1 . The history of microbiology begins with Dutch cloth maker named Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, a man of no formal scientific education. In the late 1600s. Leeuwenhoek, inspired by the magnifying lenses（放大镜）he used to examine cloth, built some of the first-microscopes. He developed technique to improve the quality of tiny, rounded lenses, some of which could magnify an object up to 270 times. After removing some plaque from between his teeth and examining it under a lens, Leeuwenhoek found tiny twisting creatures, which he called “animalcules”.
His observations, which he reported to the Royal Society of London, are among the first descriptions of microbes（微生物）. Leeuwenhoek discovered an entire universe invisible to the human eye. He found different microbes in samples of pond water, rain water, and human blood. He gave the first description of red blood cells, observed plant tissue, examined muscle, and investigated the life cycle of insects.
Nearly two hundred years later, Leeuwenhock’s discovery of microbes helped French chemist and biologist Louis Pasteur to develop his “theory of disease”. This concept suggested that disease originates from tiny organisms attacking and weakening the body. Pasteur’s theory later helped doctors to fight infectious diseases including anthrax, diphtheria, polio, smallpox, tetanus, and typhoid. All these breakthroughs were the result of Leeuwenhoek’s original work. Leeuwenhoek did not foresee this legacy.
In a 1716 letter, he described his contribution to science this way: “My work, which I’ve done for a long time, was not pursued in order to gain the praise I now enjoy, but chiefly from a strong desire for knowledge, which I notice resides in me more than in most other men. And therefore; whenever I found out anything remarkable, I have thought it my duty to put down my discovery on paper, so that the scientific community might be informed thereof.”
1. Which of the following best describes Leeuwenhoek?| A．trained researcher with an interest in microbiology |
| B．A curious amateur who made pioneer studies of microbes |
| C．A talented scientist interested in finding a cure for disease |
| D．A bored cloth maker who accidentally made a major discovery |
| A．the discovery of microbes |
| B．Pasteur’s theory of disease |
| C．Leeuwenhoek’s contribution |
| D．the origin of the tiny organism |
| A．He admitted that many of his discoveries happened by chance. |
| B．He considered his work to be central to later medical breakthroughs. |
| C．He was greatly concerned with improving people’s living conditions. |
| D．He believed the sharing of knowledge was a key to scientific progress |
a. Magnifying lenses were built.
b. The “theory of disease” was put forward
c. Microbes were discovered in samples of waters.
d. Leeuwenhoek’s first microscopes were successfully developed.
e. Leeuwenhoek explained his thoughts upon his own contribution.
| A．a-d-c-e-b | B．d-a-c-e-b | C．a-c-d-b-e | D．d-a-e-b-c |
2 . Hollywood’s theory that machines with evil(邪恶) minds will drive armies of killer robots is just silly. The real problem relates to the possibility that artificial intelligence(AI) may become extremely good at achieving something other than what we really want. In 1960 a well-known mathematician Norbert Wiener, who founded the field of cybernetics（控制论）, put it this way: “If we use, to achieve our purposes, a mechanical agency with whose operation we cannot effectively interfere(干预), we had better be quite sure that the purpose put into the machine is the purpose which we really desire.”
A machine with a specific purpose has another quality, one that we usually associate with living things: a wish to preserve its own existence. For the machine, this quality is not in-born, nor is it something introduced by humans; it is a logical consequence of the simple fact that the machine cannot achieve its original purpose if it is dead. So if we send out a robot with the single instruction of fetching coffee, it will have a strong desire to secure success by disabling its own off switch or even killing anyone who might interfere with its task. If we are not careful, then, we could face a kind of global chess match against very determined, super intelligent machines whose objectives conflict with our own, with the real world as the chessboard.
The possibility of entering into and losing such a match should concentrate the minds of computer scientists. Some researchers argue that we can seal the machines inside a kind of firewall, using them to answer difficult questions but never allowing them to affect the real world. Unfortunately, that plan seems unlikely to work: we have yet to invent a firewall that is secure against ordinary humans, let alone super intelligent machines.
Solving the safety problem well enough to move forward in AI seems to be possible but not easy. There are probably decades in which to plan for the arrival of super intelligent machines. But the problem should not be dismissed out of hand, as it has been by some AI researchers. Some argue that humans and machines can coexist as long as they work in teams—yet that is not possible unless machines share the goals of humans. Others say we can just “switch them off” as if super intelligent machines are too stupid to think of that possibility. Still others think that super intelligent AI will never happen. On September 11, 1933, famous physicist Ernest Rutherford stated, with confidence, “Anyone who expects a source of power in the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine.” However, on September 12, 1933, physicist Leo Szilard invented the neutron-induced(中子诱导) nuclear chain reaction.
1. Paragraph 1 mainly tells us that artificial intelligence may .| A．run out of human control |
| B．satisfy human’s real desires |
| C．command armies of killer robots |
| D．work faster than a mathematician |
| A．prevent themselves from being destroyed |
| B．achieve their original goals independently |
| C．do anything successfully with given orders |
| D．beat humans in international chess matches |
| A．help super intelligent machines work better |
| B．be secure against evil human beings |
| C．keep machines from being harmed |
| D．avoid robots’ affecting the world |
| A．It will disappear with the development of AI. |
| B．It will get worse with human interference. |
| C．It will be solved but with difficulty. |
| D．It will stay for a decade. |
3 . Modern medicine’s ability to keep us alive makes it tempting to think human evolution may have stopped. But if we look at the rate of our DNA’s evolution, we can see that human evolution hasn’t stopped – it may even be happening faster than before.
Evolution is a gradual change to the DNA of a species over many generations. It can occur by natural selection, when certain traits created by genetic changes help an organism survive or reproduce. Such genes are thus more likely to be passed on to the next generation, so they increase in frequency in a population. Gradually, these changes and their associated traits become more common among the whole group.
By looking at global studies of our DNA, we can see evidence that natural selection has recently made changes and continues to do so. Though modern healthcare disrupts a key driving force of evolution by keeping some people alive longer, in countries without access to good healthcare, populations are continuing to evolve. Survivors of infectious disease outbreaks drive natural selection by giving their genetic resistance to offspring. Our DNA shows evidence for recent selection for resistance of killer diseases like Lassa fever and malaria. Selection in response to malaria remains in regions where the disease remains common.
Humans are also adapting to their environment. Gene change allowing humans to live at high altitudes have become more common in populations in Tibet, Ethiopia, and the Andes. The spread of genetic changes in Tibet is possibly the fastest evolutionary change in humans, occurring over the past 3,000 years. This rapid increase in frequency of a mutated gene that increases blood oxygen content gives locals a survival advantage in higher altitudes, resulting in more surviving children.
Diet is another source for adaptations. Studies show that natural selection favoring a change allowing adults to produce lactase – the enzyme (酶) that breaks down milk sugars – is why some groups of people can digest milk. Over 80 per cent of northwest Europeans can, but in parts of East Asia, where milk is much less commonly drunk, an inability to digest lactose is the norm. Like high altitude adaptation, selection to digest milk has evolved more than once in humans and may be the strongest kind of recent selection.
Yet, despite these changes, natural selection only affects about 8 per cent of our genome. But scientists can’t explain why some genes are evolving much faster than others. We measure the speed of gene evolution by comparing human DNA with that of other species. One fast-evolving gene is human accelerated region 1 (HAR1), which is needed during brain development. A random section of human DNA is on average more than 98 per cent identical to the chimp comparator, but HAR1 is so fast evolving that it’s only around 85 per cent similar. Though scientists can see these changes are happening – and how quickly – we still don’t fully understand why fast evolution happens to some genes but not others.
1. Which of the following statements may the author agree with?| A．Evolution occurs among several people overnight. |
| B．Genes may change and some are beneficial to people’s lives. |
| C．Evolution is done when the whole population possesses a certain gene. |
| D．The changed genes leading to higher survival rates are chosen deliberately. |
| A．explains | B．causes | C．upsets | D．heals |
| A．some people can resist infectious diseases like malaria |
| B．children in Tibet tolerate living environments with thin air |
| C．northwestern Europeans digest lactose better than East Asians |
| D．the human gene HAR1 resembles that of a chimp to a lesser extent |
| A．What Is Natural Selection? |
| B．Are Humans Still Evolving? |
| C．Why Will Certain Genes Evolve? |
| D．How Do Mutated Genes Function? |
4 . Making beers on the moon might seem like a pipe dream to many, but for a group of students from the University of California at San Diego, there is a chance to take their research beyond Earth’s surface.
The Lab2Moon competition, held by TeamIndus, is offering students the chance to secure a spot on the TeamIndus rocket this year.
Taking craft beer to the next level, the students want to test whether it’s possible for yeast(酵母) to work and create beer on the moon. However, they believe the experiment is not just a creative concept for astronauts, it’s also important for the development of drugs and yeast-containing food, like bread.
“The idea started out with a few laughs among a group of friends,” said Neeki Ashari, a fifth-year bioengineering students at UC San Diego. “We all appreciate the craft beer. When we heard that there was an opportunity to design an experiment that would go up on India’s moonlander, w e thought we could combine our hobby with the competition by focusing on the practicality of yeast in outer space.”
The preparation work for the beer — up to the stage of adding yeast — will all be done on Earth, and rather than separating the fermentation ( 发酵) and carbonation stage of making beer, the team plans to combine them.
This removes the need to release CO2 accumulated in the process, which may result in cleanliness and safety issues out in space.
If selected, Team Original Gravity will be the first to make beer in outer space, and the fermentation will take place in a container no bigger than a soda can.
All teams competing for the place will showcase their ideas in Bangalore, India, in March.
Sadly, you won’t be enjoying moon beer in your local craft beer bar anytime soon, as no samples will be brought back. However, this small experiment could provide important data on just how practical it is for us to make and create our own resources on other planets and moons by learning how consumables (消耗品) behave in different environments.
1. How did the students feel when they got the chance to design the experiment ?| A．Excited. | B．Nervous. |
| C．Confident. | D．Casual. |
| A．The mixing of two stages. | B．Adding yeast on Earth. |
| C．The preparation work on Earth. | D．Fermentation and carbonation. |
| A．It has been designed based on similar experiments. |
| B．It’s quite competitive compared with other designs. |
| C．It’s design has already been approved by TeamIndus. |
| D．Its process was adapted to make it safer and greener. |
| A．It seems like a pipe dream. | B．It’s extremely complicated. |
| C．It’s meaningful and hopeful. | D．It’s creative but impractical. |
5 . A robot created by Washington State University (WSU) scientists could help elderly people with dementia (痴呆) and other limitations live independently in their own homes.
The Robot Activity Support System, or RAS, uses sensors installed in a WSU smart home to determine where its residents are, what they are doing and when they need assistance with daily activities. It navigates (定位) through rooms and around obstacles to find people on its own, provides video instructions on how to do simple tasks and can even lead its owner to objects like their medication or a snack in the kitchen.
“RAS combines the convenience of a mobile robot with the activity detection technology of a WSU smart home to provide assistance in the moment, as the need for help is detected,” said Bryan Minor, a postdoctoral researcher in the WSU School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Currently, an estimated 50 percent of adults over the age of 85 need assistance with every day activities such as preparing meals and taking medication and the annual cost for this assistance in the US is nearly $2 trillion. With the number of adults over 85 expected to triple by 2050, researchers hope that technologies like RAS and the WSU smart home will relieve some of the financial strain on the healthcare system by making it easier for older adults to live alone.
RAS is the first robot researchers have tried to incorporate into their smart home environment. They recently published a study in the journal Cognitive Systems Research that demonstrates how RAS could make life easier for older adults struggling to live independently.
“While we are still in an early stage of development, our initial results with RAS have been promising,” Minor said. “The next step in the research will be to test RAS’ performance with a group of older adults to get a better idea of what prompts, video reminders and other preferences they have regarding the robot.”
1. How does RAS serve elderly people?| A．Through sensors. | B．Through objects. |
| C．Through a mobile robot. | D．Through their daily activities. |
| A．It is the first robot used in daily life. | B．Its function remains to be tested. |
| C．It can locate people and do any task. | D．It can cook for owners on its own. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Negative. |
| C．Optimistic. | D．Uncertain. |
| A．Elderly people leave the nursing home. |
| B．Smart Home Tests first elder-Care robot. |
| C．RAS, the first robot to make home smart. |
| D．Older adults have benefited from RAS. |
6 . Mathew White, an environmental psychologist, is on a mission to give Mother Nature the respect he thinks she deserves when it comes to human health. For decades, scientists and health-care professionals have recognized that exposure to green spaces, such as public parks or forests, is linked with lower risks of all sorts of illnesses common in the world. Experimental work has demonstrated various physiological responses that occur when people spend time in natural environments: blood pressure drops, heart rate decreases, immune function improves, and the nervous system directs the body to rest and digest.
As humans increasingly populate urbanized areas, they are spending less and less time in natural environments. But before doctors can start advising their patients to head to the nearest park, there is an important outstanding question, says White: How much time in nature do you need to generate these apparent benefits? Most of the research that has linked health outcomes with exposure to the natural world didn’t use frequency or duration of park visits, but rather the amount of green space within a certain distance of a person’s home, White says. But “it’s not so much where you live; it’s whether you use it or not.”
So he collected data to estimate what dose（剂量） of nature was needed to show benefits to a person’s health. White’s group found the answer he was after: Spending at least two hours in nature per week was strongly correlated with self-reports of being in good health or having high wellbeing. “I was very surprised, to be honest,” says White, who had been expecting a much longer time. “We had no idea that such a clear threshold of time per week would emerge from the data.”
He was further surprised to learn that it didn’t seem to matter how many trips to a park people took, so long as they got in their two hours per week. It could be a long visit one day, a couple of hour-long trips, three visits of 40 minutes, or four half-hour excursions. He and his colleagues speculate that, if nature’s apparent health benefits are a result of being able to de-stress, then whatever pattern of green space exposure fits one’s schedule is probably the best way to achieve that goal.
Health-care recommendations for people to spend time in nature are probably years away, but the movement has begun. Several organizations around the world are working to promote awareness of nature’s contribution to health. Some researchers have used the term “a dose of nature” to evaluate the amount of exposure needed to gain benefits. “That was kind of the deliberate medicalization of the language around nature and health,” says White.
1. White’s research focused on_______.| A．required amount of green space |
| B．benefits from the exposure to nature |
| C．necessary time length of nature visits |
| D．physical responses to outdoor activities |
| A．Maximum time. | B．Minimum time. |
| C．Adequate time. | D．Average time. |
| A．is confident about his mission |
| B．is willing to cooperate with others |
| C．has persuaded others to accept his idea |
| D．has adopted the term for his research result |
| A．Respect for Nature | B．Nature as Medicine |
| C．Present from Nature | D．Mission in Nature |
7 . It’s late in the evening, time to close the book and turn off the computer. You’re done for the day. What you may not realize, however, is that the learning process actually continues in your dreams.
It might sound like science fiction, but researchers are increasingly focusing on the relationship between the knowledge and skills our brains absorb during the day and the often strange imaginings they generate at night. Scientists have found that dreaming about a task we’ve learned improves performance in that activity (suggesting that there’s some truth to the popular idea that we’re “getting” a foreign language once we begin dreaming in it). What’s more, dreaming may be an essential part of understanding, organizing and retaining what we learn.
While we sleep, research indicates, the brain replays the patterns of activity it experienced during waking hours, allowing us to enter what one psychologist calls a neural (神经的) virtual reality. A vivid example of such replay can be seen in a video researchers made recently about sleep disorders. They taught a series of dance moves to patients suffering from sleepwalking and related conditions. They then videotaped the subjects as they slept. Lying in bed, eyes closed, one female patient on the tape performs the dance moves she learned earlier.
This shows that while our bodies are at rest, our brains are drawing what’s important from the information and events we’ve recently encountered, then integrating that material into the vast store of what we already know. In a 2010 study, researchers reported that college students who dreamed about a computer maze (迷宫) task they had learned showed a 10-fold improvement in their ability to find their way through the maze compared with participants who did not dream about the task.
That study’s chief researcher Herbert Smith suggested that studying right before bedtime or taking a nap following a study session in the afternoon might increase the probability of dreaming about the material. Think about that as you go to sleep tonight.
1. What happens when one enters a dream state?| A．The body continues to act as if the sleeper were awake. |
| B．The neural activity of the brain will become intensified. |
| C．The brain once again experiences the learning activities of the day. |
| D．The brain behaves as if it were playing a virtual reality video game. |
| A．It replaces old information with new material. |
| B．It processes and absorbs newly acquired information. |
| C．It regroups information and places it in different files. |
| D．It systematizes all the information collected during the day. |
| A．Staying up late before finally going to bed. |
| B．Having a period of sleep right after studying. |
| C．Having a dream about anything you are interested in. |
| D．Thinking about the chances of dreaming about the material. |
| A．How study affects people’s dreams. |
| B．Why people learn more after sleeping. |
| C．What time students should study and sleep. |
| D．How dreaming may lead to improved learning outcomes. |
8 . We’ve all had the experience of wanting to get a project done but putting it off to a later date. So why do we delay things? Are we built to operate this way sometimes?
These questions are central to my research on goal pursuit (追求). It all starts with a simple choice between working now on a given project and doing anything else. The decision to work on something is driven by how much we value accomplishing the project in that moment — what psychologists call its subjective value. And delay, in psychological terms, is what happens when the value of doing something else outweighs the value of working now.
This way of thinking suggests a simple trick to defeat delay. For example, instead of cleaning my house, I might try to focus on why grading papers is personally important to me. It’s simple advice, but sticking to this strategy (策略) can be quite difficult.
People are not entirely wise in the way they value things. For example, a dollar bill is worth exactly the same today as it is a week from now, but its subjective value — roughly how good it would feel to own a dollar—depends on other factors besides its face value, such as when we receive it. The tendency for people to devalue money and other goods based on time is called delay discounting. For example, receiving $100 three months from now is worth the same to people as receiving $83 right now. People would rather lose $17 than wait a few months to get a larger reward.
Getting something done is a delayed reward, so its value in the present is reduced: the further away the deadline is, the less attractive it seems to work on the project right now. The tendency to delay things closely follows economic models of delay discounting. One way to manage it is to make the finish line seem closer. For example, vividly imagining a future reward reduces delay discounting.
1. Which of the following best explains “outweighs” in Paragraph 2?| A．Is equal to. | B．Is greater than. |
| C．Is involved in. | D．Is central to. |
| A．Avoid setting a deadline too strictly. |
| B．Consider doing nothing temporarily. |
| C．Increase the subjective value of working now. |
| D．Realize great fun of working immediately. |
| A．Time and tide wait for no man. |
| B．A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. |
| C．One of these days is none of these days. |
| D．Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched. |
| A．Asking for nothing in return. |
| B．Lowering our high expectations. |
| C．Searching for instant satisfaction. |
| D．Making future rewards more inviting. |
9 . As the international demand for narrative(叙事的) film/TV content continues to increase with popular streaming services like Netflix and others the two questions then come: will the coming generations receive most of their entertainment through visual means rather than through the written word and will such an increase of narrative film/ TV reduce the importance of reading?
Growing examples of this trend include the diminishment(减少) of fiction in the common core (核心的)curriculum, the ever－rising culture of computer games, the wave of streaming services of wide international reach, and movies filled with special effects made for children and teenagers. Nor must we ignore the economic dangers that lie ahead for the written word. The narrative film industry is a moneymaker that dwarfs(使相形见绌) the publishing industry.
The other underlying question, of course, is “does it really matter if the written word bows to the world of film/TV?” From my point of view, any diminishment of fiction delivered by words is a loss for mankind.
There is no greater human feature than the imagination. It lies at the very soul of the human species. It is the brain’s most powerful engine. It is the essential muscle of life and like all muscles it must be exercised and strengthened.
Writing and reading are the principal tools that inspire, create and empower our imagination. Anything that diminishes that power is the enemy of mankind.
It should be known that I am not opposed to new media and technological advances. Instead, I have always felt it necessary to adapt to advancing technology. In fact, a number of my novels are in various stages of development for film, TV, and live stage productions. My hope is that the written word will only stand to be complemented(补充)by its visual counterparts(对应物), not pushed to the edge of extinction.
Of course, there are those who will present arguments for the superiority of the moving image over the written word. Each has its place. My argument is for finding the right balance between it and the moving image.
1. In what way does narrative film/TV embarrass the written word?| A．Economic benefits | B．International reach |
| C．Cultural influence | D．Educational importance |
| A．It strengthens our muscles. | B．It helps sharpen imagination. |
| C．It distinguishes man from each other. | D．It paves the way for narrative film/TV. |
| A．Cautious | B．Skeptical |
| C．Positive | D．Critical |
| A．The fate of reading. | B．The extinction of fiction. |
| C．The impact of the written word. | D．The future of the moving image. |
10 . Examples of effective conservation of places matter to the world. They range from the 1960s Nubian campaign to safeguard Ancient Egyptian monuments from the waters of the Aswan Dam to the removal in 2018 of the Belize Barrier Reef from the List of World Heritage in Danger. Conservation is the core purpose of the World Heritage Convention and it may also be its biggest challenge.
The following example shows how successes at specific sites now serve as models for conservation and sustainable (可持续性) development. A year after Vienna was included on the World Heritage List in 2001, the World Heritage Committee (WHC) expressed concerns about the architectural solutions and height of four planned towers of the Wien-Mitte project. This development project, close to the Historic Centre of Vienna in the site’s buffer zone, the one that lies between two or more other areas, affected the urban scale (规模) and visual effects in and around the property (地产). As a result of the Committee’s concerns, Vienna changed its building codes and launched a new design competition for the Wien-Mitte project to work out architectural plans with reduced size in keeping with World Heritage protection.
The successful practice inspired the government of the city to invite over 600 experts and professionals from 55 countries to an international conference on World Heritage and contemporary architecture, held in Vienna in May 2005. The global discussion that followed, detailing an approach to managing conservation and development, was recorded in the UNESCO Recommendation in 2011.
The Recommendation put forwards an all-rounded and combined approach to balancing urban heritage (遗产) conservation and economic development, arguing that active protection and management of urban heritage supports the goal of sustainable development.
The Recommendation supports the harmonious combination of contemporary involvement into the historic urban framework while holding on to values linked to history, memory and the environment.
1. Why does the author mention the Belize Barrier Reef in Paragraph 1?| A．To explain the goal of the organization. |
| B．To encourage the public to protect the world. |
| C．To show the positive effect of conservation. |
| D．To remind people of the environmental problems. |
| A．It took up too much public land of the city. |
| B．It had a bad effect on the Historic Centre of Vienna. |
| C．Its original designs were not environmentally friendly. |
| D．Its architectural solutions couldn’t meet safety standards. |
| A．The ways to combine conservation and development. |
| B．The creation of the new UNESCO Recommendation. |
| C．The international urban management and development. |
| D．The styles of the contemporary architecture of Vienna. |
| A．To examine the challenges faced by global urban planners. |
| B．To introduce alternative ways of protecting the environment. |
| C．To stress the importance of the value of history and memory. |
| D．To promote active conservation and sustainable development. |
