1 . A Race Against Death

It was a cold January in 1925 in North Alaska. The town was cut off from the rest of the world due to heavy snow.

On the 20th of that month, Dr. Welch ________ a sick boy, Billy, and knew he had diphtheria, a deadly infectious disease mainly affecting children. The children of Nome would be ________ if it struck the town. Dr. Welch needed medicine as soon as possible to stop other kids from getting sick. ________, the closest supply was over 1,000 miles away, in Anchorage.

How could the medicine get to Nome? The town’s ________ was already full of ice, so it couldn’t come by ship. Cars and horses couldn’t travel on the ________ roads. Jet airplanes and big trucks didn’t exist yet.

By January 26, Billy and three other children had died. Twenty more were ________. Nome’s town officials came up with a(n) ________. They would have the medicine sent by ________ from Anchorage to Nenana. From there, dogeled (狗拉雪橇) drivers — known as “mushers” — would ________ it to Nome in a relay (接力).

The race began on January 27. The first musher, Shannon, picked up the medicine from the train at Nenana and rode all night. ________ he handed the medicine to the next musher, Shannon’s face was black from the extreme cold.

On January 31, a musher named Seppala had to ________ a frozen body of water called Norton Sound. It was the most ________ part of the journey. Norton Sound was covered with ice, which could sometimes ________ without warning. If that happened, Seppala might fall into the icy water below. He would ________, and so would the sick children of Nome. But Seppala made it across.

A huge snowstorm hit on February 1. A musher named Kaasen had to brave this storm. At one point, huge piles of snow blocked his ________. He had to leave the trail (雪橇痕迹) to get around them. Conditions were so bad that it was impossible for him to ________ the trail again. The only hope was Balto, Kaasen’s lead dog, Balto put his nose to the ground, ________ to find the smell of other dogs that had traveled on the trail. If Balto failed, it would mean disaster for Nome. The minutes passed by. Suddenly, Balto began to ________. He had found the trail.

At 5:30 am on February 2, Kaasen and his dog ________ in Nome. Within minutes, Dr. Welch had the medicine. He quickly gave it to the sick children. All of them recovered.

Nome had been ________.

1.

A．examined

B．warned

C．interviewed

D．cured

2.

A．harmless

B．helpless

C．fearless

D．careless

3.

A．Moreover

B．Therefore

C．Otherwise

D．However

4.

A．airport

B．station

C．harbor

D．border

5.

A．narrow

B．snowy

C．busy

D．dirty

6.

A．tired

B．upset

C．pale

D．sick

7.

A．plan

B．excuse

C．message

D．topic

8.

A．air

B．rail

C．sea

D．road

9.

A．carry

B．return

C．mail

D．give

10.

A．Though

B．Since

C．When

D．If

11.

A．enter

B．move

C．visit

D．cross

12.

A．shameful

B．boring

C．dangerous

D．foolish

13.

A．turn up

B．turn out

C．break up

D．break out

14.

A．escape

B．bleed

C．swim

D．die

15.

A．memory

B．exit

C．destination

D．way

16.

A．find

B．fix

C．pass

D．change

17.

A．pretending

B．trying

C．asking

D．learning

18.

A．run

B．leave

C．bite

D．play

19.

A．gathered

B．stayed

C．camped

D．arrived

20.

A．controlled

B．developed

C．saved

D．founded

2 . In 1947 a group of famous people from the art world headed by an Austrian conductor decided to hold an international festival of music, dance and theatre in Edinburgh. The idea was to reunite Europe after the Second World War.

At the same time, the “Fringe” appeared as a rival to the official festival. Eight theatre groups turned up uninvited in 1947, in the belief that everyone should have the right to perform, and they did so in a public house disused for years.

Soon, groups of students firstly from Edinburgh University, and later from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, Durham and Birmingham were making the journey to the Scottish capital each summer to perform theatre by little-known writers of plays in small church halls to the people of Edinburgh.

Today the “Fringe”, once less recognized, has far outgrow n the festival with around 1,500 performances of theatre, music and dance on every one of the 21 days it lasts. And years early as 1959, with only 19 theatre groups performing, some said it was getting too big.

A paid administrator was first employed only in 1971, and today there are eight administrators working all year round and the number rises to 150 during August itself. Last year there were 200 places housing 1,695 shows by over 600 different groups from 50 different countries. More than 1.25 million tickets were sold.

1. What was the purpose of Edinburgh Festival at the beginning?

A．To bring Europe together again.	B．To honor heroes of World War II.
C．To introduce young theatre groups.	D．To attract great artists from Europe.

2. What does the underlined word “rival” in Paragraph 2 refer to?

A．Requirement.

B．Chance.

C．Plan.

D．Challenge.

3. Who joined the “Fringe” after it appeared?

A．Popular writers	B．University students.
C．Artists from around the world.	D．Performers of music and dance.

4. What may we learn from the text about Edinburgh Festival?

A．It has gone beyond an art festival.	B．It has become a non-official event.
C．It keeps growing rapidly.	D．It gives shows all year round.

3 . Now is 6:15 a. m. Jocelyn Murzycki needs to get out the door in an hour. As the sky ________ to lighten, Murzycki doesn’t manage a few more minutes of sleep. Instead, she’s heading out in the freezing cold on her daily “plog” — a run to ________ litter.

First, the necessities for her “plog” are: a litter grabber and a reusable ________. Covering herself up, Murzycki jogs purposefully down Main Street, stopping ________ to pick up a plastic cup. She usually needs to ________ halfway through her 20-minute run to empty her bag. Within a few hours, the street will be littered with rubbish again. But this doesn’t make her stop — it just gives ________ energy to her plogging.

The word “plogging” comes from “plogga”, a combination of two Swedish ________, “pick” and “jog”. The activity was ________ by Erik Ahlstrom. When he moved to Stockholm, he felt ________ at the amount of litter in the streets and began gathering friends to clean up the neighborhood while out for runs. Now, Mr. Ahlstrom is traveling the world, publicizing (宣传) the ________ of plogging. In the US, some social medias and running groups always ________ people to get out and plog: more than 40,000 posts with the “plogging” hashtag (话题标签) can be ________online every day.

Murzycki has ________ plogging for a few years even before the trend hit the U. S. “________, it’s boring if you go out every single day for just picking up litter,” she says. However, now she has already figured out how to make it ________ by plogging with friends.

1.

A．escapes

B．seeks

C．begins

D．earns

2.

A．pay for

B．hunt for

C．stand for

D．wait for

3.

A．pot

B．umbrella

C．chain

D．bag

4.

A．diversely

B．briefly

C．preciously

D．romantically

5.

A．claim

B．fold

C．stop

D．contain

6.

A．lower

B．smaller

C．less

D．more

7.

A．words

B．phrases

C．sentences

D．sayings

8.

A．created

B．challenged

C．controlled

D．joined

9.

A．relaxed

B．amazed

C．comfortable

D．grateful

10.

A．benefit

B．fear

C．danger

D．fortune

11.

A．elect

B．scare

C．settle

D．encourage

12.

A．pressed

B．hired

C．seen

D．complained

13.

A．decorated

B．replaced

C．reflected

D．kept

14.

A．Actually

B．Luckily

C．Finally

D．Extremely

15.

A．flexible

B．passive

C．fun

D．horrible

4 . Meat cultivated(培植)from cells — with no need to raise and kill animals—is now a reality. The process of cultivating meat uses the basic elements needed to build muscle and fat and enables the same biological process that happens inside an animal. Cultivated meat is identical(完全相同的) to conventional meat at the cellular level. But can it be made cheaply enough to replace animal agriculture?

More than 150 startups are pursuing an ambitious goal: meat that doesn’t require raising and killing animals and that is affordable and tastes and feels like the meat we eat now. They are part of a young industry aiming to use cell biology to reduce the environmental impact of the world’s ever-increasing demand for meat and change global protein production the way electric cars are shaking up the auto industry.

“We are addicted to meat as a species. It’s part of our culture,” said Believer founder Yaakov Nahmias. “But we thought about quantity rather than the environment, rather than sustainability.”

Although there are dozens of companies making this meat, none has yet reached commercial-level production in terms of scale or cost. From cell line development to bio-processor design, there are a number of scientific challenges to meet before cultivated meat is widely available at the market. Government policy is another challenge. Only Singapore and the U. S. allow sales of cultivated meat.

And while many people who have tried it say they like it, others find the idea distasteful. A recent survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that half of U. S. adults would be unlikely to try it. When they were asked why, about half said they didn’t think it would be safe. Even Nahmias’10-year-old son Oren said he would only eat traditional meat. “I feel bad” for the animals, he said, “but they are yummy!”

“Until this meat costs and tastes the same as traditional meat, it will remain a specialized product,” said Bruce Friedrich, president of the Good Food Institute.

1. Why does the writer ask a question in the first paragraph?

A．To indicate an opinion.	B．To present a worry.
C．To make an assumption.	D．To start a discussion.

2. What does the cultivated meat industry aim to do?

A．Study cell biology.	B．Provide sustainable protein.
C．End world hunger.	D．Help the traditional food industry.

3. What can we infer about cultivated meat?

A．It is not ready for mass production.	B．It is as popular as traditional meat.
C．It is safer than traditional meat.	D．It is competitive in price and quantity.

4. What is Bruce Friedrich’s attitude to the future of cultivated meat?

A．Enthusiastic.

B．Indifferent.

C．Unclear.

D．Conservative.

5 . Pullman is a superb writer and Seagull is a brilliant communicator. They had a debate after Seagull posted a question on his social media platform: “When you were trying to create an environment for learning, what were your best pieces of classical music to listen to?” He received hundreds of suggestions — and one negative reply, from Pullman: “That’s not what classical music is for. Treat it with respect!”

That did it! Professional musicians, students, teachers weighed into the argument, and the majority supported Seagull and were criticizing Pullman.

It’s easy to see why people are annoyed. We all want classical music to be as accessible as possible, especially to the young. If some of them are using Bach or Schubert as a tool to help them study, what’s the problem? They may also develop an attachment to classical music.

So is Pullman ridiculous and considerate by objecting to classical music being used as background music? At first sight, his idea’ seems stuffy and extreme. By suggesting that classical music should be “treated with respect” and not used as background music, Pullman seems to be closing classical music of to millions of people.

It’s worth pointing out, however, that he isn’t the first to express concerns about classical music being devalued by becoming too commonplace in today’s technologically shaped world. In Benjamin Britten’s 1964 speech, the composer expressed exactly the same worries as Pullman. Britten suggested, “The true musical experience demands some preparation, some effort, a journey to a special place, saving up for a ticket, some homework perhaps”. In short, it demands as much effort from listeners as from composers and performers.

I don’t agree with such an extreme viewpoint, but I do think it touches on a reality. You will never fully grasp the beauty of classical music if you half-hear it only in the background. That doesn’t necessarily matter. Music can be enjoyed on many levels. What Pullman and Britten are really saying is that, in a drive for “accessibility ”, we shouldn’t deny the emotional and intellectual complexity underpinning (构成) much classical music.

1. What did Seagull’s posting result in?

A．Great admiration for Seagull.

B．Public criticism of classical music.

C．A discussion about learning environments.

D．An argument between students and professional musicians.

2. What is the author’s purpose in mentioning Benjamin Britten’s 1964 speech in Paragraph 5?

A．To show his affection for classical music.

B．To introduce young people to classical music.

C．To demonstrate classical music is demanding.

D．To support Pullman’s idea over classical music.

3. How does the author like Pullman’s idea?

A．Favorable.	B．Supportive.
C．Objective.	D．Uninterested.

4. Where can this passage be read?

A．In National Geographic.	B．In Musicology.
C．In The Economist.	D．In Chinese Translators Journal.

6 . After skating, skiing or shoveling snow, nothing warms you up better than a cup of hot cocoa though today it will be topped with marshmallows (棉花软糖), you may not know that chocolate was first consumed in liquid form by the Olmec people of northwestern Central America around 1500 B. C.

However, the Olmec people didn’t serve their coco a hot. And since sugar had not yet arrived from Europe back then, the drink was often flavoured with peppers and spices. After the Spanish arrived in the Americas in the 1500s, liquid chocolate made its way across the pond, where wealthy Europeans added sugar and drank it warm. According to Chocolate: History, Culture and Heritage, hot chocolate became ‘the drink of the aristocracy (贵族)”, as sugar was still a luxury.

Soon enough, though, hot chocolate caught on with the masses. Chocolate houses started springing up around 17th-century Europe. However, by the end of the 18th century, chocolate houses had mostly died off, because the input of chocolate was much dearer than that of coffee or tea.

Marshmallows first came into the picture in 1917, when the company, Angelus Marshmallows, published a recipe for hot cocoa topped with their product. Instant coco a is another American invention, created in the late 1950s when dairy company owner, Charles Sanna, faced an oversupply of powered coffee creamer. His solution was mixing the creamer sugar and coco a powder together, thus creating a Formula (配方) favored by many.

Taking a tour of international cups of cocoa, you can try cioccolata calda, a thick, pudding-like version in Italy. In Colombia and Ecuador, chocolate is served with a teaspoon of soft farmer cheese, and Filipino hot chocolate, sikwate, is served with mango chunks.

However, you choose to jazz up your own cup, the simple pleasure of drinking a warm, chocolaty drink is one that hasn’t gotten old for thousands of years.

1. What was unlikely to happen in the 16th century?

A．Glen decorated his hot coco a with marshmallows.

B．Annie used sugar to add flavour to hot chocolate.

C．Nick couldn’t afford to put much sugar in the cocoa.

D．Miss Brown enjoyed drinking hot coco a during breakfast.

2. What made chocolate houses disappear by the end of the 1700s?

A．Lack of sugar.	B．Public health awareness.
C．High cost of material.	D．Popularity of instant cocoa.

3. Which of the following sentences can best describe Charles Sanna’s story?

A．A man can do no more he can.

B．Constant dripping wears away á stone.

C．Beauty without virtue is a rose without fragrance.

D．Innovation unlocks the door of success.

4. What can be a suitable title for the passage?

A．Hot Cocoa: An Accidental Invention

B．Hot Cocoa: A Journey To A Cup Of Comfort

C．Hot Cocoa: A Combination Of Global Cultures

D．Hot Cocoa: From The Aristocracy To The Public

7 . What are pillows really stuffed with? Not physically, but symbolically? The question occurred to me with the photos of the international pillow fight in the news and social media from the 50 cities around the world. Armed with nothing more than bring-our-own pillows, strangers struck heavily each other from Amsterdam to Atlanta, Warsaw to Washington DC. But why? Is there anything more to this delightful celebration?

Actually, since at least the 16th century, the soft pillow has been given symbolic meanings. The Chinese playwright, Tang Xianzu, told a famous story in his work, Handan Notes. It was about a wise man who met a depressed young scholar at an inn and offered him a magic pillow. The scholar had a sweet afternoon nap on this pillow, dreaming that he had a more fulfilling life. When the young man awakened to discover that all was just a dream. The magic pillow’s power shifts from wonder to terror. What’s more, the 19th-century English novelist, Charlotte Bronte, poetically observed “a ruffled mind makes a restless pillow”. Perhaps Bronte learned this from the philosopher, Montaigne, who once insisted that “lack of thoughts in mind is the softest pillow on which a man can have a good rest”. On Montaigne’s thinking, intelligence and happiness compete against each other forever in a pillow fight that only one can win.

With the above information, we can perhaps more easily measure the attraction of the global pillow fight. Just like a ceremony of release, the annual international pillow fight amounts to a kind of cleansing, a brushing off of daily worries: an emptying of the world’s restless mind.

1. How did the writer lead into the topic of the passage?

A．By giving reasons.	B．By telling stories.
C．By using sayings.	D．By raising questions.

2. Why the work and words of the three writers were listed in the second paragraph?

A．To state how pillows help people take a good rest.

B．To explain why pillows connect with people’s minds.

C．To claim that pillows can symbolically convey the meaning.

D．To describe that pillows always symbolize the good dreams.

3. What do the underlined words “a ruffled mind” probably mean in the passage?

A．A mind without any thoughts.	B．A mind with messy thoughts.
C．A mind that is peaceful.	D．A mind that is simple.

4. What can be inferred about the international pillow fight from the last paragraph?

A．It mainly celebrates daily worries.

B．It contains a profound meaning of history.

C．People will feel relieved during the fight.

D．People will lose their inner peace during the fight.

8 . Sign up for the Online Volunteering!

Have you considered contributing your excellent skills and expertise virtually towards achieving sustainable human development efforts? Through the Online Volunteering service of the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme, you can connect with UN agencies, overnments, public institutions and civil society organizations—from any device, anywhere in the world. While extending your network, you can also get first-hand practical experience.

Requirements:

●To sign up on the Unified Volunteering Platform and apply for Online Volunteer assignments, you must be at least 18 years of age.

●There is no particular background required to become an Online Volunteer. Each Online Volunteer assignment is different and has its own requirements, set by the host organization.

●As an Online Volunteer, you can only support organizations remotely (远程地) in assignments up to 20 hours per week for a maximum of 12 weeks for each assignment.

Criteria and service rules:

●Online Volunteers are not under contract with the UNV programme or the engaging organization.

●Online Volunteers do not receive any kind of financial benefits.

●For each Online Volunteering assignment, a maximum of 25 Online Volunteers can be engaged.

Procedures:

●Volunteers find assignments of their interest and apply;

●Organizations select the volunteers they want to engage;

●Volunteers and organizations work together online;

●Volunteers and organizations provide feedback on their cooperation;

●Organizations issue an electronic certificate of appreciation to their volunteers.

1. What is a must for the applicants?

A．Being no less than 18 years old.

B．Having a medical science background.

C．Working at least 12 weeks for every task.

D．Being able to take business trips to UN agencies anytime.

2. Which of the following is TRUE according to the text?

A．Volunteers will be paid after the programme.

B．The excellent volunteers will get the paper certificates.

C．There is no need to sign a contract with the organizations.

D．The whole programme can have at most 25 online volunteers.

3. What is probably this text?

A．A social issue review.	B．A recruitment advertisement.
C．A travel brochure.	D．A course plan.

10 . Superhuman artificial intelligence is already among us. Well, sort of. When it comes to playing games like chess and Go, or solving difficult scientific challenges like predicting protein structures, computers are well ahead of us. But we have one superpower they aren’t close to mastering: mind reading.

Humans have a mysterious ability to reason the goals, desires and beliefs of others, a vital skill that means we can predict other people’s actions and the consequences of our own. Reading minds comes so easily to us, though, that we often don’t think to spell out what we want. If AIs are to become truly useful in everyday life, we have to give them this gift that evolution has given us to read other people’s minds.

Psychologists refer to the ability to infer other’s mental state as theory of mind. In humans, this ability starts to develop at a very young age. How to reproduce the competence in machines is far from clear, though. One of the main challenges is context. For instance, if someone asks whether you are going for a run and you reply “it’s raining”, they can quickly conclude that the answer is no. But this requires huge amounts of background knowledge about running, weather and human preferences. Moreover, whether humans or AI, the theory of mind is supposed to appear naturally from one’s own learning process.

Yet we might still want AI to have a more human-like form of theory of mind. While letting AI form the theory of mind in their learning process is likely to lead to developing more powerful AI, plainly building in shared ways to represent knowledge may be crucial for humans to trust and communicate with AI.

It is important to remember, though, that the pursuit of machines with theory of mind is about more than just building more useful robots. It is also a stepping stone on the path towards a deeper goal for AI and robotics research: building truly self-aware machines. Whether we will ever get there remains to be seen, but we are on the path to learning to think about ourselves.

1. Why does the author mention “games” and “protein structures” in the first paragraph?

A．To stress how important the science is.	B．To promote the use of AI in daily life.
C．To present AI’s theory of mind.	D．To contrast with AI’s lack of mind reading.

2. According to the passage, which of the following contexts can AI understand well?

A．When kids see their mom after hurting themselves and they cry louder.

B．When a mom tells her kid to eat the food that is good for health and he eats it.

C．When a teacher asks for a boy’s homework and he answers “my dog ate it”.

D．When you are asked to eat spicy food for dinner and you reply “a sore throat”.

3. What may the author agree with?

A．We should reject human-like forms of abilities for AI.

B．Humans’ theory of mind is far from perfect.

C．Mind reading requires huge amounts of context.

D．The theory of mind is independent of one’s learning process.

4. Which would be the best title for the passage?

A．AI with Its Own Theory of Mind Is Expected

B．AI with Theory of Mind Will Reshape Our Future

C．AI’s Theory of Mind Is a Blessing or Suffering to Humans

D．Theory of Mind Bridges the Gap Between Humans and AI