1 . Video calls are a common occurrence but have you imagined being able to touch the person on the other end of the line? Scientists are making this a reality.
Researchers at the University of New South Wales, Australia, have invented a soft skin stretch device(SSD), haptic(触觉的) device that can recreate the sense of touch. Haptic technology can copy the experience of touch by stimulating(刺激) the skin through force, vibration(震动) or motion.
Vibration is the most common haptic technology today and has been built into many electronic devices, such as one attached to the back of trackpad (触控板) in laptops. However haptic feedback with vibration becomes less sensitive when the trackpad is used continuously. The existing technology also has great difficulty recreating the sense of touch with objects in virtual environments or located remotely.
The new technology overcomes issues with existing haptic devices. The research team introduced a novel method to recreate the sense of touch through soft, artificial “muscles”.
It works like this:imagine you call a friend in Australia. You wear a haptic glove with the SSDs and your friend also wears a glove with 3D force sensors. If your friend picks up an object, it will physically press against your friend's fingers. And the glove with 3D force sensors will measure these interactions. The force signals can be sent to your glove so your device will generate the same 3D forces, making you experience the same sense of touch as your friend.
The haptic devices could be used in various fields, allowing users to feel objects inside a virtual world or at a distance. This could be especially beneficial during such times like the COVID-19 pandemic when people rely on video calls to stay connected with loved ones. Or it could be used in medical practices. Doctors could feel a patient's organ tissues without touching them.
1. According to the text, SSD can .| A．improve skin health | B．recall earlier experiences |
| C．recreate the sense of touch | D．be used as the trackpad in laptops |
| A．how SSD works | B．what advantages SSD has |
| C．how vibration can be used | D．what problems the current technology has |
| A．Tasting a dish on the video call. |
| B．Enjoying classical music at home. |
| C．Admiring beautiful scenery online |
| D．Performing a distant medical operation. |
| A．Science. | B．Entertainment. |
| C．Education. | D．Health |
2 . I was on vacation with my husband, my brother, his wife and daughter. We were not familiar with the area and jumped onto a bus, thinking it would be a nice way to see the downtown’s old town area. Well, until visiting with the bus driver, we found out we were on the neighborhood route which picks up school children and delivers to various neighborhood places, with a route of well over about 2 hours. That was a surprise and a concern because we had parked our vehicle in a timed parking area and it was going to end.
We shared this with the bus driver only to let her know we were not from the area and apologized for getting on her bus in error. Then she surprised us further saying, “I get off shift after a few more blocks, and if you don't mind a tight squeeze in my company car, I'd be happy to take you back to your vehicle before the time is over.” The bus driver received permission from her manager, so we gratefully said yes to her offer.
She went out of her way to take us back to our vehicle after her shift was over and it wasn't on her route to home either. We were touched and grateful for her kindness and thoughtfulness. In return because she had shared some of her concerns about the school-age children she sometimes had on the bus route, I shared with her a little tip on how to quiet the children with an energetic technique that would make the ride safer for them as well as for her. She was so grateful. It was a wonderful exchange of kindness!
1. What was wrong with the author and her family ?| A．They got on a wrong bus. | B．They would lose their car. |
| C．They couldn't drive their own car. | D．They had to tour neighborhood places. |
| A．The timed parking area. | B．The family's concern. |
| C．The vehicle parked there. | D．The time limit for parking |
| A．Invite them to her home. | B．Ask her manager for help. |
| C．Drive them to where they parked. | D．Get off shift earlier than usual. |
| A．She taught her how to send children to school. |
| B．She taught her how to calm down children. |
| C．She gave her a tip for her good service. |
| D．She helped make her ride comfortable and safe. |
3 . Parents around the world often urge children over and over-wash your hands! It can be difficult, however, to get children to remember to wash. But what if washing hands was connected to a fun creative activity? What if instead of simply reaching for the soap, a machine could drop it right into your hands?
Well, such a machine was recently built by a boy and his sister in the U.S. state of Maryland as part of a creative competition.The not-for-profit Rube Goldberg Organization is holding the competition.
Every year, the Rube Goldberg competition assigns a specific task, considering inventions that use complex systems to carry out a simple everyday task. At first, the task for 2020 was supposed to be “turn on a light.” But when the COVID-19 happened, the task was changed to “drop a bar of soap into someone’s hand.”
Those taking part in the competition are schoolchildren. But with schools closed to slow the spread of the virus, organizers changed the rules. This year, the team can include any family members and people were asked to send in recordings of the machines to compete. One thing has not changed: The machine must complete the task in less than 10 steps.
In Maryland, the Diel family wanted to enter. So, Caitlin and her brother Ben designed and built their own Rube Goldberg machine. Next, they had to demonstrate that it could complete the task-throwing the soap just right to be caught in someone’s hand. After 106 failed attempts, they finally had success. With their video demonstration, they can now enter the competition.
Dr. Anne Glowinski teaches child psychiatry (精神病学) at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. She said that “creativity and play” connects with children. It is better than the message. “We have to wash our hands because of this horrible virus”. Glowinski added.
1. What might be a task of inventions assigned by the Rube Goldberg competition?| A．Sweeping the floor. | B．Exploring nature. |
| C．Writing a novel. | D．Painting the house. |
| A．All kinds of inventions are admitted. | B．A video of the entry is qualified to enter. |
| C．Teachers are encouraged to get involved. | D．The task must be finished within 10 steps. |
| A．Practical. | B．Unnecessary. | C．Economical. | D．Complicated. |
| A．The habit of washing hands is very important. |
| B．It calls on schoolchildren to compete in a contest. |
| C．More inventions are encouraged from everyday items. |
| D．It introduces a contest making handwashing fun for kids. |
4 . In the field of educational technology, some apps might be getting too smart. There are more and more apps providing help for students.
PhotoMath
The new, seemingly magic app allows users to take pictures of a math problem, and then receive a step-by-step solution. It is now the number one free app on the App Store. A PhotoMath spokeswoman says educators have welcomed the app with positive reviews, but the software causes a lot of angry public discussion and disagreement. Why? It is because students can use it to cheat when doing their math homework.
Price: Free
iHomework
Whether you’re a high school student or a college student, there’s one thing you’ve got for sure: a lot of homework. iHomework can help you keep track of all your homework. It can help you arrange it in a particular order according to types, or based on deadlines.
Price: Free
Wolfram Alpha
Wolfram Alpha is similar to PhotoMath, but it focuses on older students studying high levels of math and doesn’t support photos. The service also produces step-by-step solutions to advanced topics, making it a popular tool for college students.
Price: $2.99
Homework Helper
Chinese Internet search company Baidu has launched (发起) an app called Homework Helper with which students can get answers to homework. Users post a picture or type their homework questions onto online forums (论坛), and those who answer the questions can win e-coins that can be used to buy devices like iPhones and laptops. The app has logged 5 million downloads, much to the concern of many parents who argue that the students spend less time thinking about challenging problems.
Price: Free
1. What is the problem of the app PhotoMath?| A．It can’t recognize pictures. |
| B．It doesn’t provide a step-by-step solution. |
| C．It encourages students to use smartphones. |
| D．It makes cheating at homework more likely to happen. |
| A．Offering services to office workers. |
| B．Making students organize their school work. |
| C．Helping deal with advanced math problems. |
| D．Creating chances to discuss math online. |
| A．It is thought highly of by teachers. |
| B．It is unpopular among Chinese students. |
| C．Many parents think it harmful to children’s study. |
| D．Answering questions on the app wastes students’ time. |
5 . 90-Second Newbery Film Festival
The 90-Second Newbery Film Festival is a yearly video contest in which young filmmakers create short movies that tell the entire stories of Newbery award-winning books in about a minute and a half.
Who can make movies for this film festival? It's a big range：elementary school kids, junior high school students, high school students, even college students.
We show the best movies we receive at special-event screenings in many cities.
Here are the rules:
Your video should be about 90 seconds.
Your video has to be about the story in a Newbery award-winning book.
We're looking for full-on movies with mostly child actors, who manage to tell the entire story of the book in 90 seconds.
Upload your videos to any video website and send us the link.
Sending the link to us gives us the right to post it on our blog and to other websites where we sometimes post content.
The general deadline for the tenth annual 90-Second Newbery Film Festival is January 15, 2021.
Don't know where to start? Check out our Video Resources page here for a step-by-step primer on how to make a 90-Second Newbery video, plus lots of other tips, tricks, and tutorials（教程）.
1. Who can take part in the contest?
| A．Anyone. | B．Only adults | C．Students. | D．Professionals. |
| A．The film is starred by child actors. | B．The film is sent on December 31, 2020. |
| C．The film is about the history of Newbery Award. | D．The copy of the film is sent to a small video website. |
| A．On a website. | B．On the school board | C．In a magazine. | D．In a newspaper. |
6 . Three French students，using the name “Obvious”， have produced the first artwork created mainly by a computer program to be sold at auction (拍卖). Using artificial intelligence (AI)，Obvious created 11 portraits (肖像画) of an imaginary family they called Belamy.
Obvious used 15,000 real portraits to train an AI program which has two parts.One part tries to create pictures that look real.The other part judges the work.If the portrait doesn’t look real enough，the first part goes back and changes its decisions until it comes up with a better picture.These decisions are controlled by an algorithm (计算程序). The students made many choices，helping guide the AI’s decisions.But even so，the painting is “signed”by the algorithm，instead of the students.
On October 25，Obvious’s picture，Edmond de Belamy，was sold at auction at Christie’s in New York.The final price for Edmond de Belamy was $432,500—about ten times more than Christie’s expected.
This is not the first AI artwork，just the first one sold at auction.In fact，many people are not impressed with the portrait.“The work isn’t interesting，or original，”says 19yearold Robbie Barrat.He should know.He wrote much of the program that created the pictures.
But he doesn’t like the idea of Obvious selling the picture.He thinks it’s too simple and gives a bad idea of what real AI artists are doing.He points out that he created many pictures like these over a year ago.
Obvious doesn’t hide the fact that it used Mr.Barrat’s work，or even that its portrait is not the best AI artwork ever.Pierre Fautrel of Obvious said，“...the goal of our project was to do something that was simple enough for...my mother or brother to understand.”
Obvious got the attention of Christie’s by selling another work，Le Comte de Belamy，for over $11,000 in February. One reason Christie’s chose to auction Obvious’s work is because AI art is unusual now.In the future it will be much more common.
1. What does Paragraph 2 mainly explain?| A．How Obvious made its decisions. |
| B．How Obvious named its AI artwork. |
| C．How Obvious’s AI program did paintings. |
| D．How Obvious got the idea to become AI artists. |
| A．It’s Obvious’s first AI artwork. |
| B．It’s Obvious’s best AI artwork ever. |
| C．It’s the first AI artwork highly praised. |
| D．It’s the first AI artwork sold at auction. |
| A．It is of little artistic value. |
| B．It is worth more than the price paid. |
| C．It is a good example of real AI artwork. |
| D．It is hard for common people to understand. |
| A．Worrying. | B．Enjoyable. |
| C．Meaningless. | D．Moneymaking. |
7 . The Japanese government, citizens and groups are debating what to do with radioactive water from the disabled nuclear power plant near Fukushinma. An earthquake on March 11, 2011 caused severe damage to three of the six nuclear reactors at the Fukushinma Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Since then, Japanese officials have been trying to contain and clear up the damage.
The Associated Press recently observed the decontamination (净化) process taking place there. Officials are trying to decide what to do with 1.2 million tons of radioactive water being stored at Fukushinma. The nuclear center is operated by the Tokyo Electric Power Co. , or TEPCO. The company says it needs to free up space as work on the damaged reactors reaches an important point. Many people expect TEPCO to slowly release the water into the ocean near the nuclear center. The government has already approved the plan.
However, it is not clear when the company will carry out the plan. Local people oppose it because that could hurt the fishing industry. Sales of fish caught off the coast near Fukushinma are half what they were before the nuclear disaster. Fish caught in the area have been approved for sale after radioactivity testing by health officials.
TEPCO Chief Decommissioning Officer Akira Ono said the water must be removed. He says crews need the space currently occupied by the water tanks. In their place, workers will set up structures to hold melted reactor wreckage(反应堆残骸).
People wear protective clothing and head coverings to work in the most radioactive areas around the nuclear center. But underground conditions remain dangerous and radioactive water is leaking from the melted reactors and mixing with groundwater. This water is being pumped into containers to keep it from flowing into the sea. The polluted water from underground is processed and filtered to remove dangerous radioactive elements. Tritium(氚) is the only radioactive material that remains. Japan's industry ministry and nuclear officials say tritium is not harmful in small amounts. However, although officials try to ease public fear, there are worries that fish might be affected if the water is released into the sea.
1. What do we know from the text?| A．The Fukushinma disaster was caused by humans. |
| B．Tons of radioactive water has been leaked into the ocean. |
| C．Melted reactor wreckage will take up most of the region. |
| D．Japan is struggling with the clean-up of radioactive pollution. |
| A．Making room for the damaged reactors. |
| B．Releasing the water into the nearby ocean. |
| C．Filtering the water near the nuclear center. |
| D．Storing the radioactive water in the nuclear center. |
| A．It can be found in the polluted water. |
| B．It has aroused great panic among residents. |
| C．It does no harm to fish. |
| D．It exists in a solid form. |
| A．The groundwater has been severely polluted in Fukushinma. |
| B．People in Fukushinma used to earn their living by fishing. |
| C．It is hard for the authorities to earn the public's trust. |
| D．It is unclear when TEPCO will remove the radioactive water. |
8 . We often hear that 60 is the new 50. Just check out images of your grandparents or great-grandparents and notice their stooped (驼背的) bodies, their wrinkled faces when they were barely pushing 60. What a contrast with energetic, gym-going sexagenarians (60几岁的人) of today!
A research, overseen by gerontologist Taina Rantanen, compared adults born in 1910 and 1914 with those born roughly 30 years later. Both birth groups were examined in person at age 60 and again at 70 with the same set of six physical tests and five measures of cognition.
According to the research, the later-born group could walk faster, had a stronger hand grasp and could use more force with their lower legs. On cognitive tests, the later-born group had better verbal fluency, and scored higher on a test matching numbers to symbols. But not everything changed across the generations: measures of lung function were surprisingly not changing, and there was no improvement in the short-term-memory task of recalling a series of digits.
There are many reasons why people are aging better, including improved medical care and a drop in smoking, but the key factor shown in the study of physical function was that the later-born adults were more physically active and had bigger bodies, which suggests better nutrition. For brain function, the key seems to be more years of education.
Education is a powerful influence on aging and health, says Luigi Ferrucci, scientific director of the U.S. National Institute on Aging: “With more education, you are probably going to have a larger income, which means you are more likely to go to the doctor, and have good nutrition.” He also points out that the average life span is seven years shorter in a poor state such as Mississippi than in a wealthier one such as California. “Here we still have lots of people who cannot take the drugs they need because they cannot pay for them,” he says. In short, 60 may be the new 50 for many of us but not for all.
1. How does the writer begin the passage?| A．By imagining a scene. | B．By making a comparison. |
| C．By raising a question. | D．By presenting an image. |
| A．Everything didn’t change across the generations. |
| B．The later-born group could hardly grasp things more tightly. |
| C．The later-born group did worse in matching numbers to symbols. |
| D．There was a little improvement in short-term memory in both groups. |
| A．Improved medical care. | B．Education. |
| C．Better nutrition. | D．Energetic images. |
| A．Many reasons contribute to people’s better physical function. |
| B．Today’s energetic sexagenarians have much better images. |
| C．Education is the key to people’s aging better. |
| D．People today are aging better in many ways. |
9 . There can be magic in the touch of a hand that loves you. It brings comfort and a silent promise that says, “I am here and you are not alone.”
I memorized every detail about my children. As babies, they reached for me whenever they were hungry or tired or just needed to be held. Sometimes, if they woke in the night, just the touch of my hand would ease them back to sleep. They clung to me when they took their first steps and we held hands when crossing streets and walking from the car to their classroom on their first day of school.
As they grew older and more independent, I noticed that they didn't hold my hand much anymore. I told myself it was part of growing up, and I should just be glad they could do things on their own now.
But when you've been needed so much for such a long time, it's hard to step back and feel unnecessary.
Then one day, I was visiting my oldest son in New York, where he was working as an actor on a TV show. As we were about to cross a busy street that was filled with traffic, he grabbed my hand and shouted, “Hang on to me, Mom,” then led me safely across.
At that moment, I realized two things. First, my boy had become a man. Second, it was clear that our roles had changed. We still needed each other, but in different ways than before.
That scene has replayed in various ways with each of my three children. They have all taught me to lean on them just as they once leaned on me, and that we can always lean on each other. We live miles apart, but stay in touch every day. There is magic and comfort and healing in the touch of a hand that loves you, even if it “touches” you from afar.
1. How did the author get along with her children when they were young?| A．She was very strict with them. | B．She overprotected them. |
| C．She was too busy to take care of them. | D．She developed a close bond with them. |
| A．She felt lonely when living apart from them. |
| B．She was worried that they couldn't manage themselves. |
| C．She felt a little uncomfortable when not needed so much as before. |
| D．She was pleased to be able to step back and enjoy herself. |
| A．her son had become mature and reliable |
| B．time with children is always fun |
| C．she needed her son more than before |
| D．she was unwilling to accept the change in their roles |
| A．To explore how to interact with children. |
| B．To describe the growth of her children. |
| C．To show the power of the touch of a hand. |
| D．To present how parents influence their kids. |
10 . Having worked for more than a decade in finance in the oil industry in Canada, Tori Fahey found herself wanting more from life. But it wasn't through desperation that her circumstances changed: “I didn't get fed up and storm off, nothing like that; it was curiosity about other interests and wanting to experience something new.”
Fahey left her job and completed an MBA before setting up a move to New York to begin a degree. However, the opportunity of an open year between the MBA and the degree came up, and as a keen touring cyclist, Fahey realised that a much dreamed-about adventure was now becoming a possibility: "The ride in Africa had been on my fantasy list. It was a moment when I realised that I could do anything, so I should."
Fahey rode across Africa, a 7,500-mile trip that took four months. The whole experience had a life-changing impact. Fahey said: “Bicycles provide a literal freedom. You don't allow yourself to feel like that in everyday life because there are so many distractions. But when you' re out on the bike and there's nothing else, you' re really free to experience what life is.”
Post-degree, Fahey worked on projects with the UNDP(United Nations Development Project) in Montenegro with the aim of bringing investment to rural communities.
It was while working on these projects that the seeds were sown for the next new investment. “It was through my trip across Africa that I discovered pannier and rack systems inconvenient and I was never going to use them again.” Little did she know this would lead her to start up her own company.
In 2013, Apidura was born, producing storage solutions for people looking to travel the world by bike, race across continents and carry all they need to do so. It's now a successful global brand, but Fahey remains reflective about what else the company can do for people.
1. Why did Fahey leave her job in Canada?| A．She was bored with the job. | B．She was disappointed with life. |
| C．She wanted to add new dimensions to her life. | D．She found it hard to adjust to the circumstances. |
| A．Demanding. | B．Liberating. | C．Eventful. | D．Dangerous. |
| A．To encourage bicycle traveling. | B．To make her investment profitable. |
| C．To help cyclists carry traveling stuff. | D．To increase the pleasure of riding bikes. |
| A．A tough path to fame. | B．An adventure across Africa. |
| C．The benefits of green travelling. | D．The story behind the birth of Apidura. |
