1 . On a break from his studies in the MIT Media Lab,Anirudh Sharma traveled home to Mumbai, India. While there, he noticed that throughout the day his T-shirts were gradually gathering something that looked like dirt."I realized this was air pollution，or sooty（像煤一样）particulate matter (PM)，made of black particles released from exhaust（尾气）of vehicles，" Sharma says. "This is a major health issue."Soot consists of tiny black particles, about 2.5 micrometers or smaller, made carbon produced by incomplete burning of fossil fuels.
Back at MIT,Sharma set out to help solve this air-pollution issue. After years of research and development, Sharma’s startup Graviky Labs has developed technology that attaches to exhaust systems of diesel generators（柴油发电机）to collect particulate matter.Scientists at Graviky then turn it into ink, called Air-Ink, for artists around the world. So far, the startup has collected I.6 billion micrograms of particulate matter.More than 200 gallons of Air-Ink have been harvested for a growing community of more than 1,000 artists, from Bangalore to Boston, Shanghai,and London.
Posted all over Graviky Lab's Facebook page today are photos of art made from the Air-Ink and pant, including street wall paintings, body art and clothing prints.At first, there was still no specific application for the ink. Then the startup decided to find new ways to further spread its mission.It chose to do so through art."Art helps us raise awareness about where the ink and paint comes from. Air pollution knows no borders. Our ink sends a message that pollution is one of the resources in our world that's the hardest to collect and use.But it can be done,"Sharma says.
1. What struck Sharma most during his break in India?| A．Dirt on his T-shirts. | B．Health issue of the locals. |
| C．Coal industry in Mumbai. | D．Incomplete burning of fossil fuels. |
| A．a cleaner of outdoor air | B．a product made from PM |
| C．a newly-founded company | D．a printing technology |
| A．It improves artistic effect. | B．It makes pollution acceptable. |
| C．It helps Sharma make a profit. | D．It raises environmental awareness. |
| A．Arts know no borders | B．Waste has no price |
| C．Less pollution, more art | D．Creative thinking, effective painting |
2 . Mental health and happiness are important to student success in higher education but rarely get the attention they need. Colleges and universities in the United States have been seeing increases in mental illness among students for decades. Promoting student mental health and emotional happiness on campus requires more than a well-functioning counseling center. It calls for a campus-wide commitment action plan.
American undergraduate students have been reporting increasing rates of anxiety, depression and substance use for decades. In the 2018–2019 Healthy Minds Study (HMS) survey, 40% of about 300,000 students at some 300 colleges and universities reported experiencing a mental health problem, and 60% said they were having difficulty accessing mental health care on campus or in the community. Other studies estimate that the dropout rate for U.S. undergraduate students with mental health problems is over 40%, and that the popularity of mental health problems among graduate students is six times that of the general population.
Most academic institutions provide some mental health services, often through a counseling center. But no matter how good that center is, it alone cannot solve the problems. An important early step is for each institution to assess the extent of the crisis on its campus and whether there are enough treatment services either at the institution or in the local community. Another important question is whether there are elements of the institution’s own environment or culture that contribute to the problems that students are experiencing, like unreasonable workloads or deadlines for assignments.
Every college and university should carry out a comprehensive action plan to achieve this goal. This may require additional resources during a trying time for institutional budgets. But supporting the whole student is so important that financial priorities should be rearranged.
1. What happens to undergraduate students in America?| A．They pay little attention to higher education. | B．Increasing students suffer from mental illness. |
| C．They are lacking in a sense of happiness. | D．They lose confidence in the future careers. |
| A．Terrible dropout rates. | B．Decreasing general population. |
| C．Emotional happiness. | D．Mentally healthy problems. |
| A．Analyzing the present situation. | B．Opening more counseling centers. |
| C．Offering free mental health services. | D．Reducing unreasonable workloads. |
| A．By giving some useful advice. | B．By offering financial support. |
| C．By turning to the government. | D．By getting enough trying time. |
3 . Cindy Soule is a teacher in Portland, Maine, an area known to have extremely cold and snowy winters. But cold weather doesn't stop Soule and her students from continuing with outdoor learning during the COVID-19.
Earlier in the school year, students in Soule's fourth-grade class had outdoor lessons. Then, the snow came. Wearing warm clothes, the students took their school supplies outside in buckets. Then, they turned the buckets over, put them down in the snow, took a seat and went to work. The lesson that day centered on snow and the formation of snowflakes.
Schools across the U.S. have pushed for outdoor learning to keep students and teachers safe. Infectious disease experts worldwide have noted that the virus spreads less easily outdoors. Now, with temperatures dropping in much of the country, some schools have made plans to continue outdoor learning during the winter.
Anne Stires is an outdoor learning expert in Maine. She said "the outdoors is the healthiest, safest place for us to be right now. Anything that we can do to get kids outdoors for longer periods of time is vital," Stires added. "This is only where we need to be right now."
In the neighboring state of New Hampshire, fourth- and fifth-grade students are still learning outside at James Faulkner Elementary School in Stoddard. The school created an outdoor classroom by clearing some trees and building an area for warmth by fire. In the western state of Colorado, elementary school students in the Lake County school district study in usual classrooms for half the week. For the other half, they learn outdoors.
For educators, outdoor learning is yet another period of change. Last spring, it was distance learning. Then came mixed learning methods. Now, educators are trying to keep their students warm enough to learn outside.
1. What can we learn according to the second paragraph?| A．Cindy Soule prefers outdoor classes with her students. |
| B．The students had a good time when playing with snow. |
| C．Cindy Soule is creative and flexible in her teaching. |
| D．A bucket has more functions besides being a container. |
| A．It is likely that the virus disappears easily outdoors. |
| B．Dropping temperatures will bring the virus to an end. |
| C．Being outdoors is the perfect choice at present. |
| D．Getting kids in outdoor activities is very important. |
| A．Skeptical. | B．Objective. | C．Negative. | D．Optimistic. |
| A．Outdoor education continues in the cold weather. |
| B．Maine has suffered much more due to the COVID-19. |
| C．Cold weather stops the COVID-19 attacking students. |
| D．Teachers are worried about the safety of their students. |
4 . Splash (落水声)! Did you hear that? Can you guess what it is? Can you figure it out? If you guessed the ocean, then you’re correct! I believe that my organization, Reef Check, is the most worthy of receiving the Chocolate Heart money. Do you want to know why? Well, soon you’ll find out.
First of all, Reef Check needs the money to repair and clean coral reefs (珊瑚礁) which are home to millions of sea animals. Reef Check hopes to educate the public about the value of reef ecosystems (生态系统) and the danger that sea animals and plants are facing. Based in Los Angeles, Reef Check has volunteer teams in more than 90 countries, making community volunteers, businesses, universities, and other non-profit organizations work together. It works to create a worldwide network of volunteer teams trained in Reef Check’s scientific methods that survey coral and rocky reefs and report on reef health. Also, Reef Check takes action to protect remaining ancient reefs and repair reefs in danger worldwide.
For example, imagine you are a poor sea animal, whose home just got destroyed or wasn’t clean. What would you do? What could you do? Nothing much, really. But that’s exactly Reef Check’s job! To clean and protect these homes for many sea animals!
Furthermore, in 1997, Reef Check carried out the first-ever survey of coral reef health that provided scientific evidence that our coral reefs were in danger because of overfishing, illegal fishing, and pollution. The results surprised many biologists who had not realized the seriousness of human influence on reefs. In August 2002, Reef Check presented its report, The Global Coral Reef Crisis - Trends and Solutions, at the World Summit in South Africa. The report warned that there was no reef in the world that remained untouched by human influence, such as overfishing, pollution, and climate change.
In short, everyone should have a home including animals from the sea. So don’t leave them out! Be generous and give them a home!
1. What do we know about Reef Check?| A．It is a team of scientists. |
| B．It mainly studies sea animals. |
| C．It is a non-profit organization. |
| D．It is run by the US government. |
| A．To show the role of Reef Check. |
| B．To show the importance of reefs. |
| C．To show how poor sea animals are. |
| D．To show the seriousness of sea pollution. |
| A．Reefs would die out in the near future. |
| B．Humans and reefs depended on each other. |
| C．Overfishing influenced the oceans seriously. |
| D．Reefs were at risk because of human activities. |
| A．To describe what Reef Check is. |
| B．To introduce a dangerous but important job. |
| C．To explain why Reef Check needs support. |
| D．To educate the public to care for the environment. |
5 . If your friend says she feels relaxed, but you see that she closes her hands into fists, you may doubt her words. Robots, however, might believe her. Body language says a lot, but robots have great difficulty in observing tiny body movements and can miss important social signals as a result.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University developed a body-tracking system that might help solve this problem. The system called OpenPose can track body movement in real time. One important quality of the OpenPose system is that it can track not only a person's head, body, arms and legs but also his fingers. To do that, the researchers used a dome （圆顶状物）lined with 500 cameras, where they recorded body movements at different angles and then used those pictures to build a data set.
They then passed those pictures through a keypoint detector to identify and label specific body parts. The software also learns to connect the body parts with different people, so it knows, for example, that a particular person's hand will always be close to his or her upper arm. This makes it possible to track multiple people at once.
The pictures from the dome were recorded in 2D. But the researchers used 3D technology to help the system understand how each movement appears from different angles. With all of this data processed, the system can determine how the whole hand looks even if some fingers cannot be seen.
Now that the system has this data set to draw from, it can run with just one camera and one computer. It no longer requires the camera-lined dome to determine body poses, making the technology mobile and accessible.
The researchers say this technology could be used for interactions between humans and machines. It could play a huge role in VR （虚拟现实）experiences, allowing finer detection of the user's physical movement without any added hardware. It could also help with more natural interactions with a home robot. You could tell your robot to “pick that up"， and it could easily understand what you're pointing at. By interpreting your physical gestures, the robot may even learn to read emotions by tracking body language. So when you' re silently crying with your face in your hands because a robot has taken your job, it might offer you a tissue.
1. What does the underlined words “this problem" in Paragraph 2 refer to?| A．Humans are addicted to technology. |
| B．Human-robot relationship is poor. |
| C．Robots show too much trust in humans. |
| D．Robots fail to interpret physical gestures. |
| A．It tracks one person at a time. |
| B．It can track slight body movements. |
| C．It uses a dome to recognize people. |
| D．It can take 500 pictures in one second. |
| A．The data set. | B．3D technology. |
| C．A powerful computer. | D．A camera-lined dome. |
| A．What robots are expected to do in the future? |
| B．Why is body language so important? |
| C．Robots learn to read body language. |
| D．Robots can and will change our lives. |
6 . Tommy, a 26-year-old chimp(猩猩),lives in a small cage in a used truck sales lot in New York. Retired from movie work and whatever else once occupied him, he has no chimp friends to keep him company — just a TV. He is worlds away from the rainforest of Western Africa, where chimps spend most of their lives in trees, hunting, and socializing together.
His owner hasn't broken any laws, but an animal rights group called the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) is trying to change the view. The group says chimps have such a humanlike intelligence that they should be recognized as “legal persons" and be placed in an animal shelter and wander free.
You've probably heard the term “animal rights”, but animals don't actually have rights in many countries. Animal-welfare laws punish people who mistreat animals, but that's not the same as chimps having a right to liberty or anything else.
NhRP's first step is to ask a judge to end people's unjust arrest on behalf of Tommy and other privately owned chimps. If the court decides to recognize chimps as legal persons, NhRP's next step will be arguing for what rights the chimps should be granted. "The right that we believe they should have most of all is the right to bodily liberty," says Wise, a NhRP group member. "They should be able to choose how to live their lives.”
Tommy's owner, Pat Lavery, says he rescued Tommy from a careless owner about a decade ago and denies the chimp is mistreated or unhappy. "He likes being by himself," he says.
“There's a danger in making a jump to say they're just like people," says Richard Cupp, a professor who writes about animals and the law. "If we' re really focused on chimps being very, very smart, then who knows if maybe someday we might …say, ‘Hey, here's a particular human being that's not very smart at all, maybe the chimps have higher status than this person.’”
1. What can we know about Tommy?| A．He is living a very lonely life. |
| B．He dislikes living in the rainforest. |
| C．He likes watching movies very much, |
| D．He was illegally bought by Pat Lavery. |
| A．Great progress has been made on improving animal rights. |
| B．Pat Lavery is thought to mistreat Tommy by NhRP. |
| C．Animal rights are going from bad to worse. |
| D．Animal rights have been admitted in western countries. |
| A．To ensure chimps' bodily safety. | B．To stop illegal hunting of chimps. |
| C．To help chimps find their families. | D．To help chimps enjoy their freedom. |
| A．Hopeful, | B．Uncaring. |
| C．Worried. | D．Supportive. |
7 . Two hours from the tall buildings of Philadelphia live some of the world’s largest bears. They are in northern Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains, a home they share with an abundance (丰富) of other wildlife.
The streams, lakes, grasslands, mountain and forests that make the Poconos an ideal place for black bears have also attracted more people to the region. Open spaces are threatened by plans for housing estates and important habitats are endangered by highway construction. To protect the Pocono’s natural beauty from irresponsible development, the Nature Conservancy named the area one of America’s “Last Great Places”.
Operating out of a century-old schoolhouse in the village of Long Pond, Bud Cook, the president of the Conservancy, is working with local people and business leaders to balance economic growth with environmental protection. By forming partnerships with people like Francis Altemose, the Conservancy has been able to protect more than 14,000 acres of environmentally important land in the area.
Altemose’s family has farmed in the Pocono area for generations. Two years ago, Francis worked with the local branch of the Nature Conservancy to include his farm in a county farmland protection program. As a result, his family’s land can be protected from development and the Altemoses will be better able to provide a secure financial future for their 7-year-old grandson.
Cook attributes the Conservancy’s success in the Poconos to having a local presence and a commitment to working with local residents.
“The key to protecting these remarkable lands is connecting with the local community,” Cook said. “The people who live here respect the land. They value quiet forests, clear streams and abundant wildlife. They are eager to help with conservation efforts.”
For more information on how you can help the Nature Conservancy protect the Poconos and the world’s other “Last Great Places,” please call 1-888-564 6864 or visit us on the World Wide Web at www.tnc.org.
1. The purpose in naming the Poconos as one of America’s “Last Great Places” is to ________.| A．gain support from the local community. |
| B．protect it from irresponsible development. |
| C．make it a better home for black bears. |
| D．provide financial security for future generations. |
| A．the tourist industry is growing fast and has great influence on the Pocono area. |
| B．wildlife in the Pocono area is dying out rapidly. |
| C．the security of the Pocono residents is being threatened. |
| D．farmlands in the Pocono area are shrinking fast. |
| A．Financial contributions from local business leaders. |
| B．Consideration of the interests of the local residents. |
| C．The establishment of a wildlife protection foundation in the area. |
| D．The setting up of a local Nature Conservancy branch in the Pocono area. |
| A．The setting up of an environmental protection website. |
| B．Support from organizations like the Nature Conservancy. |
| C．Cooperation with the local residents and business leaders. |
| D．Inclusion of farmlands in the region’s protection program. |
8 . A customer stands on the other side of the counter at my work, eyeing the menu. “The food here is so caloric,” she complains, and then looks at me. “You don’t eat here, do you? It certainly doesn’t look like it.” My face turned red.
I’m not quite used to how others see me. Since June 2018, I’ve lost almost 50 pounds. When I made the choice to change my body physically, everyone around me told me that I would be happier: Skinny meant pretty, and pretty meant happy and satisfied. After looking through dozens of before-and-after changes on Instagram and other social media, I was more eager to make myself smaller, to better fit into the world. But none of that happened. I didn’t feel more whole, or more peaceful. More than anything, I felt lied to.
Human health is unbelievably complex, and there’s so much more to our well-being than caloric balance. For several months, I often felt very tired and got angry easily, convinced that my body was a machine and I had to hard-wire it to look as physically perfect as possible. But at the end of the day, I realized that saying no to my body’s natural desire only left me feeling upset.
Our world is filled with losing weight. Nearly every time I listen to the radio, I hear some ads criticizing empty promises of giving you a better body, achieved only by this gym membership/ this prepackaged Keto shake/ this waist trainer. These all live by the same message: That food is dangerous, and the less we eat, the better off we are. In extreme cases, this message can lead to eating disorders, which will affect over 30 million people in their lifetimes, according to the Body Image Therapy Center.
These ideas could not be further from the truth. We eat food for a reason: It gives us energy, it keeps our body functioning, and it makes us human. I urge everybody to adopt a diet based on sustainability (可持续发展), to eat for energy, based on what makes us happy. We all deserve healthy relationships with food and mindful eating is the best place to start.
1. How did the author feel when hearing the customer’s words?| A．Quite proud. |
| B．A bit angry. |
| C．Rather guilty. |
| D．A little embarrassed. |
| A．She was laughed at by others. |
| B．She got encouragement from her family. |
| C．She was attracted by pictures on the Internet. |
| D．She got tired easily when being overweight. |
| A．It made her disbelieve others. |
| B．It did harm to her well-being. |
| C．It helped lift her confidence a bit. |
| D．It taught her about determination. |
| A．They are far from creative. |
| B．They hurt human’s relationships with food. |
| C．They cause many people to do too much exercise. |
| D．They mislead some youths into having wrong ideas of beauty. |
9 . Albert Einstein’s 1915 masterpiece “The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity” is the first and still the best introduction to the subject, and I recommend it as such to students. But it probably wouldn’t be publishable in a scientific journal today.
Why not? After all, it would pass with flying colours the tests of correctness and significance. And while popular belief holds that the paper was incomprehensible to its first readers, in fact many papers in theoretical physics are much more difficult.
As the physicist Richard Feynman wrote, “There was a time when the newspapers said that only 12 men understood the theory of relativity. I do believe there might have been a time when only one man did, because he was the only guy who caught on, before he wrote his paper. But after people read the paper a lot understood the theory of relativity in some way or other, certainly more than 12.”
No, the problem is its style. It starts with a leisurely philosophical discussion of space and time and then continues with an exposition of known mathematics. Those two sections, which would be considered extraneous today, take up half the paper. Worse, there are zero citations of previous scientists’ work, nor are there any graphics. Those features might make a paper not even get past the first editors.
A similar process of professionalization has transformed other parts of the scientific landscape. Requests for research time at major observatories or national laboratories are more rigidly structured. And anything involving work with human subjects, or putting instruments in space, involves piles of paperwork.
We see it also in the Regeneron Science Talent Search, the Nobel Prize of high school science competitions. In the early decades of its 78-year history, the winning projects were usually the sort of clever but naive, amateurish efforts one might expect of talented beginners working on their own. Today, polished work coming out of internships(实习) at established laboratories is the norm.
These professionalizing tendencies are a natural consequence of the explosive growth of modern science. Standardization and system make it easier to manage the rapid flow of papers, applications and people. But there are serious downsides. A lot of unproductive effort goes into jumping through bureaucratic hoops(繁文缛节), and outsiders face entry barriers at every turn.
Of course, Einstein would have found his way to meeting modern standards and publishing his results. Its scientific core wouldn’t have changed, but the paper might not be the same taste to read.
1. According to Richard Feynman, Einstein’s 1915 paper ________.| A．was a classic in theoretical physics |
| B．turned out to be comprehensible |
| C．needed further improvement |
| D．attracted few professionals |
| A．Unrealistic. | B．Irrelevant. |
| C．Unattractive. | D．Imprecise. |
| A．The application of research findings. |
| B．The principle of scientific research. |
| C．The selection of young talents. |
| D．The evaluation of laboratories. |
| A．What makes Einstein great? |
| B．Will science be professionalized? |
| C．Could Einstein get published today? |
| D．How will modern science make advances? |
10 . We have studied in Songpu High school for several months. When I first went into the school gate and saw my new classroom and teachers, I thought I would have a new start. The school life is very busy and exciting. There are many activities in our school, such as Sports Meeting, Science Week, Art Week and so on. We all take an active part in them. I have made many new friends and we often help and learn from each other in study.Our teachers have taught us a lot. They not only teach us how to study but also teach us how to be a useful person in society. They tell us which thing is worth doing.Habit is a second nature.Our teachers often remind us to form a good habit.
People often said: There is no royal to learning. Now I feel it is true. The study now is far more different than before. I often find there is something difficult to understand at once. At this time, you must spend a lot of time studying by yourself or you won't make progress. Of course study is hard but when you make progress you'll find it is interesting.
Our school is clean and beautiful. There are many trees and flowers around it.In order to make our school more and more beautiful we should try our best to keep it clean.
Today we are proud of Songpu. Tomorrow Songpu will be proud of us.
1. ________ is also important besides studying hard according to this passage.| A．Being a useful person | B．Good studying habit |
| C．Taking part in activities | D．Making progress |
| A．thankful | B．enthusiastic |
| C．loving | D．exciting |
| A．boring | B．harmonious (和谐的) |
| C．terrible | D．quiet |
| A．An Attractive School | B．My School Life |
| C．I Like My School | D．My Teacher |
