1 . The idea of humans causing earthquakes may seem strange at first. After all, you can run around your backyard and jump up and down all you want, and the ground isn’t going to start shaking. However, scientists have identified over 700 places where human activity has brought about earthquakes over the last century.
While many human-caused earthquakes are mild and don’t cause much damage, some of them can be serious and dangerous. In fact, scientists believe human activity has caused earthquakes with magnitudes as high as 7.9 on the Richter scale.
Scientists believe most human-caused earthquakes are the result of mining. As companies drill deeper and deeper below Earth’s surface to take out natural resources, holes left behind can cause instability which leads to a sudden falling down that causes earthquakes. Building large dams can also cause earthquakes. For example, about 80,000 people died in China in 2008 as a result of a 7.9-magnitude earthquake caused by 320 million tons of water that had been collected in the Zipingpu Reservoir after a large dam was built over a known fault line(断层线).
Anther human activity leading to earthquakes is hydraulic fracturing (水力压裂) for oil and gas. In this process, water, sand, and chemicals are forced to flow underground under high pressure to fracture rocks to let natural resources out. As those resources, such as oil and natural gas, make their way to the surface, so do the water and chemicals that were injected to begin the process. This wastewater is collected and often transported to deep underground again. Both the fracking process and wastewater have been shown to cause earthquakes.
These aren’t the only human activities that can cause earthquakes, though. Scientists point out that earthquakes can also be caused by other human activities.
1. How does human activity cause earthquakes according to the text?| A．Large dams are built away from the fault line. |
| B．The wastewater of hydraulic fracturing joins large rivers. |
| C．Mining leads to the deeper holes left below the Earth’s surface. |
| D．Hydraulic fracturing makes natural resources flow underground. |
| A．By giving examples. |
| B．By making comparisons. |
| C．By presenting opinions. |
| D．By providing instructions. |
| A．To remind people to stop the above-mentioned activities. |
| B．To inform readers of human activities causing earthquakes. |
| C．To explain the reasons for many earthquakes in recent years. |
| D．To present the damage of human-caused earthquakes to the earth. |
2 . If you’ve ever emerged from the shower or returned from walking your dog with a clever idea or a solution to a problem you’d been struggling with, it may not be an unusual thing.
Rather than constantly wearing yourself out at a problem or desperately seeking a flash of inspiration, research from the last 15 years suggests that people may be more likely to have creative breakthroughs or insights when they’re doing a habitual task that doesn’t require much thought — an activity in which you’re basically on autopilot. This lets your mind wander or engage in spontaneous cognition or “stream of consciousness” thinking, which experts believe helps recollect unusual memories and generate new ideas.
“People always get surprised when they realize they get interesting, novel ideas at unexpected times because our cultural narrative tells us we should do it through hard work,” says Kalina Christoff, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. “It’s a pretty universal human experience.”
Now we’re beginning to understand why these clever thoughts occur during more passive activities and what’s happening in the brain, says Christoff. The key, according to the latest research, is a pattern of brain activity — within what’s called the default mode network — that occurs while an individual is resting or performing habitual tasks that don’t require much attention.
Researchers have shown that the default mode network (DMN) — which connects more than a dozen regions of the brain — becomes more active during mind-wandering or passive tasks than when you’re doing something that demands focus. Simply put, the DMN is “the state the brain returns to when you’re not actively engaged,” explains Roger Beaty, a cognitive neuroscientist and director of the Cognitive Neuroscience of Creativity Lab at Penn State University. By contrast, when you’re trapped in a demanding task, the brain’s executive control systems keep your thinking focused, analytical, and logical.
A cautionary note: While the default mode network plays a key role in the creative process, “it’s not the only important network,” Beaty says. “Other networks come into play as far as modifying, rejecting, or implementing ideas.” So it’s unwise to place blind faith in ideas that are generated in the shower or during any other period of mind wandering.
1. When do people expect to get an innovative idea according to the research?| A．When doing routine work. |
| B．When working attentively. |
| C．When tackling tough problems. |
| D．When desperately seeking inspirations. |
| A．Getting by good luck. |
| B．Getting by great efforts. |
| C．Getting by unexpected accident. |
| D．Getting by universal experience. |
| A．A student who is playing football. |
| B．A student who is focusing on papers. |
| C．A student who is closely monitoring his research. |
| D．A student who is fully engaged in math questions. |
| A．We can get novel ideas by the default mode network. |
| B．We should take the idea popped in the shower seriously. |
| C．Believe in ideas that are generated by the default mode network. |
| D．Think twice before putting ideas playfully crossing your mind into practice. |
3 . Have you ever made your life look a little more attractive on social media than it actually is? If so, you may be damaging your mental health.
The posts we make on social media platforms allow us to look back and see what we did on a given day. But what happens when, in an effort to impress our online friends, photos and videos we post become beautiful versions of the things we did?
A young girl named Sophia went out to a romantic anniversary dinner with her boyfriend, had a near relationship-ending fight during dessert, then came home and posted, “Had the best time out with the love of my life!”—even with a photo of the meal. No surprise, but according to a new study, Sophia was by no means unique. Two-thirds of users admit lying about their lives on social media with 20 percent of young people between the ages of 18 and 24 stating that they edit their own stories by frequently lying about relationships and promotions.
By beautifying our online stories, we are harming our memories. We start believing the stories we tell rather than remembering what really has happened. Soon, the real experience is lost and all that remains is the beautified version of history.
Scientists fear that these edited stories will end up changing our memories. It’s well confirmed through research that our own memories are often unreliable and can be easily controlled. Writing down one’s life in the form of a journal, or even on social media can help us keep our memories undamaged, but only if we tell the truth. And recording our experiences through whatever medium, to later recall lessons we have learned, is not only acceptable but desirable. In fact, looking back on our own past—however embarrassing or uncomfortable—is not just healthy but can be enjoyable.
1. Why did Sophia post her story with a photo of the meal?| A．To make herself attractive. | B．To show her photography skill. |
| C．To convince others of her story. | D．To show how amazing the meal was. |
| A．Encouraging. | B．Critical. | C．Humorous. | D．Enthusiastic. |
| A．recalling the unpleasant past can also be enjoyable |
| B．writing down our life on social media does no good to us |
| C．recording our experiences through media is unacceptable |
| D．editing our own stories will make us unreliable |
| A．Leaving others a good impression is desirable. |
| B．Editing our online stories weakens our memory. |
| C．Posting our experiences on social media is risky. |
| D．Beautifying our history ends up hurting ourselves. |
4 . How to recognize cyber attacks
Cyber-attacks may sound like something that happens only in Hollywood movies. You
A/An
Cyber-attacks can happen to anybody. It doesn’t matter who you are; cyber criminals can target you. While many often think of hacking victims as
Nowadays, cyber-criminals create fake websites and email addresses. You may think you are clicking a link to Dropbox (多宝箱) only to download malware onto your computer,
So you need to lean to recognize the signs of cyber-attacks. First, recognize
Other things to
As with everything,
| A．gather | B．picture | C．find | D．establish |
| A．dangerous | B．worried | C．cautious | D．helpless |
| A．historic | B．typical | C．potential | D．specific |
| A．halfway | B．originally | C．periodically | D．eventually |
| A．predict | B．limit | C．warn | D．recognize |
| A．fearless | B．soundless | C．clueless | D．careless |
| A．in conclusion | B．and | C．but | D．as if . |
| A．empty | B．supervised | C．tracked | D．infected |
| A．powerful | B．suspicious | C．specific | D．frequent |
| A．While | B．Since | C．If | D．When |
| A．guaranteed | B．assessed | C．leaked | D．composed |
| A．mechanisms | B．files | C．programs | D．commands |
| A．attacking | B．chatting | C．hiding | D．running |
| A．sum up | B．watch out | C．mark off | D．turn down |
| A．strategy | B．practice | C．solution | D．prevention |
5 . There are many ways to travel within a city. We can walk, cycle, or take a bus. But no matter which way we travel, we have to follow the route (线路) the city planners laid down for us.
Parkour practitioners (跑酷爱好者), however, see the city in a completely different way. To them, there are no designed routes. There are no walls and no stairs — they jump, climb, roll and crawl to move across, through, over and under anything that they find in their path. The city is their playground.
The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) has noticed that this activity is drawing more and more people to it — there are 100, 000 people taking part in parkour today in the UK alone, according to The Guardian — and how it is helpful for people to be much stronger: It trains coordination and balance. So the FIG is thinking about recognizing parkour as a new sport and adding it to the Olympics by 2024.
But parkour practitioners themselves don’t seem to be happy with the idea. They see parkour as “a lifestyle”, wrote the website NextSportStar. “It’s a competition against the conditions rather than just a sport.”
Indeed, many do parkour just to “escape the daily routine and experience the city in different ways”, wrote reporter Oli Mould on The Conversation. They see parkour as a way to express themselves through relaxing moves and creative routes while freeing themselves from the pressure.
It’s great that the FIG wants to develop a new sport and stay close to a new cultural form. But it would be greater if they knew that not everything in life is a competition.
1. How do the parkour practitioners do parkour?| A．They plan the way themselves. |
| B．They move on as they wish. |
| C．They run faster than others. |
| D．They follow certain routes. |
| A．It’s a special way of life. |
| B．It draws their attention. |
| C．It helps balance people’s life. |
| D．It’s good for people to keep healthy. |
| A．It is more exciting than other sports. |
| B．It is worth adding to the sporting event. |
| C．It is more a lifestyle than a competition. |
| D．It encourages people to challenge themselves. |
| A．Parkour practitioners |
| B．Making the city their own |
| C．Training in a different way |
| D．A new sports competition |
6 . Chinese spacecraft finds lunar soil could make oxygen and fuel on the moon.
Lunar soil could be used to make oxygen and other products from chemical reactions that mimic photosynthesis (模拟光合作用), according to an analysis of samples brought back to Earth by the Chang’e 5 spacecraft. Reliable supplies of such substances are necessary for any future lunar base.
It is expensive to send goods into space, so any material that can be found on the moon and that doesn’t have to be brought from Earth can save a lot of money.
Yingfang Yao at Nanjing University, China, and his team examined a lunar soil sample to see if it could be used as a catalyst (催化剂) for a system that would transform carbon dioxide and water released by astronauts’ bodies into oxygen, hydrogen and other useful by-products that could be used to power a lunar base.
Yao and his team first analysed their sample using techniques to identify catalytically active components of the soil. They found high levels of iron and magnesium-based compounds (复合物) that could be useful in a reaction mimicking the photosynthesis that occurs in green plants.
The researchers then tested the soil as a catalyst in various chemical reactions that would form part of a photosynthesis-like process to produce hydrogen and oxygen from CO2 and water. They found that the soil’s efficiency wasn’t as good as catalysts we have on Earth and isn’t currently good enough to generate products in sufficient quantities to support human life on the moon, but that slight adjustments to the structure and composition of the lunar soil sample might see significant improvements.
1. Why is the finding about lunar soil’s products important?| A．It gives evidence for plants to grow outside Earth. |
| B．It provides efficient support for future lunar base. |
| C．It makes clear how the moon is mostly made up of. |
| D．It tells how photosynthesis happens on the moon. |
| A．To test its chemical nature. | B．To compare it with that from the earth. |
| C．To analyze its elements and by-products. | D．To find useful mines that are rare on the earth. |
| A．A green plant. | B．An iron component. |
| C．A lunar soil sample. | D．Oxygen and hydrogen. |
| A．It needs further research. | B．It can’t mimic photosynthesis at present. |
| C．It can only be used as soil for plant growing. | D．Its efficiency is better than catalysts on Earth. |
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3. 期待回信。
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Dear Emma,
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8 . TikTok, a social media app dedicated to short-form videos, has emerged as a major firer of food trends—from mushroom coffee and pancake cereal to cloud bread and feta pasta. But another trend, the #whatieatinaday trend, is dominating TikTok, which is
Even though #whatieatinaday posts may be
The
Often the overly stylized meals do not
Younger audiences, especially girls and young women, internalize the message that they must eat like these creators to achieve and maintain not only health, but also social
Even if the #whatieatinaday posts are displaying a balanced day of eating, the
People making these videos are overwhelmingly thin, young, able-bodied and white. There is a complete lack of body
| A．nearing | B．longing | C．ducking | D．driving |
| A．emphasized | B．simplified | C．substituted | D．intended |
| A．moral | B．scientific | C．potential | D．unfavorable |
| A．modern | B．staged | C．educational | D．alternative |
| A．prioritize | B．commercialize | C．recognize | D．civilize |
| A．promoting | B．representing | C．spoiling | D．perfecting |
| A．welfare | B．equality | C．desirability | D．justice |
| A．individual | B．instinctive | C．restrictive | D．changeable |
| A．attracting | B．seeking | C．slipping | D．offering |
| A．suburban | B．subtle | C．subsequent | D．substantial |
| A．reader | B．advertiser | C．campaigner | D．poster |
| A．Therefore | B．Finally | C．Additionally | D．Meanwhile |
| A．lose weight | B．share interests | C．assume burden | D．make contributions |
| A．language | B．diversity | C．similarity | D．dynamic |
| A．available | B．predictable | C．inadequate | D．unattainable |
9 . The personal grievance provisions of New Zealand’s Employment Relations Act 2000 (ERA) prevent an employer from firing an employee without good cause. Instead, dismissals must be justified. Employers must both show cause and act in a procedurally fair way.
Personal grievance procedures were designed to guard the jobs of ordinary workers from “unjustified dismissals”. The premise was that the common law of contract lacked sufficient protection for workers against arbitrary conduct by management. Long gone are the days when a boss could simply give an employee contractual notice.
But these provisions create difficulties for businesses when applied to highly paid managers and executives. As countless boards and business owners will attest, constraining firms from firing poorly performing, high-earning managers is a handbrake on boosting productivity and overall performance. The difference between C-grade and A-grade managers may very well be the difference between business success or failure. Between preserving the jobs of ordinary workers or losing them. Yet mediocrity is no longer enough to justify a dismissal.
Consequently and paradoxically laws introduced to protect the jobs of ordinary workers may be placing those jobs at risk.
If not placing jobs at risk, to the extent employment protection laws constrain business owners from dismissing under-performing managers, those laws act as a constraint on firm productivity and therefore on workers’ wages. Indeed, in “An International Perspective on New Zealand’s Productivity Paradox” (2014), the Productivity Commission singled out the low quality of managerial capabilities as a cause of the country’s poor productivity growth record.
Nor are highly paid managers themselves immune from the harm caused by the ERA’s unjustified dismissal procedures. Because employment protection laws make it costlier to fire an employee, employers are more cautious about hiring new staff. This makes it harder for the marginal manager to gain employment. And firms pay staff less because firms carry the burden of the employment arrangement going wrong.
Society also suffers from excessive employment protections. Stringent job dismissal regulations adversely affect productivity growth and hamper both prosperity and overall well-being.
Across the Tasman Sea, Australia deals with the unjustified dismissal paradox by excluding employees earning above a specified “high-income threshold” from the protection of its unfair dismissal laws. In New Zealand, a 2016 private members’ Bill tried to permit firms and high-income employees to contract out of the unjustified dismissal regime. However, the mechanisms proposed were unwieldy and the Bill was voted down following the change in government later that year.
1. The personal grievance provisions of the ERA are intended to ________.| A．discipline dubious corporate practices | B．promote traditional hiring procedures |
| C．regulate the privileges of the employers | D．safeguard the rights of ordinary workers |
| A．hinder business development | B．justify managers’ authority |
| C．affect the public image of the firms | D．worsen labor-management relations |
| A．ERA’s sensible approach corresponds with the international trend of democracy. |
| B．The society will see a rise in well-being with the ERA’s procedures carried out. |
| C．Non-proficient managerial capabilities make employees suffer from salary cuts. |
| D．High-income threshold in Australia is relatively beneficial to business owners. |
| A．Appreciative | B．Skeptical | C．Optimistic | D．Contradictory |
10 . Public distrust of scientists stems in part from the blurring of boundaries between science and technology, between discovery and manufacture. Most governments, perhaps all governments, justify public expenditure on scientific research in terms of the economic benefits the scientific enterprise has brought in the past and will bring in the future. Politicians remind their voters of the splendid machines “our scientists” have invented, the new drugs to relieve old disorders, and the new surgical equipment and techniques by which previously unmanageable conditions may now be treated and lives saved. At the same time, the politicians demand of scientists that they tailor their research to “economics needs”, and that they award a higher priority to research proposals that are “near the market” and can be translated into the greatest return on investment in the shortest time. Dependent, as they are, on politicians for much of their funding, scientists have little choice but to comply. Like the rest of us, they are members of a society that rates the creation of wealth as the greatest possible good. Many have reservations, but keep them to themselves in what they perceive as a climate hostile to the pursuit of understanding for its own sake and the idea of an inquiring, creative spirit.
In such circumstances no one should be too hard on people who are suspicious of conflicts of interest. When we learn that the distinguished professor assuring us of the safety of a particular product holds a consultancy with the company making it, we cannot be blamed for wondering whether his fee might conceivably cloud his professional judgment. Even if the professor holds no consultancy with any firm, some people may still distrust him because of his association with those who do, or at least wonder about the source of some of his research funding.
This attitude can have damaging effects. It questions the integrity of individuals working in a profession that prizes intellectual honesty as the supreme virtue, and plays into the hands of those who would like to discredit scientists by representing them as corruptible. This makes it easier to dismiss all scientific pronouncements, but especially those made by the scientists who present themselves as “experts”. The scientist most likely to understand the safety of a nuclear reactor, for example, is a nuclear engineer, and a nuclear engineer is most likely to be employed by the nuclear industry. If a nuclear engineer declares that a reactor is unsafe, we believe him, because clearly it is not to his advantage to lie about it. If he tells us it is safe, on the other hand, we distrust him, because he may well be protecting the employer who pays his salary.
1. What is the chief concern of most governments when it comes to scientific research?| A．The decline of public expenditure. | B．Quick economic returns. |
| C．The budget for a research project. | D．Support from the voters. |
| A．They realize they work in an environment hostile to the free pursuit of knowledge. |
| B．They know it takes incredible patience to win support from the public. |
| C．They think compliance with government policy is in the interests of the public. |
| D．They are accustomed to keeping their opinions secrets to themselves. |
| A．some of them do not give priority to intellectual honesty |
| B．sometimes they hide the source of their research funding |
| C．they could be influenced by their association with the project concerned |
| D．their pronouncements often turn out to be short-sighted and absurd |
| A．Scientists themselves may doubt the value of their research findings. |
| B．It may wear out the enthusiasm of scientists for independent research. |
| C．It makes things more trivial for scientists to seek research funds. |
| D．People will not believe scientists even when they tell the truth. |
