1 . According to a recent study in the Journal of Consumer Research, both the size and consumption habits of our eating companions can influence our food intake. And contrary to existing research that says you should avoid eating with heavier people who order large portions(份), it's the beanpoles with big appetites you really need to avoid.

To test the effect of social influence on eating habits, the researchers conducted two experiments. In the first, 95 undergraduate women were individually invited into a lab to ostensibly(表面上)participate in a study about movie viewership. Before the film began, each woman was asked to help herself to a snack. An actor hired by the researchers grabbed her food first. In her natural state, the actor weighed 105 pounds. But in half the cases she wore a specially designed fat suit which increased her weight to 180 pounds.

Both the fat and thin versions of the actor took a large amount of food. The participants followed suit, taking more food than they normally would have. However, they took significantly more when the actor was thin.

For the second test, in one case the thin actor took two pieces of candy from the snack bowls. In the other case, she took 30 pieces. The results were similar to the first test: the participants followed suit but took significantly more candy when the thin actor took 30 pieces.

The tests show that the social environment is extremely influential when we're making decisions. If this fellow participant is going to eat more, so will I. Call it the “I’ll have what she's having” effect. However, we'll adjust the influence. If an overweight person is having a large portion, I'll hold back a bit because I see the results of his eating habits. But if a thin person eats a lot, I'll follow suit. If he can eat much and keep slim, why can't I?

1. What is the recent study mainly about?

A．Food safety.	B．Movie viewership.
C．Consumer demand.	D．Eating behavior.

2. What does the underlined word “beanpoles” in paragraph 1 refer to?

A．Big eaters.	B．Overweight persons.
C．Picky eaters.	D．Tall thin persons.

3. Why did the researchers hire the actor?

A．To see how she would affect the participants.

B．To test if the participants could recognize her.

C．To find out what she would do in the two tests.

D．To study why she could keep her weight down.

4. On what basis do we “adjust the influence” according to the last paragraph?

A．How hungry we are.	B．How slim we want to be.
C．How we perceive others.	D．How we feel about the food.

2 . I experienced years of loneliness as a child.     1     His friends teased him about babysitting his sister and his interests were far different from mine. With no other kids of my age in the neighborhood, I had to spend hours by myself.

A bright spot for me turned out to be reading. My love of the written word began early as my mother read to me every evening.     2     I started reading books on my own before age 5 and my mother took me to the public library once a week to borrow several books. I quickly graduated from typical children’s books to ones with fewer pictures and longer chapters. Reading opened new worlds to me.     3    

My mother also encouraged me to make what I wanted. I tried making toy cars with cardboard boxes and constructing buildings from leftover cardboard and bits of wood my father gave me. When my mother saw my creations, she told me how creative my designs were.     4     I learned a lot about how to extend the life of objects and transform them into something new and useful. It was a trait(特点) others found helpful, and I soon had friends who wanted to make things with me.

    5    My parents made it a point for their two kids to spend time outside, no matter the weather or season. My brother, of course, raced off to be with his friends, while I had plenty to do myself. There was making leaf houses in autumn, ice skating in winter, and so much more. They’re all memories I treasure today.

A．I wasn't alone any longer.

B．I enjoyed reading stories aloud.

C．I was invited to play with another kid.

D．I loved the colorful photographs in the books.

E．Another habit I formed early was being outdoors.

F．Thus, I began my lifelong interest in making things.

G．My older brother couldn’t be bothered to play with me.

3 . We are the products of evolution, and not just evolution that occurred billions of years ago. As scientists look deeper into our genes (基因), they are finding examples of human evolution in just the past few thousand years. People in Ethiopian highlands have adapted to living at high altitudes. Cattle -raising people in East Africa and northern Europe have gained a mutation (突变) that helps them digest milk as adults.

On Thursday in an article published in Cell, a team of researchers reported a new kind of adaptation - not to air or to food, but to the ocean. A group of sea-dwelling people in Southeast Asia have evolved into better divers. The Bajau, as these people are known, number in the hundreds of thousands in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. They have traditionally lived on houseboats; in recent times, they’ve also built houses on stilts (支柱) in coastal waters. “They are simply a stranger to the land,” said Redney C. Jubilado, a University of Hawaii researcher who studies the Bajau.

Dr. Jubilado first met the Bajau while growing up on Samal Island in the Philippines. They made a living as divers, spearfishing or harvesting shellfish. “We were so amazed that they could stay underwater much longer than us local islanders,” Dr. Jubilado said. “I could see them actually walking under the sea.”

In2015, Melissa Ilardo, then a graduate student in genetics at the University of Copenhagen, heard about the Bajau. She wondered if centuries of diving could have led to the evolution of physical characteristics that made the task easier for them. “it seemed like the perfect chance for natural selection to act on a population,” said Dr. Ilardo. She also said there were likely a number of other genes that help the Bajau dive.

1. What does the author want to tell us by the examples in paragraph 1?

A．Environmental adaptation of cattle raisers.	B．New knowledge of human evolution.
C．Recent findings of human origin.	D．Significance of food selection.

2. Where do the Bajau build their houses?

A．In valleys.

B．Near rivers.

C．On the beach.

D．Off the coast.

3. Why was the young Jubilado astonished at the Bajau?

A．They could walk on stilts all day.	B．They had a superb way of fishing.
C．They could stay long underwater.	D．They lived on both land and water.

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

A．Bodies Remodeled for a Life at Sea	B．Highlanders’ Survival Skills
C．Basic Methods of Genetic Research	D．The World’s Best Divers

4 . The connection between people and plants has long been the subject of scientific research. Recent studies have found positive effects. A study conducted in Youngstown，Ohio，for example, discovered that greener areas of the city experienced less crime. In another，employees were shown to be 15% more productive when their workplaces were decorated with houseplants.

The engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT)have taken it a step further changing the actual composition of plants in order to get them to perform diverse，even unusual functions. These include plants that have sensors printed onto their leaves to show when they’re short of water and a plant that can detect harmful chemicals in groundwater. ＂We’re thinking about how we can engineer plants to replace functions of the things that we use every day,＂explained Michael Strano, a professor of chemical engineering at MIT.

One of his latest projects has been to make plants glow(发光)in experiments using some common vegetables. Strano’s team found that they could create a faint light for three-and-a-half hours. The light，about one-thousandth of the amount needed to read by，is just a start. The technology, Strano said, could one day be used to light the rooms or even to turn trees into self-powered street lamps.

In the future，the team hopes to develop a version of the technology that can be sprayed onto plant leaves in a one-off treatment that would last the plant’s lifetime. The engineers are also trying to develop an on and off＂switch＂where the glow would fade when exposed to daylight.

Lighting accounts for about 7% of the total electricity consumed in the US. Since lighting is often far removed from the power source(电源)-such as the distance from a power plant to street lamps on a remote highway-a lot of energy is lost during transmission(传输).Glowing plants could reduce this distance and therefore help save energy.

1. What is the first paragraph mainly about?

A．A new study of different plants.

B．A big fall in crime rates.

C．Employees from various workplaces.

D．Benefits from green plants.

2. What is the function of the sensors printed on plant leaves by MIT engineer?

A．To detect plants’ lack of water

B．To change compositions of plants

C．To make the life of plants longer.

D．To test chemicals in plants.

3. What can we expect of the glowing plants in the future?

A．They will speed up energy production.

B．They may transmit electricity to the home.

C．They might help reduce energy consumption.

D．They could take the place of power plants.

4. Which of the following can be the best title for the text?

A．Can we grow more glowing plants?

B．How do we live with glowing plants?

C．Could glowing plants replace lamps?

D．How are glowing plants made pollution-free?

5 . When you were trying to figure out what to buy for the environmentalist on your holiday list, fur probably didn’t cross your mind. But some ecologists and fashion (时装)enthusiasts are trying to bring back the market for fur made from nutria(海狸鼠).

Unusual fashion shows in New Orleans and Brooklyn have showcased nutria fur made into clothes in different styles. “It sounds crazy to talk about guilt-free fur-unless you understand that the nutria are destroying vast wetlands every year”, says Cree McCree, project director of Righteous Fur.

Scientists in Louisiana were so concerned that they decided to pay hunters $5 a tail. Some of the fur ends up in the fashion shows like the one in Brooklyn last month.

Nutria were brought there from Argentina by fur farmers and let go into the wild. “The ecosystem down there can’t handle this non-native species(物种).It’s destroying the environment. It’s them or us.” says Michael Massimi, an expert in this field.

The fur trade kept nutria in check for decades，but when the market for nutria collapsed in the late 1980s，the cat-sized animals multiplied like crazy.

Biologist Edmond Mouton runs the nutria control program for Louisiana. He says it’s not easy to convince people that nutria fur is green, but he has no doubt about it. Hunters bring in more than 300,000 nutria tails a year, so part of Mouton’s job these days is trying to promote fur.

Then there’s Righteous Fur and its unusual fashion. Model Paige Morgan says，”To give people a guilt-free option that they can wear without someone throwing paint on them-I think that’s going to be a massive thing, at least here in New York.” Designer Jennifer Anderson admits it took her a while to come around to the opinion that using nutria fur for her creations is morally acceptable. She is trying to come up with a label to attach to nutria fashions to show it is eco-friendly.

1. What is the purpose of the fashion shows in New Orleans and Brooklyn?

A．To promote guilt-free fur.

B．To expand the fashion market.

C．To introduce a new brand.

D．To celebrate a winter holiday.

2. Why are scientists concerned about nutria?

A．Nutria damage the ecosystem seriously.

B．Nutria are an endangered species.

C．Nutria hurt local cat-sized animals.

D．Nutria are illegally hunted.

3. What does the underlined word “collapsed” in paragraph 5 probably mean?

A．Boomed.

B．Became mature.

C．Remained stable.

D．Crashed.

4. What can we infer about wearing fur in New York according to Morgan?

A．It’s formal.

B．It’s risky.

C．It’s harmful.

D．It’s traditional.

6 . Last weekend I took a bus to New York City. As I took the window seat and wore headphones over ears, I almost didn't _______ an elderly man sitting beside me. The elderly man asked me a simple question _______ the bus' s WiFi connection, which turned into a two-hour _______.

We talked a lot about my dreams, my fears and my life. I _______ more with this stranger on the bus than I have with any friend or family member in months. Maybe it is because I am _______ to let anyone I know close to me. I was _______ that the stranger was not only deeply interested in getting to know me, but also just willing to     _______ me to my greatest abilities. Instead of politely _______ his head when I mentioned my major, he told me that my strong liking seemed to be psychology, but not the one I was studying and that he fully understood my _______ for the failure.

This elderly man made me ________ the plans that I had made for my life. He helped me realize that my carefully ________ plan for the next five years of my life wasn't all that good, but actually complex and filled with     ________ . Most of all, he helped me ________ the complex rather than stay away from it because of my fear for the unknown.

A few days later, he emailed me, saying, “I think you' re ________ for great things whatever you decide to do.” The email, filled with words of encouragement made me realize that life is sometimes ________ but it is going to be okay.

1.

A．check

B．notice

C．excuse

D．believe

2.

A．through

B．with

C．during

D．about

3.

A．introduction

B．explanation

C．conversation

D．competition

4.

A．searched

B．shared

C．demanded

D．reviewed

5.

A．sorry

B．curious

C．anxious

D．afraid

6.

A．puzzled

B．worried

C．amazed

D．disappointed

7.

A．push

B．invite

C．treat

D．admit

8.

A．raising

B．dropping

C．turning

D．nodding

9.

A．regret

B．change

C．fear

D．desire

10.

A．prepare

B．develop

C．consult

D．question

11.

A．replaced

B．organized

C．discussed

D．predicted

12.

A．uncertainty

B．danger

C．responsibility

D．conflict

13.

A．spot

B．ignore

C．seize

D．accept

14.

A．leaving

B．heading

C．watching

D．caring

15.

A．genuine

B．normal

C．painful

D．serious

7 . Roughly the size of a soda can, sitting on a bookshelf, a relatively harmless device may be turning friends away from your home. The elephant in your living room is your Internet-connected camera, a device people are increasingly using for peace of mind in their homes. But few stop to think about the effect these devices may have on house guests. Should you tell your friends, for instance, that they’re being recorded while you all watch the big game together?

“It’s certainly new territory (领地), especially as home security cameras become easier to fix,” says Lizzie Post, president of the Emily Post Institute, America’s distinguished manners advisors. “I think it will be very interesting to see what manners appear in terms of whether you tell people you have a camera or not, and whether guests have a right to ask that it be turned off, if it’s not a security issue.” Post wants to make clear that she’s not talking about legal rights, but rather personal preference.

When it comes to security cameras, Post says it’s a host’s responsibility to make sure guests feel comfortable within their home. If the host casually acknowledges that there is a camera in the room by telling a story about, it that may be enough to provide an opening for a guest to say if they are uncomfortable.

However, if a contractor (合约工) is working in your home, you don’t need to tell them that there are cameras watching. Then again, the camera can also work in contractors’ favor. “If anything does go wrong while they’re in the house, they don’t want to be blamed for it,” she says. “In fact, the camera could be the thing that proves that they didn’t steal the $20, or knock the vase off the table.”

1. What is Lizzie Post mainly discussing about the use of home security cameras?

A．Legal rights.

B．Moral issues.

C．The possible impact on health.

D．Likes and dislikes of individuals.

2. According to Post, what is a host’s responsibility concerning the security camera?

A．Indicating its position.

B．Turning it on all the time.

C．Making their guests feel at ease.

D．Having a casual talk with guests.

3. How can the home security camera help contractors working in your home?

A．It can prove their innocence.

B．It can record their working progress.

C．It can prevent the accidents happening.

D．It can make their work more enjoyable.

4. What’s the author’s attitude towards the security camera?

A．Negative.	B．Pessimistic.
C．Favorable.	D．Objective.

8 . Traveling with kids is 90 percent reminding yourself to live in the moment and 10 percent making up your mind to never again leave your house.

I have an uncanny ability to forget this as soon as we return home from a trip and I've finished washing piles of dirty clothes in our luggage and cleaning all the messy caused by the kids. Extremely tired and annoyed, I would actually begin to miss the place we just left!

Family travel is like childbirth, I suppose. Painful, loud, messy, sort of awful, actually, but also wonderful. And you remember only the wonderful—until you’re back on a plane and your kids are fighting over who gets the aisle seat. Then you remember the bad stuff.

Last weekend, my kids and I flew to Texas for a trip we would have nothing to complain(抱怨) about—big hotel, wonderful view.

And yet—we found things to complain about. The pool was bigger in that other hotel! Why do you get to shower first? They call this coffee?! Luckily, I’ve learned to put my metaphorical coat of armor (盔甲) on as soon as we land somewhere, and it forces complaints to bounce off me and land in a pile at my feet.

For three days, genuine fun was had and annoying complaints were heard and ignored. Until it was time to catch a plane and fly home.

Unfortunately, our flight was canceled. We spent hours finding a hotel room. We hit the hotel pool before bed and swam well into the night, my kids making up songs and laughing so hard at their silly lyrics (歌词) and their crazy good fortune to be swimming at 10: 30 on a school night.

And that was when it hit me that family travel is all those things I said before but it’s also a lot more. It’s taking your kids to parts of the world that will open their eyes and finding that actually, yours need opening too. It’s remembering that joy and memories are where you make them, not where you find them.

1. The underlined word “uncanny” in Paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to      .

A．unknown.	B．uncertain.
C．unexpected.	D．unusual.

2. According to the passage, family travel is like childbirth in that      .

A．they both cause financial trouble and pain.

B．they are both hard as well as rewarding.

C．childhood memories come flooding back when they travel.

D．both of them need many preparations.

3. By saying “I’ve learned to put my metaphorical coat of armor on” in Paragraph 5, the author means that_     .

A．she tries to deal with the complaints more wisely and properly.

B．she turns those annoying complaints into a means to educate kids.

C．she has improved her language skills when handling the complaints.

D．she has succeeded in escaping kids’ fighting thanks to the armor.

4. From the author’s experience in the passage, we can NOT learn that      .

A．family vacation benefits her kids as well as her.

B．joy and memories should be created rather than discovered.

C．the most unforgettable memory for her is about the complaints.

D．she has to spend some time on housework after the family vacation.

9 . I had reached the age of twenty-eight. Still, I_______ whether the letter from my past would make it to me, all these years later. It was a creative writing task from when I was eighteen. The teacher collected our letters to our_______ selves in self-addressed envelope with stamps and promised to _______ them ten years later. But since so much time had passed, would he even _______ ?

Thinking back on the _______, I recalled giving my future self some advice. When you're eighteen years old, twenty-eight seems like a _______ age, but I wasn't feeling as mature as I believed my younger self had _______ me to be.

When the letter finally reached me, I opened it _______. It began, "How much do you bet this letter will never get to you? "It continued to greet me casually as if we were having an IM (instant messaging) chat. As a senior in high school, facing the _______ important exams and college application, my eighteen-year-old self was so __________! She was apparently not quite happy and hoped I wouldn't worry so much in the future, and that I wouldn't forget to be present and __________my life!

__________to my belief, my eighteen-year-old self did not have any demands of me, or expectations I might have failed to meet. Instead, she wrote, "I'll __________whatever you do. Even if you are not the one I'm imagining now, I'll support you, because maybe __________ I'm imagining is someone else, but you're not someone else, you're me.

I was __________ , and tears came to my eyes at this self-acceptance through time. I had put a lot of pressure on myself to be the best version of myself that I could be. However, I came to realize what I would have accomplished in ten years would pale in comparison(相形见绌)to how I'd feel and who I'd be.

1.

A．believed

B．bet

C．doubted

D．considered

2.

A．inner

B．happy

C．future

D．young

3.

A．correct

B．mail

C．answer

D．write

4.

A．remember

B．understand

C．mind

D．remain

5.

A．application

B．comment

C．study

D．letter

6.

A．grown-up

B．happy

C．made-up

D．promising

7.

A．promised

B．convinced

C．encouraged

D．expected

8.

A．calmly

B．cautiously

C．eagerly

D．naturally

9.

A．appearing

B．arriving

C．approaching

D．approving

10.

A．depressed

B．ambitious

C．carefree

D．stressed

11.

A．enjoy

B．value

C．start

D．earn

12.

A．Contrary

B．Honest

C．Surprised

D．Strange

13.

A．stand for

B．stand with

C．stand by

D．stand out

14.

A．what

B．who

C．which

D．that

15.

A．guilty

B．touched

C．embarrassed

D．nervous

10 . People in Japan tend to live longer and stay healthier in their later years, with an increasing number of old people living alone. Japan is on a fast track to “ultra-age” with people aged 65 or above accounting for 28 percent of its total population in 2019；it was 26.7 percent in 2017. On the other hand, the number of births in 2019 fell to its lowest (about 941,000) since records began in 1899.

Demand for care services for elderly people has increased. A shrinking (缩小) working population means fewer able-bodied adults are available to look after the elderly. State-provided facilities for the elderly are not enough, which causes elderly people to turn to private ones but they are expensive.

The country will be short of 380,000 of health nurses by 2025. The government has to turn to advanced robots to meet the shortage. A study found that using robots encouraged one third of the people to become more active and independent. Yet there is no robot that can provide the emotional support to the elderly.

Japan provides a case study for China, which is also faced with a fast aging population. 17.23 million babies were born in China in 2019, about 630,000 fewer than in 2018. People aged 60 accounted for 17.3 of China’s population in 2019. With a shortage of elderly care facilities and unbalanced supply, China may find it hard to deal with the rapidly increasing number of senior citizens.

To meet the challenge, the Chinese government should make policy changes, which Japan is unwilling or unable to do or even consider. China should pay attention to the signals its aging population is sending and take proper and timely action.

1. What do we learn about the old Japanese?

A．More and more old Japanese prefer to live on their own.

B．A lot of old Japanese have to continue working at old age.

C．Some old Japanese remain active with the help of robots.

D．Japanese aged 65 or above make up one third of its population.

2. What can we know about state-provided care facilities for the elderly in Japan?

A．They are expensive.	B．They are inconvenient.
C．They are affordable.	D．They are fashionable.

3. What do the Japanese do to deal with the shortage of health nurses?

A．They hire foreign health nurses.

B．They employ advanced robots.

C．They set up more nursing schools.

D．They train the elderly to tend themselves.

4. What is the main idea of the last two paragraph?

A．Japan has to take action to deal with the aging population.

B．Robots can’t provide emotional support to the elderly.

C．China is now faced with a fast aging population.

D．Japan’s aging population issue is a timely lesson for China.