1 . Generation Z-people born in the mid-1990s and the early 2010s-are set to lead the next wave of China’s digital development, said a recent report.
The report said Gen Z are consumers who are willing to spend big on digital products to explore the virtual world. According to the report by internet firm Sina, more than 63 percent of the Gen Z surveyed have a strong interest in metaverse, a term that has become a hot topic in recent months and shows a shared virtual environment in which technologies are combined to create a sense of virtual presence.
They are eager to experience the most advanced technologies like virtual reality and digital human in the metaverse. Up to 26 percent of them even want to keep a pet in the virtual world, the report stated.
“Generation Z is expected to become the new consumption power for the coming digital market. Their way of information acquisition, consumption and living methods have been fixed with great internet characteristics,” said Qiao Yu, deputy head of the Artificial Intelligence Media Research Institute of Sina.
“People enjoy the convenience of fast technology development; they are also advocates of smart life. Generation Z has a richer experience with technology products and is more willing to buy and apply smart devices in daily life. ”
The report found that more than 55 percent of the Gen Z surveyed tend to use intelligent products in their homes while 44 percent would use smart wearable devices in their daily lives.
“For companies that want to find the next sweet spot in the digital world, Generation Z will be an important target group. Their growing desire to display their virtual avatars or assets will contribute to a huge market in the coming years,” said Wu Shichun, founding partner of Plum Ventures.
1. What might the underlined word “metaverse” be according to the text?| A．A new life style | B．A virtual world |
| C．A digital product | D．An advanced technology |
| A．To target young people. | B．To provide new experience. |
| C．To produce cheaper products. | D．To display their virtual avatars. |
| A．They are powerful. | B．They enjoy smart life. |
| C．They love to keep pets. | D．They like to spend money. |
| A．Generation Z | B．Welcome to the virtual world |
| C．The convenience of latest technology | D．Report shows Gen Z to ride digital wave |
2 . Air-crash investigators (空难调查员) Larry Vance and Anthony Brickhouse have details from certain jobs rooted in their memories. They could tell exact dates, locations, and fight numbers effortlessly Vance’s “big one” is Swiss Air Flight 11 in 1998. He was put in the position of dealing with all the families from very early on, many of whom held the hope that their relatives could have survived. All 229 passengers and crew died. Burning fabric; burning flesh. The smell catches in your throat, and stays in your mind long after you’ve left the scene. Investigations can take anywhere from days to years.
What can affect people in these jobs is the ongoing emotional damage, said Vivien Lee, a psychologist. But mental health assistance is often lacking within the industry. Evidence suggests that investigators, like first responders, can suffer from negative emotional effects, including frequent thoughts and PTSD (创伤后应激障碍) .
“One emotion of losing relatives is anger,” Brickhouse reflected. “And they’re looking to you to figure out what happened to their loved ones.” Depending on the size of the crash, that anger can come alongside a lot of international media attention.
But more often, Vance said, the questions he faces are perhaps even tougher to answer than what caused the crash. “How did my loved one die? What were they feeling? What were they seeing?” And tougher still: “Were they suffering?”
Listening to the black box recordings takes an emotional damage. He said it was more unbearable by knowing that he’s listening to the final minutes of someone’s life. Some people in his industry listen to a black box recording once and choose to never do it again, he said.
The knowledge that they’re doing an essential job can make the tougher aspects of the work a little easier. “The end result of your work is that you try to make the world a safer place, so that this doesn’t happen to somebody else,” Vance said.
1. What can be inferred about the air-crash investigators?| A．They often get throat problems. | B．They must have good memories. |
| C．They experienced the same accident. | D．They have to deal with many difficulties. |
| A．Helping them avoid air crashes. | B．Sending first respondents with them. |
| C．Offering qualified psychologists. | D．Teaching them how to communicate. |
| A．Finding the black box. | B．Answering the questions. |
| C．Smelling the burning things. | D．Investigating the cause of the crash. |
| A．Generous. | B．Easy-going. | C．Self-giving. | D．Independent. |
3 . Mariana Bechtel isn’t exactly someone who avoids stress. Throughout her, she has pursued high-pressure management jobs: “I’m hard core,” says the 44-yearold wife and mother of two. “I wanted to be on top at work, and I wanted to be a great mom” –one who could attend baseball games, drive and help with homework even after an hour-long commute （通勤）on workdays, more often than not, with a5 a.m. marathon-training run.
However, after months of losing sleep, dropping weight and feeling pushed to lose her mind, Mariana Bechtel decided she had to address her stress-and turn it to her advantage. The new job she recently switched to still has its share of pressure, but with more support from her boss and more flexibility in her schedule, she says she feels great.
Contrary to popular belief, stress doesn’t have to be a soul-sucking, health-damaging force. But few people know how to transform their stress into the positive kind that helps them reach their goals.
A recent research confirms that gaining control over job demands, doing work with meaning and purpose and enjoying support and encouragement from co-workers are all linked to beneficial stress. Simply changing attitudes and expectations about stress-through coaching, training or peer-support groups-can also develop the constructive kind of stress.
“Stress is paradoxical,” says Alia Crum, a research scholar. “On one hand, it can be the thing that hurts us most. On the other, it’s fundamental to psychological and physical growth. The attitude that we view and approach stress will shift the outcome.”
1. What is Mariana Bechtel’s new job like?| A．It is health-damaging. |
| B．It is physically demanding. |
| C．It has little stress. |
| D．It has flexible worktime. |
| A．Stress can be turned beneficial. |
| B．Too much stress is harmful to health. |
| C．It’s hard to balance work and family. |
| D．Every job has its own advantage. |
| A．By refusing the boss’s demands |
| B．By taking up a meaningful job. |
| C．By supporting co-workers. |
| D．By sticking to our attitude to stress. |
| A．Stress has far-reaching effects. | B．Stress has several disadvantages. |
| C．Stress has two opposite features. | D．Stress is not necessary at all. |
4 . The Hong Kong Palace Museum (HKPM), located in the West Kowloon Cultural District of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, was established on June 22 and is scheduled to open to the public on July 2. More than 40,000 tickets were sold or reserved within eight hours on the first day of public sale, and all free visits on Wednesdays in July were fully booked.
The HKPM, not only adds to cultural atmosphere in the city, but also provides a new site for local residents and visitors to learn about the development of Chinese civilization and culture. More than 900 pieces of treasures from the collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing will be put on display at the opening exhibitions. From paintings to ancient architectures, the exhibits span the 5,000-year history of Chinese civilization, covering all categories of the collection of the Palace Museum, including 166 pieces of first-class cultural relics of the country. This will be the largest and highest-level cultural heritage exhibitions of the Palace Museum outside of the mainland since its establishment in 1925.
Prepare work for the exhibitions began in 2018, with the Palace Museum fielding a team of leading experts and scholars, associated with the manage team of the HKPM.
“It is a great thing to display the pieces of cultural relics in Hong Kong, which reflects the central government’s support to the development of Hong Kong’s cultural projects,” said Ng, adding that the exhibits from the Palace Museum will present a cultural feast to Hong Kong residents by telling them about the motherland’s long history and splendid culture.
“Promoting traditional Chinese culture is one of our important tasks,” said Betty Fung, chief executive officer of West Kowloon Cultural District Authority. She said the HKPM will actively push ahead with the publicity of the motherland’s culture and history after its opening, enhancing Hong Kong residents’ cultural confidence in the country, especially among youths.
Fung said that the HKPM will actively enhance cooperation with international museums, telling the world the stories of China, including the stories of Hong Kong.
1. What can we infer from the first paragraph?| A．Hong Kong citizens can visit the museum freely. |
| B．Hong Kong Palace Museum is warmly welcomed. |
| C．Hong Kong citizens can enjoy the exhibition in June. |
| D．Hong Kong Palace Museum opens within eight hours per day. |
| A．900 pieces of first-class cultural relics. |
| B．The history of Hong Kong since 1925. |
| C．The development of international civilization. |
| D．All categories of the collection of the Palace Museum. |
| A．Favorable. | B．Disappointed. | C．Doubtful. | D．Puzzled. |
| A．HKPM: Hong Kong’s Cultural Authority |
| B．HKPM: Cooperation with International Museums |
| C．HKPM: A New Cultural Landmark of Hong Kong |
| D．HKPM: Showcase of Hong Kong’s Cultural Relics |
5 . Most recently, Zhang Chaofan has been honored as a national ethical role model at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
Over the past six years, Zhang has donated 1.35 million yuan and raised 5.2 million yuan from the public to help more than 400 people with health problems — including teachers with severe cancer, disabled children and autistic (自闭症的) children in poor families — learn traditional Chinese culture.
She has also made more than 700 public welfare speeches at universities and in poor mountain areas, teaching people how to gain self-esteem, confidence, self-reliance and self-improvement.
The young girl was born without a left forearm in Changchun, Jilin Province, but her constant drive to become stronger has inspired many people.
In 2015, Zhang rejected an offer of postgraduate study from a famous university and set up a calligraphy and painting school in Changchun. When she found that some parents were unable to afford their children’s education fees, she made the lessons free and began providing 300,000 yuan annually to help them through her foundation.
“I think it’s important for teenagers to receive quality education because they are the future of the country,” she said. “I will make great efforts to help them get equal opportunities to pursue their dreams and inspire them to do their best.”
In early 2020, her school stopped all courses because of the pandemic, but she didn’t stop her public welfare activities. She raised materials and donations worth more than 8 million yuan. Then she sent masks, protective suits, and daily necessities to medical workers.
“Women in the new era should have the courage to create value and also have a sense of social responsibility,” she said. “It is my great honor to be elected as a role model. This will become a driving force for me to forge ahead and pass on the seeds of public welfare through even greater efforts.”
1. What do we know about Zhang Chaofan?| A．She donated all her money to help people in difficulty. |
| B．She will be elected as a national ethical role model in Beijing. |
| C．She made many public speeches at universities in poor mountain areas. |
| D．She provided many free lessons for the children who couldn’t afford them. |
| A．Enthusiastic and entertaining. | B．Devoted and responsible. |
| C．Capable and creative. | D．Professional and talented. |
| A．She will teach girls to win more prizes through her courses. |
| B．She will influence many girls like her to be painters and calligraphers. |
| C．She will continue her career and spread her public welfare activities. |
| D．She will encourage women in the new era to be courageous and sociable. |
| A．Only the strong-willed girl can reach her goals. |
| B．Disability and experience made the girl strong. |
| C．A girl with the broken wing followed her dream bravely. |
| D．Kindness and generosity helped the girl be well-known. |
6 . Do you get nervous thinking about a coming math test? If yes, you are far from alone. Math anxiety has become a common condition among students around the world. Students in countries with higher levels of math anxiety tend to achieve lower math grades, according to a study published by the National Academy of Sciences on Feb 15.
Math anxiety — a negative emotional reaction to the core subject — causes fear, physical suffering and behavior problems among young pupils, according to a University of Cambridge study. Some people also experience physical symptoms such as sweaty palms or a racing heart. They may then try to avoid every situation involving numbers, meaning they are held back from pursuing careers related to this subject, such as technology or engineering, according to The Guardian.
Relief comes from the fact that those with math anxiety aren’t destined (注定的) to be bad at math. “If a child has math anxiety, don’t assume that they’re not good at math. They may have had a really bad experience with math and there are ways to improve math achievement,” Daniel Ansari, the senior author of the study told The London Free Press.
Also, there are ways to manage your stress related to math. If you’re feeling stressed before a math exam, it may help to spend a few minutes exploring those feelings before the exam begins. “It’s about making sure you’re interpreting your feelings correctly,” Sian Beilock, a cognitive (认知的) scientist told the BBC. “Just because you have a fast heartbeat and sweaty palms, that does not necessarily mean you will fail.”
Math doesn’t come easy, no matter how clever you are. Leonardo da Vinci, the famous Italian artist, was a huge fan of mathematics. But his notebooks show that Da Vinci couldn’t do fractions (分数). He could never grasp, for instance, that dividing a number by one-quarter is the same as multiplying by four, resulting in a higher number than the original.
1. What do we know about math anxiety?| A．People who are good at math don’t experience math anxiety. |
| B．It is most commonly seen among teenagers. |
| C．It can cause unpleasant symptoms both mentally and physically. |
| D．Math anxiety leads to people struggling in their career. |
| A．Math anxiety may contribute to better grades. |
| B．Students with math anxiety may have higher cognitive abilities. |
| C．Math anxiety does not reflect the ability to solve math problems. |
| D．Bad experience with math can cause cognitive disadvantages. |
| A．Practice more before you take math exams. |
| B．Learn to understand your feelings. |
| C．Ask cognitive experts for help. |
| D．Take all nervous energy as a challenge. |
| A．To show that math definitely isn’t easy. |
| B．To explain why math is a particularly difficult subject. |
| C．To show da Vinci’s math anxiety is very serious. |
| D．To suggest a way to solve math anxiety. |
7 . Combining knowledge of chemistry, physics, biology, and engineering, scientists from McGill. University develop a biomaterial tough enough to repair the heart, muscles, and voeal cords. representing a major advance in medicine.
“People recovering from heart damage often face a long and tricky journey. Healing is challenging because of the constant movement tissues must withstand (承受) as the heart beats. The same is true for vocal cords. Until now there was no injectable (可注射的) material strong enough for the job,” says Guangyu Bao, a PhD candidate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at McGill University.
The team, led by Professor Luc Mongeau and Assistant Professor Jianyu Li, developed a new injectable hydrogel (水凝胶) for wound repair, which is a type of biomaterial that provides room for cells to live and grow. Once injected into the body, the biomaterial forms a stable structure allowing live cells to grow or pass through to repair the injured organs.
“The results are promising, and we hope that one day the new hydrogel will be used to restore the voice of people with damaged vocal cords,” says Guangyu Bao.
The scientists tested the durability of their hydrogel in a machine they developed to copy the extreme biomechanics of human vocal cords. Vibrating (振动) at 120 times a second for over 6 million cycles, the new biomaterial remained undamaged while other standard hydrogels broken into pieces, unable to deal with the stress of the load.
“We were incredibly excited to see it worked perfectly in our test. Before our work, no injectable hydrogels possessed both high porosity (多孔性，疏松) and toughness at the same time. To solve this issue, we introduced a pore-forming polymer to our formula（配方),” says Guangyu Bao.
The innovation opens new ways of making progress for other applications like tissue engineering. The team is also looking to use the hydrogel technology to create lungs to test COVID-19 drugs.
1. What did the researchers develop the new biomaterial for?| A．To experience a tricky journey. | B．To substitute damaged organs. |
| C．To advance the progress of medicine. | D．To repair the injured organs. |
| A．It is heavier but advanced. | B．It is injectable and strong. |
| C．It is more expensive. | D．It is easier to break. |
| A．Use it to cure COVID-19. | B．Increase its toughness for repairing lungs. |
| C．Invent artificial organs for drug test. | D．Improve its formula further. |
| A．To introduce a newly-developed material. | B．To stress the importance of innovation. |
| C．To promote the sales of a new hydrogel. | D．To show his respect to the researchers. |
8 . Black taxis have been a common sight in London for decades. Now these taxis and their drivers have become the focus of a new exploration into Alzheimer’s (阿兹海默症). For those on the outside, it may seem that behind the wheel of these black taxis are just regular people who help move us to our destinations. But within their brains is a map of London’s streets that has put GPS technology to shame for decades.
“The Knowledge”, the test for London’s taxi drivers, stands among the hardest mental examinations one could ever undergo. It involves recalling information repeatedly from the memory of minute details about 56,0000 streets in London, from Trafalgar Square to the tiniest residential lanes.
Normally, the hippocampus (海马体) feels the effects of Alzheimer’s most. University College London and Alzheimer’s Research UK are studying these taxi drivers’ brains, as it has been found that the hippocampus controlling the brain’s short-term memory and spatial (空间的) memory systems is enlarged in their brains. Moreover, the taxi drivers’ hippocampi continue to enlarge as they go on doing the job for more years, suggesting that perhaps there’s something we can do to reproduce the effect in the general population.
Lead researcher Hugo Spiers was part of the team which 20 years ago found that, like birds and squirrels, the taxi drivers’ hippocampi gradually got bigger. Indeed, research has found for years that any animal that requires a detailed spatial knowledge of their territory experiences growth in the hippocampus.
Spiers’ team hopes to deal with Alzheimer’s by studying the taxi drivers’ brains. To collect more information on the mechanisms (机制) that cause the “brain gain”, Spiers has asked thirty of London’s taxi drivers connected to an MRI machine to drive around on their routes. The machine will allow the researchers to gather real time observations of the workings of the hippocampus. “It’s been a joy to help scientists fight with the disease,” said taxi driver Robert Lordan.
1. What can we say about “The Knowledge”?| A．It lasts for a few minutes only. | B．It is usually held in London’s busy streets. |
| C．It is a great challenge to people’s memory. | D．It invites some residents in London to be judges. |
| A．They are more likely to be harmed. | B．They grow in the taxi drivers’ careers. |
| C．They benefit from daily communication most. | D．They are poor at controlling short-term memory. |
| A．To imply the new study benefits the animal kingdom as well. |
| B．To point out that more studies on animals’ brains are needed. |
| C．To show animals’ hippocampi are very different from humans’. |
| D．To prove the use of certain knowledge influences brain development. |
| A．To figure out who has the largest hippocampus. |
| B．To know how Alzheimer’s develops in their brains. |
| C．To find out how their hippocampi perform at work. |
| D．To test whether the special machine is effective. |
9 . Several years ago, Jason Box, a scientist from Ohio, flew 31 giant rolls of white plastic to a glacier (冰川) in Greenland. He and his team spread them across 10,000 feet of ice, and then left. His idea was that the white blanket would reflect back the rays of the sun, keeping the ice cool below. When he came back to check the results, he found it worked. Exposed ice had melted faster than covered ice. He had not only saved two feet of glacier in a short time. No coal plants (煤炭工厂) were shut down, no jobs were lost, and nobody was taxed or fired. Just the sort of fix we’re looking for.
“Thank you, but no thank you.” says Ralph King, a climate scientist. He told Grey Childs, author and commentator, that people think technology can save the planet, “but there are other things we need to deal with, like consumption (消费). They burned $50,000 just for the helicopter to bring the plastic to the glacier. ”This experiment gives people false hope that climate change can be fixed (解决，处理) without changing human behavior. . It can’t. Technology won’t give us a free ride (搭便车).
Individuals respond to climate change differently. Climatologist Kelly Smith is hardly alone in her prediction that someday soon we won’t be climate victims; we will be climate choosers. More scientists agree with her that if the human race survives, the engineers will get smarter, the tools will get better, and one day we will control the climate. But what then? "Just the mention of us controlling the climate sent a small shiver (颤抖) down my back”, Grey Childs writes, “Something sounds wrong about it.”
Me? I like it better when the earth takes care of itself. I guess one day we will have to run the place, but for the moment, sitting at my desk. looking out at the trees bending wildly and the wind howling. I’m happy not to be in charge.
1. What does Ralph King think of Jason Box’s experiment?| A．It’s a possible solution to climate change. |
| B．It’s a misleading attempt to fix the climate. |
| C．It’s a successful experiment on saving the glacier. |
| D．It arouses people’s attention to the problem of global warming. |
| A．The fight against climate change will not succeed. |
| B．Humans will succeed in controlling climate in the future. |
| C．Technology is not the final solution, let alone its high cost. |
| D．Jason’s experiment plays a significant role in fixing climate change. |
| A．Supportive. | B．Tolerant (容忍的). |
| C．Sceptical (怀疑的). | D．Unclear. |
| A．Should we fix the climate with technology? | B．Is climate change a threatening problem? |
| C．Why is the earth climate getting worse? | D．What if all the glaciers disappeared? |
10 . Can a small group of drones (无人机) guarantee the safety and reliability of railways and, at the same time, help railway operators save billions of euros each year? That is the very likely future of applying today’s “eyes in the sky” technology to make sure that the millions of kilometres of rail tracks and infrastructure (基础设施) worldwide are safe for trains on a 24/7 basis.
Drones are already being used to examine high-tension electrical lines. They could do precisely the same thing to inspect railway lines and other vital aspects of rail infrastructure such as the correct position of railway tracks and switching points. The more regularly they can be inspected, the more railway safety, reliability and on-time performance will be improved. Costs would be cut and operations would be more efficient (高效) across the board.
That includes huge savings in maintenance costs and better protection of railway personnel safety. It is calculated that European railways alone spend approximately 20 billion euros a year on maintenance, including sending maintenance staff, often at night, to inspect and repair the rail infrastructure. That can be dangerous work that could be avoided with drones assisting the crews’ efforts.
By using the latest technologies, drones could also start providing higher-value services for railways, detecting faults in the rail or switches, before they can cause any safety problems. To perform these tasks, drones for rail don’t need to be flying overhead. Engineers are now working on a new concept: the rail drones of the future. They will be moving on the track ahead of the train, and programmed to run autonomously. Very small drones with advanced sensors and AI and travelling ahead of the train could guide it like a co-pilot. With their ability to see ahead, they could signal any problem, so that fast-moving trains would be able to react in time.
1. What makes the application of drones to rail lines possible?| A．The use of drones in checking on power lines. | B．Drones’ ability to work at high altitudes. |
| C．The reduction of cost in designing drones. | D．Drones’ reliable performance in remote areas. |
| A．Personnel safety. | B．Assistance from drones. |
| C．Inspection and repair. | D．Construction of infrastructure. |
| A．To provide early warning. | B．To make trains run automatically. |
| C．To earn profits for the crews. | D．To accelerate transportation. |
| A．What Faults Can Be Detected with Drones |
| B．How Production of Drones Can Be Expanded |
| C．What Difficulty Drone Development Will Face |
| D．How Drones Will Change the Future of Railways |
