| A. The Grand Canyon National Park of the US is one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. It’s best-known for its size and depth. It shows beautiful wild flowers. | |
| B. If you like animals, you’ll like the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. The “Big Five” live there. They are the lion, the African elephant, the African leopard, the black rhinoceros and the African buffalo. | |
| C. Green Island in Taiwan is an island in the Pacific Ocean with clear blue water around. Green Island has a lot of places of interest that make it a place where people like to go: seaside, a clean white beach, seawater and hot springs. | |
| D. Fraser Island is in Queensland, Australia. It is a very important and strange island because it is completely made of sand. The sand makes unusual shapes and some of the sandy rocks have different colors. | |
| E. Windsor Castle is a famous castle in England. It is a fantastic place to visit with the family. Kids will love pretending to be a king or a queen for a day. But you can’t take any photos inside the castle. |
The Royal Mint has planned to open a new factory at Llantrisant in South Wales next year. It will deal with electronic waste (known as e-waste) to get precious metals for coins and gold bars. The factory will be the first of its kind in the world.
The Royal Mint is a government-owned company that makes coins for the UK and lots of other countries. Most of its coins are made from cheaper metals such as copper and tin, but the Mint sometimes makes coins and medals from precious metals like gold and silver. ________. Countries and banks like to keep gold bars. They are very valuable and their price doesn’t go up or down suddenly.
Since precious metals are so valuable, the Mint always thinks about how to get them. In the past, the precious metals used by the Mint mostly came from the ground. The process always cost much and took a long time. Now the Mint plans to make use of the large amounts of e-waste that is thrown away in the UK each year. Many electronic devices use small amounts of precious metals because they are good conductors of electricity. However, it is believed that only 20% of old electronics are recycled worldwide. In addition. wasted electronics are also a kind of danger, because when e-waste is buried in rubbish dumps”, metals and chemicals can leak out and pollute the environment.
Getting precious metals from e-waste is not as easy as we think. Till now, the Mint has sent e-waste abroad to more it down to get precious metals. But the new factory will use chemical reacuons to do the same job much more quickly with far less energy. The process can get 99% of the precious metals from plastic circuit boards within a few seconds and can provide the Mint with hundreds of kilograms of gold each year.
“We will see the Royal Mint become a leader in sourced precious metals.” said Anne Jessopp, the Mint’s boss. She added that the new factory would also help the UK deal with its own e-waste rather than send it to other countries.
1. What does the new factory plan to get from e-waste?| A．Plastic boards. | B．Electronic devices. |
| C．Gold coins. | D．Precious metals. |
| A．The Mint also makes gold bars. |
| B．The Mint also sells chemical products. |
| C．The Mint also produces much e-waste. |
| D．The Mint also offers electricity worldwide. |
| A．Most old electronics are recycled worldwide. |
| B．UK will help other countries deal with e-waste. |
| C．E-waste should be buried in rubbish dumps carefully. |
| D．Chemical reactions can help get metals from e-waste effectively. |
| A．Magic Discoveries in Nature | B．New Ways of Coin Production |
| C．Precious Gains from E-waste | D．Serious Problems on the Environment |
3 . A heat wave roasted* hundreds of thousands of people across the Pacific Northwest, taking away hundreds of lives. Climate change has made heat waves like this one more frequent and stronger than those from any other point in recorded history.
The following is what happens if you’re one of the next people whom heat wave kills, according to W. Lawrence Kenney, an expert from Penn State University. First, your brain sends messages to encourage sweat* production. Then your heart starts beating faster to pump* blood to the skin, and at the same time, blood flow is also directed away from your organs like liver, kidneys, and gut. That’s your body trying to make your skin hotter than the air outside and move heat away from you.
If heat stroke* happens, your body might get too hot and send much blood to the skin, as a result, it fails* those important organs in your body. You might require an emergency transplant to survive the organ failure. If your body fails to cool you down, its internal* temperature might start to climb from a normal level of about 98 degrees Fahrenheit to somewhere closer to 104 degrees. At that temperature, the brain becomes affected and you may feel it start as a headache. Before long, you might not know where you are or what time it is. If you are not treated in time, what follows is a series of organ failure that leads to all but certain death. And that’s just part of what we know about how heat wave kills you.
“It’s important for people to understand that there’s still a lot we don’t know about heat stroke and who’s most likely to be harmed,” Kenney said, “That’s because we can’t study it in humans in the laboratory. A lot of what we know comes from studies on animal models, like mice and rats, or from examinations of people who have died of heat stroke.”
roast v. 烤；sweat n. 汗液；pump v. （心脏）泵送血液；heat stroke 中暑；fail v. 使……衰竭；internal adj. 体内的
1. Which of the following will happen if a heat wave attacks a person?| A．The skin will produce less sweat. |
| B．The heart beats will slow down. |
| C．There will be more blood in the skin. |
| D．The organs will be more active. |
| A．Prevent organs from failing. | B．Try to cool down the body. |
| C．Try to treat the headache. | D．Stop sweat from producing. |
| A．There hasn’t been enough study so far. |
| B．We should keep studying human deaths. |
| C．We have already studied on humans. |
| D．The studies on animal models are useless. |
| A．How heat strokes are developed |
| B．How we can keep organs work well |
| C．How we can slow down global warming |
| D．How heat waves destroy the human body |
When you think of mushrooms, the image that comes to your mind is probably the delicious food in cream soup and pizza. You are not alone. Most of us think that mushrooms are just a kind of nutritious food. In fact, mycelium, the bottom part of mushrooms, is not used in our dishes but used to make handbags or build houses.
Mycelium, a newly developed material, has become more and more important in industry since a company called Ecovative Design produced mycelium bags in 2007. People are trying to make more mycelium-based products because mycelium grows fast and doesn’t take up farming land. Besides, it has very low environment footprint. It can even break down waste. It’s also useful for creating new materials. For example, mycelium can reuse waste to create packaging materials by weaving its network through the waste.
Mycelium has already been put into use in many parts of daily life. In the project “The Growing Pavillion”, scientists from the Netherlands used mycelium as one of the materials to build a house. This material can keep the house cool. Another project is “Myceli-yum”. It produces mycelium-based meat which looks nearly 100% like real meat! Producing the meat uses much less energy than producing common meat. Its high nutrition and low cholesterol make it a popular choice for people who want to lose weight. Max Justice, an expert in space, uses mycelium as one of the most important materials for a new satellite. He hopes when the satellite finishes its work, it can break down itself instead of becoming space junk.
However, mycelium has its limits. Buildings made from mycelium are easy to get wet inside, as the material itself isn’t resistant to water. Compared with common houses, mycelium-based houses are not strong enough against natural disasters like earthquakes.
Scientists are working hard to improve the quality of mycelium and experimenting with new uses of it. So keep an eye out, because over the next few years, you’re likely to find more mycelium-based products all around you.
1. According to the passage, mycelium ________| A．is a new material | B．makes pizza delicious |
| C．grows above the ground | D．is taken from cream soup |
| A．grows at a low cost | B．is created in a rapid way |
| C．produces waste slowly | D．is friendly to the environment |
| A．keep products away from water | B．produce food that is good for health |
| C．make satellites that use less energy | D．build houses against natural disasters |
| A．Mycelium: A Hidden Treasure | B．Mycelium: A Project on Building |
| C．Mycelium: A Common Vegetable | D．Mycelium: A Space Junk Cleaner |
Before the development of phones, the natives of the island of La Gomera were able to use a whistled language to communicate with each other from mountain peak to mountain peak. It is known as the Silbo Gomero.
Invented by the island’s natives–Guanches, the Silbo Gomero was the only form that they used to communicate with others far away until the first half of the 20th century. During the 16th century, it was taught to Spanish settlers. Then it spread to other neighbouring islands and was used by much more people.
The whistled language has a vocabulary of over 4,000 words. The difficulty of this language lies in the fact that it replaces the five vowels of Spanish language with two clearly different whistles and twenty-two consonants of it with other four different whistles. People can tell the differences of the whistles according to how high or low the sound is and whether they are interrupted or continued.
However, with the rise of modern communications, the special language was dying out, and by the latter half of the 20th century very few people still knew how to whistle in this manner. Luckily, the local government has managed to reverse this situation, mainly through laws that make it a required subject in schools across the island of La Gomera. Gradually, it is developed and practised by a large number of people. In 2009, the Silbo Gomero was claimed to be an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.
Nowadays, the Silbo Gomero is also used during festivals and ceremonies. To prevent it from disappearing, the native people continue to make great effort. Although there’s not a special visitor center to appreciate the amazement of the whistled language, that is not to say it won’t be one in the future.
1. According to the passage, the Silbo Gomero was invented to .| A．attract Spanish settlers | B．spread ideas to other islands |
| C．encourage the use of phones | D．communicate over long distance |
| A．change | B．study | C．face | D．describe |
| A．It has almost the same vocabulary as Spanish. |
| B．It was taught to Spanish settlers 200 years ago. |
| C．There has been a special center for visitors to appreciate it. |
| D．People can tell the differences by the features of its sounds. |
| A．To encourage people to visit La Gomera. |
| B．To spread the Silbo Gomero all over world. |
| C．To introduce some facts of the Silbo Gomero. |
| D．To tell the stories of the natives of La Gomera. |
When Thomas Edison hit a wall with his inventions, he would nap* in an armchair while holding a steel ball. As he started to fall asleep and his muscles relaxed, the ball would strike the floor, waking him with insights* into his problems. Or so the story goes.
Thomas Edison was somewhat right. Now, more than 100 years later, scientists have repeated the trick in a lab, proving that the famous inventor was on to something. People following his recipe* tripled their chances of solving a math problem. The trick was to wake up in the transition* between sleep and wakefulness, just before deep sleep. In this transitional period, we are not quite awake, but also not deeply asleep. It can be as short as a minute and happens right when we start to sleep.
Researchers invited more than 100 easy sleepers to be volunteers or the experiment. The team gave each of them a math test. Those who didn’t find the key took a 20-minute break resting in a chair in a dark room with their eyes closed. Each held a plastic bottle in their right hand. After the break when the bottle fell, the volunteers went back to complete the math problem. By studying brain activity, they found that those who napped and were interrupted* during the first phase of sleep were three times better at finding the hidden key to the problem than those who remained awake.
The creative-effect happened even for people who spent just 15 seconds in the first sleep stage. But the trick didn’t work for those who reached later stages of sleep. “Our findings suggest there is a creative sweet spot during sleep onset*,” says Delphine Oudiette, a sleep researcher at the Paris Brain Institute. “It is a small window which can disappear if you wake up too early or sleep too deep.”
Therefore, the research team has already planned an experiment to help people reach a creative zone by monitoring* their brain waves in real time. “Edison was great”, Oudiette says, “and now we have a lot more to explore.”
1. Edison would nap in an armchair when he ________ in his inventions.| A．felt a little tired | B．had creative ideas |
| C．solved the problems | D．made no progress |
| A．Gaining enough deep sleep | B．Discovering the hidden rules of problems |
| C．Following Edison’s life style | D．Waking up right after nodding off to sleep |
| A．People can solve difficult problems after they had a nap. |
| B．Some people do much better in a math test than many others. |
| C．Creativity happens while sleeping, but it can disappear easily. |
| D．Sleeping with a ball in one hand is the key to solve problems. |
| A．Edison’s Experiment on Nap | B．A Study on Creativity |
| C．The Importance of Enough Sleep | D．The Importance of Creativity |
7 . Have you ever lost yourself in doing something so that you lost track of time? Everything around you—from the ringing of phones to the people passing in the hallways—seemed to be away.
Most of us have had this experience at one time or another. This is a mental state called “flow”. When it happens, we completely focus on the task before us so that nothing else seems to matter. We feel energetic, even joyful, about what we are doing.
The idea of flow was introduced and first studied by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihályi. His flow model shows the emotional states, which we’re likely to experience when trying to complete a task, depend on the difficulty of the challenge and our skill levels. For example, if the task is low challenging and doesn’t require a lot of skills, we’re likely to feel apathy and bored towards it. But facing a challenging task without the required skills could easily result in worry and anxiety. To perform at our best, we need a task with a high difficulty level, and we believe we have well-developed skills to do it. This moves us to a position where we can experience “flow”.
________? During flow, people can improve performance and get better result, faster. For instance, artists who Csikszentmihályi interviewed, said that they were highly productive, and that their work was done perfectly “without putting in much effort” in the flow state. Flow can also make people more curious and creative because they have to seek new challenges and information to keep the state. With flow, people have greater levels of happiness and satisfaction in their activities.
Flow often happens during creative activities and sports activities. But flow states aren’t just something experienced by artists, writers, or sports persons. Flow can happen anytime a person is deeply engaged in a task, including during learning activities. Many people want to achieve flow more often in their daily lives. While doing a task, having clear plans, adding something challenge-able and giving and receiving feedback in time can help achieve flow. It’s more difficult to achieve flow if the focus is disturbed, so it’s necessary that smartphones, TV and other distractions get turned off.
1. When people are in flow, they ________.| A．need to dicuss on the phone | B．focus on the time often |
| C．give full attention to their tasks | D．notice others passing by |
A． | B． | C． | D． |
| A．Why is flow so enjoyable | B．When can people experience flow |
| C．What advantages does flow bring | D．How do people use the flow model |
| A．A writer who gets much advice after publishing a book. |
| B．An artist who is drawing an apple for his 10-year-old daughter. |
| C．A chess player who knows what to do before competitions. |
| D．A student who prefers doing homework while watching TV. |
8 . As the days are getting colder, you might wish you could magically turn into a bear and spend the winter sleeping. In fact, scientists are looking for ways to let humans hibernate, too!
During hibernation, an animal’s heart rate and breathing slow down. They can save energy when there is little food in the winter months.
Japanese researchers have found the secret behind hibernation—the “Q neurons”. These neurons in animals’ brains can put them into a hibernation state. The researchers also did operations on mice after turning on the mice’s “Q neurons”. It turned out that during hibernation, the operations do less harm to the mice.
According to the team, humans’ “O neurons”cannot be turned on and off as easily as the mice’s. But they are confident in copying the mice’s hibernation in humans. That means we could let people “hibernate”when having operations, causing less damage to their bodies.
In recent years, more scientists are getting to realize the benefits of hibernation. US scientist Katherine Grabek found that when the thirteen-lined ground squirrel hibernates, it cleans out harmful brain plaques that are related to Alzheimer’s in humans. They hope to design some medicine for humans based on this finding. Besides, some studies in bats show that, during hibernation, their bodies age more slowly. This also provides new ideas for making humans live longer in the future, according to New Scientist magazine.
At the same time, scientists have found a lot of fun facts on animals. For example, a bat’s heart rate drops to 25 beats per minute during hibernation—down from 400 when it’s awake. Its breathing slows so much that it might not take a breath for up to an hour! Also, a black bear can go without eating, drinking or going to the bathroom for 100 days. During hibernation, their wounds even heal perfectly.
1. Paragraph 2 introduces _________.| A．what is needed for hibernation | B．where animals usually hibernate |
| C．what kind of animals hibernate | D．what happens during hibernation |
| A．Humans don’t have “Q neurons” as mice do. |
| B．It’s difficult to turn on the mice’s “Q neurons”. |
| C．It’s impossible for humans to copy the hibernation. |
| D．Doing operations in the hibernation state is less harmful. |
| A．People can hibernate whenever they like. |
| B．People may hibernate to slow down aging. |
| C．People may use animals to create new medicine. |
| D．People can go without eating or drinking for 100 days. |
| A．share some findings on hibernation | B．introduce fun facts on hibernation |
| C．show the achievements in operations | D．present a new way of doing operations |
Before the discovery of DNA analyzing in the 1980s, fingerprints were the easiest way to solve serious crimes due to two basic features: their persistence and their uniqueness.
It’s believed that of the 7 billion or so people on Earth, each one of us has our own unique fingerprints. But did you know that our fingerprints could actually reveal a lot more about us than just our identity?
According to Bailey of The Conversation, fingerprints can show people’s lifestyle and living environment, eating habits, possible medical problems and even the job of a person.
So how can we figure all these out from just a simple fingerprint?
Well, a fingerprint is formed when a finger makes contact with a surface. Most fingerprints are not visible to our eyes and require a chemical way to make them visible. Stuck between the ridges of a fingerprint, however, are substances that can tell a story about who we are. Things like traces of sweat, blood, and food reveal a lot of information about us–what we’ve touched, what we’ve eaten and even what medicine we’ve taken.
At the moment, the skills to discover these substances are mostly used in solving the crime cases, but its application could be much wider, according to Bailey, who gives speeches in chemistry at the University of Surrey in the UK. For example, she and her fellow researchers were able to tell what medicines people were taking from their fingerprints, which may be of great help in the future to doctors treating their patients. A fingerprint check may also be able to tell a doctor whether a patient is properly taking the medicine they’ve been given. In the treatment of some of the most serious illnesses, it’s deadly important that the body is taking in these medicines. As Scientific American noted, this is particularly important for patients undergoing treatment for heart conditions and psychosis*, as these people might struggle to take the medicines or forget or choose not to take them.
And while it’s commonly believed that our fingerprints never change, but in fact, they do—and people can get a great deal of information from the ways they change. In the future, fingerprint science won’t only be restricted to the crime lab but can help doctors keep us in the best possible health as well. Won’t that be really amazing?
1. The purpose of Paragraph 2 is ________.| A．to make a conclusion | B．to lead to some unknown facts |
| C．to further explain the theme | D．to make a common sense known |
| A．What a patient had taken. | B．How a doctor gave medicines. |
| C．Who made a serious crime. | D．How a man was different from others. |
| A．We can see a fingerprint with our eyes. |
| B．The change of fingerprints is of great value. |
| C．Fingerprints are the easiest way to solve crimes. |
| D．Things stuck between fingerprints’ ridges are of little use. |
| A．Fingerprints: Uniqueness of Humans | B．Fingerprints: Traces to Solve Crimes |
| C．Fingerprints: Secrets Hidden on Fingers | D．Fingerprints: Ways for Treating Illnesses |
10 . Home plays an important part in our life. Home is more than a house. It is not just a place we live in, but a place that is full of love. Family members give their love at any time and any place.
What makes our home the warmest place in the world? It’s our family members. Whoever we are, our family members are the most valuable* in our lives. We can feel warmth all the time.
When we have something happy, we first want to tell our family members. When we get into trouble, home is the first place for us to look for help.
So it’s important to get on well with our family members. But how can we do that? These ideas may help. Firstly. we can communicate with them about our happiness and sadness. Always try to tell them how we are going now. Secondly, we can spend time listening to family members.
Listening shows we care about them. A good listener can make people feel good. Finally, we can give our help to our family members as quickly as we can. When they meet difficulties and feel sad, we can cheer them up and help to solve the difficulties. With our help, they can get their confidence* back and move on. So. we live happily because we can get strength from our home.
In a word, family members can support* each other in many ways. That is just the true love in the world.
一、查一查。请利用双语字典为文中打星号的生词选择最贴切的意思。
| 1. valuable /’væljuəbl/ adj. A. very important 重要的 B. worth a lot of money 值钱的 |
| 2. confidence /’kɒnfidəns/ n. A. a feeling of trust 信赖 B. a belief in your own ability to do things 信心 |
| 3. support /sə pɔ: t/ v. A. hold sb/sth in position支撑 B. give or be ready to give help to sb支持；帮助 n. C. a thing that holds sth支撑物 D. help that you give to sb支持；帮助 |
| A. is full of B. get into trouble C. communicate with D. care about |
This man doesn’t
It’s important to ask your parents or friends for help when you
After Jack’s teachers
三、理一理。根据文本理解，请把下面的句子补全完整。
From the passage, we know we can get
