1 . Plastics remain one of the most - used materials for making many things. Things made of plastics can be very strong and last a long time. Plastics are also much lighter than metal and can easily be formed into different shapes. Plastics can take hundreds of years to break down on their own. And very few kinds are highly recyclable.
A team of researchers working at the US Department of Energy says it has created a kind of plastic that could lead to products that are 100 percent recyclable. It recently reported the discovery in a study in the journal Nature Chemistry.
The researchers say the new material is a plastic polymer (聚合体)called polydiketoenamine, or PDK. The team reports the material can be broken down in parts at the molecular (分子的)level. It can then be built up again to form plastics of different shapes, textures and colors. The researchers say this process can be repeated over and over again—without the plastic material losing any performance or quality.
"Most plastics were never made to be recycled, ” lead researcher Peter Christensen said in a statement. " But we have discovered a new way to assemble plastics that takes recycling into consideration from a molecular perspective. ”
Many plastics have different chemicals added to them to make them more useful and powerful. The problem is that these chemicals attach to the monomers (单体),which remain in plastics even after the material gets processed at a recycling plant. The research team reported that, with the newly discovered PDK material, the monomers could be recovered and separated from any chemical additives.
Next, the researchers plan to develop PDK plastics "with a wide range of thermal and mechanical properties. These plastics could be used for many kinds of cloth, as well as things such as 3D printed materials and foams. In addition, the team is trying to include plant - based materials in the process.
1. What is the first paragraph mainly about?| A．Plastics are never highly recyclable. |
| B．Plastics are widely used in our lives. |
| C．Plastics have both advantages and disadvantages. |
| D．Plastics take hundreds of years to be broken down. |
| A．The new material. | B．The research team. |
| C．The molecular level. | D．The producing process. |
| A．To make them easy to break down. |
| B．To make them easy to get processed. |
| C．To make it possible for them to be recycled. |
| D．To make them stronger and more widely used. |
| A．PDK plastics will be soon put to good use. |
| B．PDK plastics may have a promising prospect. |
| C．The researchers are busy developing PDK plastics. |
| D．Plant - based materials have been used in the new plastics. |
2 . Can you imagine digging in your yard one day and finding a life-sized soldier made completely of clay? That’s what happened several decades ago when farmers in Xi'an, China, were digging wells.
Archaeologists（考古学家） have since found about 6,000 more of these soldiers, along with horses, weapons, tools, and other artifacts. The huge army was meant to protect the tomb of the first ruler of China. The first emperor of China, Qin Shihuang, accomplished a huge amount during his rule. Between 221 and 210 B.C., he started the construction of the Great Wall. He built a large network of roads. He introduced a new writing system, currency（货币）, and a set of measurements. The emperor also ordered the construction of a huge army of life-sized terracotta soldiers. These, he hoped, would protect his tomb after his death.
The soldiers in Xi'an's terracotta museum are today light brown, but they weren't always. They began as an army of red, blue, yellow, green, white, and purple. Sadly, most of the colors did not last to the present day. After being exposed to air during excavation(挖掘), the coating under the paint began to fall off. The paint disappeared in less time than it takes to boil an egg, taking with it important pieces of history.
Now new techniques are starting to reveal the army's true colors. Archaeologists have recently discovered an area with more than a hundred soldiers. Many of these still have their painted features, including black hair, pink faces, and black or brown eyes. Chinese and German researchers have developed a special liquid to help preserve the soldiers’ colors. After they find a soldier or other artifacts(手工艺品), archaeologists spray it with the liquid. They then cover it in plastic. Archaeologists are also finding colors in the dirt around the soldiers. It’s important not to disturb the dirt, so the colors won’t be lost. “We are treating the earth as an artifact,”says archeologist Rong Bo, the museum’s leading chemist. The next challenge, says Rong, is to find a way to apply the colors to the army again. Once that happens, artists can bring Emperor Qin's army back to life in full, vivid color.
1. The terracotta soldiers were constructed to _________.| A．show the outside world about China’s greatness |
| B．be enjoyed by everyday people |
| C．frighten China’s enemies |
| D．protect Emperor Qin’s tomb |
| A．The soldiers lost their colors very quickly. |
| B．The soldiers’ paint fell off because of the high temperature. |
| C．Visitors to the museum are not actually seeing the real soldiers. |
| D．Being exposed to water is bad for the soldiers. |
| A．A place with over a hundred soldiers. |
| B．A written description of the soldiers’ true colors. |
| C．A special liquid in the tomb to preserve the soldiers’ colors. |
| D．A new tomb for Emperor Qin. |
| A．The soldiers should stay in their current, brown color. |
| B．Artists should be able to paint the soldiers in any color they want. |
| C．Archaeologists can only guess at the soldiers’ original colors. |
| D．We should try to restore the army’s vivid colors. |
3 . Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens are to start a war on gray-headed flying foxes. These super bats have invaded one of Australia’s most famous public spaces. Officials have said the animals are destroying trees and have to move on.
These unwanted guests at Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens look like tiny foxes with wings. Officials have estimated there are about 11,000 of them living in the picturesque harbor-side park. After inspecting damage to dozens of trees they now believe there are twice as many as previously thought. Branches have been breaking under the weight of these furry invaders and their droppings have been poisoning plants.
Help may well be at hand, however, in the shape of the ordinary garbage bin. The gardens’ director Dr. Tim Entwistle hopes the unpleasant sounds of crashing bin lids will agitate the flying foxes and force them to move on. “The way to disturb them is to use noises, so we’ve used the loud noises made by rubbish bins in the past. You can also use speakers as long as you move the noise around, and what we’ll do is have a series of noises, at the beginning and end of the day. What we’ve found in the past is that the flying foxes leave the gardens and go somewhere else,” said Tim.
The gray-headed flying fox is Australia’s largest bat. It flies around at night using its eyes and a powerful sense of smell to search for fruit and flowers. Officials at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney have said they’re optimistic the unwelcome colony can be uprooted. If and when the bats do move to other parts of the city they will of course then become someone else’s problem.
1. According to the passage, Why do people want to get rid of the flying foxes ?| A．Because the garden are important public places. |
| B．Because they are polluting the city. |
| C．Because many garbage bins have been damaged by them. |
| D．Because they’re threatening the survival of trees and other plants. |
| A．They are shooting them. |
| B．They are using rubbish containers. |
| C．They are shaking the trees hard. |
| D．They are cutting some trees down. |
| A．Excite | B．kill |
| C．disturb | D．discourage |
| A．The bats will still stay in the gardens. |
| B．Some area will have to deal with the bats. |
| C．The grey-headed flying fox often eat trees |
| D．The damage caused by the bats is serious |
4 . I recently came in contact with celebrity magazines. My family isn’t one to give money for pictures of skinny, drunk celebrities with paragraphs about their relationships and shopping cart times. Thus, I was excited to finally get a chance to read about other people’s attractive yet troubled lives.
Right away I noticed how each magazine seemed to be a copy of the other. They had headlines and pictures that were almost the same. Still, the pictures of perfectly constructed faces with cute designers outfits going on with their daily lives made me read on.
Wait, celebrities taking their dogs for walk? Spending an afternoon at a park? All of these things seemed so ordinary—things my own family and I do together often. I suddenly realized how unextraordinary the people in these magazines were. They are simply normal people who happen to have a cool job and much money. For some reason, pictures of them doing things like buying milk at the store appeal to millions of readers. Then, when these regular people mess up, their mistakes is painted onto hundreds of newspapers and internet sites.
What if every time we made a mistake, it was made public? Have you ever failed a test? Imagine seeing pictures of you on the front of a newspaper with headlines like, “Regular Schooling Isn’t Enough”. You’d be embarrassed. Now, I’m not necessarily taking the celebrity’s side. I’m more realizing the fact that these people we were crazy about are just ordinary human beings with many photographs following them around. Role models? I’d think not. Personally, I’d rather look up to people in any community who have accomplished a lot instead of an ordinary person walking his dog in Berverly Hills.
1. What do we know about the author’s family?| A．They admire celebrities very much. |
| B．They often buy celebrity magazines. |
| C．They are not interested in celebrities. |
| D．They are curious about the life of celebrities. |
| A．They live happy life. |
| B．They seldom do usual things. |
| C．They deserve people’s admiration. |
| D．They are just ordinary people like us. |
| A．Celebrities who live ordinary live. |
| B．Common people who do great things. |
| C．Extraordinary people who accomplish a lot. |
| D．People who make great contributions to communities. |
| A．To describe the actual life of celebrities. |
| B．To ask us to be realistic about other’s mistakes. |
| C．To show people’s different attitudes towards celebrities. |
| D．To advise us to have a right attitude towards celebrities. |
5 . That year , in the local school, there was a new math teacher, as well as some new pupils. One of the new kids was the stupidest child anyone had ever seen. It made no difference how quickly or how slowly they tried explaining numbers to him; he would always end up saying something enormously stupid. Like two plus two was five, seven times three was twenty-seven, or a triangle had thirty corners……
Before this boy arrived, math lessons had been the most boring of all. Now they were great fun. Encouraged by the new teacher, the children would listen to the pieces of nonsense spouted by the new kid, and they would have to correct his mistakes.
Whenever the new teacher asked questions, the stupid kid would stand up but made the wrong answers, the other students all wanted to be the first to find his mistakes, and then think up the most original ways to explain them. To do this they used all kinds of stuff : sweets, playing cards, oranges, paper planes, etc. It didn’t seem like any of this bothered the new kid.
However, Little Lewis was sure that it was bound to make him feel sad inside. Lewis was sure he would see him crying. So, one day, he decided to follow the new kid home after school. On leaving school, the new kid walked a few minutes to a local park, and there he waited for a while, until someone came along to meet him……
It was the new teacher!
The teacher gave the new kid a hug, and off they went, hand in hand. Following from a distance, Lewis could hear they were talking about math.
1. The math lessons became interesting again because of the new teacher’s ___________.| A．creativity | B．imagination |
| C．responsibility | D．curiosity |
| A．was in great need of math teacher’s help after class |
| B．knew much more about math than other classmates |
| C．had no much gift for math and was slow to learn it |
| D．disliked both the new math teacher and his lessons |
| A．learn about where he lived | B．find out if he felt upset |
| C．say something to comfort him | D．make friends with him |
| A．To find the stupidest kid’s mistakes. |
| B．To think up the most original ways to explain. |
| C．To use all kinds of stuff. |
| D．To follow him home after school. |
6 . When people wanted to find their way to a place in the past, they used to have to buy a map. They don’t have to do that any more. Now they can either buy a GPS or go online and maps for just about anywhere.
In this an improvement? Perhaps , but some people think some of the online companies are going too far , because they have been sending out cars with photographic equipment on their roofs , to photograph every street and house in the country.
One of these cars arrived on a Wednesday morning in the quiet English village of Broughton. The camera was on a metre-high stick on top of the car and could see over walls and into people’s gardens. Some of the villagers came and stood around the car, and asked the driver and photographer to go away. Reporters quickly arrived on the scene, and soon the event was news all over the country.
Of course, the online company in question says that it is simply collecting information that people on the Internet want. But the villagers feel differently. ‘We used to have privacy in this country—now companies just come and take photographs of our homes without even asking .’
said one villager. ‘It is not right .We mustn’t let this happen. We mustn’t lose our right to live privately.’
There is , of course, no law to prevent people from taking photographs of houses, so the villagers cannot go to court. But many people are asking the question: ‘OK, it’s legal, but is it right?’ This is a question that won’t go away very…
1. How is Paragraph 1 mainly developed?| A．By analyzing（分析） causes. |
| B．By giving descriptions. |
| C．By making comparisons. |
| D．By providing explanations. |
| A．Doing a lot of work. |
| B．Walking a long distance. |
| C．Taking more pictures than necessary. |
| D．Behaving in a way that upsets people. |
| A．Uncaring. | B．Angry. |
| C．Friendly. | D．Thankful |
| A．Why is GPS important? |
| B．The improvement of maps |
| C．It’s legal --- but is it right? |
| D．The development of the Internet |
| NANYANG TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY | NEMS | ||
| NEWRI: Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute | |||
| Be a leader in environmental science and engineering through the NEMS programme | |||
| NEWRI Environmental Master of Science (NEMS) is a primary graduate education and research programme conducted by Nanyang Technological University’s (NTU’s) NEWRI, with summer attachment at Stanford University. It aims to train engineers and scientists to meet the increasing environmental challenges for Asia and the wider region. | NEWRI-Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute NEWRI is enabling Singapore to be a global center of environmental science and technology in providing technological solutions to the world. It is committed to environmental and water technologies through its ecosystem of education, research and developmental activities. NEWRI is trying its best to pull together NTU’s water and environment-related centers and institutes, gathering one another’s strengths for the benefit of industry and society. | ||
| Master of Science Applications ● Applications open now and close on 30 May 2013 for Singapore applicants. ● Graduates having relevant engineering or science background, including final-year students, are invited to apply. ● Applicants are required to have a certificate of GRE. | |||
| Further information and application materials are available at the Website: http:// www. Cee.ntu.edu.sg/Graduate/NEMS | Highlights of Programme: ★ Students spend a full summer term at Stanford taking regular courses and continue with the rest of their academic programme at NTU. ★ It is a 12-month full-time course in environmental science & engineering. ★Students under NEMS will have opportunities to do research projects under NEWRI as well as to continue for the Doctor’s degree. ★ Graduating students receive the NTU degree and a certificate from Stanford for their summer attachment. | ||
| Scholarship for tuition grants and living expenses at both Stanford and NTU are available | |||
| Enquiry contact: Ms Christian Soh Tel：(65) 6861 0507 Fax:(65) 68614606 Email: nems@ntu.edu.sg Information on other graduate programmes available at：www.ntu.edu.sg/cee/program/postgrad.asp | |||
| A．make contact with Ms Soh | B．major in engineering or science |
| C．possess a university diploma | D．have passed the GRE test |
| A．are required to obtain a Doctor’s degree |
| B．can receive degrees of both NTU and Stanford |
| C．needn’t be released from their regular jobs |
| D．will first have regular courses at Stanford |
| A．To train experts on environmental science and engineering. |
| B．To strengthen the cooperation between NTU and Stanford. |
| C．To introduce Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute. |
| D．To offer scholarship for tuition grants and living expenses. |
| A．30 May 2012 is the deadline for NEMS application. |
| B．Other centers and institutes for environmental and water technologies also exist in NTU |
| C．Applicants for NEMS should have relevant work experience. |
| D．Singapore is the global center of environmental science and technology. |
8 . Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926. Since Lee’s mother was mentally ill, she was raised by her father. She became very close to her father.
The naughty Lee loved reading, and would make up stories with Truman, her neighbour who was two years older than her. Seeing her daughter’s imagination, Lee’s father gave her a typewriter.
Before her final year in the university of Alabama, Lee dropped out to become a writer. She moved to New York City where her childhood friend Truman was already established as a famous writer. While there, she worked on her first book—To Kill a Mockingbird. It won her the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was made into an Academy Award winning movie the following year. To Kill a Mockingbird tells the story of six-year-old Scout and her brother who lived in the town of Maycomb Alabama with their single father Attics. Attics is a lawyer who defends the blacks. At a young age, Scout is exposed to the terrors of segregation(宗族隔离). Then, in 2014, the first draft of a new book—Go Set a Watchman was discovered among Lee’s papers. It is the story of 26-year-old Scout who returns to Maycomb to visit her father. She is shocked to find her father a changed man. Attics has turned into a segregationists! The story shows the mixed feelings Scout has for the changes that have taken place in her hometown and father.
A loner for most of her life, Lee stayed unmarried, preferring to lead a small town life. On February 19,2015, Lee passed away at the age of 89.
1. What can we learn about Lee?| A．She became a professional writer at college. |
| B．She developed a gift for writing in childhood. |
| C．She was persuaded to become a writer by Truman |
| D．She got interested in writing after getting a typewriter. |
| A．Her love for writing stories. |
| B．The effect of having an ill mother |
| C．Her experience of living in a small town |
| D．Her childhood relationship with her father |
| A．He had complex feelings towards the black. |
| B．He struggled for the equal right of the black |
| C．He supported segregating the blacks and the whites. |
| D．He failed to get used to the changes of his hometown |
| A．She has no taste for social life. |
| B．She write only a book in her life. |
| C．She feels lonely for most of her life. |
| D．She enjoys the fame for her successful book. |
9 . Teachers love to put students into teams.
If you are teamed up with a student who is lazy, the worst thing you can do is let it get you down.
Try these tips for working with a slacker(懒虫).
●Be excited and provide a good example. Your slacker may be a good person who has developed bad work habits. You may be able to teach your partner some valuable skills for a successful future.
●Think rewards!
●Make some time to sit with your partner and establish a set of work rules and deadlines. Don’t quarrel, though. Make it clear that you would like to establish rules to keep you both on track.
| A．Don’t let the anger and pain defeat you. |
| B．Come up with a great reward for meeting some goal. |
| C．Instead, take some steps to encourage your partner to work. |
| D．Unavoidably one or more members will try to do nothing. |
| E．Start out by giving your partner a clear task with a deadline. |
| F．Show him/her the evidence and suggest he or she pick up the pace. |
| G．Think about the future and the fact that you are going to be rewarded. |
10 . Beauty has always been regarded as something praiseworthy. Almost everyone thinks attractive people are happier and healthier, have better marriages and have more respectable jobs. Personal advisors give them better advice for finding jobs. Even judges are softer on attractive defendants. But in the executive(主管) circle, beauty can become a liability.
While attractiveness is a positive factor for a man on his way up the executive ladder, it is harmful to a woman.
Handsome male executives were considered as having more honesty than plainer men; effort and ability were thought to lead to their success.
Attractive female executives were considered to have less honesty than unattractive ones; their success was connected not with ability but with factors such as luck.
All unattractive women executives were thought to have more honesty and to be more capable than the attractive female executives. Interestingly, though, the rise of the unattractive overnight success was connected more to personal relationships and less to ability than that of the attractive overnight success.
Why are attractive women not thought to be able? An attractive woman is considered to be more feminine and an attractive man more manly than the less attractive ones. Thus, an attractive woman has an advantage in traditionally female jobs, but an attractive woman in a traditionally manly position appears to lack the "manly" qualities required.
This is true even in politics. "When the only clue is how he or she looks, people treat men and women differently," says Anne Bowman, who recently published a study on the effects of attractiveness on political candidates. She asked 125 undergraduate students to rank two groups of photographs, one of men and one of women, in order of attractiveness. Then the students were told the photographs were of candidates for political offices. They were asked to rank them again, in the order they would vote for them.
The results showed that attractive males completely defeated unattractive men, but the women who had ranked most attractive unchangeably received the fewest votes.
1. The underlined word "liability" most probably means _________.| A．trouble | B．advantage |
| C．misfortune | D．disadvantage |
| A．is of great importance to women |
| B．often enables women to succeed quickly |
| C．strengthens the feminine qualities required |
| D．makes women look more honest and capable |
| A．affects men and women alike |
| B．turns out to be a disadvantage to men |
| C．has as little effect on men as on women |
| D．is more of a disadvantage than an advantage to women |
| A．demand equal rights for women |
| B．state the importance of appearance |
| C．give advice to job-seekers who are attractive |
| D．discuss the disadvantages of being attractive |
