1 . Scientists have designed plenty of devices that can pick up solid objects. Big mechanical claws can lift cars. Small claws can pluck (摘，拉) prizes from a glass box in an arcade game (街机游戏). But these new pluckers can lift something else entirely-a liquid.
Engineers have built the device, which can pick up and move a single drop of liquid. The device is made of two flexible crossed pieces. It is about the size and shape of a finger. Experimental tests showed that the pair can lift up a drop of liquids as small as 2 millimeters (0.08 inch) across.
Such a device might help scientists safely handle biological liquids like blood, says Arun KotA. That task could be particularly useful in laboratories where samples are tested for signs of flu or other infectious diseases. Kota is a mechanical engineer at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. He worked on these new devices.
The new device combines tech from two fields of engineering. One is soft robotics. Unlike robots made from hard and heavy materials such as metal, soft robots are made from soft stuff. The other field is materials science. “Many materials are repellent to water, but in alcohol or oil they’re no longer able to do it,” Kota says. Working with Wei Wang, an engineer in his lab, he developed such materials, which will not let any liquid pass through them.
The group completed their design by 2017. Yet cool as it was, it had no obvious use. Xiaoguang Dong, an engineer at Vanderbilt University, doubts whether infectious disease labs are looking for such a device. “To me, this is not really practical,” he says. “The number of droplets that can be lifted is very small. They need independently robotic fingers to lift several droplets. If you want to control hundreds of droplets, how do you do that?”
1. Why are the big mechanical claws and small claws mentioned in paragraph 1?| A．To introduce the function of the new invention. |
| B．To show the common usage of mechanical tools. |
| C．To give examples of some recent scientific findings. |
| D．To reveal the importance of accurately lifting liquids. |
| A．Its future. | B．Its feature. | C．Its creator. | D．Its principle. |
| A．Exposed. | B．Resistant. | C．Connected. | D．Similar. |
| A．It should be easier to use. | B．It should be safer in disease labs. |
| C．It should combine low-cost materials. | D．It should carry many more drops of liquid. |
2 . Climate change poses a particular threat to children and youth, starting before birth and potentially influencing the normal development of physiological systems and emotional skills in ways that are sometimes irreversible (无法逆转的), according to a report released by the American Psychological Association (APA) and ecoAmerica. The serious impacts of climate change, such as weather disasters, can cause trauma (心理创伤) and post-traumatic stress disorder in the short term, and many longer-term mental health challenges in the absence of proper treatment, the report says.
The effect of extreme weather events resulting from climate change can interrupt normal fetal (胎儿的) development and lead to a greater risk of anxiety or depressive disorder, and lower levels of self-control. The list of possible climate change-related mental health struggles expands as children get older, according to the report.
The impacts of climate change interact and combine with other factors that threaten youth mental health, which is already in danger. These factors include child development, parental health, rates of depression, anxiety, poverty, housing security, inadequate nutrition, and access to medical care, according to the report.
“If our responsibility to ensure a safe climate and great future for our children and future generations was not clear enough, this report brings it into vivid relief. My hope is for anyone caring for children-especially policymakers-to join me in following its guidance,” said Meighen Speiser, executive director of ecoAmerica and a coauthor of the report.
This new report builds on the prior Mental Health and Our Changing Climate: Impacts, Inequities, and Responses report, published in 2021. “Since the publication of the 2021 report, concerns about the mental health impacts of climate change have grown among scientists, health professionals, policymakers and the public, and the effects on children and youth are more noticeable,” said APA CEO Arthur C. Evans Jr. , PhD. “Psychology, as the science of behavior, will be of great importance to making the changes that are vital to slow and stop its advance. ”
1. What does the author say about youth mental health?| A．It is already under many threats. |
| B．It reflects a lot of social problems. |
| C．It differs a great deal from age to age. |
| D．It is the biggest concern of the society. |
| A．It reminds us to take good care of our children. |
| B．It calls on people to join in the fight against pollution. |
| C．It clarifies the need to control climate change for future. |
| D．It urges policymakers to provide guidance on climate change. |
| A．The study of youth health has sped up. |
| B．The climate is worsening faster than ever before. |
| C．The development of psychology needs more attention. |
| D．The impact of climate change-related mental health may be improved. |
| A．Global Climate Changes |
| B．Threats to Children’s Health |
| C．Mental Challenges Faced With Babies |
| D．Impacts of Climate Change on Kids’ Mental Health |
3 . As a kid, Kara McGrath had to have her “pocket cheese” into jackets so she could have it on the go. In college, she blew her budget on fancy cheese during grocery runs with roommates. And when she got married, she served her guests a flowery, four-tiered cake made from wheels of blue cheese. So it wasn’t a surprise when she quit a stable job to pursue a career as a cheesemonger (干酪商).
In 2019, McGrath joined a cheese catering business. There, she gained experience making display boards and leading tasting sessions. But a typhoon hit and took away their wooden shop as well as the community’s business. Her partner decided to turn to other business, leaving McGrath unsure of her next steps.
“There’s not a ton of cheese options in D. C. ,” she said. “My whole thing was, if I can’t find a place to work, I’m going to build it.” She created a cheese club, featuring virtual guided tastings, working first at her home, then in a rented shared kitchen space. As her following grew,she expanded with holiday markets, and when she saw that a wine bar on H Street had closed,she seized the opportunity and rented it.
Today, she’s the owner of Paste and Rind, a cheese and wine bar on H Street in Washington, D. C. , which opened in February after she emptied her 401K to fund the decoration of the space. To build a good reputation, she’s created regular tastings of limited-release cheeses in their bar, which sold out in August and will be offered monthly starting in October. And she doesn’t depend only on walk-in customers: Paste and Rind regularly appears at local farmer’s markets, offers custom cheese food for events and exhibits a subscription box.
As a self-taught enterpriser, MeGrath follows cheese experts on Instagram, connects with peers at the Cheesemonger Invitational in New York and listens to restaurant strategy programs. They’re excited to expand their business further, such as hiring full-time staff to increase the wine bar’s hours and exhibit at bigger occasions like weddings, where she might find herself with another full-circle cheese wheel moment.
1. What can we learn about McGrath from the first paragraph?| A．She was a born businessman. |
| B．Her marriage influenced her greatly. |
| C．She was a big fan of cheese. |
| D．Her previous job was a very challenging one. |
| A．She set up her own business. | B．She decided to find a partner. |
| C．She rented a bar immediately. | D．She lost faith in doing business. |
| A．By displaying the products. | B．By hosting tasting activities. |
| C．By advertising in local events. | D．By offering free cheese to farmers. |
| A．Ambitious and adaptable. | B．Generous and responsible. |
| C．Independent and considerate. | D．Enthusiastic and cooperative. |
4 . Karen Collingsworth doesn’t just make a great cup of coffee. She also smiles, listens and
When Karen’s car was
Donors expressed their
The GoFundMe campaign collected nearly $40,000! While the majority of
When asked the reason for her
| A．cooperates | B．interacts | C．bargains | D．competes |
| A．eager | B．able | C．hesitant | D．suitable |
| A．stolen | B．updated | C．broken | D．repaired |
| A．sell | B．reserve | C．decorate | D．replace |
| A．rejected | B．contributed | C．remembered | D．assessed |
| A．run out | B．flow back | C．dry up | D．pour in |
| A．worry | B．regret | C．appreciation | D．expectation |
| A．by nature | B．by heart | C．by mistake | D．by chance |
| A．preference | B．intelligence | C．presence | D．acceptance |
| A．sweetest | B．simplest | C．bravest | D．freest |
| A．desperately | B．initially | C．definitely | D．temporarily |
| A．praise | B．donation | C．advice | D．invitation |
| A．strangers | B．customers | C．students | D．workmates |
| A．careful | B．ignorant | C．aware | D．proud |
| A．innocence | B．creativity | C．sympathy | D．popularity |
5 . Crying in H Mart. by Michelle Zauner
This is the memoir (回忆录) and first book of Michelle Zauner, lead singer of the band Japanese Breakfast. Zauner writes about growing up as a Korean American and how losing her mother to cancer when she was 25 forced her to reconnect with her identity. It’s a story of Zauner’s grief and an exploration of all the gifts (language, food, history) her mother left behind.
Overwhelmed, by Brigid Schulte
You’ve probably heard by now that you won’t be sleeping much after you welcome your bundle of joy and noise into the world. Parenthood can be challenging and tiring, but you don’t have to feel like you’ve lost yourself while you’re creating a life for someone else. Journalist Brigid Schulte lays out how our always-on culture can get the best of us and what you can do to take back some time for yourself.
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong
Ocean Vuong is a Vietnamese-American poet and his first novel is written in the form of a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Exploring race, class, and manhood, the novel handles difficult topics with beauty and the kind of lines that will hang in the air long after you’ve set the book down.
24/6: The Power of Unplugging One Day a Week, by Tiffany Shlain
In 24/6, filmmaker and popular speaker Shlain introduces readers to what she calls a “Technology Shabbat” -the one day, every week, where she and her family turn off all electronic devices. Beyond detailing the many ways she and her family have benefited, Shlain gives helpful, reassuring advice for setting your own tech shabbat and controlling device use.
1. Who are the main target readers of Overwhelmed?| A．Children. | B．Parents. | C．Writers. | D．Journalists. |
| A．Crying in H Mart. |
| B．Overwhelmed. |
| C．On Earth We’re Brie fly Gorgeous. |
| D．24/6: The Power of Unplugging One Day a Week. |
| A．They are related to family life. |
| B．They are on the theme of growing up. |
| C．They are written by mixed-race authors. |
| D．They are concerned with electronic devices. |
6 . In the flood of innovative solutions that have emerged in the last several years to save the world from plastic pollution, Tom Szaky’s solution may be one of the most audacious (大胆的). Szaky has presented a concept that dates to the turn of the last century-returnable, refillable containers. The idea was introduced to the world by Coca-Cola in the early 1920s, when coke was sold in expensive glass bottles that the company needed to be returned. They charged a two-cent deposit (押金), roughly 40 percent of the full cost of the soft drink, and got about 98 percent of their bottles back to be reused 40 to 50 times. Bottle deposit programs remain one of the most successful methods ever invented for recovering packaging.
Szaky launched Loop, an online delivery service that uses serviceable, reusable containers. The bold part of his venture-or risk, if you are one of his financial backers-is that Loop pushes far beyond the common returnable beverage bottles and sells more than 300 items, from food to laundry liquid, in containers of various sizes and made from various materials. His signature product is Häagen- Dazs ice cream that is packed inside a smooth, heat-barrier stainless steel bucket guaranteed to prevent its contents from melting.
Slightly messy in jeans and a coat, Szaky looks every bit the common entrepreneur. He dropped out of Princeton University 17 years ago to become an innovator in the garbage business. Then, he founded TerraCycle, a company near his college. He figured out a way to recycle cigarette ends, and a long list of other non-recyclable things. Then, he became more interested in restoring the circularity of that earlier era and eliminating the disposability from packaging altogether.
Loop is part of the recovery of refillable things as a serious option for plastic waste. The beverage industry is expanding its use of returnable bottles; an Oregon brewery claims to have started the United States’ first state-wide refillable beer system. More significantly, efforts like Loop’s to reinvent packaging for products that don’t fit easily into the refillable category have attracted startups and some of the world’s largest corporate players.
1. How is the Coca-Cola’s bottle deposit program?| A．It’s costly. | B．It’s effective. |
| C．It is a complex process. | D．It remains questionable to many people. |
| A．It struggles to get financial support. |
| B．It covers a wider range of businesses. |
| C．It mainly gains profits from Häagen-Dazs ice cream. |
| D．It was the first to propose using steel containers to store beverages. |
| A．Creative and ambitious. | B．Self-disciplined and outgoing. |
| C．Hardworking and careful. | D．Responsible and kind-hearted. |
| A．To make good use of the waste. | B．To cover his college fees. |
| C．To cooperate with more corporate players. | D．To expand his influence in his college. |
7 . Scientists say they have created a new method that can turn brain signals into electronic speech. The invention could one day give people who have lost the ability to speak a better way of communicating than current methods.
Brain-computer interfaces (交界面) already exist to help people who cannot speak on their own. Often these systems are trained to follow eye or facial movements of people who have learned to spell out their thoughts letter by letter. But researchers say this method can produce many errors and is very slow, permitting at most about 10 spoken words per minute. This compares to between 100 and 150 words per minute used in natural speech.
For the new method, scientists created a brain-machine interface that is inserted in the brain. It can read and record brain signals that help control the muscles that produce speech, like the lips, the tongue and the jaw. The experiment involved a two-step process. First, the researchers used a “decoder (解码器)” to turn electrical brain signals into representations of human vocal (声音的) movements. An electronic instrument then turns the representations into complete spoken sentences.
The new two-step method actually presents a “proof of principle” with great possibilities for real-time communication in the future. Five volunteer patients who were being treated for epilepsy (a disease of the nervous system) participated in the study. The individuals had the ability to speak and already had interfaces built in their brains. They were asked to read several hundred sentences aloud while the researchers recorded their brain activity.
The researchers then used audio recordings of the voice readings to reproduce the vocal muscle movements needed to produce human speech.
This process made it possible for the scientists to create a realistic “virtual voice” for each individual, controlled by their brain activity.
The study reports the spoken sentences were understandable to hundreds of human listeners later asked to write out what they heard. Scientists say future studies will test the technology on people who are unable to speak.
1. What’s the new method mainly designed to do?| A．To monitor people’s brain and control their speech. |
| B．To help people improve their communication skills. |
| C．To turn people’s speaking desire into digital speech. |
| D．To develop a hand gesture for people unable to speak. |
| A．They are unreliable and inefficient. |
| B．They ask people to fully concentrate. |
| C．They require too much body language. |
| D．They are useless to people unable to speak. |
| A．How to decode brain signals correctly. |
| B．How the new method works theoretically. |
| C．How to use your speech muscles effectively. |
| D．How the brain responds to one’s muscle movements. |
| A．Ask human listeners for opinions. |
| B．Bring their products to the market. |
| C．Invent new tools for those unable to speak. |
| D．Prove the new method in people unable to speak. |
8 . “Red tide” is a natural phenomenon that frequently occurs in many places around the world. The phenomenon is the result of extreme growth of tiny algae (海藻) called K. Brevis, which has a red color, giving the water surface a very noticeable red color. K. Brevis will give off chemicals that can attack the nervous systems of animals, which often leads to deadly results.
Florida citizens are no stranger to “red tide”, which occurs along the state’s Gulf Coast annually. However, the most recent outbreak of red tide has so far lasted much longer and spread across nearly 145 miles of the coastline in southwestern Florida.
The long season has caused the death of tons of fish and other animals which were washed up on the beaches all the way from Tampa to Naples. The smell of the dead animals has kept away thousands of locals and tourists that frequent the area’s long beaches. In view of that, in August, Florida declared a state of emergency for the seven places where K. Brevis has been growing quickly, providing $ 3 million to help with research, cleanup, and wildlife rescue.
Recently, the situation of red tide in Florida may be exacerbated due to an outbreak of algae Trichodesmium in the waters offshore of Manatee County. Trichodesmium floats on the water’s surface sucking nitrogen (氮) from the air while K. Brevis lives below the surface obtaining nitrogen from the water. If these two masses of algae mix, the dying Trichodesmium may end up providing nitrogen for K. Brevis, lengthening its stay in the area.
Researchers recently are exploring the idea of introducing other algal species to Florida. Among the possibilities is the Diatom. It’s a kind of algae that can grow quickly in the water. Its growth will consume a large amount of nitrogen from the water. So it competes with K. Brevis for nitrogen. Another possibility is algae known to give off chemicals that stop the growth of red tide.
The 10-month-long red tide outbreak in Florida may be the result of a combination of heavy rainfall, warmer ocean temperatures, and pollution. Now it’s time for us to do something.
1. What can we learn about K. Brevis?| A．It’s caused by red tide. | B．It can harm ocean life. |
| C．It’s facing dying out. | D．It exists mainly on land. |
| A．The researchers’ study of algae. | B．The tourism potential in Florida. |
| C．The possible ways to deal with red tide. | D．The consequences of red tide in Florida. |
| A．Worsened. | B．Studied. | C．Handled. | D．Ignored. |
| A．To change the color of K. Brevis. |
| B．To help reduce K. Brevis’ food supply. |
| C．To damage K. Brevis using some chemicals. |
| D．To increase fishes’ resistance to K. Brevis’ attack. |
9 . “Quick, quick, slow, slow,” my husband said as I was trying to focus. We frequently stepped on each other’s feet. Both of us were being rhythmically challenged, and we figured a series of lessons might help us look somewhat elegant on the floor. However, it didn’t.
It didn’t matter that the lessons didn’t pay off. Our learning something new together gave us a string of good memories, such as taking a Thai cooking class on a cold Chicago night and learning how to make classic cocktails (鸡尾酒) in a common bar. These experiences are my best memories from the past 10 years. We always have such a great time when we’re trying something new together. It seems to have strengthened our relationship, and makes me feel like we have a closer connection.
It turns out that my theory is backed by research. One study shows that learning new things with your spouse (配偶), friends, or partners, can strengthen your connection or friendship. But how exactly does this work? The key is vulnerability (弱点). “Learning new things together strengthens bonds because it is at those moments that we can show our vulnerability to one another,” says Dr. Hisla Bates. When we are learning a new task, misfortunes and failures are bound to happen. In those moments when we fail, the other party can be there in favor of us. We can work together to find a solution, and working together helps deepen the connection.
The benefits gained from learning new things with your partner can come from activities as small as hiking, trying a new recipe, going boating in the local lake or taking a fitness class together. You don’t have to go bungee jumping or skydiving to grow closer. Try selecting activities that both partners are unfamiliar with, as this will ensure you’re on the same page.
Trying to learn something new together once a month will benefit you and your spouse or friends. Overall, some of my best memories with my husband are the moments when we are learning something new together.
1. What were the author and her husband doing in Paragraph 1?| A．Playing sports. | B．Practising dancing. |
| C．Teaching lessons. | D．Taking a walk. |
| A．Practice makes perfect. |
| B．Good memories last a long time. |
| C．Processes matter more than results. |
| D．Well begun is half done. |
| A．It can encourage them to teach and praise each other. |
| B．It helps improve the understanding of each other. |
| C．It can reduce each other’s loneliness and boredom. |
| D．It helps find each other’s weaknesses and offer support. |
| A．The power of learning new things together |
| B．The advantages of taking different lessons |
| C．The challenge of acquiring new knowledge |
| D．The importance of improving people’s bonds |
10 . After an extremely heavy rain flooded the town of Ruthin, 44-year-old farmer Llyr Derwydd encountered an awful scene that Friday afternoon. As Llyr checked on his sheep, he discovered his three ewes (母羊)
Realizing the
Reflecting on the event, Llyr shared, “I know Patsy is a(n)
At the critical moment, Patsy
| A．released | B．trapped | C．stolen | D．tied |
| A．threatening | B．demanding | C．confusing | D．breathtaking |
| A．protect | B．raise | C．rescue | D．distract |
| A．significance | B．satisfaction | C．necessity | D．impossibility |
| A．applied | B．prepared | C．waited | D．signaled |
| A．settled | B．recalled | C．hesitated | D．insisted |
| A．shelter | B．command | C．agreement | D．management |
| A．delightfully | B．unwillingly | C．intentionally | D．fearlessly |
| A．relieved | B．energetic | C．frightened | D．scary |
| A．guidance | B．control | C．authority | D．observation |
| A．confirm | B．escape | C．approach | D．measure |
| A．capable | B．competitive | C．professional | D．inexperienced |
| A．behind | B．within | C．beyond | D．alongside |
| A．rose to | B．ran into | C．turned to | D．put up |
| A．confidence | B．generosity | C．loyalty | D．modesty |
