1 . Urban planners may soon have a new way to measure traffic jams. By putting in the different routes by which vehicles can travel between locations, researchers have developed a new computer algorithm (运算法则) that helps quantify regions of jams in urban areas and suggests ways around them.
The study, published in the Journal of Physics: Complexity, used traffic speeds from taxis in New York City to demonstrate how road infrastructure (基础设施) and driver behavior can create complex road networks that differ among cities.
The team approached the issue by designing a computer algorithm to capture the topology-or relationship between the different routes between locations-of road networks. “We found that the most significant traffic bottlenecks in Manhattan seem to arise as a result of the city’s structural layout,” said study co-author Daniel Carmody. “For example, the fact that a bridge enters Manhattan at a range where traffic is already limited due to Central Park slows traffic in the area considerably.”
The researchers performed a comparative analysis using traffic patterns in Chengdu, China, to test if the algorithm works equally well in areas with different layouts. Manhattan has a long and thin structure, while Chengdu is round. There are significant differences in the way traffic moves between these two different setups, the researchers said.
“The bottlenecks in Chengdu seem to arise due to the function of the buildings in a particular area,” Carmody said. “For example, it is hard to travel in and out of the central business district in Chengdu because of the large amount of traffic alone. Beltways, or faster streets around busy areas, have emerged in circles around this area, which is not surprising because this feature was intentionally built into the city.”
In Manhattan, the bridges and underpasses that form the entry and exit points cause traffic slowdowns. However, in lower Manhattan, where drivers seem to obey the lower posted speed limits, traffic moves more smoothly, forming a new traffic beltway with the southern end of Central Park acting as a block between lower and central Manhattan.
“It surprised us that there is an emergent beltway in such a busy area of Manhattan,” Carmody said. “This indicates that, unlike in Chengdu, beltways seem to arise from driver behavior even when they aren’t part of the structural plan of a traffic network.”
“The researchers have imagined that this technology could give urban planners a means to quantify traffic patterns, leading to better traffic,” Carmody said. “As methods of transportation develop, new problems will emerge, and we hope that our tools will give planners new ways to measure what is going on with city traffic.”
1. According to the new study, what contributes to traffic jams in Manhattan?| A．The number of bottlenecks and beltways. |
| B．The location of bridges and underpasses. |
| C．Road facilities and driver behavior. |
| D．Road signs and urban population. |
| A．compare the layouts of the two cities |
| B．find better infrastructure for one city |
| C．design traffic patterns with the algorithm |
| D．assess the effectiveness of the algorithm |
| A．Because of lower posted speed limits. |
| B．Because drivers follow the traffic rules. |
| C．Because it is planned in the traffic network. |
| D．Because a beltway has emerged around the area. |
| A．City planners. |
| B．Slower drivers. |
| C．Infrastructure developers. |
| D．Road sign designers. |
Shooting down an ice-covered track, a bobsled（大雪橇）can go faster than 80 miles an hour, and riders can feel force five times stronger than the pull of gravity. A race can be won or lost by one hundredth of a second. How do bobsleds go faster than cars on a highway? The answer is a combination of athletics and science.
At the start of a race, the crew push their sled, building up speed before they jump in for the ride. For months before the race, the crew have built up power in their legs. The push is the crew's only chance to add speed. All other work goes into keeping friction and drag（摩擦力和阻力）from slowing the sled down.
The design of the sled's runners（滑板）reduces their friction with the ice. The friction of a moving runner melts a little ice right under the runner, and the runner rides on that thin layer of water. The runners are rounded on the bottom. Runners that are too flat may not melt enough ice for fast ride. Runners that are too round may become too warm, softening the ice and slowing the sled down. No amount of rounding is perfect for all races because the hardness of the ice depends on the weather on race day.
Bobsleds used to be open. The riders did not sit inside a hull（外壳）. As the crew sped down the track，the air would create drag. Today, a sled's hull reduces drag by splitting the air in front of the sled and making it flow smoothly along the slides. As with the runners，strict rules apply to the hull. For example，no team may add any part that would create helpful air currents.
Reducing friction and drag creates another challenge: high speeds. “The faster the sleds car travel on the run, the more thrilling the race,” one research team wrote. “But the track must not be too fast: he crew still need to be able to reach the bottom safely.”
1. What's the text mainly about?| A．The shape of the sled. | B．The design of the runners. |
| C．The safety rules applying to the sled. | D．The elements relating to the sled's speed |
| A．Proper amount of melted ice is needed for a fast ride. |
| B．The rounder the runners are, the faster the sled goes. |
| C．Thin layer of water would drag the runners backward. |
| D．A sled's movement has nothing to do with weather. |
| A．It's comfortable to sit in. | B．It leads to beneficial air flow. |
| C．It helps to create a safe ride. | D．It's free from strict rules. |
| A．Safety is the most important. | B．Keeping high speed is difficult. |
| C．Riders' desire to win is understandable. | D．The crew's cooperation is necessary. |
3 . Last weekend was terrible for awards ceremonies. The BAFTAS,defined by a painful monologue（独角戏）from Joanna Lumley, was watched by 500,000 fewer people than last year. Meanwhile,the number of 18﹣to 49-year-olds watching the Grammys has reached an all-time low.
Don't expect the Oscars to fare any better；they have lost millions of viewers since 2014. Add to the fact that comparatively few people have watched most of the nominated films and you have got a ratings time bomb.
Viewers are deserting awards shows in groups and something needs to be done. But what？Reorganize them to celebrate really popular work？That's what the Oscars put forward last year when it suggested a best popular film category﹣and it was swiftly booed（喝倒彩）out of town.
Another option would be to shorten the length of the ceremonies, but this won't work either. The Oscars recently announced plans to hide several categories in ad breaks,and the anger in some quarters（the cinematographers, makeup artists and editors who this year won't get their moment on the small screen）has been obvious.
What else can they do？ Fewer songs？ Shorter speeches？ An In Memoriam section that consists of the words： "People die： get over it"？
Fortunately, I have the perfect solution： don't televise awards shows. Just don't do it. Awards shows are the opposite of good television. They're too long and too boring because of regular and repeated patterns and too self﹣important. And by God, we should have learned by now not to give celebrities any more attention than they already have. It just makes them think that we want to hear them giving out half﹣baked opinions about Donald Trump and Brexit.
I'm not suggesting that the awards shows shouldn't happen. I'm just saying that the awards should be announced in the form of a press release at the end of the ceremony, followed by a handful of You Tube clips showing some nice outfits and a couple of speeches. That's how most of us consume them now anyway.
1. Why does the writer mention the BAFTAS and the Grammys？| A．To introduce the topic of the article. |
| B．To support the topic of the paragraph. |
| C．To attract the readers' attention. |
| D．To make comparison with the Oscars. |
| A．The best popular film category. |
| B．The best actress. |
| C．The reorganized Oscars. |
| D．The deserted awards show. |
| A．Awards shows are better if shortened. |
| B．Awards shows are excellent television. |
| C．Awards shows are important to us. |
| D．Awards shows should be shown in another form. |
| A．The bright future of awards shows. |
| B．What terrible awards shows. |
| C．Stopping the television of awards shows. |
| D．Boycott attention to celebrities. |
4 . For all its drawbacks, aging brings a benefit: social relationships generally improve. Older individuals have fewer but closer friendships, avoid conflicts, and are more optimistic compared with younger adults. Now, 20 years of data on chimpanzees suggest they, too, develop more meaningful friendships as they age.
“The finding challenges a long-standing assumption that humans mellow (成熟) with age because we are aware of our approaching death.” said Zarin Machanda, a professor at Tufts University. But finding the same pattern in chimps suggests a simpler explanation: It could be an evolved trait found in a wider range of species. Zarin and her colleagues gathered data from the Kibale Chimpanzee Project, which has tracked wild chimpanzee behavior in Uganda’s Kibale National Park since 1987. Because chimps are socially similar to humans — they live in large groups and engage in both cooperative and antagonistic (敌对的) relationships throughout their lives — they serve as an ideal test group for studying changes in social behavior. The researchers zeroed in on the males, who had more purely peer-to-peer relationships than females.
Combing through 21 years of behavioral logs on 21 chimps aged 15 through 58, the researchers found that older males (aged 35 and up) had more mutual friendships than younger ones. Older “friends” would sit together and groom one another on a regular basis, whereas younger chimps were more likely to engage in one-sided relationships, in which they groomed preferred elders who rarely returned the favor. As males age and fall in rank, they stop competing for dominance and “tend to give up”. Forming these cooperative relationships with peers could help older males maintain their status, helping them fend off challenges by younger and fitter chimps.
The team are eager to see whether other chimpanzee groups—and female chimpanzees—also experience this mellowing with age. Machanda says the theory could also be tested in other long-lived social species. Next, however, the team will take a deeper look at how social bonds might benefit aging chimps - and whether the same mechanisms could be at work in humans. “There is a lot more to learn,” Machanda says.
1. The author writes Paragraph 1 to ________| A．introduce the topic about the finding on chimps. |
| B．compare chimps with humans in social behaviors. |
| C．show that humans mature as they age is a mere misunderstanding. |
| D．stress that aging is very terrifying not only for humans but also for animals. |
| A．Because chimps look like humans in so many ways. |
| B．Because chimps are easy to track down in the wild. |
| C．Because chimps bear resemblance to humans in social behaviors. |
| D．Because chimps live in large groups together throughout their lives. |
| A．It took the researchers 21 years to study the elderly chimps. |
| B．Older males exhibit mutual friendship among the group. |
| C．Younger males prefer to groom the elders because they respect them. |
| D．Elderly chimps will continue to fight to maintain their status as they age. |
| A．There’s no need to study the female chimpanzees for the theory. |
| B．It would be better to test other species who live a short life as well. |
| C．They have learned fairly enough about how aging affects animal behaviors. |
| D．The study on aging chimps would help better understand human interactions. |
5 . Just as a hungry brain craves (渴望) food, a lonely brain craves people. A new brain study demonstrates this. After being left alone, it shows people's brains would be activated at the sight of other people. The action was in the same brain region that speeds up when a hungry person sees food.
Livia Tomova, a neuroscientist, who studies how the brain produces mental activities, and her colleagues began this study. They recruited (招募) 40 people. On one day, the participants had to fast—not eat anything at all—for 10 hours. On another day, the same people were placed in a room for 10 hours. They couldn't see anyone. No friends, no family and no social media. They weren't even allowed to check their email. After both days, Tomova and her colleagues put the people in a MRI machine. It shows activity in the brain by tracking how much blood is flowing to each region.
At the end of each day, the participants showed high activity in a brain area called the midbrain. The scientists were interested in two, small areas within it. Both areas produce dopamine, a chemical that is important in craving and rewards. The two areas activated when hungry participants saw pictures of tasty pizza or juicy hamburgers. After the volunteers had been isolated, those brain areas became active when they saw social activities they missed. It might be playing sports or chatting with friends.
The midbrain plays an important part in people's motivation to seek food or friends. In fact, it responds to food and social signals even when people aren't hungry or lonely. But hunger and loneliness increased the reactions and made people's responses specific to the thing they were missing. And the more hunger or isolation the volunteers said they were experiencing, the stronger the activity in this part of the brain. Tomova and her colleagues published their results November 23 in Nature Neuroscience.
1. How does Tomova test out the result of the study?| A．By stimulating desire. | B．By controlling blood flow. |
| C．By monitoring brain activity. | D．By examining mental activities. |
| A．It consists of two areas. | B．It helps motivate desire for food. |
| C．It stops working when people are full. | D．It decreases responses to lost friends. |
| A．A midbrain area. | B．A social activity. | C．A volunteer. | D．A hamburger. |
| A．Dopamine—a Sure Sign of Age | B．Midbrain—a Nest for the Thoughts |
| C．Hunger Makes Mental Health Struggle | D．Loneliness Makes Our Brains Need People |
6 . Remote work, especially in a world affected by COVID-19, naturally leads to "flex time". Employees with small children might be getting the majority of their work done at night after the kids are in bed. Working early, you quit early. Starting late, work late.
With your teammates working during different hours, you may be getting messages at all hours of the day, night, or weekend, making you always available. That might be necessary in some industries during these challenging times, but certainly not in every industry and not for everyone in any industry. Once this takes root in your company culture, it becomes difficult to "reset" later. Besides, “always-on” isn't sustainable (可持续的), which increases pressure and quickly turns your company into an unpleasant place to work.
If your company adapts "flex time", how can you accommodate your employees’ needs while still protecting your culture and your team's work-life balance? The key is to encourage flex time while also setting clear "communication hours" (for example, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.）. Outside of those hours, employees should be encouraged to change their settings to "Do Not Disturb" and to use the “schedule send” feature of their email client so that messages only get delivered during communication hours.
If messages must happen outside of the set communication hours, such as for urgent or time-sensitive issues, make employees phone or text only. This way people can comfortably close down all other communication channels like email, WeChat, WeCom, etc. The act of having to call or text someone is usually enough to give the sender a pause to think, "Do I really need this person now, or can the communication wait?" This allows everyone on your team to work whenever is appropriate for them, but not feel like they have to work all the time to accommodate everyone else's schedule. A word of “Thanks for being so responsive” to someone answering an email outside of the defined communication hours definitely brings empathy (同理心) which smooths the urgency while also cultivating the trust and culture.
1. What may result in the phenomenon of "always-on"?| A．COVID-19. | B．Some industries. |
| C．Increasing pressure. | D．Flexible working time. |
| A．The phenomenon of "flex time". | B．The disadvantages of “flex time”. |
| C．The necessity of “flex time”. | D．The company culture of “flex time”, |
| A．It helps to make up for the shortcomings of “flex time". |
| B．It should be set from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. |
| C．Employees mustn't be disturbed within the hours. |
| D．Employees are still responsive outside of the hours. |
| A．Neutral. | B．Supportive. |
| C．Opposed. | D．Indifferent. |
7 . Most of our everyday plastic items end up in landfill, left to rot away for many years. But some of it blows away, spoiling the countryside and causing damage to the natural environment and harming wildlife. The problem is most severe in our oceans. Research has found a deserted island in the South Pacific is littered with the highest density (密度) of plastic waste anywhere in the world.
The study described how remote islands act as a ‘sink’ for the world’s rubbish. They become collecting points for fishing items and everyday things including toothbrushes, cigarette lighters and razors-things that we throw away. Dr Jennifer Lavers from the University of Tasmania says “Almost every island in the world and almost every species in the ocean is now being impacted one way or another by our waste.”
This highlights the potentially deadly effect of our disposable (用后即丢弃) culture. When we throw something away, it doesn’t just disappear, it goes somewhere and because of the nature of plastic, it takes a long time to rot away and stays there causing great damage to the ocean’s ecology (生态). And worse still, plastic is broken down into tiny particles over a long period by the wind and the waves, then sea creatures at the bottom of the food chain swallow them. These creatures are eaten by the fish that we eventually consume.
The solution to this problem would be to use less plastic. Several countries now charge for using plastic carrier bags which reduces the amount used and some products now use natural and recyclable materials.
1. What does the author really want to tell us in the first parapraph?| A．It is a good idea to end plastic items in a landfill. |
| B．Plastic items blow away easily in the strong wind. |
| C．It is a bad habit to throw away plastics everywhere. |
| D．Plastic pollution in oceans is a most serious issue. |
| A．The islands begin to sink with much rubbish on them. |
| B．The islands have become gathering places for rubbish. |
| C．The islands are ideal places to hide the plastic products. |
| D．The islands are inaccessible due to the white pollution. |
| A．Impact on sea species. | B．Thrown-away rubbish. |
| C．The nature of plastic. | D．The ocean’s ecology. |
| A．Breaking the balance of ocean ecology. | B．Causing many sea creatures to die out. |
| C．Presenting potential risks to our health. | D．Cutting off the food chain of sea creatures. |
8 . Google Cloud is racing to roll out new features and services aimed at helping its customers maintain business during the coronavirus pandemic, including a new security product expected to launch Tuesday. The new security product includes technology that could attract more businesses, especially those in highly regulated industries, to adopt cloud services. The technology protects data while it is being processed. “We wanted people comfortable in knowing they can move to the cloud and don’t have to worry about the security of their data,” said Mr. Kurian, chief executive of the unit.
Google Cloud accelerated the development of several features for its virtual meeting product, Google Meet, in April, including one that automatically filters out background noises such as keystrokes and dog barks. Another feature automatically adjusts a user’s video with lighting variations. In 2018, the company launched an AI tool for manufactures that automatically inspects products for quality.
Google Cloud also benefited from the protocols(协议) for Black Friday, when shopping websites see a rush of online shoppers, to deal with sudden more demand for cloud services. The protocols benefited the customers in online videogames, government services, education and shopping, who needed assistance in more computing capacity.
Also, the protocols benefited many companies. Godbole, chief information officer for home improvement company Lowe’s Cos., worked with Mr. Kurian and his team in March and April to manage increased business. Lowe’s customers were doubling on projects such as those related to home offices during those months, and “Our company saw tremendous demand,” Ms. Godbole said.
The coronavirus pandemic presented a new opportunity for Google Cloud to prove its value for customers, said Plummer, chief of research for cloud computing. “Google Cloud aims to differentiate itself by being known as a provider that can handle unpredictable events,” Mr. Plummer said. It aims to do that by offering secure remote-work tools and software development tools that require minimal coding. “Trust is built in times of crisis,” he said.
1. During the coronavirus pandemic, Google Cloud is working hard to ________.| A．start more highly regulated businesses. |
| B．help customers to save more money. |
| C．make people move to the cloud more safely. |
| D．remove data while it is being processed. |
| A．Produces. | B．Breaks. | C．Matches. | D．Removes. |
| A．To show the market needs the new products of Google Cloud. |
| B．To share the experience of Ms. Godbole’s company. |
| C．To offer an example of running a company in times of crisis. |
| D．To encourage people to follow the step of Godbole. |
| A．Insufficient. | B．Reliable. | C．Unpredictable. | D．Complex. |
9 . After Scott Kelly spent a year in space, his genetic expression changed, according to a NASA study that compared the bodily changes between the astronaut and his identical twin, who stayed on Earth while Kelly was aboard the International Space Station. About 7 percent of Kelly’s gene activity has yet to “return to normal” — almost two years after his yearlong spaceflight mission came to an end. Kelly has since retired from NASA.
The Twins Study，as it’s been called，looked at what happened to Kelly — both physiologically and psychologically :— before，during and after his trip in space，and then compared that data to Kelly’s twin brother，Mark Kelly，also a retired NASA astronaut.
Unlike his brother who spent months at a time in space，Mark’s missions were on the shorter side. His last — and longest — mission，which took place in 2011，lasted 15 days.
“By measuring large numbers of the brother’s metabolites，cytokines (代谢物、细胞活素）and proteins，researchers learned that spaceflight is associated with oxygen deprivation (匮乏）stress， increased inflammation (炎症），and nutrient changes that affect gene expression，” NASA said.
Although most of the biological changes Kelly experienced in space disappeared in the hours and days (and in some cases? weeks) after his return to Earthy, NASA said some changes appear to have continued. While 93 percent of his genetic expression has returned to normal, several hundred “space genes” still have changed activity levels，the data suggests， which, NASA said, could indicate “longer-term changes” in genetic expression caused by the stresses of spaceflight.
NASA said the research could provide important knowledge of the effects of long-term spaceflight on the human body, and that it will influence its planning for a mission to Mars, which would see astronauts spending some three years in space.
Reacting to the news of the study results, Kelly expressed amazement at his body’s changes， and also used the opportunity to make fun of his brother. “This could be good news,” he joked on Twitter. “I no longer have to call Mark my identical twin brother anymore.”
1. What can be learnt about Mark Kelly?| A．He’s still working for NASA. |
| B．He has only been to space once. |
| C．He hasn’t gone on a spaceflight mission yet. |
| D．He never stayed in space for a whole month. |
| A．They’re dangerous to astronauts. |
| B．Most of them won’t last very long. |
| C．They’re mainly caused by psychological stress. |
| D．Some can occur during short-term spaceflight. |
| A．It involved many twin participants. |
| B．It ended soon after Scott Kelly’s last spaceflight. |
| C．It only studied Scott Kelly’s physical changes. |
| D．It will be valuable to NASA’s Mars mission. |
| A．Mark Kelly will lose his twin brother soon. |
| B．Scott Kelly always looks on the bright side. |
| C．Scott Kelly doesn’t like his twin brother. |
| D．Scott Kelly seems to have a sense of humor. |
10 . China’s Tianwen 1 Mars probe (探测器) conducted its fourth orbital correction on Friday evening, as the spacecraft makes ready for its arrival in orbit around Feb. 10, according to the China National Space Administration.
The name comes from the long poem Tianwen, meaning Heavenly Questions or Questions to Heaven, written by Qu Yuan, one of the greatest poets of ancient China. In Tianwen, this name conveys the Chinese nation’s steady effort in pursuing truth and culture of exploring nature and the universe. CNSA also unveiled ( 发 布 ) the logo of China’s planetary exploration missions, featuring the letter C, signifying China, international cooperation and capacity of entering space.
Tianwen I has flown for 197 days and more than 465 million kilometers on its journey to the planet. It is now around 184 million km from Earth and I. 1 million km from Mars. Depending on the two planets’ orbits, Mars is between 55 and 400 million km from Earth. Mars probe Tianwen I is seen in its first selfies in space on Oct. 1, 2020. The administration also published a black-and-white picture of Mars taken by Tianwen I, the first snapshot (抓拍的照片) from the Chinese craft.
Tianwen I, the country’s first independent Mars mission, was launched by a Long March 5 heavy-lift carrier rocket on July 23 from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan province, kicking off the nation’s planetary exploration program.
A successful landing would make China only the second nation to place a spacecraft on the Martian planet. China would also be the first to successfully orbit, land and deploy ( 部署) a vehicle in the same mission. According to experts, searching for signs of life on Mars will be the first and foremost scientific goal. China is open and inclusive in the development of its space technology not least because it believes that the exploration of outer space should help build a community with a shared future for mankind.
1. Why is Qu Yuan’s poem mentioned in the text?| A．To tell the origin of space exploration. |
| B．To describe space exploration vividly. |
| C．To highlight the importance of space exploration. |
| D．To show Chinese continuous struggle in space exploration. |
| A．function | B．development | C．operation | D．structure |
| A．To build a common future for man. | B．To prove our achievement in space research. |
| C．To discover signs of life on this planet. | D．To expand the understanding of the space. |
| A．Letter C Logo symbolizes creation between countries. |
| B．China was the first nation to land a spacecraft on Mars. |
| C．Tianwen I made its fifth orbital correction around Feb. 10. |
| D．Tianwen I started a new chapter in Chinese planetary exploration. |
