【推荐1】Very few animals except dolphins, chimpanzees (黑猩猩)，and elephants have ever passed the mirror test for self-recognition. Scientists believe they have found a fish able recognize itself in a mirror. The result is surprising because this ability is usually only found in animals with bigger brains. Even humans don't usually pass the mirror test until they are about a year and a half old.

To test the wrasse (隆头鱼), a small fish in the sea, scientists put each wrasse in a tank with a mirror. They gave the fish a chance to get used to the mirror and watched their reactions. At first, the wrasses challenged the "other fish" by swimming up to the mirror and "fighting" them with the mouth. But soon the wrasses seemed to understand that something funny was happening. They began to swim toward the mirror upside down or in other unusual ways. It was like they were testing whether the fish in the mirror were really themselves.

Once the wrasses seemed used to the mirror, the scientists gave the wrasses a mark by putting the fish to sleep and injecting something under their skin. Some of the fish got a brown mark. Other fish got a clear "mark" that didn't have a color and couldn't be seen in a mirror.

After looking in the mirror, the wrasses with the brown marks would rub the area with the mark against the sand in the bottom of the tank. Then they would go back and look in the mirror again, as if checking if the mark was still there. But when wrasses with brown marks were put in tanks without mirrors, they didn't try to rub their marks away. And wrasses with clear "marks" didn't either, even when they could see themselves in the mirror.

The unexpected results are making some people look hard for other ways to explain how the wrasses reacted. So even though the wrasses seem to have passed the mirror test, the scientists will need some time to reflect on exactly what that means.

1. Why do the scientists feel surprised about the result?

A．The fish has a big brain.

B．Elephants failed to pass the mirror test.

C．Chimpanzees are as clever as dolphins.

D．The fish succeeded in passing the mirror test.

2. What did the scientists take notice of about the wrasses at first?

A．They swam in unusual ways.

B．They were unaware of themselves in the mirror.

C．They thought the mirror interesting.

D．They wanted to challenge themselves.

3. How did the fish with brown marks react in the mirror test?

A．They would rub the area with the mark against sand.

B．They would pay no attention to marks.

C．They would rest in the bottom of the tank.

D．They would swim upside down to the mirror.

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

A．Why Are Fish Smarter than Expected?

B．Do Colors Affect the Experiment?

C．How Is the Mirror Test Conducted?

D．Can Fish Recognize Themselves in the Mirror?

【推荐2】I fell in love with rhinos when I worked in a zoo in the 80s, and spent much of the next 20 years as the keeper of the largest captive (圈养的) group of rare black rhinos.

There’s a popular misconception that rhinos are aggressive and stupid, but I found them sensitive and affectionate animals. Weighing over a ton, black rhinos are unexpectedly agile (敏捷的) and have an unpredictable nature — but, given reassurance, they tend to believe people. In the past few decades, their numbers have dropped dramatically. In recent years, I’ve helped look after rhinos being moved to the reserve so they can form new populations in countries that have few left. Last year, I helped on a project to fly five black rhinos from a private reserve in South Africa to the Serengeti National Park. Once there, the animals had to be kept captive for a few weeks to adapt to the new environment, in which time they lived in “bomas” — wooden enclosures with “bedrooms”, designed to create a calm space.

A couple of weeks before their planned release, the sky filled with smoke. Watching the flames rushing through the bush toward the bomas, I froze. Terrified that it would catch fire, my instinct was to release the rhinos, but they hadn’t yet been fitted with transmitters (发信器). If I let them out into a bushfire and they were injured, we’d have great difficulty tracking them down. So I dashed back to the bomas and called the rhinos to the bedrooms. Sensing the fear in my voices, they moved without hesitation and remained astonishingly calm. It was crucial the rhinos didn’t panic — they can easily hurt each other if they do.

That we and the rhinos had escaped safe and sound was a miracle. The teamwork of everybody there played a large part, and the rhinos were very much a part of that team. The relationships we’d built with them had proved crucial — had they or we panicked, all our work would have been in vain.

1. What does the author think of the rhinos?

A．They are trusting animals.	B．They are highly organized.
C．Their habitats are under threat.	D．Their adaptability needs improving.

2. Why were bomas set up?

A．To assist rhinos to settle in.	B．To boost tourism in the reserve.
C．To avoid rhinos’ aggressive behavior.	D．To stop rhinos from fleeing.

3. How did the author rescue the rhinos?

A．By setting them free.	B．By tracking them down.
C．By driving them into bomas.	D．By fitting them with the transmitters.

4. What contributed most to the safety of the rhinos?

A．The keepers’ timely alarm.	B．The inborn nature of rhinos.
C．The faith in the keepers’ heart.	D．The teamwork between the keepers and the rhinos.

【推荐1】Chinese scientists have used lasers to accurately identify space debris in the Earth's orbit.

The team applied a specially developed set of rules to laser-ranging telescopes, which enabled them to identify space junk more effectively than previous techniques. “After improving the pointing accuracy of the telescope through a neural network, space debris with a cross sectional area of one square meter at a distance of 1,500 kilometers can he detected,” Tianming Ma, an author of the study from the Chinese Academy of Surveying and Mapping, said in a statement.

According to NASA, orbital debris is any man-made object in orbit around the Earth that no longer serves a useful function. Debris can include non-functional spacecraft, abandoned launch vehicle stages, and other mission-related space junk. It poses a significant risk to astronauts and spacecraft in orbit above the Earth as it travels very fast-up to 18, 000 miles per hour, which is faster than a bullet. Worryingly, there are estimated to be many millions of tiny debris pieces in low-Earth orbit, and tens of thousands times larger than a softball, the space agency said. Fortunately, there have been surprisingly few collisions.

In the study, Ma and his team used two different neural networks to help identify space debris with the laser-ranging telescope. They then tested this method against more traditional techniques. According to the team, this is the first time that neural networks have been used to significantly improve the pointing accuracy of a laser-ranging telescope. They say the latest findings could have significant implications for manoeuvring spacecraft in orbit.

Laser-ranging technology has previously been used to detect space junk. However, these systems have limitations when it comes to accurately identifying small, fast-moving pieces. In fact, previous laser-ranging methods have only been accurate to about 0.6 miles. In an attempt to overcone the inaccuracies of laser-ranging techniques, the Chinese team used so-called neural networks to improve the effectiveness of their telescope system. Neural networks are computing systems which are inspired by biological networks in the brain and have the ability to learn to become better at tasks without being given a specific set of rules to follow.

1. How have Chinese scientists made progress in identifying space debris?

A．By improving the accuracy of laser technology.

B．By adopting newly developed telescope systems.

C．By upgrading the advanced traditional technology.

D．By applying neural networks to laser-ranging telescopes.

2. What is Paragraph 3 mainly about?

A．The introduction to orbital debris.	B．The advantages of neural network.
C．The threat of space junk to the Earth.	D．The importance of detecting space debris.

3. What is the purpose of the fourth paragraph?

A．To add some background information.	B．To provide some advice for scientists.
C．To summarize the previous paragraphs.	D．To introduce a new topic for discussion.

4. What do we know about neural networks from the last paragraph?

A．They can speed up computing systems.

B．They can learn to perform better independently.

C．They can detect space junk in low-Earth orbit.

D．They can perform tasks accurately under a set of rules.

【推荐3】Antony Aumann, a religious studies and philosophy professor at Northern Michigan University told Insider that he had caught his student submitting essays written by the Al chatbot, and Aumann had his student rewrite the essay.

It's not just his struggling with the rise of AI chatbots like ChatGPT. As a result of these tools becoming accessible to anybody with an Internet connection, education departments across the entire country are adjusting work process and redesigning entire courses, according to the NYT, forcing students to submit handwritten essays or introducing oral exams. The New York City and Seattle public school systems have already banned ChatGPT on their own networks and devices. “I think the consideration behind the ban is reasonable,” Aumann said. “They want to make sure that their students are learning the critical thinking skills that are part of learning how to write.”

But universities aren't likely to follow the ban. After all, going around these restrictions is quite easy. Even tools designed to assist teachers in catching students secretly making use of AI tools like ChatGPT will probably be of little use, because students can change a few words from what ChatGPT produced, add some grammatical mistakes on purpose, and the detectors no longer think it's written by a chatbot.

Besides, some professors including Aumann argued that the cat is already out of the bag. Once students are captured by ChatGPT's convenience and efficiency, it'd be pointless to fight ChatGPT in the classroom.

Instead of absolute prohibition, Aumann suggested encouraging their students to react to ChatGPT in the same way they react to learning source-they will be asked to evaluate its reasons and arguments.

1. Why did the author mention Aumann's case in paragraph 1?

A．To introduce ChatGPT technology.	B．To share a public concern on essays.
C．To promote a tool of Al chatbots.	D．To start a discussion on ChatGPT.

2. Why is ChatGPT banned by some school systems?

A．ChatGPT is easily accessible to students.

B．ChatGPT fails to develop learners' competence.

C．ChatGPT helps teachers catch students cheating.

D．ChatGPT blocks the improvement of education systems.

3. What does “the cat is already out of the bag” really mean in paragraph 4?

A．Teachers decide to take action to address the problem.

B．It cannot be avoided that ChatGPT attracts students.

C．Students will be caught cheating through ChatGPT.

D．The cat manages to escape from being caught eventually.

4. What's Aumann's attitude to ChatGPT?

A．Concerned.

B．Subjective.

C．Objective.

D．Promising.

【推荐1】Some educators are trying to draw students’ attention with technology, such as educational videos, computer gaming and AI, just to name a few. However, teachers using these tools often struggle to keep students focusing on the materials, competing with the latest social media phenomenon, and can feel limited by using them to get some knowledge across.

Graphic novels (图画小说) offering graphic information married with text provide a means of attracting students in the classroom. Educators have used this method in their teaching. For example, instead of filling out problem sheets, students in a math class were asked to read a story called Who Killed Professor X?. In this story, all of the suspects (嫌疑人) are famous mathematicians. As they tried to figure out the connections between the suspects, students often forgot that they were doing math — focusing instead on finding secret details to solve the problem. Although this is just one experience for these students, it improves their confidence and shows them how math can be fun.

Jason Ho, a professor at Marian University, uses Max the Demon Vs Entropy of Doom to teach his physics students about a topic. This topic can be particularly difficult for some students because they can’t physically touch something. Ho said graphic novels can create an attractive learning environment. Most of his students now understand the subject by getting clear explanations for some ideas.

Although the Internet offers a lot of math and physics resources (资源), it can be tiring to search through many hours of videos to find the perfect one to get the “aha!” moment in learning. Graphic novels provide a starting point with different specific topics. Want to learn about programming? Try the Secret Coders series. Need more female role models in science? Astronauts: Women on the Final Frontier could be just what you’re looking for.

With all that graphic novels offer, we believe that the right set of graphic novels can inspire future scientists as much as any single person can.

1. What problem are some teachers faced with?

A．Teaching students to learn self-control.

B．Helping students master high-tech knowledge.

C．Ensuring the teaching effectiveness of using technology.

D．Making all the students take an active part in learning.

2. What is mentioned about graphic novels?

A．They can make learning more enjoyable.

B．They serve the field of math the best.

C．They require students to learn through performance.

D．They lead students to work hard on problem sheets.

3. What is probably Jason Ho’s attitude towards teaching with graphic novels?

A．Surprised.

B．Doubtful.

C．Supportive.

D．Concerned.

4. Which of the following is a suitable title for the text?

A．Graphic novels suitable for students

B．The great popularity of graphic novels

C．How technology influences students’ learning

D．Why we should use graphic novels in teaching

【推荐2】The current Ebola (埃博拉病毒) outbreak in western and central Africa has infected at least 3,069 people, including 1,552 dead, making it the largest outbreak in history. Ebola is a deadly virus-about 60 percent of people infected with it have died.

How is Ebola doing its harm?

When a person becomes infected with Ebola, the virus damages the body’s immune (免疫的) cells, which defend against infection, said a researcher at Lancaster University. But if a person’s immune system can stand up to this attack, then he is more likely to survive the disease.

The patients that survive it best are those who don’t get such a bad disadvantage in immune system. But if the body isn’t able to get rid of this attack, then the immune system becomes less able to regulate (调节) itself. This means the immune system is more likely to run out of control, leading to a drop in blood pressure, multi-organ failure and eventually death.

What are the common symptoms of the disease?

Fever. Headache. Joint and muscle aches. Weakness. Diarrhea. Vomiting. Stomach pain. Lack of appetite. Chills. Rash. Redness in the eyes. Hiccups. Cough. Sore throat. Chest pain. Difficult breathing or swallowing. Bleeding inside and outside of the body.

How to prevent the spread of Ebola?

Ebola can be spread primarily via direct contact with patients, specifically the blood and fluids of an infected patient.

We should avoid contact with infected patients and objects such as clothing, bedding, and needles used by them. Avoid areas where infections have been reported. For now, the disease has only been confirmed in central and West Africa, four cases in America and Europe. Avoid eating wild-caught bush meat. Researchers have suspected that the disease came to humans via animals, probably through the meat of primates (灵长类) . If you’re in an area where the disease has been reported, avoid purchasing, eating, or handling wild game to stay on the safe side.

Wear protective medical clothing if you’re around infected patients. Extreme caution is necessary. Hospital workers must use masks, gloves, goggles, and gowns, which needed to be worn at all times if you’re around infected patients.

How Do People Survive Ebola?

Doctors don’t know for certain who will survive Ebola, and there is no specific treatment or cure for the disease. Although in the minority, some people do recover from infection.

Our suggestions include:

Maintain your electrolytes (电解质) and body liquid. Sports drinks can be used. Monitor your blood pressure and control it if necessary. Dropping blood pressure may be a serious sign of infection. Breathe in an oxygen-rich environment. Quickly address any symptoms of infection. Be honest about when and where you’re feeling pain.

1. Ebola causes the death of a human being by ______.

A．attacking him with high fever	B．regulating his immune system
C．damaging his immune cells	D．harming all his organs directly

2. What is NOT mentioned as the symptom of Ebola?

A．Fever and chills	B．Swallowing difficulty
C．Lack of appetite	D．High blood pressure

3. In order not to be infected by Ebola, we should ______.

A．have the clothing of the infected cleaned

B．avoid eating wild animals like monkeys

C．not travel to Africa, America or Europe

D．stay at home without going anywhere

4. It is true that ______.

A．a certain number of people survive Ebola

B．human has found a special cure for Ebola

C．oxygen can save infected people’s lives

D．low blood pressure is surely caused by Ebola