1 . Types Of Students You Will Meet In College
There are thousands of universities around the world, and each school boasts its own traditions and slogans. Some schools pride themselves on sports, while others emphasize their research facilities. While there are a myriad of differences among each and every school, there will always be these three types of students in class.
The one who sits in the front row
There’s at least one of these people in every single class,whether it’s a required General Education class or an upper division major course. These students always sit in the front row and ask at least five questions every lecture.
They attend all the discussions and office hours, and try to turn in homework at least a week in advance. These are also the people who remind professors about assigned homework and upcoming exams. Nothing bad about being studious, but are they even human?
The one who never studies (but still aces the class)
Standing as probably the most frustrating category of people in this list, these students won’t know about a midterm until two days before. They go to class every once in a while when the class time doesn’t clash with one of their many elaborate social plans, but never pay attention. Somehow, they still ace all their exams and end up with the top grade in the class.
The one who always falls asleep
This person comes to class every day, but somehow never stays awake for more than 20 minutes. You can sometimes hear the occasional snore from a corner of a large lecture hall, or catch their heads nodding like a pendulum near the front of the class if they’re the studious type. But let’s be real here: we’ve all been one of those students at some point.
1. Who always sit in the front row?A.The studious students. |
B.The sleepy students. |
C.The smart students. |
D.The frustrated students. |
A.Some students never go to classes but still get top grades. |
B.Some students never go to classes and get bad grades. |
C.Some students go to lectures occasionally but still ace the class. |
D.Some students go to lectures everyday and still ace the class. |
A.The one who always falls asleep |
B.The one who sits in the front row |
C.The one who never falls asleep |
D.The one who never studies (but still aces the class) |
2 . Do you find yourself looking at your Facebook page or watching YouTube videos instead of getting work done? Are you
I am in my second year at college. In almost every
Yes, we live in a digital age where we even use
My
There is no easier solution to this; you must turn off digital devices, or you won’t focus. It just takes some
A.looking for | B.asking for | C.thinking about | D.talking about |
A.careful | B.happy | C.right | D.alone |
A.show | B.lecture | C.direction | D.interview |
A.letting down | B.setting aside | C.looking at | D.looking after |
A.natural | B.interesting | C.useless | D.bad |
A.improve | B.check | C.correct | D.share |
A.knowing | B.accepting | C.telling | D.finishing |
A.offering | B.advertising | C.reading | D.writing |
A.hardly | B.slowly | C.strangely | D.fully |
A.keys | B.cellphones | C.cameras | D.umbrellas |
A.shorter | B.better | C.wider | D.deeper |
A.change | B.question | C.study | D.debate |
A.avoid | B.need | C.control | D.lose |
A.comfortable | B.helpful | C.hard | D.necessary |
A.feel | B.wish | C.mention | D.wonder |
A.attitude | B.advice | C.information | D.worry |
A.happens | B.aims | C.prefers | D.dislikes |
A.because | B.unless | C.though | D.when |
A.chances | B.ways | C.times | D.places |
A.courage | B.patience | C.encouragement | D.confidence |
3 . A new study reveals that pigeons (鸽子) can tackle some problems just like artificial intelligence, enabling them to solve difficult tasks that might challenge humans. Previous research has theorized that pigeons employ a problem-solving strategy, involving a trial-and- error approach, which is similar to the approach used in AI models but differs from humans’ reliance on selective attention and rule use. To examine it, Brandon Turner, a psychology professor at the Ohio State University, and his colleagues conducted the new study.
In the study, the pigeons were presented with various visual images, including lines of different widths and angles, and different types of rings. The pigeons had to peck (啄) a button on the right or left to indicate the category to which the image belonged. If they got it correct, they received food; if they were wrong, they received nothing. Results showed that, through trial and error, the pigeons improved their accuracy in categorization tasks, increasing their correct choices from about 55% to 95%.
Researchers believed pigeons used associative learning, which is linking two phenomena with each other. For example, it is easy to understand the link. between “water” and “wet”. “Associative learning is frequently assumed to be far too primitive to. explain complex visual categorization like what we saw the pigeons do,” Turner said. But that’s exactly what the researchers found.
The researchers’ AI model tackled the same tasks using just the two simple mechanisms that pigeons were assumed to use: associative learning and error correction. And, like the pigeons, the AI model learned to make the right predictions to significantly increase the number of correct answers. For humans, the challenge when given tasks like those given to pigeons is that they would try to come up with rules that could make the task easier. But in this case, there were no rules, which upsets humans.
What’s interesting, though, is that pigeons use this method of learning that is very similar to AI designed by humans, Turner said. “We celebrate how smart we are that we designed artificial intelligence: at the same time, we regard pigeons as not clever animals,” he said.
1. What is the purpose of the new study?A.To test a theory. | B.To evaluate a model. |
C.To employ a strategy. | D.To involve an approach. |
A.Draw circles. | B.Correct errors. | C.Copy gestures. | D.Identify images. |
A.They are of equal intelligence. |
B.They are good at making rules. |
C.They respond rapidly to orders from humans. |
D.They employ simple ways to get things done. |
A.Pigeons’ trial-and-error method is revealed |
B.Pigeons outperform humans in tough tasks |
C.“Not smart” pigeons may be as smart as AI |
D.AI models after pigeons’ learning approach |
4 . For Caribbean box jellyfish (水母), learning is literally a no-brainer.
In a new experiment, these animals learned to spot and avoid obstacles (障碍物) despite having no central brain, researchers report in Current Biology. This is the first evidence that jellyfish can make mental connections between events and change their behavior accordingly. “Maybe learning doesn’t need a very complex nervous system, but rather, learning is an essential part of nerve cells,” says Jan Bielecki, a neuroethologist at Kiel University in Germany. If so, the new finding could help trace how learning evolved in animals.
Bielecki and his colleagues wondered if Caribbean box jellyfish could learn that low-contrast objects, which might at first seem distant, were actually close by. The team put 12 jellyfish into a round tank surrounded by low-contrast, gray and white stripes. A camera filmed the animals’ behavior for about seven minutes.
At first, the jellyfish seemed to interpret the gray stripes as distant roots and swam into the tank wall. But those collisions (碰撞) seemed to lead the jellyfish to treat the gray stripes more like close roots in dirty water, and the animals started avoiding them. The jellies’ average distance from the tank wall increased from about 2.5 centimeters in the first couple of minutes to about 3.6 centimeters in the final couple of minutes. Their average collisions into the wall dropped from 1.8 per minute to 0.78 per minute.
“I found that really amazing,” says Nagayasu Nakanishi, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, who has studied jellyfish nervous systems but was not involved in the new work. “I never thought jellyfish could really learn.”
Neurobiologist Björn Brembs views the results more cautiously, noting the small number of jellyfish tested and the variability in their performance. “I want this to be true, as it would be very cool,” says Brembs. Experiments with more jellyfish could convince him that the animals really do learn.
1. What can we know about the jellyfish in paragraph 2?A.They can avoid obstacles with a central brain. |
B.They can change their behaviour after evolution. |
C.They may have learning abilities with nerve cells. |
D.They may develop a very complex nervous system. |
A.They completely ignored the gray stripes. |
B.They gradually started avoiding the gray stripes. |
C.They could avoid collisions if given enough time. |
D.They increased their collisions with the tank wall. |
A.Jellyfish preferred the gray stripes over other things. |
B.Jellyfish were unable to learn from their environment. |
C.Jellyfish relied on the distant objects to change their behavior. |
D.Jellyfish showed a learning process and adjusted their behavior. |
A.He believes more testing is needed to confirm the results. |
B.He is excited by the potential implications of the findings. |
C.He dismisses the findings as irrelevant to jellyfish behavior. |
D.He is doubtful due to the consistent performance of the jellyfish. |
5 . In our family, the presents we gave one another were almost always homemade. I thought that was the definition of a gift: something you made for someone else. We made all our Christmas gifts: piggy banks from old bottles, and puppets from retired socks. It didn’t seem like a hardship to me; it was something special.
My father loves wild strawberries, so for Father’s Day my mother would almost always make him strawberry cakes. While we kids were responsible for the berries, we each got an old jar and spent the Saturday before the celebration in the fields, filling it as more ended up in our mouths. Finally, we returned home and poured them out on the kitchen table to sort out the bugs. I’m sure we missed some, but Dad never mentioned the extra protein.
In fact, he thought that was the best possible present, or so he had us convinced. It was a gift that could never be bought. As children raised by strawberries, we were probably unaware that the gift of berries was from the fields themselves, not from us. Our gift was time, attention, care and “red” fingers.
Gifts from the earth or from each other establish a particular relationship, a duty of sorts to give, to receive, and to exchange. The field gave to us, we gave to my dad, and we tried to give back to the strawberries. When the berry season was done, the plants would send out its red runners to make new plants. So I would weed out little fields of ground where the runners touched down. Sure enough, tiny little roots would emerge from the runner and by the end of the season there were even more plants, ready to bloom under the next strawberry season. No person taught us this — the strawberries showed us. Because they had given us a gift, an ongoing relationship opened between us.
1. What is the author’s belief about a gift?A.It should be practical and valuable. | B.It should be luxurious and special. |
C.It should be purchased from a store. | D.It should be made with personal effort. |
A.Making strawberry cakes. | B.Finding the sweetest strawberries. |
C.Going strawberry picking. | D.Baking strawberry cookies. |
A.Making homemade gifts for her father. |
B.Devoting time and attention to the plant. |
C.Waiting for the strawberries to get ripe again. |
D.Searching for fields for the plants to take roots. |
A.How to cook with strawberries. |
B.The importance of giving and receiving. |
C.How to cherish homemade gifts. |
D.The procedure of growing strawberries. |
6 . A study has found that smiling at London bus drivers increases their happiness. The finding feels obvious and unexpected at the same time. For decades, passengers and drivers in London greet each other in an unfriendly mood; any affection feels disgust. While, the authors of the research, which was conducted by the University of Sussex and others, hope it will lead to “more interaction and kindness on buses”. However, Londoners are sceptical.
It might seem impossible that a report on London’s buses could change behaviour. But it has happened before. London’s buses have an underappreciated role in the history of medical science. In the 1940s, a single study of London’s transport workers transformed epidemiology(流行病学), medicine and the way we live now. Every time you go on a run, check your steps, or take the stairs instead of the lift, you are following a path established by the feet of the workers on London’s buses.
In the late 1940s, Britain, like many rich countries, was suffering from an “epidemic” of heart disease and no one knew why. Various hypotheses (猜想), such as stress, were suggested; but no one noticed exercise. The idea that health and exercise were linked “wasn’t the accepted fact that we know today”: Some even felt that “too much physical activity was a bad thing for your health”.
At this time, Jerry Morris started to suspect that the too many deaths from heart disease might be linked to occupation. He began studying the medical records of 31,000 London transport workers. His findings were breathtaking: conductors, who spent their time running up and down stairs, had an approximately 30% lower incidence of disease than drivers. He also looked at postal workers, and found a similar pattern: postmen had far lower rates of disease than telephonists.
Morris’s research was eventually published in 1953, and his work had consequences both big and small. Morris now took up exercise, handing his jacket to his daughter and just running. “People initially thought I went bananas.” But slowly, the rest of the world took off its jacket and followed.
1. What impact did the study of London’s transport workers in the 1940s have on the field of medicine?A.It led to the discovery of a new virus. |
B.It proved the main cause of heart disease. |
C.It showed the relationship between exercise and health. |
D.It corrected the misunderstanding of London bus drivers. |
A.By carrying out a survey. | B.By study their occupation. |
C.By analyzing the medical data. | D.By doing medical examination. |
A.Falling ill. | B.Saving energy. |
C.Starting running. | D.Becoming crazy. |
A.How to Increase Drivers’ Happiness |
B.How to Transform the Way We Live |
C.How Exercise Influenced Heart Health |
D.How London Bus Drivers Led the World to Exercise |
7 . Automation certainly has its advantages. I am grateful for my cellphone that
I recently decided to spend a day
That evening I told my
A.surprisingly | B.firmly | C.reliably | D.carefully |
A.simplified | B.enhanced | C.connected | D.replaced |
A.erupted | B.helped | C.counted | D.increased |
A.considering | B.chasing | C.setting | D.accomplishing |
A.settled down | B.set out | C.hung out | D.took off |
A.world | B.money | C.seat | D.corner |
A.reach | B.command | C.side | D.service |
A.gathering | B.learning | C.exchange | D.atmosphere |
A.exciting | B.humorous | C.doubtful | D.critical |
A.supermarket | B.theater | C.field | D.restaurant |
A.advocated | B.suggested | C.insisted | D.begged |
A.secret | B.problem | C.experiment | D.opinion |
A.interrupted | B.remarked | C.admitted | D.understood |
A.instruction | B.cellphone | C.assistance | D.effort |
A.valued | B.enjoyed | C.missed | D.admired |
8 . Popular Academic Majors
Choosing a major is important for all students. An academic major stands for a student’s study and career interests. Below is a list of some popular majors and their descriptions.
PsychologyOur Psychology Program mainly focuses on how people think, feel and behave. Psychology courses look at the complexities of the human mind and human behavior, including thought, language, and communication. This program joins classroom-based learning and work opportunity to put your knowledge into practice. Psychology students may have many opportunities to be involved in leading researches.
Computer ScienceComputer Science is the study of computers and computer systems. Computer Science majors study a wide range of courses. During their first two years, students usually take basic courses, including programming languages and web development. This is to prepare them for more advanced classes like artificial intelligence. Many students become software or websites developers. Others choose to use their knowledge in a different field, like business or medicine.
Graphic DesignGraphic Design teaches students how to create images for advertisements, books and websites. This major combines images and text. Courses might include 2D design, drawing and computer graphics. To apply for a graphic design program, you need experience in visual art. You also need to present a small body of art work. Graduates of this major can get jobs in various fields, such as brand design and mobile app development.
AccountingA Bachelor in Accounting provides students with a foundation in accounting and business. This major teaches students how to study, measure and evaluate information effectively. Our program offers different courses that help students understand the basic rule of accounting. There are a lot of career choices in accounting, such as investment banking and management consulting.
1. What do we know about Computer Science?A.It takes two years to learn basic courses. |
B.It focuses on how people think, feel and behave. |
C.It ensures students to become websites developers. |
D.It teaches students how to create images for advertisements. |
A.Psychology. | B.Computer Science. |
C.Graphic Design. | D.Accounting. |
A.To promote some university’s academic majors. |
B.To provide an overview of some popular academic majors. |
C.To explain the requirements for popular academic majors. |
D.To compare different career opportunities in different majors. |
9 . Johannes Fritz, a biologist, needed to come up with a plan, again, if he was going to prevent his rare and beloved birds from going extinct.
To survive the European winter, the northern bald ibis (朱鹭)- -which had once disappeared entirely from the wild on the continent-needs to migrate south for the winter, over the Alps, before the mountains become impassable. But shifting climate patterns have delayed when the birds begin to migrate, and they are now reaching the mountains too late to make it over the peaks, locking them in an icy death trap. Determined to save them, Mr. Fritz decided he would teach the birds a new, safer migration route by guiding them himself in a tiny aircraft. And he was confident he could succeed in this daring, unconventional plan because he had done it before.
Mr. Fritz was his young pupils’ sole provider of food, love and cuddles since they’d been just a few days old, and the ibises eagerly followed their teacher. He learned to fly, modifying an ultralight aircraft so it would cruise at speeds slow enough for his winged students to keep up. In 2014, three years after some initially bumpy experiments, Mr. Fritz led the first flock from Austria to Italy, and has since led 15 such migrations. Over that time, he has rewilded 277 young ibises, many of which then started to pass the route on to their own young. For now, however, the main worry is getting the birds to follow the aircraft. “While they have a strong bond with their ‘mothers’ and follow them around on the ground, flying is more difficult, ” Fritz said.
“Fly Away Home was a huge hit with us biologists, ”Mr. Fritz said, recalling the 1996 movie in which characters lead the migration of orphaned Canada geese in a hang glider. When Mr. Fritz proclaimed he’d do the same with the ibises, he was initially ridiculed. But through years of trial and error, he succeeded. He even learned to fly like a bird, he said, soaring with ease. Mr. Fritz’s two sons, both now teenagers, followed their flying father and the migrating birds on the ground, and his family and colleagues witnessed the risks he was taking. But the inevitable risks are “necessary”, Mr. Fritz said.
“It’s not so much a job, ” he added, “but my life’s purpose. ”
1. Why did the northern bald ibis fail to migrate south for the winter?A.The impassable mountains. | B.The late arrival of Mr. Fritz. |
C.The daring and unconventional plan. | D.The shifting climate patterns. |
A.Complicated situations in the flying. | B.The fast speed of the aircraft. |
C.A strong attachment to their mother. | D.Limited migration support. |
A.Mr. Fritz was heavily favoured by those around. |
B.Mr. Fritz was greatly inspired by the 1996 movie. |
C.Mr. Fritz set a ridiculous example for his two sons. |
D.Mr. Fritz convinced people around to witness the risks. |
A.Imaginative and honest. | B.Strong-willed and purposeful. |
C.Generous and easygoing. | D.Energetic and open-minded. |
10 . Let’s say you’re in the far future and you’re looking for evidence of previous civilizations. Where would you look? The first place would be in the rocks. Rocks keep time. Recently, the discovery of rocks made from plastic debris (碎片) in Brazil’s volcanic Trindade Island is sparking alarm. Melted plastic has become twisted with rocks on the island, which researchers say is evidence of humans growing influence over the Earth’s geological cycles.
Plastic rocks have been previously found in various parts of the world. Researchers documented plastiglomerates-rock, sand and other debris fused together by melted plastic-in Hawaii in 2014, for instance. Another human-made and plastic-based rock is pyroplastics. Described in 2019 from the shores of Cornwall in southwest Britain, pyroplastics form from burned plastic waste. In laboratory experiments with white or colored plastic pieces, if burned, the plastic melts and forms a gray or black mass. resembling at first glance a rocky pebble. According to geophysicist Douglas Jerolmack, “all around the world where there’s trash being openly burned in mass quantities, you can imagine there are even larger melted plastic deposits” where plastiglomerate could form.
Plastic pollution making its way into the formation of rocks suggests humans are having an effect on what was previously considered a natural occurrence, said Santos, who along with others is continuing research into plastic pollution on Trindade Island. “This is new and terrifying at the same time, because pollution has reached geology, ”Santos told Reuters. The finding of plastic rocks also suggests, some experts say, that a new geological epoch has begun: The Anthropocene epoch. Regardless of whether this represents a new epoch, Santos said, “the pollution, the garbage in the sea and the plastic dumped incorrectly in the oceans are becoming geological material preserved in the Earth’s geological records.”
The researchers are yet unsure of the environmental impacts of plastic rocks. Burned plastic can contain high concentrations of potentially toxic elements, like lead and chromium, derived from the pigments used to dye the plastic material. Buried in the ground, plastic has the potential to survive millions of years and even enter the geological record.
1. Why does the writer raise a question in the first paragraph?A.To introduce the text topic. | B.To test the readers’ knowledge. |
C.To present a study finding. | D.To raise the readers’ awareness. |
A.They are rarely seen in the rocks. |
B.They look like rocky pebbles if burned. |
C.They are white or coloured plastic pieces. |
D.The more trash is burnt, the more they will be. |
A.Plastic pollution has greatly changed the formation of rocks. |
B.The impacts that plastic rocks bring still need some further study. |
C.Geological materials preserve human’s irresponsible behaviour to environment. |
D.Buried plastic in the ground is unlikely to survive after entering the geological record. |
A.Plastic Rocks: The Root of the Environmental Impacts |
B.Plastic Rocks: The Geological Record of Human Development |
C.Plastic Rocks: The Markers We’re Laying Down in Deep Time |
D.Plastic Rocks: The New Geological Materials We’re Unsure of |