Nowadays, it seems that we cannot live without technology. We learn, work and relax by using phones, computers, iPads, AI robots and so on. Now, let’s see what’s going on in Julie’s life.
Julie usually wakes up at the ring of a mobile phone. Then, she eats her breakfast to a video on the phone. When she gets to her company, she deals with the business on the computer. And she often downloads (下载) and stores things that she needs on her iPad. When she needs something, she can just turn on the iPad and search for it. She carries the iPad wherever she is on business because it’s light. When she is at home in the evening, she sometimes uses ChatGPT, a smart AI chat robot, to write her projects. She only needs to type in some key words and then she can get some ideas in a second. It can make her use less time to do more things. In the late evening, she always falls asleep at the soft music from Xiaodu.
Julie lives with technology, and so do we. However, technology brings us some problems at the same time. Staring at screens too much is bad for our eyes. Many of us are near-sighted (近视的) or have other eye problems. AI is making some of us unwilling to think and explore on our own. We may copy ideas from AI robots. We may even like chatting in the virtual (虚拟的) world better because of so many chat robots.
So, I think that technology is a double-sided sword (双刃剑). We should use technology correctly and wisely to make our life easy, colorful and convenient.
1. What does Julie probably do?| A．She is a manager. | B．She is a writer. |
| C．She is a student. | D．She is a worker. |
| A．A computer. | B．An iPad. |
| C．An AI robot. | D．An intelligent translator. |
| A．By discussing. | B．By providing reasons. |
| C．By expressing opinions. | D．By giving examples. |
| A．ChatGPT can do housework for us. |
| B．AI robots will take the place of us one day. |
| C．People may communicate less with each other in real life. |
| D．Julie doesn’t like downloading and storing things that she needs on her iPad. |
| A．How does Julie spend her day? |
| B．How does technology help us? |
| C．How does technology influence our life? |
| D．How does technology change our habits of life? |
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【推荐1】China sent a satellite on Oct 24 to carry out technological tests for space debris management. The satellite is going to use technologies to reduce space debris.
Since the beginning of the space age in the 1950s, thousands of rockets and satellites have gone to space. There are more than 500,000 pieces of debris around the Earth. Although your chance of getting hit is extremely small, we are still facing an ever-increasing risk of space junk.
More than 27,000 pieces of debris, or “space junk”, are tracked in space, according to NASA. Much more debris is too small to be tracked but large enough to threaten human spaceflight and robotic tasks. Since a piece of debris can move like a speeding bullet, getting hit by these tiny pieces often leaves huge holes in many satellites, telescopes and other objects around our planet.
Space junk is also a huge danger to spacemen. “This is particularly important. Careful consideration needs to be made about the space junk before we do spacewalk exercises.” Joon Wayn Cheong, a satellite systems expert said.
Scientists are fully aware of the problem, and they are solving it in different ways.
In 2018, the UK's Survey Space Center used a net to catch space junk in an experiment. It was the first successful tryout of space cleanup technology. It included finding debris and catching it with a net and a harpoon.
Another solution is to use robotic arms. Clear Space 1, the European Space Agency’s task to remove space junk, is expected to be sent in 2025, which will use robotic arms to catch the debris, BBC Science Focus Magazine reported. It plans to locate, catch and throw debris into the atmosphere, where it will be burnt up by the strong pressure and friction of reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere.
1. The underlined word “threaten” in Paragraph 3 most probably means “__________”.| A．speed up | B．do harm to | C．slow down | D．catch up with |
| A．Thousands of rockets and satellites have been sent to space. |
| B．People walking on the street get hit by the flying space junk. |
| C．A space telescope gets damaged seriously by a flying satellite. |
| D．Astronauts who are working in space get hurt badly by the junk. |
| A．The scientists successfully caught the debris in the space with nets. |
| B．The space junk flies so rapidly that it can't be tracked by scientists. |
| C．Robotic arms may catch the space junk and send it back to the earth. |
| D．Chinese have taken some steps to deal with the space junk problems. |
| A．Space Age is Coming! | B．Protect the Environment! |
| C．It’s Time to Clean up! | D．Space Travel is Terrible! |
Lisa, a 14-year-old girl, from the USA, she used an app to make her dream come true. She tried it out on a childhood photo of her mother. Guess what? Her mother began to smile at her in the photo. It sounds like Harry Potter’s moving photos, doesn’t it?
It’s not magic, but a real thing. The app that Lisa used is called My Heritage. By using an AI technology, the app allows users to animate (使……动画) still photos. The technology is the work of D-ID, an Israeli (以色列的) company. At the beginning, they designed it to bring photos of historical people to life. This means you can see them, blink (眨眼), and even turn their heads. Now Americans find it fun and many are giving it a try with their old photos. Millions of users have watched their loved ones come to life in old photos.
The service is easy to use. First download (下载) the app. Next, click on the menu and choose “photo” from the list. Then upload the photo you wish to animate. The AI technology will take around 20 seconds to work its magic on the photo. Then it’s done!
You can even use the app on a photo with many people in it. But only the person you choose can move, while the others stay still.
1. From Paragraph One we learn that Lisa’s dream is to ________.| A．invent a new app | B．see her mum smile at her |
| C．see her mum as a child | D．act in a Harry Porter movie |
| A．It can make people in a photo smile. |
| B．It comes from an American company. |
| C．It can bring historical people to life. |
| D．People around the world enjoy using it. |
a. choose a photo b. wait for the “new” photo
c. upload the photo d. download the app
| A．a-d-b-c | B．a-c-d-b |
| C．d-a-c-b | D．d-a-b-c |
| A．animals | B．plants | C．buildings | D．people |
| A．AI Brings Old Photos to Life | B．Lisa’s Dream Comes True |
| C．A New App Changes Our Life | D．Everybody Loves My Heritage |
What will astronauts eat when a space trip takes years?
“Lots of fresh vegetables,” says Dr. Janet Williams, whose team have spent the last 10 years learning how to grow plants in a space station. And it’s a good thing that she has already started her work, because space gardening can be really hard.
As usual, astronaut George White looked into the closed plant room. He had planted Dr. Williams’ quick-growing seedlings (秧苗) in it, but none of the stems were showing. He opened the room to check and found the problem. The stems weren’t growing upward and the roots weren’t growing downward. On Earth, gravity (重力) helps a plant’s stems and roots to find “up” and “down”. However, in the space station, there was almost no gravity.
Dr. Williams suggested a solution: give the plants more light, as plants also use sunlight to find their way. And it worked. When the plants had more light, the stems turned up and the roots went down.
Now Dr. Williams was free to worry about the next problem: Would her baby plants live to flower? Can we grow food on a space journey?
Many plants died on the space station. Dr. Williams thought she knew why: the space plants were hungry for air. Plants live by taking up CO2 from the air. Since a plant uses it up in the air around it, the plant needs the moving air to bring more CO2 close to its surface. On Earth, the air is always moving. Gravity pulls down cold air, and warm air rises. And with these air movements, plants get enough CO2.
Many earlier experiments with plants in space had used closed rooms. Dr. Williams tried a new greenhouse that had a fan to keep the air moving. The plants loved it. They flowered and even produced more seeds. Using Dr. Williams’ method, astronaut George completed the first seed-to-seed experiment in space, and moved one plant closer to a garden in space.
“And this,” says Dr. Williams, “is good news for long-term space travel.”
1. Why have Dr. Williams’ team tried to grow plants in space?| A．To produce fresh air for astronauts. | B．To help astronauts relax themselves. |
| C．To provide food for long space journeys. | D．To make the space garden more beautiful. |
| A．Dr. Williams’ team invented a special fan for their greenhouse |
| B．the air condition was good enough for plants in the closed room |
| C．astronaut George found the seedlings grew well after being planted |
| D．a seed-to-seed experiment was successful with Dr. Williams’ method |
| A．How space plants get enough CO2. | B．How to stop space plants from dying. |
| C．Why space plants hardly stayed alive. | D．Why space plants needed the moving air. |
【推荐1】For middle and primary school students, being able to cook has become a must. They will also need to learn how to plant vegetables, raise poultry (家禽) and maintain home appliances (维修家用电器) under new requirements for labor (劳动) education.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) introduced a new standard for labor education in schools. Starting from the 2022 autumn term, students in primary and middle schools have to take courses on labor skills at least once a week.
The new standard includes three types of labor tasks. The first includes basic life skills like everyday household chores, including cleaning, cooking, using and maintaining home appliances. The next is industry and agriculture labor practice, including new technologies like 3D printing, and traditional craft (工艺) learning. The third type is service work such as community volunteer services.
Schools in China have traditionally placed more focus on studying, and many have regarded household chores as a waste of children’s time. But according to the MOE, labor education must be built up to help students enrich their life experience, develop a positive view of labor, value hard work, and develop an interest in labor.
Online people have been busy discussing the new standards on social media.
Li Ting, a mother of 6-year-old twins in Shanghai strongly supports labor education. For the past year, she has trained her daughters to do chores and make simple dishes for the family.
“The main idea is to let kids share responsibility and become independent as early as they can,” said Wang Peng, a father from Guangdong.
“Children’s hand-eye coordination (协调), time management and organization skills can be trained by doing housework,” said Sun Yunxiao, a parenting expert.
They all agree that children will find fun in doing chores through such education.
a. How to plant vegetables. b. How to raise chickens or ducks.
c. How to be more careful in class. d. How to repair computers or fridges.
| A．abc | B．acd | C．bcd | D．abd |
| A．achieve | B．teach | C．improve | D．value |
| A．It helps students enrich life experience. |
| B．It helps students manage their time better. |
| C．It takes up too much of students’ free time. |
| D．It lets students share responsibility and become independent. |
| A．People’s opinions on labor education. |
| B．Labor education for primary and middle school students. |
| C．New technological skills used in primary and middle schools. |
| D．New courses of household chores for primary school students. |
【推荐2】Every country has its favorite food. Italians (意大利人) like to eat pizza. Indians (印度人) like to eat hot food. Japanese like to eat fish.
In England, one of the most (最……的) popular kinds of food is fish and chips. People usually buy it in a fish and chip shop. They put it in paper bags, and take it home, or to their workplace. Sometimes they eat it in the park or on the road.
The world’s favorite food is American fast food. If you go to some important cities in the world, you can find people eating hamburgers and chips. Fish and chips, and Chinese take-away food are very popular in England. But they are not very popular in the USA. Americans eat take-away food, too, like chicken. But the most popular kind of take-away food is the hamburger. It looks like bread with meat in it. But the hamburger does not have any pork (猪肉) in it. Hamburgers with beef inside are the most delicious.
1. Italians like to eat .| A．dumplings | B．pizza | C．hot food | D．fish |
| A．England | B．Japan | C．the USA | D．China |
| A．paper bags | B．schoolbags | C．handbags | D．plastic bags(塑料袋) |
| A．beef | B．pork | C．fish | D．chicken |
| A．Indians like to eat fish. |
| B．English people usually buy fish and chips in the supermarket. |
| C．Chinese take-away food is very popular in the USA. |
| D．Americans like beef hamburgers very much. |
A group of Chinese scientists have recently created a new kind of self-powered, flexible (柔韧的), and transparent (透明的) electronic skin (电子皮肤) to monitor some human actions. The electronic skin is a very important part in the future of wearable technology. Because it’s soft, the special e-skin can stick right onto different parts of our body.
Our skin, which is the biggest part of our body, is responsible for many important things like protecting us, helping us sweat, controlling our temperature, and letting us feel things around us. It is the basis of people’s physical interactions with the outside world.
The perfect e-skin should feel a lot, power itself, and work well on human skin. “We got ideas from how real skin works and made this new e-skin both flexible and transparent to serve many functions (功能). After charging (充电), it can watch and understand very small signals and many activities in real time. It can feel a person’s heartbeat, tell when a person is eating, and inspect other body movements.” said Lan Wei, a professor at the School of Physical Science and Technology of Lanzhou University and the leader of the research team.
E-skin will be the main part of wearable electronic devices in the following years. The new invention can be used in smart health care, human-machine interaction, virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI). For example, it can help doctors control the robots better, let people “touch” things far away, and create more immersive (沉浸式的) gaming experiences.
From now on, the scientists will work on making the e-skin feel things better and have more power, so it becomes even more like human skin, which will in turn make it more suitable for future.
1. What is the purpose of the new wearable e-skin?| A．To control body temperature. | B．To monitor human activities. |
| C．To slow down the aging of human skin. | D．To improve the flexibility of human skin. |
| A．It provides more electricity for people. |
| B．It is soft and has different kinds of uses. |
| C．It can be put inside the human skin directly. |
| D．It can feel a person’s heartbeat two minutes later. |
| A．predict | B．guess | C．check | D．replace |
| A．Its gaming users. | B．Its medical value. | C．Its working idea. | D．Its bright future. |
