1 . We recognize our friends’ faces. And we’re not alone. Many social animals can identify individuals of their own species by features of their faces. That's important, because they need to be able to change their behavior depending on who they meet. And a recent research has shown that some species of monkeys, birds, and domesticated (家养的) animals can even tell different faces apart by looking at photographs alone.
Ethologist Léa Lansade of the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment did an experiment to find out how well horses can recognize individual people in photographs.
She and her team first taught the horses how to “choose” between two side-by-side pictures by touching their noses to a computer screen. The horses were then shown photos of their present keeper alongside faces of unfamiliar humans. They had never seen photos of any of the people before. The horses correctly identified their current keeper and ignored (忽视) the stranger’s face about 75%of the time. In fact, even though the horses didn't get it right every single time, they were at least as correct in picking out their earlier keeper as they were at identifying their present one.
The results suggest that not only can horses differentiate between familiar and unfamiliar human faces, they also naturally understand that photographs are two dimensional representations (二维呈现) of real life, without any other intimations such as smell or sound. And they’re even better at this than our oldest animal parter, the domestic dog.
In addition, horses seem to have a strong long-term memory for human faces, like their long lifespan and history of domestication. In future experiments, the researchers would like to test whether looking at photos of people that they have had bad experiences with in the past might cause horses to act anxious or even avoidance. So maybe think twice before doing anything that might give a horse a long face.
1. Why did researchers show the horses both the keeper’s photos and the strangers’?| A．To find out what horses would do in the experiment. |
| B．To see why horses could recognize the keeper in the pictures. |
| C．To test whether horses could recognize the strangers in pictures. |
| D．To study to what degree horses can make out different people in pictures. |
| A．Clues. | B．Differences. |
| C．Photographs. | D．Senses. |
| A．Whether horses can live longer than other animals. |
| B．Whether horses can remember human's faces for a long time. |
| C．Whether horses can show their emotions at the sight of photos. |
| D．Whether horses are better at recognizing photos than other animals. |
| A．To talk about animals’ species. |
| B．To explain animals’ facial features. |
| C．To show animals’ behaviour for adaptation. |
| D．To introduce animals’ ability to identifying faces. |
2 . A rainforest is an area covered by tall trees with the total high rainfall spreading（扩大） quite equally through the year and the temperature rarely falling below 16°C. Rainforests have a great influence on the world environment because they can take in heat from the sun and adjust the climate.
Without the forest cover, these areas would reflect（反射）more heat into the atmosphere, warming the rest of the world. Losing the rainforests may also influence wind and rainfall patterns，potentially（潜 在地） causing certain natural disasters all over the world.
In the past hundred years, humans have begun destroying rainforests in search of three major resources ： land for crops, wood for paper and other products, land for raising farm animals. This action affects the environment as a whole. For example, a lot of carbon dioxide in the air comes from burning the rainforests. People obviously have a need for the resources we gain from cutting trees but we will suffer much more than we will benefit.
There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, when people cut down trees, generally they can only use the land for a year or two. Secondly, cutting large sections of rainforests may provide a good supply of wood right now, but in the long run it actually reduces the world’s wood supply. Rainforests are often called the world's drugstore. More than 25% of the medicines we use today come from plants in rainforests. However, fewer than 1% of rainforest plants have been examined for their medical value. It is extremely likely that our best chance to cure diseases lies somewhere in the world’s shrinking（减 少）rainforests.
1. Rainforests can help to adjust the climate because they______.| A．reflect more heat into the atmosphere |
| B．bring about high rainfall throughout the world |
| C．rarely cause the temperature to drop lower than 16°C |
| D．absorb（吸收） the heat from the sun, reducing the effect of heat from the sun on the earth |
| A．We will lose much more than we can gain. | B．Humans have begun destroying rainforests. |
| C．People have a strong desire for resources. | D．Much carbon dioxide （二氧化碳）comes from burning rainforests. |
| A．we can get enough resources without rainforests |
| B．there is great medicine potential in rainforests |
| C．we will grow fewer kinds of crops in the gained land |
| D．the level of annual rainfall affects wind patterns |
| A．How to Save Rainforests? | B．How to Protect Nature? |
| C．Rainforests and the Environment. | D．Rainforests and Medical Development. |
3 . A woman was drowning and she put her hand in the air with her last energy. She was only moments away from
He had just walked in at 6:55 a. m. and a fellow lifeguard
Mr.Reid said as he
Another lifeguard, Anthony Carroll, raced to the rescue, and he even made a separate rescue. “She is a very lucky lady,” Mr. Reid said. “She had two of the country’s
The woman was
| A．sorrow | B．death | C．failure | D．disappointment |
| A．save | B．catch | C．take | D．bring |
| A．finally | B．possibly | C．usually | D．extremely |
| A．looked up | B．turned up | C．took up | D．rang up |
| A．firmly | B．gradually | C．actually | D．eventually |
| A．noticed | B．ignored | C．understood | D．hurt |
| A．lost | B．found | C．felt | D．made |
| A．lifeguards | B．swimmers | C．tourists | D．policemen |
| A．walk | B．swim | C．die | D．sink |
| A．screaming | B．laughing | C．smiling | D．singing |
| A．special | B．free | C．smart | D．best |
| A．method | B．boat | C．route | D．routine |
| A．see | B．reach | C．call | D．move |
| A．careful | B．useful | C．hopeful | D．grateful |
| A．acted | B．had | C．played | D．realized |
4 . In 1957, Max Vernon Mathews wrote the first computer program called Music, which enabled a computer to create sound and play it back. He was then working as an engineer at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey. It enabled a large IBM computer to play a seventeensecond piece of music he had written.
The computer was so slow that it took an hour to play the seventeensecond piece of music. So Mathews moved the work to a tape player to play the music at a normal speed. He later said that the sound quality of the musical notes was not great, but the technical importance of the music was huge.
The science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke visited Bell Laboratories in the 1960s. He heard a computer “sing” the song Daisy Bell on devices (设备) and learned about the programs developed by Mathews and other engineers. Clarke noted this technology in his book 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was later made into a movie.
Mathews continued creating other versions of the Music program. He became interested in how computers could help musicians outside recording studios. The Groove program he developed was the first computer program made for live performances.
He also developed an electronic device he called the Radio Baton, which looks like two drum sticks. It enables the user to control the speed and sound levels of orchestral music (管弦乐) played on a computer by moving the two sticks on a special electronic surface.
Mathews said he believed modern musicians were not making full use of the power of computer music. He said a violin always sounds like a violin. But with his Music, the way a violin sounds is unlimited. He did not want computer sounds to replace live music, but he hoped computers would one day be considered serious instruments.
1. Why did Clarke visit Bell Laboratories?| A．To make his book into a movie. |
| B．To help Mathews develop Music. |
| C．To satisfy his own curiosity about music. |
| D．To gather materials for his literary creation. |
| A．Something used to record live music. |
| B．Something used to create special sound. |
| C．Something used to improve computer music. |
| D．Something used to create computer music. |
| A．It is more pleasant to the ear. |
| B．It can help make more sounds. |
| C．It will finally replace the violin. |
| D．It is more popular than live music. |
| A．He is the father of computer music. |
| B．His creation succeeded on the first try. |
| C．He wrote Music to replace instruments. |
| D．He changed the functions of computers. |
5 . When I started riding a bike a couple of years ago, I didn't think my involvement would ever be more serious than the occasional short ride. But as I built strength, my friends
When I registered, the idea seemed fantastic and I trained with
The ride began on a beautiful Sunday morning in the Georgia countryside, and for the first few hours I felt
If the body is
As I topped the crest (顶) of a hill, the beautiful sunset kept me going for a few minutes more. Then in the distance, I saw a lone woman riding very slowly
My focus changed in that instant. For a whole day I'd been
| A．encouraged | B．forbade | C．forced | D．warned |
| A．accident | B．event | C．incident | D．affair |
| A．care | B．ease | C．enthusiasm | D．difficulty |
| A．achieved | B．gained | C．progressed | D．advanced |
| A．still | B．even | C．rather | D．then |
| A．nervous | B．disappointed | C．wonderful | D．refreshed |
| A．assumed | B．appreciated | C．admired | D．imagined |
| A．But | B．Therefore | C．Meanwhile | D．Moreover |
| A．opposite | B．connected | C．exposed | D．equal |
| A．cause | B．reason | C．excuse | D．effect |
| A．holding | B．saving | C．catching | D．shortness |
| A．quit | B．continue | C．insist | D．fade |
| A．on | B．against | C．down | D．over |
| A．observed | B．watched | C．overlooked | D．noticed |
| A．put up | B．look up | C．catch up | D．take up |
| A．steadily | B．abruptly | C．closely | D．narrowly |
| A．trusting | B．doubting | C．cheating | D．fighting |
| A．strength | B．honesty | C．will | D．power |
| A．struggling | B．arguing | C．discussing | D．complaining |
| A．strong | B．weak | C．healthy | D．spiritless |
6 . Once upon a time, when you first attended a youth sporting event, your parents probably weren't expecting you to become a professional athlete.They signed up for a basketball, football or swimming course for you in the hope that you might learn lessons about winning gentlemanly, losing with dignity(尊严)and insisting on it when things get hard. Yes, playing games is good exercise, but it is the life lessons that matter most.
For many of us, instead of looking to improve our minds and spirits, we began judging progress only by the size of our muscles or the numbers on a weighing machine. The thought that athletic competition is about greater life lessons and the building of character has been further undermined(削弱)by headlines about professional athletes.
“And yet there's still strong evidence that sports strongly improve certain personal qualities,” says Angela Lumpkin, Professor of the Department of Health, Sport and Exercise Sciences at the University of Kansas. And that's true for athletes of any age.Amateur sports(业余体育运动)provide a safe place for competition. They also provide a practice ground for managing stress.
The advantages of taking part in a sport can seep(渗透)into your professional life, too. In basketball, for example, “Getting everyone to play the right role on the court is the key to success,” says Alan Arlt, the founder of the Life Time Fitness basketball program Ultimate Hoops. “That is certainly useful in the business world, where everyone understands their own role in the organization.” “In athletic events, you go through good and bad times often in the period of two hours,” says former NBA head coach Flip Saunders. “Do you have the calm manner to settle yourself down, or do you totally lose it and get thrown out of the game which hurts both you and your team？All of that oncourt experience has a real effect on how you deal with reallife situations.”
1. What would parents expect when their children joined in sports?| A．To win as many games as possible. |
| B．To improve their health. |
| C．To make more friends. |
| D．To get through difficulties. |
| A．People play sports to build their character. |
| B．People still hold the idea that sports can keep us fit. |
| C．People keep playing sports to improve minds and spirits. |
| D．People pay more attention to the news of professional athletes. |
| A．support Lumpkin's idea |
| B．introduce the next topic |
| C．show another piece of evidence |
| D．show the main idea of the paragraph |
| A．how to succeed in the future |
| B．how to keep calm in certain situations |
| C．how to deal with reallife situations |
| D．how to understand the role on the court |
7 . The human face is a remarkable piece of work. The astonishing variety of facial features helps people recognize each other and is important to the formation of complex societies. So is the face’s ability to send emotional signals, whether through an unconscious reddening of face or a false smile. People spend much of their waking lives, in the office and the courtroom as well as the bar and the bedroom, reading faces, for signs of attraction, trust and cheat. They also spend plenty of time trying to dissimulate.
Technology is rapidly catching up with the human ability to read faces. In America, facial recognition is used by churches to track prayers’ attendance; in Britain, by shopkeepers to spot past thieves. This year Welsh police used it to arrest a suspect outside a football game. In China, it verifies the identities of ride-hailing (网约车) drivers, permits tourists to enter attractions and lets people pay for things with a smile. Apple’s new iPhone is expected to use it to unlock the home screen.
Compared with human skills, such applications might expand steadily in scale. Some breakthroughs, such as flight or the Internet, obviously transform human abilities; facial recognition seems merely to encode them. Although faces are peculiar to individuals, they are also public, so technology does not, at first sight, intrude on something that is private. And yet the ability to record, store and analyse images of faces cheaply, quickly and on a vast scale promises one day to bring about major changes to our understanding of privacy, fairness and trust.
Start with privacy. One big difference between faces and other biometric (计量生物学的) data, such as fingerprints, is that they work at a distance. Anyone with a phone can take a picture for facial-recognition programs to use. FindFace, an app in Russia, compares snaps of strangers with pictures on VKontakte, a social network, and can identify people with a 70% accuracy rate. Even if private firms are unable to join the dots between images and identity, the state often can. Photographs of half of America’s adult population are stored in databases that can be used by the FBI. Law-enforcement agencies now have a powerful weapon in their ability to track criminals, but at enormous potential cost to citizens’ privacy.
1. What does the underlined word “dissimulate” in Paragraph 1 mean?| A．Hide emotions from others. |
| B．Make known to the public. |
| C．Act in disregard of laws. |
| D．Become friends with others. |
| A．Applications. | B．Breakthroughs. | C．Human abilities. | D．Human skills. |
| A．Safety and first aid. |
| B．Social services. |
| C．Finance and trade. |
| D．Fairness and trust. |
| A．Benefits resulting from facial breakthrough |
| B．Facial Recognition: nowhere to hide |
| C．The power of human faces |
| D．Technologies concerning facial recognition |
8 . You may think the best way to solve a tough problem is to keep working on it, even overnight. But the truth is just the opposite: Your best chance to get to the bottom of a problem is actually to sleep on it.
A team of researchers at Northwestern University, US, found that sleeping is useful in both strengthening and re-organizing memory. This can help you solve problems.
The researchers did an experiment with 57 students. They asked them to solve 42 difficult puzzles on the first day. The students worked on each puzzle while listening to different music. The research encouraged students to remember the music they heard while solving the puzzles. By the end, there were six puzzles that the students still hadn’t solved.
The students then went back home to sleep. They were given special sleep-monitoring(睡眠监测)and music devices (设备). The devices played music linked with the unsolved puzzles while the students were in the slow-wave sleep stage. This stage is when people are likely to dream and re-organize their memories.
The next morning, the students tried the unsolved puzzles again. Researchers found they were 55 percent more likely to solve them. The music activated(激活)the memories they had of the puzzles while they were sleeping. It allowed them to “work” on the puzzles in their sleep.
Earlier studies of both people and animals have shown that sleep cannot only strengthen memory, but also help us organize information in our brains. This study seems to support that understanding. So the next time you face a difficult problem, sleep on it. Then play some music to remind yourself of the problem.
1. What did the research at Northwestern University find?| A．Sleeping can help people solve problems. |
| B．Listening to music can improve memory. |
| C．Music can help people solve puzzles faster. |
| D．People can solve difficult puzzles in their dreams. |
| A．Some students didn’t listen to music while solving puzzles. |
| B．Some kept working on the puzzles when others were sleeping. |
| C．The students “worked” on the unsolved puzzles while sleeping. |
| D．Many students found it difficult to remember the music they heard. |
| A．This study supports earlier findings. |
| B．The finding is of little practical value. |
| C．This study should have had animals included. |
| D．No research has been done in this field before. |
9 . It was the last day of school. The teacher walked around the class and
Suddenly the
The rest of the day I was lost in thought
| A．chose | B．returned | C．gave | D．made |
| A．grades | B．wishes | C．promises | D．schedules |
| A．liked | B．took | C．failed | D．organized |
| A．certain | B．afraid | C．free | D．careful |
| A．warning | B．door | C．bicycle | D．lunch |
| A．crying | B．laughing | C．shouting | D．singing |
| A．gave up | B．set out | C．went on | D．looked up |
| A．pushing | B．moving | C．throwing | D．holding |
| A．ever | B．just | C．also | D．still |
| A．run | B．speak | C．read | D．dance |
| A．lucky | B．excellent | C．quiet | D．active |
| A．fluently | B．nervously | C．sincerely | D．quickly |
| A．but | B．and | C．so | D．or |
| A．refusing | B．fearing | C．learning | D．trying |
| A．shop | B．home | C．office | D．desk |
| A．teachers | B．parents | C．friends | D．students |
| A．homework | B．picture | C．problem | D．accident |
| A．showed | B．meant | C．taught | D．offered |
| A．good at | B．mad at | C．ready for | D．grateful for |
| A．realized | B．explained | C．agreed | D．forgot |
10 . The Assassin's Creed series has been about building immersive （沉浸式的）and accurate historical worlds. As their newest game releases f Assassins Creed Origins, they have also released their Discovery Tours. These tours give players a chance to walk the streets of ancient Egypt, explore Alexandria and the pyramids, and learn about wildlife and geography. For students, experiencing the ancient world in this interactive way can be more interesting and effective than just reading a textbook or watching a documentary about what they are studying.
Assassins Creed is not the only game series that can be educational either. What is important about the role of historical games is the level of choice. When watching a film, students are passive receivers of content. However, when playing a game students have an active role to play in history. A focus on choice and consequence is an important element of teaching and understanding history, so historical games can be a valuable teaching tool even if they aren't completely historically accurate. They have the power to immerse students in faraway worlds and allow them to think critically about cause and consequence, think about why historical events unfolded the way they did, and even think about possible alternative outcomes. All of these are critical for historical thinking processes. No longer do students need to rely only on reading textbooks or on instructors for knowledge.
When carrying this out in your class, remember that not all students enjoy playing video games, but they can still be a valuable learning tool. The instructor also needs to be an active facilitator and taking note of teachable moments. A video game is not going to teach a class ； it requires an awesome instructor to make everything come together. With the power of video games, ancient worlds no longer need to be limited to the pages of a textbook.
1. What does the underlined phrase “this interactive way“ in paragraph 1 refer to?| A．Walking an ancient street. | B．Playing a new game. |
| C．Reading a textbook. | D．Watching a documentary. |
| A．Why it is different from the film. | B．Why it gains popularity. |
| C．How it benefits teaching. | D．How it came into being. |
| A．The teachers. | B．The players. |
| C．The designers. | D．The audiences. |
| A．A vivid description of ancient architecture. |
| B．An account of a new history learning method. |
| C．A detailed explanation of a social problem. |
| D．An online advertisement of a stylish trend. |
