth as many as Europe has. (Less than 1% of foreign aid for health care goes towards mental health.)
As developing countries handle infectious diseases, mental health will consume a greater share of budgets and attention there. By 2020 mental-health conditions may account for 15% of the global burden of disease, but even in rich countries many people with common problems still go without treatment.
It is clear that mental illness is fast becoming one of the global health challenges of the 21st century. Until recently, this hasn’t had the profile it deserves on a global stage. The ministers gathering in London must produce new money and focus—and not just another declaration. The summit is also expected to help countries learn from each other to find the best ways to deal with increased rates of depression and anxiety among young people.
1. Which of the following best explains “on an equal footing” underlined in paragraph 1?| A．Standing up for. | B．Being as important as. |
| C．Standing in one’s shoes. | D．Having an advantage over. |
| A．To find more foreign aid for health care. |
| B．To make a declaration on mental illnesses. |
| C．To solve the physical problems of the youth. |
| D．To stress the importance of mental health. |
| A．Heart disease. | B．Cancer. |
| C．Mental illness. | D．Stroke. |
| A．Effective measures should be taken on mental health. |
| B．The problem of mental illness has drawn enough attention. |
| C．People in developed countries suffer less mental illnesses. |
| D．Mental-health diseases have taken up about 15% of the global illness cases. |
【推荐2】My mother died of breast cancer when she was merely 50 in 1970. Afterwards, the comment repeated most often was: “You’ll need to be careful for the rest of your life because it may have been passed to you.” In 1994, the first ever breast cancer gene testing arrived. I jumped right to it and tested negative. I’m thankful for the science that has given me this preventive screening (筛查). Good for me, but is it good for everyone?
Here’s the catch. Research on genetic disease has been based mostly on European people, like me. The same went to the mapping of the human genes. The problem is that we know little about how new treatments might work for people of other races. If we diversify patients in clinical trials, we can realize the promise of personalized medicine for everyone, not just white patients. Faced with the unfair phenomena in medical research, what should we do to resolve the problem?
Not only do we need more diverse populations participating in research, but we also need diversity among biomedical researchers and medical professionals to make efforts. That makes research stronger and builds trust with diverse communities. A medical team is working on this now. They are building a diverse next generation of gene editing researchers by teaching high school and community college students from different backgrounds about promising technologies like gene editing to encourage them to become future researchers. This sort of educational outreach can also help to build trust in the medical and research communities. The team leader, John Cooper, PhD, has been outspoken about the current inequalities of delivering new technologies to all people at a fair cost.
Numerous scientists and medical leaders are working to change the situation. While science wasn’t yet far enough along to save my mother, I have harvested the benefits of advanced research and so should we all.
1. What is the function of paragraph 1?| A．To explain the cause of her mother’s cancer. | B．To show her concerns over medical inequalities. |
| C．To indicate the side effects of genetic testing. | D．To emphasize the progress in the medical field. |
| A．A previous study. | B．An urgent appeal. | C．An underlying issue. | D．A workable solution. |
| A．Conducting research on genetic diseases. | B．Delivering speeches to interested students. |
| C．Building confidence in potential medical researchers. | D．Popularizing technologies in various communities. |
| A．Supportive. | B．Dismissive. | C．Opposed. | D．Impartial. |
【推荐3】Film Puts Justifiable Defense in Spotlight
The film, Article 20, directed by Zhang Yimou, draws its name from Article 20 of the Criminal Law, which focuses on the sometimes controversial legal concept of justifiable defense. Drawing inspiration from real-life cases of justifiable defense, the film gained widespread attention and struck a chord with the public during the Spring Festival holiday. The movie calls for a de tailed interpretation of legal terms and urges against compromising on unlawful conduct.
According to the Criminal Law, when a person, faced with an unlawful attack, takes action to protect his or her own rights or interests or those of others, and the attacker is thereby harmed, the defender will be considered to have acted in justifiable defense and will not bear criminal responsibility. For some time, justifiable defense has been regarded as a “dormant clause” (沉寂条款), due to the influence of misconceptions, such as “whoever is injured or killed is right”.
But the true meaning of the law should be to increase the responsibility for wrongdoers, rather than burdening good people. Recent cases have shown that, for ordinary citizens, justifiable defense is no longer a pipe dream. A high-profile case in Kunshan, Jiangsu province, in 2018 served as a wake-up call and caught the attention of authorities regarding such cases. In that case, a traffic argument led to a motorist who took a knife with him confronting another man. The motorist was killed, and police and judges determined that the defender’s actions constituted justifiable defense. Since then, the justifiable defense clause has been applied in several places across the nation. The concern over justifiable defense reflects the public’s demand for fairness, justice, security and rule of law.
Luo Xiang, a renowned professor of criminal law at China University of Political Science and Law, said in a recent comment about the film Article 20 that the public and judges should avoid taking a “godlike” perspective. Instead, they should consider the situation in which the defender was involved, empathize with the defender’s position, and stop themselves from making excessive demands on the defender, Luo said.
1. Why did the film Article 20 attract the audience’s attention?| A．It was released during the Spring Festival holiday. |
| B．It is named after one article in the Criminal Law. |
| C．It explores real-life cases of justifiable defense. |
| D．It was directed by Zhang Yimou. |
| A．the victim gave up his legal rights |
| B．the robber kept silent about the robbery |
| C．the robber was hurt worse than the victim |
| D．the victim knifed the armed robber to stop the ongoing crime |
| A．Making comparisons. | B．Listing reasons. |
| C．Explaining misconceptions. | D．Providing evidence. |
| A．Take a “godlike” viewpoint with the public. |
| B．Put oneself in the defender’s shoes. |
| C．Demand more from the defender. |
| D．Side with the attacker. |
【推荐1】It’s one of the ultimate tests of willpower: you’ve been wandering around the market for hours and you’re tired and hungry. Then you catch a smell of something fragrant (香的) and delicious, probably fried and almost certainly fattening. Junk food companies are well aware that the smell of their product sets off a desire in your brain and that you’ll pay for that later. It is a response that has been researched, and you’d better believe your favorite fast-food chains have marketing teams that are using that research to their advantage.
Let’s take a closer look at this process. Have you ever noticed that whatever indulgent food (放纵型食品) catches your attention tends to be most appealing just after you first smell it? A couple of minutes later you are standing in line, and it isn’t quite as appealing as it was just moments ago, but now you’ve invested time, so you trust your first feeling to treat yourself.
But a recent statement says that this is actually the right moment to walk away. Dipayan Biswas, a marketing professor, found there is a direct connection between how long a person is exposed to indulgent food smells and choosing healthier foods. “The results of a series of experiments show that extended exposure of more than two minutes to junk food smells leads to fewer purchases of unhealthy foods compared with no smell or a non-junk-food-related smell,” reads the summary of his study.
What appears to be going on here is that the brain doesn’t necessarily distinguish between a pleasurable smell and a pleasant taste. “Extended exposure to an indulgent food smell brings pleasure in the mind, which in turn reduces the desire for actual consumption of indulgent foods,” he explains. So next time you feel you don’t have the willpower to resist cookies, smell all that sweetness for just a minute or two. To your brain it’s the same as actually eating cookies, and the purchase desire would decrease.
1. What can we learn about junk food smells from the first paragraph?| A．They hardly affect people’s food choices. |
| B．They can make a difference in marketing. |
| C．They are unlikely to fool wise customers. |
| D．They finally decrease people’s purchase desire. |
| A．An example. | B．An argument. |
| C．A comparison. | D．A comment. |
| A．The influence of food smells changes over time. |
| B．The senses of taste and smell are closely linked. |
| C．The behavior of smelling food doesn’t equal eating it. |
| D．The brain can’t tell where sensory pleasure is from. |
| A．Train your brain to resist junk food |
| B．Smells of junk food can keep you off it |
| C．Watch out for tricky marketing tools |
| D．Food addiction is never about willpower |
【推荐2】An artwork jointly created by a robot and a human artist will go on sale this week. The artwork — known as an NFT — is to be sold during an online auction (拍卖) on Tuesday. NFT stands for non-fungible token. It is a piece of art that only exists on a computer technology known as blockchain (区块链).
NFTs can exist in the form of images, video, music and text. They are usually bought with electronic money. While anyone can view NFTs, the buyer has official ownership rights over the objects. NFTs have recently been growing in popularity among investors and collectors. Earlier this month, an artwork in the form of an NFT sold for nearly $70 million.
The piece to be sold this week was a cooperative effort between a human-like robot, known as Sophia, and Italian artist Andrea Bonaceto. The company behind Sophia, Hanson Robotics, says the auction will be the first sale of a piece jointly created by a human artist, a robot and artificial intelligence (AI). The artwork, called “Sophia Instantiation”, is a 12-second video file. It combines online and physical paintings from Sophia with elements (要素) from Bonaceto’s work. The artwork also includes influences from art history.
The digital artwork will come with a physical artwork created by Sophia on a printed copy of the online piece. The online auction is to be held by a company called Nifty Gateway. After the sale, Sophia will meet with the buyer to study his or her face, before adding a final element to the artwork. Sophia’s creator, David Hanson, said this part of the project will permit the new owner to have an unusual “personal connection” to the artwork.
Bonaceto said he hopes his collaboration with Sophia will “make a statement in the art world, and even the technology world” about the way robots and humans can cooperate in the future.
Sophia’s art could be “a very, very important historical piece”, said Pablo Fraile, a Miami-based art collector and expert in NFTs. “It’s the first time these ideas have been put together,” he said.
1. The author’s main purpose in writing paragraph 2 is to ________.| A．explain the value of different forms of NFTs | B．teach readers how to buy NFTs with electronic money |
| C．provide readers with some information about NFTs | D．advise readers to collect or invest in NFTs |
| A．It is the first NFT artwork to be sold. | B．It is a physical artwork created by Sophia. |
| C．It is an artwork with elements from art history. | D．It is the first artwork created by a robot and AI. |
| A．Positive. | B．Uncaring. | C．Opposed. | D．Skeptical. |
| A．An NFT Will Gain High Popularity Among Investors |
| B．More NFTs Will Be Created by Humans and Robots |
| C．Sophia Will Be Necessary in Creating Online Artworks |
| D．Online Artwork That Robot Helps Create Will Be Sold |
【推荐3】A new study shows that increases in extreme winter weather in parts of the US are linked to quickened warming of the Arctic (北极).
Over the past four decades, warming in the Arctic has been far more definite than that in the rest of the world and has caused a rapid decrease of summer sea ice. Heating in the Arctic has ultimately disturbed the circular pattern of winds known as the polar vortex (旋涡). As a result, it got stretched out of shape and slid southward off the pole. Scientists believe this vortex stretching process led to the deadly Texas cold wave in February this year.
“The polar vortex over the Arctic usually locks in cold air at the poles and does not easily move south. The stronger the winds, the more the air inside is kept, and the colder it gets,” explained lead researcher Dr. Judah Cohen, who’s a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). “Melting (融化) ice in the Arctic and rising temperatures can disturb the Arctic vortex, making cold air no longer locked in the Arctic? but move some farther south.”
The researchers say that their findings are based on both observations and modelling and they show a physical link between climate change in the Arctic, the stretching of the polar vortex and the impacts on ground.
The researchers believe their work could improve predictions about the beginning of extreme cold winter events. The research team also believes that their findings will help people understand that global warming is complex and perhaps let go of the idea that colder winters mean climate change isn’t happening. “In the past, these cold extremes over the US and Russia have been used to justify not reducing carbon, but there’s no longer any excuse to not start reducing emissions (排放) right away,’’ said Dr. Cohen.
1. What is paragraph 2 mainly about?| A．The efforts made by scientists. | B．The definition of polar vortex. |
| C．The decrease of summer sea ice. | D．The formation of Texas cold wave. |
| A．Making the wind stronger. | B．Helping cold air move freely. |
| C．Speeding up the melting of ice. | D．Keeping cold air from escaping. |
| A．Global warming is just alarmist. |
| B．Weather-gone-wild pattern is a fantasy. |
| C．Reducing emissions is a pressing matter. |
| D．Weather forecast has never been a perfect science. |
| A．Environment. | B．Travel. | C．Education. | D．Life. |
