5 . Parents who want their kids to succeed more than anything are now being sold a high-tech solution. Class 120 is $199-a-year smartphone app that tracks teenagers and alerts parents if the kid isn’t in his or her scheduled class.

Is it a good idea for parents to track whether their young adults are in class? In short: No. This is a terrible idea.

One of the fundamental purposes of a college is learning to be an independent person. That means learning how to do what needs to be done, whether one particularly feels like doing it or not.

It’s easy to see why parents are keen on tracking their kids. A student is admitted to college by a process that focuses mainly on grades and scores. Monitoring grades and scores is easy. The parents may think that:

“Our child is succeeding. We are good parents. We are happy.” But grades and scores can’t tell everything.

They don’t take into account whether their kids have the strength of self-discipline (自律) and the skill needed to care for himself or herself.

Monitoring the development of character is much harder for parents. Character growth happens through encountering (遇到) and learning to deal with disappointments and failure. You never know which problem will be the point for growth.

However, letting kids fail can be really difficult for anxious parents. They believe that success means being perfect and never failing. The truth is that kids need to learn to fail.

College is an ideal place to practice adults’ responsibility and independence. Students need to make their own decisions about whether to get out of bed and go to work in the morning.

Maybe your child hasn’t learned this lesson by now, but he or she has to learn it sometime. An alarm clock’s job is to wake you up, but it does not provide a reason.

1. What’s author’s attitude toward tracking teenagers?

A．Supportive.

B．Opposed.

C．Indifferent.

D．Disappointed.

2. According to the author, what’s the most important thing should a college student learn in school?

A．Avoiding failure.	B．Keeping healthy.
C．Professional knowledge.	D．Living independently.

3. What’s the author’s opinion on failure?

A．Failure means that a kid is not good enough.

B．Failure may be the key part of kid’s development.

C．Everyone should manage to avoid failure at any time.

D．Failure will bring many negative influences to children.

4. What does the underlined sentence mean in the last paragraph?

A．An alarm clock is necessary for a kid.

B．A kid should buy a talking alarm clock.

C．A kid should get up early for learning without any reason.

D．A kid should always maintain a sense of responsibility and independence.

6 . China Science Daily announced Thursday that it has used software to automatically generate news stories about the latest discoveries from the world’s leading science journals. The robot science reporter, called “Xiaoke”, was co-created by the newspaper and researchers from Peking University in about half a year.

It is the latest case of Chinese news organizations using computer technology to create content. According to its inventors, Xiaoke has generated over 200 stories based on the English abstract of papers published in journals such as Science, Nature, Cell and the New England Journal of Medicine.

Before publication, the automatically generated articles will go through a review process. A group of scientists and the newspaper’s editors will check the content or give supplementary (补充的) information.

Zhang Mingwei, head of the program and vice editor-in-chief of the newspaper, said inventors would make Xiaoke a “cross-linguistic (跨语言的) academic secretary” to help Chinese scientists overcome language barriers and have easy and quick access to the latest scientific advances in English-language publication. Lead researcher Wan Xiaojun, of Peking University in charge of the system’s design and technology, stressed that the content generation tool could do far more than translation. According to Wan, Xiaoke is good at selecting complex words and sentences, which can help turn articles full of confusing technical terms into easy and readable news reports.

The readers of the robot reporter is not limited to professionals but also includes the general public. Science reporting is important in spreading information about discoveries and in popularizing knowledge to people.

1. What can we learn about “Xiaoke”?

A．It is a professional translator.

B．It has the most advanced AI.

C．It can make up fiction stories.

D．It generates science news reports.

2. What do people need to do to improve Xiaoke’s work?

A．Upgrade the artificial intelligence.

B．Select complex words and sentences.

C．Check the content and add information.

D．Help it get the latest scientific advances.

3. In which section of a newspaper may this text appear?

A．Science.

B．Education.

C．Entertainment.

D．Health.

4. What is the text mainly about?

A．The robot writer of science news.

B．The readers of the science reports.

C．The editor-in-chief of the newspaper.

D．The latest case of news organizations.

7 . Chinese researchers have developed a robot designed to help doctors treat the new coronavirus and other highly infectious diseases. The machine has a long robotic arm attached to a base with wheels. It can perform some of the same medical examination tasks as doctors. For example, the device can perform ultrasounds (超声波扫描检查), collect fluid samples from a person’s mouth and listen to sounds made by a patient’s organs. Cameras record the robot’s activities, which are controlled remotely so doctors can avoid coming in close contact with infected patients. Doctors and other medical workers can operate the machine in another place.

The robot’s main designer Zheng Gangtie, an engineer and professor at China’s Tsinghua University, told Reuters news agency that he got the idea for the device when his medical friend told him that one of the biggest problems in dealing with COVID-19 was that healthcare workers treating patients were getting infected themselves. Zheng said he wanted to do something to help this situation. So the engineer gathered a team and went to work on the robotic device.

Zheng said the devices use the same technology that is used for space equipment, including moon explorers. The new robot is almost completely automated. It can even disinfect itself after performing actions involving patient contact.

However, Zheng said he had heard from some doctors that it would be better not to build such robots to be fully automatic. This is because many patients still desire a personal presence to help calm them during treatment.

The team currently has two robots and both have been tested by doctors at hospitals in Beijing. One machine was taken to Wuhan’s Union Hospital, where doctors there got trained to use it. The plan is to use the robot to help treat coronavirus patients, along with assistance from nurses and other hospital workers.

Zheng would like to build more of the robots, but says money from the university has run out. Each robot costs about $72,000 to make. He says he does not plan to commercialize the design, but hopes that a company can begin that process.

1. What do we know about the newly-invented robot?

A．It is used for space exploration.

B．It completely operates on its own.

C．It carries out complicated surgical treatments.

D．It protects doctors from risky contact with patients.

2. Which of the following may accelerate the development of the machine?

A．Assistance of AI.	B．Financial support.
C．Community help.	D．Professional advice.

3. What can we infer from the last three paragraphs?

A．The device may not be welcomed by all patients.

B．The device has been widely used to treat patients.

C．Zheng has received further funds from companies.

D．Zheng continued the production for official support.

4. What is the best title for the passage?

A．Promising Future for the Robot

B．Novel Device to Cure Coronavirus

C．New Assistant to Fight Coronavirus

D．Helpful Design to Save the Patients

8 . It was a lifesaving task as thrilling as any in the months-long battle against the wildfires that have torn through the Australian bush. But instead of a race to save humans or animals, a specialized team of Australian firefighters was bent on saving invaluable plant life: hidden groves (树林) of the Wollemi pine, a prehistoric tree species.

Wollemi pines peaked in abundance 34 million to 65 million years ago, before a steady decline. Today, only 200 of the trees exist in their natural environment. The trees are so rare that they were thought to die out until 1994. That’s the year when David Noble, an officer with the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service, came across a grove of large trees he didn’t recognize.

Noble brought back a few branches and showed them to other biologists and botanists. A month later, Noble returned to the grove with some scientists. It was then that they realized what they had found: “a prehistoric tree species that has outlived the dinosaurs.” the American Scientist explains. So when Australia’s wildfires started burning toward Wollemi National Park in recent weeks, firefighters from the parks and wildlife service put a carefully planned operation into action.

Large air tankers dropped fire retardant (阻燃剂) around the pines. Firefighters set up an irrigation (灌溉) system around the trees to keep them wet. “If the fire did go through, we wanted it to be a cool burn as opposed to a hot burn to give them the best chance of survival,” Kean said. The fire did sweep through the groves where these trees have somehow survived for millions of years. For a few days, the smoke was so thick that it wasn’t clear whether the plan had worked. At last the smoke eased off. A few trees had been burned by the flames, and two died. But the efforts had paid off. “Finally,” Kean said, “we were able to get in there and see that, thank goodness, the trees were saved.”

1. What do we know about Wollemi pines?

A．Scientists searched for them in the wild.

B．They used to grow in parts of Australia.

C．There were a considerable number of them long ago.

D．Firefighters and biologists cooperated to keep them alive.

2. Which of the following can best replace the underlined word “outlived” in Paragraph 3?

A．been superior to.	B．been related to.
C．died earlier than.	D．existed longer than.

3. What can be learned from the last paragraph?

A．It was cool to drop retardant over the fire.

B．It wasn’t clear whether the trees were saved.

C．It helped the trees survive to keep them wet.

D．It worked best for the trees to keep a hot burn.

4. What is the passage mainly about?

A．An investigation into Wollemi pines.

B．A hard-won battle against the wildfires.

C．Constructing a firefighting system for the trees.

D．Saving world’s rare pine species from wildfires.

9 . Travelling doesn’t always have to be about changing your location. Reading books also takes you on real-life adventures around the world, even from our armchairs. Here we feature 4 adventure tales that we can dive into.

Land of the Dawn-Lit Mountains, by Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent.

Despite suffering from panic disorder, the brave Bolingbroke-Kent sets off on an adventure across a lesser-known part of India, Arunachal Pradesh. There is plenty of humor thrown in, along with the highs and lows of her journey, so it’s not just all serious.

Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson.

“A little voice in my head said: Sounds neat! Let’s do it!” writes Bryson of his more humorous than heroic journey from Maine to Georgia along the Appalachian Trail. Bryson’s tale may be the funniest call for conservation ever written.

Brazilian Adventure, by Peter Fleming.

Peter Fleming signed on to a risky 3,000-mile Brazilian jungle hunt to uncover the fate of a lost English explorer. Imagine a book: Funny, exciting, literate, a period piece that still works.

A Book of Migrations, by Rebecca Solnit.

It’s a search for roots in Ireland. Her long hike in western Ireland leads to a reflection on movement-cultural, psychological, personal. There is much to learn by getting away from the tourist route, walking and speaking to the people you meet along the way. They have stories to tell that you won’t find in the tourist guides.

What travel-inspiring books have you ever read? Please email us at amy.alipio@natgeo.com.

1. What is the common characteristic of the first three adventure tales?

A．Funny.

B．Magic.

C．Risky.

D．Serious.

2. Which book might be helpful if you care for environmental protection?

A．Land of the Dawn-Lit Mountains.	B．Walk in the Woods.
C．Brazilian Adventure.	D．A Book of Migrations.

3. What is special about the hike in A Book of Migrations?

A．It is a search in the western land.	B．It is full of cultural movements.
C．It doesn’t follow the tourist route.	D．It has many stories about tourist guides.

10 . My mother turned 75 this past fall. One night a few months before, I’d asked her what we could give her that she would really like.

“Maybe something big, that all three of us can go in on?” I encouraged, knowing that my brothers and I would cough up whatever it cost while also suspecting that any gift she might think up would be something strange but affordable like a duck-shaped bath soap.

“I know exactly what I want from you kids,” she said, like she’d loaded this gun a month ago. “Really?” Was she thinking of a trip to Hawaii? A latest bathroom decoration? “Absolutely.” She nodded in that way she does when she is dead sure.

She seemed to be waiting for me to ask again, so I did. “Well?” “If there is any problem that you or your brothers have that I can help with, I’d like to know about it.”

Astonishing. What a woman. She lives to serve. Oh, I wish that I could have an ounce of her devotion. “God, Mom..” I said. She put her finger up to indicate that she wasn’t quite finished. “And if there’s any problem that you have that there is nothing I can do to change,” she said, “I’d like to not know about it.”

Astonishing. What a woman. Oh, I wish that I could be that clear-headed and direct.

“You’re amazing.”

“Listen, Kelly,” she said, “I’ve been a mother since 1964, and I’d like to stop worrying and get some sleep.” Oh, Ma. I got you. You’ve carried us long enough. As of your 75th birthday, your status shifts to a mother retired with highest merits. You’ve done fine work. Nobody could have done more. Happy Birthday.

1. What was the talk between the author and her mother mainly about?

A．A birthday gift.	B．A trip to Hawaii.
C．The mom’s worries.	D．The mom’s merits.

2. Why does the author say “astonishing” again?

A．Mom is content with her life.	B．Mom is always helpful to them.
C．Mom is still worried about them.	D．Mom is well aware of her needs.

3. Which of the following best describes the author’s mom?

A．Friendly and easy-going.	B．Determined and devoted.
C．Intelligent and considerate.	D．Humorous and imaginative.

4. What might the mom really want for her birthday?

A．Some sleep.	B．Her own life.
C．Her children’s company.	D．Attention from her children.