1 . Every year from May to July, tens of thousands of Tibetan antelopes from regions in Qinghai, Tibet autonomous region, and Xinjiang autonomous region make their way to Hoh Xil nature reserve in Qinghai to give birth. The mothers and newborn Tibetan antelopes make the return trip around August according to CCTV News.
This journey is rather tough. More than 90 percent of the female animals give birth every year, but only about 30 percent of the newborns survive. Many of the baby antelopes die on the return journey, unable to resist the predators (捕食者) and disease, reported China Daily. The government has adopted some high-tech methods to assist in the safe return of newborn antelopes and protect the species.
In 2013, with the help of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, researchers discovered and confirmed the largest Tibetan antelope “birth room” on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and they mapped the migration (迁徙) routes of Tibetan antelopes. Since late 2018, a solar-powered drone (无人机) has been used to monitor the migration herds (群体) , Xi’an Daily reported. “The solar-powered drone has a strong endurance and carries high-resolution cameras, which gives us a new understanding of many specific routes during the migration of Tibetan antelopes,” Wu Xiaomin, an expert from the Shaanxi Institute of Zoology, told Xi’an Daily. “For example, the nomads (牧民) put fences on the grassland to protect the grass, but sometimes these hinder the normal activity of the Tibetan antelopes.”
To clear the way for the Tibetan antelopes, the government of the Tibet has taken action in recent years to give more protected space to wildlife. They relocate nomads from places at altitudes above 4,800 meters to other places in the region, Wu told China Daily.
1. What do we know about Tibetan antelopes?| A．They travel to Hoh Xil to find mates. |
| B．Only 30 percent of them give birth every year. |
| C．Their yearly trip to Hoh Xil takes about one month. |
| D．The newborns are threatened by disease and predators. |
| A．Locating the Tibetan antelope “birth room”. |
| B．Monitoring the migrating Tibetan antelopes. |
| C．Recording Tibetan antelopes daily activities. |
| D．Mapping the migration routes of Tibetan antelopes. |
| A．Pay attention to (something). | B．Take control of (something). |
| C．Cause trouble for (something). | D．Play an important role in (something). |
| A．By giving them more safe space. |
| B．By encouraging nomads to protect them. |
| C．By creating new nature reserves for them. |
| D．By relocating them to a protected place. |
2 . Increased human activity and climate change have caused a rise of algae (藻类植物) in water bodies around the world—sometimes choking ecosystems of sunlight and oxygen. In more extreme cases, they can produce dangerous poisons that can sicken or kill people and animals. But the plenty of algae could prove crucial as our population rises beyond eight billion people worldwide because algae are crops that don’t need land, freshwater, or fertilizer to fill nutritional gaps.
And even though they are so closely associated with human’s bad impact on Earth, algae could also play vital roles in slowing climate change and helping fight against pollution, viruses, and more. With microplastic pollution documented in almost all habitats related to water, a study showed that algae can help filter microplastics from water. Algae can also filter chemicals that can be used for fertilizer.
Algae can produce more effective biofuel than traditional sources. Rescarchers at a German algae growing facility are already using it to fuel plane. Researchers believe this and other sustainable fuels could reduce carbon released from airplanes by up to 80 percent.
Animal feed containing a kind of red algae reduces harmful methane(甲烷)released from cattle by more than 80 percent. The addition works by changing the environment in a cow’s stomach, stopping the production of methane before it can be released.
Red algae can stop the copies of some viruses, and have been shown to stimulate the body’s immune (免疫的) system and could become a powerful anti-HIV medicine.
In 2019, freshwater algae were launched into space to change the CO2 breathed out by astronauts on the International Space Station into oxygen. Since algae are also high in protein, they could replace up to 30 percent of astronaut food in the future.
1. What can we know about algae from the first paragraph?| A．Better late than never. | B．Every coin has two sides. |
| C．All is well that ends well. | D．Two heads are better than one. |
| A．They avoid climate change. | B．They absorb pollutants in the air. |
| C．They reduce microplastics in the water. | D．They filter most poisonous chemicals. |
| A．Change animal feed into methane. |
| B．Store carbon released from airplanes. |
| C．Help researchers to create traditional sources. |
| D．Create biofuel and reduce methane in cows’s stomach. |
| A．By helping fight against diseases. | B．By increasing human’s strength. |
| C．By producing more oxygen than other plants. | D．By replacing much food for astronauts. |
3 . A robot created at Standford University is diving down to shipwrecks (沉船) in a way that humans can’t do. Known as OceanOneK, the robot allows its operators to feel like they’re underwater explorers, too.
OceanOneK resembles (像) a human diver from the front, with arms, hands and eyes that capture the underwater world in full color. The back of the robot has computers and eight multidirectional thrusters (推进器) that help it carefully explore the sites of fragile shipwrecks. When an operator at the ocean’s surface uses controls to direct OceanOneK, the robot’s touch-based feedback system causes the person to feel the water’s resistance.
The idea for OceanOneK came from a desire to study coral reefs in the Red Sea at depths beyond the normal range for divers. While OccanOneK was designed to reach maximum depths of 656 feet, researchers had a new goal:1 kilometer, hence the new name for OceanOneK. The researchers changed the robot’s body by using special foam to increase buoyancy (浮力) and fight the pressures of 1, 000 meters more than 100 times what humans experience at sea level. OceanOneK also got two new types of hands and increased arm and head motion.
During OceanOneK’s deep dive in February, team members discovered the robot couldn’t rise when they stopped for a thruster check. Flotations on the communications and power line had collapsed, causing the line to pile on the top of the robot.
OceanOneK’s descent was a success. It dropped off a memorial marker on the seabed that reads, “A robot’s first touch of the deep seafloor — A vast new world for humans to explore.” Khatib, a professor, called the experience an “incredible journey.” “This is the first time that a robot has been capable of going to such a depth, interacting with the environment, and permitting the human operator to feel that environment,” he said.
1. What can we learn about OceanOneK?| A．Its eyes are colorful. |
| B．It functions automatically. |
| C．It looks like its operator from the front. |
| D．It is remotely controlled to explore underwater. |
| A．By listing data. | B．By raising questions. |
| C．By reasoning and analyzing. | D．By presenting an argument. |
| A．Successful operation. | B．Deep diving. |
| C．Pressure resistance. | D．Flexible exploration. |
| A．A Creative Explorer | B．The Ambitious Exploration |
| C．A Self-driven Seeker — A Robot | D．A Deep-Sea Explorer — OceanOneK |
4 . It was a snowy day during the spring break when I walked into a great restaurant. In this blizzard weather, it was the only restaurant that remained open.
The restaurant has a long history in Hong Kong. Its owners, the couple, Peter and Michelle, have been running the restaurant since 2007.
“Things have changed a lot in the past 30 years,” Peter said. “Chinese students 20 years ago thought that a 70-cent bowl of rice was too expensive, but now a $20 meal is acceptable”. He also said that the new generation of Chinese students engaged with other students, bringing all their non-Chinese friends to visit the restaurant.
Peter takes great pride in his own cooking. He was curious about how the food was made and why particular foods or sauces had specific tastes. He chose to serve mainly Guangdong and Sichuan food at the restaurant, featuring the family-style Chinese dim sum or hot pot.
When I asked whether he would modify the taste of the dishes to suit the taste of most Americans, Peter said, “We are not like those American Chinese restaurants. We provide the genuine Chinese taste to our customers, and they will love it because it is delicious, and their taste will suit the taste of our dishes, not the other way around.”
“If I hear complaints from my customers, I will be so upset that I can’t fall asleep at night”, he said. “Luckily most of my favorite dishes received wide acclaim from my customers and it takes more than one person’s effort.”
He compares himself with the craftsmen in China who are proud of preserving ancient Chinese art and whose motivation is only on people’s enjoyment of their work and thought.
Such a spirit of craftsmanship has been remarkable and greatly valued in the past. The craftsman’s spirit with perfection, precision, concentration, and patience remains in Peter and his cooking.
1. How long have the couple been running the restaurant?| A．16 years | B．20 years | C．30 years | D．70 years |
| A．Its customers are mainly Chinese. |
| B．It sticks to its original taste of the dishes. |
| C．It adjusts the taste according to the customers. |
| D．Its menu merely contains Guangdong and Sichuan food. |
| A．Generous and patient. | B．Ambitious and economical. |
| C．Thoughtful and humorous. | D．Precise and devoted. |
| A．He believes that cooking just needs one person’s effort. |
| B．He shows an interest in preserving ancient Chinese art. |
| C．He takes pride in cooking the best typical Chinese cuisine. |
| D．He cares about the taste of the dishes rather than customers’ complaints. |
5 . People often wonder about some of the best places to see. A good point of reference is to first look at attractions labeled as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. These sites are culturally or physically significant places listed by the United Nations for their importance to humanity as a whole.
The Mogao Caves, China
Also known as the Mogao Grottoes, the caves are located along the cliffside above the Daquan River in Gansu province. First built in 366 and comprising 492 caves, the Mogao Caves are known as the biggest collection of Buddhist art in the world. The Mogao Caves, vital sites on the historic Silk Road, are a perfect display of Chinese art history over a period of a thousand years.
Redwood National Park, US
Lying in the mountainous region north of San Francisco in California, US, the Redwood National Park is significant for its collection of redwood trees—the tallest and oldest trees in the world—as well as its variety of sea and land wildlife. Once abundant throughout the mild regions of the world, the Redwood trees of California are among the only living examples left of this old plant species, a biological group which has existed for 160 million years.
Machu Picchu, Peru
Situated in the Andes Mountains, this fascinating ancient city is remarkable both for its beautiful setting as well as its use of complex city planning. Standing at 2, 430 meters above sea level, the city of Machu Picchu is covered in both mist and mystery.
1. Where is the text probably taken from?| A．A report. | B．A lecture. |
| C．A travel brochure. | D．A tour commentary. |
| A．They lie above sea level of 2430 meters. |
| B．They are of significance on the Silk Road. |
| C．They are the best places to see various wildlife. |
| D．They have yet to become UNESCO World Heritage Sites. |
| A．They are tourist attractions. | B．They are located in mild regions. |
| C．They present the perfect art history. | D．They are full of plant and animal species. |
6 . Tips for Going to Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park is a good place for outdoor enthusiasts, with dramatic peaks pure lakes, colourful pools and forests. There’s no doubt that the park is extremely good.
Best Months to Visit
The best time to visit the park is from late April to May as well as September through early October. These months offer mild weather, fewer crowds and no road closures. July and August are the most popular months to visit: The kids are out of school and the weather is warm enough to sleep outside.
What You Need to Know
Beware of bears. The whole Yellowstone is a bear habitat. Make plenty of noise when hiking to avoid surprise encounters (相遇).
Don’t forget your permit. If you are looking to camp outside the designated camping areas, you will need to obtain a permit from one of the visitors centers or ranger stations.
There’s an entrance fee. Entry to Yellowstone costs 20 for visitors who enter on foot or by bike, 30 for those arriving by motorcycle and $35 for travelers with a car.
What to Eat
Pack a picnic lunch. That way, you don’t have to waste your time looking for a place to eat at noon and waiting in a long line to be served. In addition, having your own food gives you complete flexibility. You don’t have to plan your sightseeing based on where restaurants are located.
Getting Around Yellowstone National Park
The best way to get around the park is by car. There is no public transportation system in the park. Parking Is available (可用的) throughout the park but depending on the time of year and day, which can be a challenge. Guided tours of the park are also available.
1. Which is the most popular month to visit Yellowstone?| A．April. | B．May. | C．June. | D．July. |
| A．Meeting with bears. | B．Extreme weather. |
| C．Crowded people. | D．Road closures. |
| A．The park encourages visitors bringing their own food. |
| B．The most suitable transport to get around is by car. |
| C．Guided tours of the park can be a challenge. |
| D．Public transportation is convenient. |
7 . Born in Beijing in 1981, Qi Haonan graduated from the capital’s North China University of Technology in 2004, majoring in mechanical automation. Qi said that when he heard there was a job opening at the Palace Museum, he decided to apply, adding that visiting the museum’s gallery of clocks built up his decision. “These timepieces opened my mind to clocks. They are mechanical wonders combining technology and art,” he said.
In 2005, he joined the cultural relics restoration department at the Palace Museum, becoming a student of Wang, the museum’s third generation watchmaker. “In the beginning, everything in the palace was fresh to me. It made me excited to even think about repairing old-fashioned clocks,” Qi said. But reality soon dampened his passion. There is ad rule for apprentices: For the first year, you can look, but don’t touch.
From 8 am to 5 pm every day for that first year, Qi checked and took apart watches and clocks collected from friends to practice finding problems. It took him a year of this repetitive routine before he could finally get his hands on the small French clock in the museum. “It is ad job that requires extreme patience, because clock restoration is a very long and careful process,” he said, adding that it is clear evidence of the old saying “haste makes waste” and, in this case, haste can do a great deal of damage.
Although the old clock repairing techniques at the Palace Museum were listed as a national intangible cultural heritage in 2014, it was a little-known skill and in short supply of career practitioners before 2016, when three-part TV documentary, Masters in the Forbidden City, made the profession known to the nation. Qi didn’t expect that the documentary would make that profession cause a stir. As a result, in 2017, Qi got two apprentices and Wang got three.
1. What eventually made Qi decide to apply for the job?| A．The clock’s unique design. |
| B．His desire to broaden his eyes. |
| C．The combination between technology and art. |
| D．His paying a visit to the clocks’ gallery in the museum. |
| A．changed | B．improved | C．weakened | D．controlled |
| A．Repairing clocks is a demanding job. | B．Qi had no access to any clock in 2005. |
| C．Qi often repaired clocks with his friends. | D．Damages never happen during repairing. |
| A．Curios | B．Appreciative | C．Disapproving | D．Uncaring. |
8 . Humans’ ever spreading presence around the globe influences patterns of biological evolution in ways that we are just beginning to explore. On the Galápagos Islands, a body of evidence shows that the effect of our presence is increasing.
Luis F. De Leon from the University of Massachusetts Boston, together with other 6 scientists spent two years observing Darwin’s finches (雀科小鸟) to evaluate our effects on their behavior. They started by conducting feeding observations on coexisting finch species at sites that ranged from non-urban areas to urban areas. They also employed finch-human interaction experiments to test whether and how finches respond to human presence. To measure whether finch feeding preferences varied with the degree of urbanization, “cafeteria” experiments were carried out — finches were presented with a selection of human and native food items.
The scientists found that Darwin’s finches fed almost on human foods like rice and cookies or introduced garden species at urban locations. In contrast, at non-urban sites, finches fed mainly on native plant species and insects. Interaction tests suggest that urban birds get more accustomed to the presence of humans. Finally, at all sites of regular human presence, finches preferred human foods to natural foods.
The researchers warn that exploiting urban environments might present challenges for organisms (有机体), including shorter lifespans brought by the consumption of highly processed foods. Furthermore, the year-round availability of abundant human foods in urban environments might affect ecological and evolutionary processes that promoted species diversity. While the results clearly show a shift to human foods at urban sites, the adaptive significance of that shift is still an open question.
These findings also suggest that human behavior is the main driver of finch preference for human foods. The researchers propose a possibility that the effect of human behavior is facilitated by our tendency to feed birds, directly or inadvertently via food dropping or littering.
1. How did the scientists carry out the study?| A．By carrying out experiments in labs. | B．By training finches and observing results |
| C．By observing finches in different sites. | D．By analyzing findings from previous experiments. |
| A．Rice. | B．An insect. |
| C．The leaves of a native plant. | D．The seed of an introduced plant. |
| A．All finches observed are willing to approach humans. |
| B．Human food availability might lead to biodiversity loss. |
| C．The reason for the shift of finch diets remains unknown. |
| D．The more processed foods finches consume, the longer they live. |
| A．Illegally. | B．Voluntarily. | C．Deliberately. | D．Unintentionally. |
9 . My dad doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would bake great bread, but he is and he does. Every Saturday he produces homemade bread. When he’s done, the whole house smells delicious.
The rest of the week, Dad fixes cars at work. The shop where Dad works is running so well that he is always occupied. He is under a lot of stress. I think Dad began baking bread to help him relax.
I’ve been feeling kind of stressed out myself since I found out I didn’t make the school swim team. Now I’ll have to wait a whole year to try out again. Plus, I’m taking some difficult classes this year.
I think Dad knew I was feeling bad. Last Saturday he asked me how things were going. I said OK, even though I didn’t feel OK at all. He looked at me for a moment, and then he said it was time for me to help. Then he headed to the kitchen.
I followed right behind him. Once we were there, Dad got out his big mixing bowl, handed me a large wooden spoon, and told me to mix while he added the ingredients. Dad isn’t big on measuring. He knows how much of each ingredient to use, and the bread always turns out great.
When I finished stirring, Dad showed me how to knead the dough (揉面团). Next came the most difficult part — doing nothing. We put the dough back into the bowl and then we waited for more than an hour for the dough to slowly rise and double in size. Next, we divided it into two and waited for it to rise again. Afterward, we put the dough into pans and waited another hour for the dough to rise and double.
Dad said the waiting is always the hardest part. “It’s hard to resist putting the dough directly into the oven, but if you do, the bread will be hard. The most important lesson of all is learning to be.” Dad taught me more than how to bake bread.
1. What can we learn about the author’s father?| A．He is living a relaxing life. | B．He tries his best to make ends meet. |
| C．He has a special way to deal with stress. | D．He is more like a baker than a mechanic. |
| A．School isn’t going well. | B．She dislikes making bread. |
| C．She feels sorry for her father. | D．Some classes aren’t worth it. |
| A．Dad is unskilled. | B．Dad dislikes measuring. |
| C．Dad has a craze for measuring. | D．Dad is careful about ingredients. |
| A．Never give up. | B．Take life easily. |
| C．Believe in yourself. | D．Enjoy time with family. |
10 . What is life? Like most great questions, this one is easy to ask but difficult to answer. The reason is simple: we know of just one type of life and it’s challenging to do science with a sample size of one. The field of artificial life-called ALife for short — is the systematic attempt to spell out life’s fundamental principles. Many of these practitioners, so-called ALifers, think that somehow making life is the surest way to really understand what life is.
So far no one has convincingly made artificial life. This track record makes ALife a ripe target for criticism, such as declarations of the field’s doubtful scientific value. Alan Smith, a complexity scientist, is tired of such complaints. Asking about “the point” of ALife might be, well, missing the point entirely, he says. “The existence of a living system is not about the use of anything.” Alan says. “Some people ask me, ‘So what’s the worth of artificial life?’ Do you ever think, ‘What is the worth of your grandmother?’”
As much as many ALifers hate emphasizing their research’s applications, the attempts to create artificial life could have practical payoffs. Artificial intelligence may be considered ALife’s cousin in that researchers in both fields are enamored by a concept called open-ended evolution (演化). This is the capacity for a system to create essentially endless complexity, to be a sort of “novelty generator”. The only system known to exhibit this is Earth’s biosphere. If the field of ALife manages to reproduce life’s endless “creativity” in some virtual model, those same principles could give rise to truly inventive machines.
Compared with the developments of Al, advances in ALife are harder to recognize. One reason is that ALife is a field in which the central concept — life itself — is undefined. The lack of agreement among ALifers doesn’t help either. The result is a diverse line of projects that each advance along their unique paths. For better or worse, ALife mirrors the very subject it studies. Its muddled (混乱的) progression is a striking parallel (平行线) to the evolutionary struggles that have shaped Earth biosphere.
Undefined and uncontrolled, ALife drives its followers to repurpose old ideas and generated novelty. It may be, of course, that these characteristics aren’t in any way surprising or singular. They may apply universally to all acts of evolution. Ultimately ALife may be nothing special. But even this dismissal suggests something：perhaps, just like life itself throughout the universe, the rise of ALife will prove unavoidable.
1. Regarding Alan Smith’s defence of ALife, the author is .| A．supportive | B．puzzled | C．unconcerned | D．doubtful |
| A．Shocked. | B．Protected. | C．Attracted. | D．Challenged. |
| A．ALife holds the key to human future. | B．ALife and AI share a common feature. |
| C．AI mirrors the developments of ALife. | D．AI speeds up the process of human evolution. |
| A．Life Is Undefined. Can AI Be a Way Out? |
| B．Life Evolves. Can AI Help ALife Evolve, Too? |
| C．Life Is Undefined. Can ALife Be Defined One Day? |
| D．Life Evolves. Can Attempts to Create ALife Evolve, Too? |
