1 . An Urban Farmer’s Garden of Eden
Ivy Lawrence-Walls didn’t set out to choose farming. But it chose her. She grew up on a five-acre farm in Houston and credits many
She didn’t know then that many of those childhood lessons would be
The garden grows carrots, cabbage, pumpkin, peppers, and delivers for free to local residents. It also hosts various plant pop-up events at local schools to
“Starting the farm in the early stages of the pandemic was a leap of
Lawrence-Walls said her biggest challenge
| A．distinct | B．essential | C．internal | D．enormous |
| A．patience | B．obligation | C．devotion | D．passion |
| A．committed | B．exposed | C．employed | D．adapted |
| A．linked | B．persuaded | C．integrated | D．expanded |
| A．engaged in | B．comprised of | C．gifted in | D．combined with |
| A．tailor | B．motivate | C．pursue | D．encounter |
| A．intention | B．hesitation | C．resistance | D．security |
| A．operation | B．routine | C．exercise | D．supply |
| A．Therefore | B．Afterwards | C．Nevertheless | D．Otherwise |
| A．occupied | B．involved | C．permitted | D．stuck |
| A．tackle | B．detect | C．clarify | D．distinguish |
| A．ceasing | B．expanding | C．fleeing | D．switching |
| A．distracting | B．evaluating | C．breaking | D．citing |
| A．assumption | B．conclusion | C．forecast | D．assessment |
| A．amusing | B．secure | C．rewarding | D．intense |
2 . This question has fascinated behavioural scientists for decades: why do we give money to charity?
The explanations for charitable giving fall into three broad categories, from the purely altruisic (利他的)— I donate because I value the social good done by the charity. The “impurely” altruistic— I donate because I extract value from knowing I contribute to the social good for the charity. And the not-at-all altruistic— I donate because I want to show off to potential mates how rich I am.
But are these motives strong enough to enable people to donate as much as they would want to? Most people support charities in one way or another, but often we struggle to make donations as often as we think we should. Although many people would like to leave a gift to charity in their will, they forget about it when the time comes.
Many people are also aware that they should donate to the causes that have the highest impact, but facts and figures are less attractive than narratives. In a series of experiments, it was found that people are much more responsive to charitable pleas that feature a single, identifiable beneficiary(受益者), than they are to statistical information about the scale of the problem being faced. When it comes to charitable giving, we are often ruled by our hearts and not our heads.
The good news is that charitable giving is contagious—seeing others give makes an individual more likely to give and gentle encouragement from an important person in your life can also make a big difference to your donation decisions— more than quadrupling them in our recent study. Habit also plays a part— in three recent experiments those who volunteered before were more likely to do donate their time than those who had not volunteered before.
In summary, behavioural science identifies a range of factors that influence our donations, and can help us to keep giving in the longer term. This is great news not just for charities, but also for donors.
1. What can we learn about people who do charitable giving?| A．Most people support charity as often as they think they should. |
| B．Some people don’t want to leave a gift to charity until the time comes. |
| C．Those who donate because they can gain an advantage are purely altruistic. |
| D．Some people send money to charity simply to tell others they are wealthy. |
| A．Not revealing the names of the donors. |
| B．Showing figures about the seriousness of the problem. |
| C．Telling stories that feature a single, recognizable beneficiary. |
| D．Reminding people to write down what to donate in the will in advance. |
| A．People will learn from others and follow the suit. |
| B．Many people are familiar with charitable giving. |
| C．Charitable giving helps the beneficiary in all aspects. |
| D．Charitable giving can bring a lot of benefits to donors. |
| A．To persuade more people to donate. |
| B．To explain the science behind why people donate. |
| C．To criticize some false charitable giving behaviours. |
| D．To explore approaches to making people donate more. |
3 . The pandemic has affected nearly all aspects of modern life, from the clothes we wear to the food we eat. There is one thing, however, that has remained almost unchanged: the emojis we send.
According to data from the Unicode Consortium (统一码联盟), nine of the 10 most-used emojis from 2019 also ranked among the top 10 this year. The tears of joy emoji ranked No.1, despite members of Gen Z deeming it uncool.
“It speaks to how many people use emojis. If emojis were a purely Gen Z thing, then you wouldn’t see it so highly ranked,” said Alexander Robertson, an emoji researcher at Google. “Because of the large number of people using emojis, even if one group thinks something is lame, they have to be a really big group to affect these statistics.”
And it makes sense that Gen Z would think that certain emojis aren’t fashionable. It’s part of the “teenager experience of creating a sense of subculture where there’s a right way and a wrong way of behaving.” Plus, there is a range of laughter that can be expressed: There’s light chuckling. There’s acknowledgement laughter, which is just a marker of empathy. Using emojis, such as the skull face (“I’m dead”) or crying face ( uncontrollable tears of laughter), can help to illustrate that range.
“It basically indicates that we have what we need to communicate a broad range of expression, or even very specific concepts,” Mr Robertson said. “You don’t necessarily need a Covid emoji.”
“We did see a rise in the use of the virus emoji. But it wasn’t made remotely into the most-commonly used ones because we still had plenty to laugh about and plenty to cry about, whether it was because of the pandemic or not,” said Lauren Gawne, a senior lecturer in linguistic at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia.
“Even in the midst of this massive global pandemic that preoccupied so much of our time,” She added. “We still spent a lot of time wishing each other happy birthday or checking or laughing about some new and unexpected elements of this slow-burning weirdness.”
1. Why does the tears of joy emoji ranked No.1 despite the dislike from the Z generation?| A．The emoji is a purely Z generation thing. |
| B．The Z generation are too young to influence the rank. |
| C．Though they dislike it, the Z generation vote for it ultimately. |
| D．The Z generation take up a very small portion in emoji users. |
| A．the virus emoji | B．a Covid emoji |
| C．the use of the virus emoji | D．the rise in the use of the virus emoji |
| A．The massive global pandemic has come to an end. |
| B．The pandemic has little influence on people’s daily life. |
| C．We have a broad range of expression for communication. |
| D．Some new and useful emojis are created to replace the virus emoji. |
| A．The Pandemic and the Emoji. |
| B．Gen Z, the Emoji Generation. |
| C．The Emoji of the Year. |
| D．The Rise of Virus Emoji |
4 . It is difficult to name a female architect more iconic than Zaha Hadid, whose name can be translated from Arabic as glorious. She passed away five years ago at the age of 65, but the impact she has left on the world of architecture is profound.
Hadid was born into an upper-class Iraqi family in 1950. At the very beginning, she wanted to become a mathematician and studied science at the American University of Beirut, But at some point she realized that she preferred shapes to numbers. And she turned her concentration to architecture and went to London where she met the famous Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas.
“There are 360 degrees, so why stick to one?” Hadid once said. Despite her abundance of amazing ideas, before the beginning of the 90s, not a single building based on her blueprints had been built. Her highly expressive style, while initially criticized and believed to be crazy, is now regarded as pioneering work. Her striking contemporary architecture, inspired by natural landforms, has graced the skylines of major metropolitan cities.
“Women are always being told, ‘you’re not going to make it; It’s too difficult. You can’t do that Don’t enter this competition; You’ll never win it’,” Hadid said. “They need confidence in themselves and people around them for support.”
Never one to be boxed in by conventions, Hadid proved society wrong. She received her first prize, the “Gold Medal Architectural Design” for her British Architecture in 1982. From then on, the awards kept rolling in. But the true triumph for Hadid came in 2004. Her project for the London Olympics Aquatic Center won her the Pritzker Architecture Prize. She became the first woman and first Muslim to earn the award, making a name for herself and paving the way for female architects.
Hadid’s genius lives on in the array of many other spectacular buildings she has left behind in the world. Among them are the Guangzhou Opera House, the Beijing Daxing International Airport, as well as the Al Wakrah Stadium in Qatar where the 2022 FIFA World Cup will be held.
Hadid may be gone, but her global influence on a new generation of female architects is here to stay.
1. What made Hadid quit science to learn architecture?| A．Her talent in architecture. |
| B．Her interest in architecture. |
| C．Her difficulty in learning science. |
| D．Her encounter with Rem Koolhaas. |
| A．Her architecture was inspired by mathematics |
| B．Her British Architecture won her the Pritzker Architecture Prize. |
| C．Her architecture style was too bold to be accepted at the very beginning. |
| D．Her works can only be found in European countries and the Middle East. |
| A．The talk between Hadid and her colleague. |
| B．The reason why women fail to be architects. |
| C．The prejudice from society against women. |
| D．The difficulty Hadid faced being an architect. |
| A．She formed a unique style. |
| B．She broke away from the convention. |
| C．She received various architecture awards |
| D．She encouraged other women architects. |
5 . Schools need to give students all the tools they need when they graduate. Besides teaching the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic, teaching about mindfulness, and mental health are important life skills for young people to have. The state of Florida agrees.
Now, public schools in Florida have been required to teach five or more hours about mental health for students in grades 6-12. This new idea was welcomed by the Florida Board of Education in July and is being carried out as a potential lifesaver.
The new curriculum requires-students to learn about the symptoms (症状) of mental illness and where to find help if they are feeling sad or have other problems and even teaches the teenagers how to help their friends and classmates if they see them struggling.
“We know that 50 percent of all mental illness cases begin by age 14, so we are being active in our commitment to provide our kids with the necessary tools to see them through their successes and challenges. Providing mental health instruction is another important step forward in supporting our families,” Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran said.
Florida is the third state, following New York and Virginia in 2020, to pass laws that require mental health education in schools. According. to CNN, the New York law updated the health curriculum to include mental health for elementary, middle and high school students. The Virginia law required that mental health education be provided for 9th and 10th graders.
These three states in the US are taking bold steps to help youth deal with the intricacy of life as they grow from teenagers into adults. It is a confusing world they face and giving them the tools they need is essential. Mental health is something that should be taught in schools in all the US and across the globe.
1. What can the new curriculum-bring students?| A．Basic professional skills. | B．The ability to use language. |
| C．Emotional handling skills. | D．Skills that cure physical diseases. |
| A．The steps of mental health instruction. | B．The consequences of mental illness cases. |
| C．The importance of mental health education. | D．The content of the mental health curriculum. |
| A．Complexity. | B．Process. | C．Trick. | D．Balance. |
| A．A technology report. | B．An educational website. |
| C．A government document. | D．A natural science magazine. |
6 . For adults, communicating in our first language feels easy and natural. Yet learning language is a complex process that is influenced by several factors. When young children are beginning to learn language, some influences, such as the amount of speech a child hears and the amount of time they spend in back-and-forth language interactions with others, have what may appear to be obvious connections to language learning. Perhaps less obvious is that children’s own physical experiences with their environment help them learn new words.
In new research in the cognitive (认知的) sciences, we investigated how this Is the case by considering how children learn words that refer to something they can touch, grasp and interact with. We asked parents to rate how easily a child can physically interact with the object, idea or experiences that a word refers to. We found words that refer to objects that are easy for children to interact with are also words that are learned at an earlier age.
For instance, a word such as spoon is usually learned earlier than a word such as sky. And this relationship remains even when we consider other things that can affect word learning, such as how common a word is in everyday language. Words such as spoon and sky are both relevant to everyday life, and so children will probably hear those words quite early in their development. One difference between them is that spoon refers to something they can touch, grasp and interact with, whereas sky does not.
Our findings agree with those of studies where babies wore small head-mounted body cameras to record their interactions with objects. Those studies show that the children’s own physical experiences helps them learn new words. For instance, in one study researchers found that 18-month-old babies were more likely to learn the-name of a new object when they held that object, and less likely to learn the name if their parent held the new object. Another study found that 15-month-olds who spent more time using new objects had learned more nouns by the time they were 21 months old.
1. What is the aim of the new research?| A．To study how a baby interacts with everyday objects. |
| B．To find out what influences a baby’s language learning. |
| C．To investigate how a baby learns names of everyday objects. |
| D．To see if babies’ physical experiences help them learn new words. |
| A．Sky. | B．Heart. | C．Milk. | D．Leaf. |
| A．A parent. | B．A professor. | C．A researcher. | D．A journalist. |
| A．To further support their finding. | B．To summarize the research result. |
| C．To point out new research directions. | D．To introduce results of other findings. |
7 . In mainland Britain, people who has ever attempted to grow berries or nuts — or indeed feed the bird — will know, doing so is identical to an opening move in a game of chess with local grey squirrels, a game the squirrels tend to win. Grey squirrels are also fond of the occasional bird’s eggs or the young birds, and enjoy tearing and eating the bark of young broadleaf trees, which can either kill the trees or leave them open to infection. This, apart from affecting biodiversity and the landscape, harms the wood industry. The loss — in damaged timber, lost carbon revenue and tree replacements — is not insignificant: £37 a year in England and Wales.
Grey squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis), introduced from North America in 1876, have nearly replaced the native red squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris) in Britain by outcompeting them for food and habitat. They are larger, and stronger, and resistant to squirrel pox virus, while reds are not. About 3 million now live in the UK; the International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the grey squirrel among the top 100 most harmful invasive species in the world.
In Britain, significant efforts have been made to stop grey squirrels’ progress, including trapping, shooting, and releasing pine martens into their habitats. The latest move, a workable system for which was thought to be a decade away, is forbidding the breeding of grey squirrels. However, legal challenges brought so many delays that the invasive grey squirrels. population expanded to an unmanageable level and wiping out was abandoned. The main issue in Britain was thought to be more technological than legal — designing a drug that targets only grey squirrels to prevent them breeding. Another possibility in the years ahead is to use DNA editing to ensure grey females are born unable to give birth.
Obviously, there is a hint of xenophobia (仇外) in some discussions about the introduction of grey squirrels to Britain nearly 150 years ago which has had an impact on the local ecosystem, posing a threat to native species. It’s also worth noting that reds — which also tear bark and take eggs — were seen as pests until the early 1930s, and extensively killed. There is, too, a strong argument that ecosystems evolve naturally, and it may be impractical and unrealistic to intervenes or even resist it. The attraction of controlling the breeding of the grey squirrels is that it is less inhumane, and aims for balance rather than uprooting.
1. What does the author focus on in paragraph one?| A．The harm of grey squirrels. |
| B．The cutting habits of grey squirrels. |
| C．The effect of grey squirrels on the wood industry. |
| D．The game between the British and grey squirrels. |
| A．Their huge number. | B．Their unique origins. |
| C．Their breeding ability. | D．Their physical qualities. |
| A．To offer more labour. | B．To invest more money. |
| C．To perfect the law. | D．To take advantage of technology. |
| A．Unclear. | B．Indifferent. | C．Favorable. | D．Doubtful. |
8 . A recent study has discovered that gentle sound stimulation, referred to as pink noise, could enhance deep sleep among older adults and strengthen their word recall abilities.
Deep sleep is critical for memory consolidation. But beginning in middle age, it decreases considerably, contributing to memory loss in aging. The sound stimulation significantly enhanced deep sleep in participants and their scores on a memory test. This innovative approach offers a simple and safe means to potentially enhance memory among older individuals and mitigate the natural age-related memory decline.
A team of researchers from the Northwestern University in the US gathered 13 adults aged 60 and above, monitoring their sleep in a lab for two nights. On both nights, the participants underwent a memory test, went to bed while wearing headphones and a special cap, and took the memory test again in the morning. But without the participants’ awareness, researchers only played pink noise into the headphones on one night. More specifically, they timed the sounds to match the participants’ slow-wave oscillations. During deep sleep, brain waves slow to approximately one oscillation per second, compared to about ten oscillations per second during wakefulness. The system they employed in the study allowed the team to deliver a low burst of pink noise at the “precise moment” when the participants’ slow waves rose — a pattern that is unique to each person.
The study found that participants’ slow waves increased after the night of sound stimulation, suggesting a potential enhancement in their deep sleep quality. And in the morning after hearing pink noise, they performed three times better on memory tests than they did after sleeping without any sound stimulation.
The study was a relatively small one and Northwestern has taken steps to confirm its findings and to study how longer-term use of pink noise affects sleep. The team aims to develop an affordable device that people can use at home, from the comfort of their beds.
1. What did the study reveal about the impact of pink noise?| A．It disturbs overall sleep quality. | B．It weakens word recall abilities. |
| C．It increases the length of sleep. | D．It boosts memory performance. |
| A．decrease | B．notice | C．worsen | D．describe |
| A．It adjusted participants’ slow-wave oscillations precisely. |
| B．It employed a sound system to match slow-wave oscillations. |
| C．It compared different sound effects on the elderly and the youth. |
| D．It played various sorts of pink noises into participants’ headphones. |
| A．pose a long-term risk for older adults. |
| B．requires an innovative and affordable device |
| C．has the potential to be put into practice. |
| D．lacks researchers’ interest in confirming findings. |
9 . My fiancé (未婚夫) and I were excited about shopping for our first home. But our funds were
One agent recommended a house in particular. Although her description sounded wonderful, the price was
We finally did and it was
Days later, we made a(n)
The next day, we got a
“Sold!” said the owner. Then he explained: He’d seen us sitting by the lake all those times; he knew how much we loved the place and that we’d
That’s how we found our home and how I learned that when people are
| A．needed | B．limited | C．enough | D．large |
| A．below | B．within | C．beyond | D．between |
| A．at least | B．at most | C．at times | D．at hand |
| A．relief | B．concern | C．love | D．curiosity |
| A．pride | B．happiness | C．challenge | D．desire |
| A．effort | B．offer | C．promise | D．profit |
| A．come across | B．look after | C．depend on | D．laugh at |
| A．worse | B．better | C．less | D．higher |
| A．relaxing | B．disappointing | C．pleasant | D．regular |
| A．agents | B．buyers | C．managers | D．owners |
| A．already | B．still | C．generally | D．ever |
| A．so | B．or | C．for | D．but |
| A．check | B．analyze | C．appreciate | D．ignore |
| A．increase | B．difference | C．interest | D．average |
| A．kind | B．polite | C．smart | D．energetic |
10 . Fictional, computer-generated human faces are so convincing they can fool even trained observers. They can be easily downloaded online and used for Internet scams(诈骗)and fake social media profiles.
Al programs called generative adversarial networks (生成对抗网络), or GANs, can learn to create fake images that are less and less distinguishable from real images, by competing two neural networks against each other.
Nightingale and her colleague Hany Farid at the University of California, Berkeley, asked 315 participants, recruited on a crowdsourcing website, to say whether they could distinguish a selection of 400 fake photos from 400 photographs of real people. Each set consisted of 100 people from each of four ethnic groups: white, Black, East Asian and South Asian.
This group had an accuracy rate of 48.2 percent—slightly worse than chance. A second group of 219 participants were given training to recognize computer-generated faces. This group had an accuracy rate of 59 percent, but this difference is negligible (可忽略的), says Nightingale.
The researchers also asked a separate group of 223 participants to rate a selection of the same faces on their level of trustworthiness, on a scale of 1 to 7. They rated the fake faces as 8 percent more trustworthy, on average, than the real faces—a small yet significant difference, according to Nightingale. That might be because artificial faces look more like “average” human faces, and people are more likely to trust typical-looking faces, she says.
Looking at the extremes, the four faces rated most untrustworthy were real, whereas the three most trustworthy faces were fake.
“We need stricter ethical guidelines and more legal frameworks in place because, inevitably, there are going to be people out there who want to use these images to do harm, and that’s worrying,” says Nightingale.
To reduce these risks, developers could add watermarks to their images to flag them as fake. she says. “In my opinion, this is bad enough. It’s just going to get worse if we don’t do something to stop it.”
1. What can we know about GANs?| A．GANs can cheat trained observers. |
| B．GANs should be used under strict legal frameworks. |
| C．GANs can generate artificial pictures close to real ones. |
| D．GANs-generated Images can not be distinguished from real ones. |
| A．To warn people the risk of online fraud. |
| B．To train people to discover fake photos online. |
| C．To see if people can distinguish fake faces from real ones. |
| D．To test whether GANs can create fake faces to fool people. |
| A．Stricter laws and regulations should be imposed. |
| B．Effective ways are needed but not found yet. |
| C．Watermarks are an effective way against fake images. |
| D．Responsibility should be taken by developers to prevent misuse of fake images. |
| A．Development of Internet scams. | B．Development of AI technology |
| C．Will fake faces look more trustworthy? | D．Legal frameworks for GANs |
