【推荐1】Video calls are a common occurrence, but have you imagined being able to touch the person on the other end of the line? Scientists are making this a reality.

Researchers at the University of New South Wales, Australia, have invented a soft skin stretch device (SSD), a haptic device that can recreate the sense of touch.    1    . It is similar to what is felt in the real world, through force, vibration or motion.

Vibration is the most common haptic technology today and has been built into many electronic devices.     2    . The existing technology also has great difficulty recreating the sense of touch with objects in virtual environments or located remotely, according to Mai Thanh Thai, lead author of the study.

    3    . The research team introduced a novel method to recreate the sense of touch through soft, artificial “muscles”. It works like this: Imagine you are at home and you call your friend who is in Australia. You wear a haptic glove with the SSDs and your friend also wears a glove with integrated 3D force sensors. If your friend picks up an object, it will physically press against your friend’s fingers.     4     The force signals can be sent to your glove so your device will generate the same 3D forces, making you experience the same sense of touch as your friend.

The haptic devices could allow users to feel objects inside a virtual world or at a distance. This could be especially beneficial during such times like the COVID-19 pandemic when people rely on video calls to stay connected with loved ones.     5    . Doctors can feel a patient’s organ tissues with surgical tools without touching them.

A．The new technology overcomes issues with existing haptic devices

B．Haptic technology mimics the experience of touch by stimulating localized areas of the skin

C．However, haptic feedback with vibration becomes less sensitive when used continuously

D．And their glove with 3D force sensors will measure these interactions

E．Or it could be used in medical practices

F．The haptic glove with the SSDs can receive sensors from your friends

G．When emergency happens, people can even keep contact with friends and family members

【推荐1】Product placement (植入式广告) is a form of advertising in which a company pays a content creator to place its products on the set of a movie, TV show or music video. The oldest examples of products appearing in films date back to the production of a French motion picture in 1896. Recent years have witnessed the bloom of product placement. With viewers migrating to web videos, this trend makes sense.

When watching web videos, about 90% of consumers either skip or ignore those traditional ads that run before the video. So as advertisers struggle to reach potential consumers, they’re increasingly turning to product placement, spending their advertising budgets to get their ads into media content in ways that the ads can’t be skipped. Studies have shown product placement can increase viewer’s awareness of products and their positive attitudes toward them.

But not all product placement works as intended, and research has shown that advertisers need to engage in delicate dance with viewers to effectively influence them. Viewers tend to be turned off if the product placement is too obvious — as when a character in the show holds the product and talks about it. Most viewers don’t want to be immersed (沉浸) in an intense drama only to be reminded that they’re being targeted by corporations.

In contrast, viewers are most influenced by product placement in which the product or the brand name is spoken by one of the characters but not shown. These pieces of product placement are more likely to be noticed by viewers than those where products are simply shown on the screen. Also, viewers may be more attracted to product placement that appears earlier in a show or movie. Because they become more engaged as a movie or a show progresses. If the placement at the climax — the moment when their attention is fixed on what will happen next — they’re either less likely to notice the placement or more likely to be annoyed by it if they do notice it.

With increasing online viewers and better designed product placement, perhaps advertisers will consider product placement as their first choice. After all, it’s incredibly effective at getting the targeted audience interested without influencing their viewing experience.

1. What can we know about product placement?

A．It’s still popular nowadays.	B．It first appeared in TV shows.
C．It was overlooked in the 1890s.	D．It aims to make videos interesting.

2. What’s the advantage of product placement to advertisers over traditional ads?

A．It has a lower price.	B．It’s more interesting.
C．It’s less likely to be ignored by viewers.	D．It makes advertisers understand customers well.

3. What does the underlined part “be turned off” in Paragraph 3 mean?

A．Gain satisfaction.

B．Get confused.

C．Feel funny.

D．Lose interest.

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

A．Product Placement: the Future Trend for Advertising

B．Product Placement: a New Driving Force Behind Movies

C．Product Placement: a Mirror of the Advertisement History

D．Product Placement: the Perfect Companion to Online Videos

【推荐2】Directions: Read the following passage. Fill in each blank with a proper sentence given in the box. Each sentence can be used only once. Note that there are two more sentences than you need.

A Different Type of Phone Book

Although books are still popular with teenagers, most of them spend more of their leisure time staring at their phone than reading a paperback. And the more versatile phones become, the more reasons young people have for looking at them.     1     Instead of publishing whole book at once, they produce very short chapters, which they send once a week to their readers by text message. Some even claim that this style of writing represents a new literary genre: the ‘cell phone novel’.

Although the idea originated in Japan, cell phone novels have also sprung up in the rest of East Asia, Europe and Africa. Many are written by high school or university students who are very familiar with the topics that teenagers are interested in. Common themes are love, tragedy and betrayal, and the stories often deal with difficult or controversial issues. Twenty-one-year-old Rin said that she started her novel If You during her final year at high school and explained that was the tragic love story of two childhood friends.

Rin wrote her novel over a six-month period in spare moments, often while commuting on the train.     2    Readers then voted her novel the best that year and she was offered book contract. Her book sold 40,000 copies and was number five in the Japanese bestseller list. Rin said that her mother had had no idea that she had been writing a novel and was therefore very surprised when she saw a book with her daughter’s name on it.

The style of cell phone novels has evolved to suit the medium. Chapters have no more than 200 words, and often just 50-100 words.     3     The text mostly consists of dialogue and the language is direct, conveying a lot in a few words. Many cell phone novelists had never written fiction before and many of their readers have never read normal novel. Other rules have evolved; for example, authors only have one name and that is a pseudonym or pen name.

In 2009, a young Japanese writer called Takatsu, who lives in Canada, began writing the first English language cell phone novel, Secondhand Memories. Each instalment appeared on textnovel.com, a website dedicated to cell phone stories. Takatsu had read an English translation of Rin’s story If You and had been impressed by its simple and emotional language. It was a feature he deliberately copied when he started writing Secondhand Memories.     4     He now believes that, in English, cell phone novels have a powerful and poetic identity of their own. Takatsu sees himself, and the other writers who contribute to textnovel.com, as part of a literary movement which blends drama, technology, pop culture and social media. Cell phone novels encourage young people to engage in fiction, even those who would not normally pick up a book. They could be described as teen novels for the 21st century.

A．Books are sometimes regarded as old-fashioned and difficult to read.

B．In response to this trend, some smart young authors have changed the way they write.

C．However, as the story progressed, the style gradually evolved into something different.

D．She typed out installments on her phone and uploaded them onto a popular website for cell phone authors.

E．No money is made from cell phone novels unless they are published as books.

F．Sentences are short and there are no descriptions of anything or anybody because there isn’t space.

【推荐1】Most of us know about the Nobel Prize, especially the Nobel Peace Prize, but few of us know anything about the man who set them up. His name was Alfred Nobel. He was a great scientist and inventor himself. Besides, he had a big business. His business may surprise you. He made and sold explosives(炸药). His companies even made and sold weapons. Isn’t this something that surprises you? Though Alfred Nobel had a lot of money from weapons, he hated war. He even set up the Peace Prize, hoping that there would be no war in the world.
He was one of the richest in Europe. When he died in 1896, he left behind him a lot of money and his famous will. According to his will, most of his money was placed in a fund(基金). He wanted the interest(利润) from the fund to be used as prizes every year. We know them as the Nobel Prizes. The Nobel Prizes are international. Alfred Nobel wanted the winners to be chosen for their work, not the country they came from.
Alfred Nobel had given his whole life to his studies and work and to the benefits of mankind. He made money all by his own efforts, but he left the world share his wealth. His inventions and wealth stay with the world for ever.
1. Alfred Nobel did the following EXCEPT ______________

A．choosing the winners of Nobel Prize

B．making and selling weapons

C．setting up the Nobel Prize

D．making and selling explosives

2. Nobel wanted to set up the Nobel Peace Prize because _____.

A．he hated war

B．he liked to be honored by people

C．he made enough money

D．he wanted to get more interest from the fund

3. Nobel Prizes come from _____.

A．all Nobel’s money in the fund

B．all Nobel’s money in his company

C．the interest from the fund

D．people’s donation

4. Nobel was a (an) _____ person in the world.

A．interesting	B．unselfish
C．kind-hearted	D．richest

5. Which statement of the following is Right according to the passage?

A．Nobel set up his company to sell clothes.

B．Most of Nobel’s money was used for the world wars.

C．Nobel Prizes are only for some people from some special countries.

D．Nobel worked hard in his life and saved lots of money for the world to share.

【推荐2】More than four decades ago, British scientist Robert Edwards first witnessed the miracle of human life growing inside a test tube at his Cambridge lab. Since that ground－breaking moment, more than four million babies have been born through IVF(体外受精) and in 2010 his great contribution to science was finally recognized as he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine.

The prize for Dr. Edwards, who was given a Daily Mirror Pride of Britain Award in 2008, includes a ￡900，000 cheque. The Nobel Assembly described IVF as “a milestone in modern medicine”.

With the help of fellow scientist Patrick Steptoe, the Manchester－born physiologist developed IVF — leading to the birth of the world's first test tube baby. Dr. Steptoe died 10 years later but their work has transformed fertility(生育) treatment and given hope to millions of couples.

It was a scientific breakthrough that changed the lives of millions of couples. They said, “His achievements have made it possible to treat infertility, a disease which makes humans unable to have a baby. This condition has been afflicting a large percentage of mankind, including more than 10% of all couples worldwide.”

Professor Edwards, who has 5 daughters and 11 grandchildren, began his research at Cambridge University in 1963, after receiving his PhD in 1955.He once said, “The most important thing in life is having a child. Nothing is more special than a child.” With the help of fellow scientist Patrick Steptoe, Prof. Edwards founded the Bourn Hall clinic in Cambridgeshire, which now treats more than 900 women a year. Each year, more than 30, 000 women in Britain now undergo IVF and 11，000 babies are born as a result of the treatment.

But his work attracted widespread criticism from some scientists and the Catholic Church who said it was “unethical and immoral”.

Martin Johnson, professor of reproductive(生殖的) sciences at the University of Cambridge, said the award was “long overdue”. He said, “We couldn't understand why the Nobel has come so late but he is delighted — this is the cherry on the cake for him.”

Professor Edwards was too ill to give interviews but a statement released by his family said he was “thrilled and delighted”.

1. What is Robert Edwards' contribution to science?

A．Challenging a disease which stops couples having a baby.

B．Seeing the wonder of the first tube baby growing.

C．Enabling millions of couples to live a better life.

D．Helping couples with infertility to have test tube babies.

2. What does the underlined word “afflicting” in Paragraph 4 most probably refer to?

A．Troubling.	B．Developing.
C．Improving.	D．Frightening.

3. It can be inferred from Paragraph 6 and Paragraph 7 that ________.

A．some people envied Professor Edwards for his being awarded

B．different opinions were voiced on Professor Edwards' work

C．Professor Edwards deserved the prize for his breakthrough

D．the prize was late because the finding was first considered immoral

4. What might be the best title for the passage?

A．Life Stories of Robert Edwards

B．Preparations for Having a Baby

C．Nobel Prize for IVF Expert Edwards

D．Treatment of Infertility in a Lab