1 . Yong male songbirds usually learn their songs from adult songbirds. But when those young birds do not have older ones to teach them, they have less success attracting mates.
For five years, ecologist Ross Crates with Australian National University has studied the singing ability and mating success of birds called regent honeyeaters (王吸蜜鸟).
Male birds once formed large groups in the winter. Now they are spread out across the country, so many fly alone. That means fewer honeyeater adults are nearby during the young birds first year of life.
“Song learning in many birds is a process similar to humans learning languages—they learn by listening to other individuals,” said Crates.
“If you can’t listen to other individuals, you don’t know what you should be learning.”
Researchers found that a large number of male birds appear to be learning tunes only used by other species. About 12 percent of male regent honeyeaters end up producing versions of songs usually sung by friarbirds and lack-faced cuckoo shrikes, among other birds.
The scientists released their research in the publication Proceedings of the Royal Society B. They found that males who sang unusual songs were less successful in attracting mates.
Peter Marra is a conservation biologist at Georgetown University and was not involved in the study. He said, “This research suggests that the loss of a song language once the population reaches a very small size could accelerate their decline.”
Scott Ramsay is a behavioral ecologist at Wilfried Laurier University in Ontario, Canada. He was not involved in the research. He said the songs were like an advertisement: “When male birds sing, it’s like putting out an ad saying, ‘I’m over here...and I’m really interested in finding a partner.”
Ramsay added that female honeyeaters may not even recognize these unusual singers as possible mates, and so do not approach them. Or it could be that they approach, “but then things go wrong if the males do not behave as expected.”
1. What might be the scientists’ attitude towards the regent honeyeaters?| A．Positive. | B．Concerned. | C．Optimistic. | D．Critical. |
| A．It’s more possible for them to fail in mating. | B．They attract other species successfully. |
| C．Most regent honeyeaters will follow them. | D．Female honeyeaters like other versions of songs. |
| A．People can understand the language of honeyeaters. |
| B．Males sing wrong songs because they’re not interested in mating. |
| C．Females are likely to mistake male honeyeaters for other birds. |
| D．Regent honeyeaters can put out an advertisement apart from singing songs. |
| A．Singing is an important skill for every bird. |
| B．Honeyeaters and other birds have a close relationship. |
| C．The failure to acquire the song language may speed up the decrease of honeyeaters. |
| D．Honeyeaters are losing their capability of learning singing from other individuals. |
2 . It was a hot, humid summer day, and I had just pulled into the local gas station to fill my tank (油箱). After pumping the
Yellow jackets had
Still, I knew I couldn't let fear stop me now. I
In life, you can't let the fear of being stung either physically or emotionally
| A．water | B．gas | C．electricity | D．energy |
| A．discovered | B．observed | C．watched | D．noticed |
| A．fear | B．pain | C．joy | D．excitement |
| A．caused | B．shared | C．suffered | D．expressed |
| A．always | B．sometimes | C．never | D．seldom |
| A．attracted | B．hit | C．beat | D．attacked |
| A．worst | B．best | C．funniest | D．strangest |
| A．touched | B．stepped | C．advanced | D．crashed |
| A．after | B．when | C．before | D．until |
| A．sweating | B．screaming | C．protesting | D．laughing |
| A．anxiety | B．laughter | C．tears | D．anger |
| A．confidently | B．naturally | C．obviously | D．immediately |
| A．increase | B．reduce | C．stand | D．treat |
| A．fight | B．take | C．spread | D．destroy |
| A．searched | B．reached | C．checked | D．swept |
| A．nest | B．towel | C．habitat | D．wasps |
| A．recover | B．protect | C．keep | D．reserve |
| A．good | B．better | C．bad | D．worse |
| A．impression | B．honour | C．measure | D．act |
| A．up | B．on | C．off | D．back |
3 . On Dec.17, 2019, Andrew noticed a balloon’s string was
It would be difficult,
“Based on the prevailing wind, I was pretty sure that’s
On December 22, 2019, he decided to send a private Facebook
To his
Andrew went with his wife to Walmat. They bought just about everything on Dayami’s list
Then the Andrew drove for 45 minutes, crossing the border into Nogales, and finally met two very
Their parents
“Their eyes were
“It was a beautiful, beautiful experience,” Andrew said. He paused “Quite
Andrew, 61, has lived in southeastern Bisbee for more than three decades. Ten years ago, he and his wife
“We are now have friends for life,” Andrew said. “And, for a day, that border fence with its concertina wire
| A．addicted | B．attached | C．accustomed | D．attracted |
| A．writing | B．act | C．voice | D．shape |
| A．card | B．call | C．letter | D．list |
| A．and | B．so | C．but | D．because |
| A．street | B．border | C．river | D．city |
| A．where | B．how | C．why | D．when |
| A．notice | B．message | C．advertisement | D．announcement |
| A．sadness | B．shock | C．surprise | D．puzzle |
| A．arose | B．danced | C．walked | D．awoke |
| A．noticed | B．forgotten | C．located | D．ignored |
| A．willing | B．grateful | C．nervous | D．frightened |
| A．different from | B．rather than | C．other than | D．free from |
| A．brother | B．friend | C．relative | D．sister |
| A．shy | B．excited | C．embarrassed | D．depressed |
| A．complained | B．explained | C．congratulated | D．prayed |
| A．string | B．wind | C．words | D．balloon |
| A．horribly | B．wide | C．pretty | D．hardly |
| A．moving | B．interesting | C．healing | D．amusing |
| A．lost | B．scolded | C．missed | D．delivered |
| A．ran | B．melted | C．swept | D．washed |
4 . When I was young, I lived in my grandma’s old house right beside a set of railroad tracks. The whole house would
I can remember the first time I tried to
Looking back on this I now realize that it also gave a wonderful
| A．shake | B．move | C．struggle | D．roll |
| A．Surprisingly | B．Fortunately | C．Disappointedly | D．Importantly |
| A．few | B．less | C．many | D．more |
| A．focus | B．spend | C．take | D．waste |
| A．direct | B．admit | C．achieve | D．balance |
| A．busy | B．dirty | C．clear | D．narrow |
| A．energy | B．ambition | C．success | D．content |
| A．upwards | B．backwards | C．downwards | D．forwards |
| A．ahead | B．instead | C．well | D．closely |
| A．which | B．when | C．what | D．that |
| A．every | B．another | C．the other | D．one |
| A．interest | B．patience | C．care | D．ease |
| A．motto | B．benefit | C．lesson | D．excuse |
| A．watching | B．hearing | C．waiting | D．wondering |
| A．influence | B．moment | C．discovery | D．choice |
| A．still | B．even | C．also | D．yet |
| A．distance | B．past | C．end | D．course |
| A．stuck | B．found | C．hurt | D．applied |
| A．keep | B．persuade | C．lead | D．contribute |
| A．mild | B．weak | C．light | D．slight |
5 . 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
6 . To help self-driving cars drive safely, scientists are looking to an unlikely place: the sea. A new type of camera inspired by the eyes of mantis shrimps(螳螂虾) could help autonomous vehicles better assess their surroundings, researchers report October 11 in Optica. The camera has roughly half a million sensors that each capture a wide range of light and dark spots within a single frame, somewhat similar to how mantis shrimps see the world.
The researchers wanted to ''imitate the animals' ability to detect a wide range of light intensities(强度), ''says co-author Viktor Gruev, a bio-engineer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The shrimps’ visual system allows them to see both light and dark areas while moving in and out of dark cracks in shallow waters, he says.
The newly devised camera can take in a wider range of light intensities, measured in decibels (分贝), than other digital or polarization cameras. Previously, the best polarization cameras operated with a dynamic range of about 60 decibels; the new one works within a 140 decibel range, resulting in a clearer mapping of objects in the same frame.
Depending on the maker, autonomous vehicles currently use a mixture of methods to map the world around them, including lidar (light detection and ranging equipment), cameras and GPS. But the cameras currently guiding autonomous vehicles aren't good at handling sharp lighting transitions and have trouble detecting features in foggy weather. Because the new cameras are small and use many of the same parts as common digital cameras, Gruev says they could cost as little as $10, which means they are car-makers' best choice for their autonomous vehicles.
1. What do we know about the new cameras after reading the article?| A．They enable cars to go through cracks without trouble. |
| B．They use totally different parts from common cameras. |
| C．They have already been widely used on self-driving cars. |
| D．They see the surroundings by detecting the light intensities. |
| A．Hopeful. | B．Uncertain. |
| C．Worried. | D．Modest. |
| A．Self-driving cars are already on their way. |
| B．Bioengineering paves the way for our future. |
| C．Mantis shrimps bring inspiration for new cameras. |
| D．The popularity of self-driving cars depends on cameras. |
7 . Artificial intelligence, or AI, has slowly begun to influence higher education around the world. Now, one new AI tool could change the way university students evaluate their professor. The tool is called Hubert, a teacher evaluation tool that appears as an AI-powered chatbot. Instead of filling out a form, students use a chat window to give feedback (反馈) on the course and their professor. Afterwards, Hubert categorizes the students’ comments for the professor to review.
Hubert is free for educators to use. More than 600 teachers have used it already. The goal of the new Hubert program is to improve education by giving teachers detailed, organized feedback from students.
Viktor Nordmark, from Sweden, started the company in 2015, with several friends. Before creating Hubert, the founders asked teachers what would improve their teaching skills. The answer, Nordmark said, was qualitative (定性的) feedback from their students. In other words, teachers wanted students to write detailed answers to open-ended questions about their experiences in class.
Qualitative feedback is different from the survey responses, which students are often asked to provide at the end of a class. “This kind of data takes a lot of time for professors to collect and analyze,” Nordmark said. And for the students, it can also be “really boring to fill out.” So Nordmark and his friends designed Hubert as a compromise between a traditional survey and a personal interview. “You can reach a really large crowd, but you can also get really qualitative data back,” Nordmark said.
Now, when Hubert receives comments from students, it compares them with the information already in its system to organize the data. Nordmark says that Hubert will continue to get smarter as it receives more comments in the future. Nordmark says he and his co-founders have plans to make Hubert more flexible and accurate. They hope to give teachers the possibility of selecting their own evaluation questions.
1. What can be learned about Hubert from the passage?| A．It enables professors to evaluate their students by giving feedback. |
| B．It helps its inventor make money from professors pay fees. |
| C．It is to help teachers improve their teaching skills more effectively. |
| D．It collects data from students who fill out forms after class. |
| A．still needs improving | B．is already perfect |
| C．is really boring to use | D．offers survey responses |
| A．The characteristics of qualitative feedback. |
| B．A new AI-powered tool of teacher evaluation. |
| C．The changes in the way teachers are evaluated. |
| D．A potential revolution in the educational system. |
8 . Getting less sleep has become a bad habit for most American kids. According to a new survey(调查) by the National Sleep Foundation, 51% of kids aged 10 to 18 go to bed at 10 pm or later on school nights, even though they have to get up early. Last year the Foundation reported that nearly 60% of 7- to 12-year-olds said they felt tired during the day, and 15% said they had fallen asleep at school.
How much sleep you need depends a lot on your age. Babies need a lot of rest: most of them sleep about 18 hours a day! Adults need about eight hours. For most school-age children, ten hours is ideal(理想的). But the new National Sleep Foundation survey found that 35% of 10- to 12-year-olds get only seven or eight hours. And guess what almost half of the surveyed kids said they do before bedtime? Watch TV.
“More children are going to bed with TVs on, and there are more opportunities(机会) to stay awake, with more homework, the Internet and the phone,” says Dr. Mary Carskadon, a sleep researcher at Brown University Medical School. She says these activities at bedtime can get kids all excited and make it hard for them to calm down and sleep. Other experts say part of the problem is chemical. Changing levels of body chemicals called hormones not only make teenagers’ bodies develop adult characteristics, but also make it hard for teenagers to fall asleep before 11 pm.
Because sleepiness is such a problem for teenagers, some school districts have decided to start high school classes later than they used to. Three years ago, schools in Edina, Minnesota, changed the start time from 7:25 am to 8:30 am. Students, parents and teachers are pleased with the results.
1. What is the new National Sleep Foundation survey on?| A．American kids’ sleeping habits. | B．Teenagers’ sleep-related diseases. |
| C．Activities to prevent sleeplessness. | D．Learning problems and lack of sleep. |
| A．7 hours. | B．8 hours. |
| C．10 hours. | D．18 hours. |
| A．They are affected by certain body chemicals. |
| B．They tend to do things that excite them. |
| C．They follow their parents’ examples. |
| D．They don’t need to go to school early. |
9 . That holiday morning I didn’t have to attend school. Usually, on holidays, Mother
I stood by my window overlooking the
As I watched several people go by, get into their cars and go off, I
Several thoughts
There was a noticeable touch of
It was a
| A．forces | B．allows | C．causes | D．forbids |
| A．otherwise | B．therefore | C．however | D．besides |
| A．parking lot | B．bus stop | C．school | D．market |
| A．interesting | B．surprising | C．awful | D．useful |
| A．noticed | B．recognized | C．called | D．assisted |
| A．back | B．handle | C．wheel | D．seat |
| A．searched | B．left | C．moved | D．wandered |
| A．stopped | B．started | C．intended | D．finished |
| A．crossed | B．slipped | C．disturbed | D．inspired |
| A．attractive | B．shiny | C．simple | D．expensive |
| A．repairmen | B．businessmen | C．drivers | D．cyclists |
| A．busy | B．content | C．careful | D．bored |
| A．waving | B．looking | C．laughing | D．pointing |
| A．about | B．for | C．with | D．like |
| A．worry | B．respect | C．sympathy | D．pride |
| A．cleaning | B．fixing | C．replacing | D．covering |
| A．still | B．yet | C．again | D．soon |
| A．lesson | B．subject | C．skill | D．fact |
| A．business | B．living | C．success | D．right |
| A．tired | B．doubtful | C．fearful | D．ashamed |
10 . An idea that started in Seattle's public library has spread throughout America and beyond. The concept is simple: help to build a sense of community in a city by getting everyone to read the same book at the same tome.
In addition to encouraging reading as a pursuit (追求) to be enjoyed by all, the program allows strangers to communicate by discussing the book on the bus, as well as promoting reading as an experience to be shared in families and schools. The idea came from Seattle librarian Nancy Pearl who launched (发起）the "If All of Seattle Read the Same Book " project in 1998. Her original program used author visits, study guides and book discussion groups to bring people together with a book, but the idea has since expanded to many other American cities, and even to Hong Kong.
In Chicago, the mayor(市长）appeared on television to announce the choice of To Kill a Mockingbird as the first book in the "One Book, One Chicago" program. As a result, reading clubs and neighbourhood groups sprang up around the city. Across the US, stories emerged of parents and children reading to each other at night and strangers chatting away on the bus about plot and character.
The only problem arose in New York, where local readers could not decide on one book to represent the huge and diverse population. This may show that the idea works best in medium-sized cities or large towns, where a greater sense of unity(一致）can be achieved .Or it may show that New Yorkers rather missed the point ,putting all their energy
And passion into the choice of the book rather than discussion about a book itself.
Ultinatel was Nancy points out, the level of success is not measured by how many people read a book, but by how many people are enriched by the process or have enjoyed speaking to someone with whom they would not otherwise have shared a word.
1. What is the purpose of the project launched by Nancy?| A．To invite authors to guide readers. |
| B．To encourage people to read and share. |
| C．To involve people in community service. |
| D．To promote the friendship between cities. |
| A．They had little interest in reading. |
| B．They were too busy to read a book. |
| C．They came from many different backgrounds |
| D．They lacked support from the local government |
| A．In large communities with little sense of unity |
| B．In large cities where libraries are far from home |
| C．In medium-sized cities with a diverse population |
| D．In large towns where agreement can be quickly reached |
| A．exchanged ideas with each other |
| B．discussed the meaning of a word |
| C．gamed life experience |
| D．used the same language |
| A．the careful selection of a proper book |
| B．the growing popularity of the writers |
| C．the number of people who benefit from reading. |
| D．the number of books that each person reads. |
