1 . In a study published in Nature Machine Intelligence, researchers at Ohio State University show how artificial intelligence（AI）can follow clinical trials to identify drugs for repurposing, a solution that can help advance innovative treatments.
Repurposing drugs is legal and not unusual. When doctors prescribe(开处方)drugs that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration(FDA)for purposes different from what is printed on the labels, the drugs are being used “off-label” Just because a drug is FDA-approved for a specific type of disease does not prevent it from having possible benefits for other purposes.
For example, Metformin, a drug that is FDA-approved for treating type 2 diabetes, is also used to treat PCOS(a disease of women), and other diseases. Trazodone, an anti-depressant with FDA-approval to treat depression, is also prescribed by doctors to help treat patients with sleep issues.
The Ohio State University research team created an AI deep learning model for predicting treatment probability with patient data including the treatment, outcomes, and potential confounders(干扰因素).
Confounders are related to the exposure and outcome. For example, a connection is identified between music festivals and increases in skin rashes(红疹). Music festivals do not directly cause skin rashes. In this case, one possible confounding factor between the two may be outdoor heat, as music festivals tend to run outdoors when the temperature is high, and heat is a known cause for rashes. When working with real-world data, confounders could number in the thousands. AI deep learning is well-suited to find patterns in the complexity of potentially thousands of confounders.
The researcher team used confounders including population data and co-prescribed drugs. With this proof-of-concept, now clinicians have a powerful AI tool to rapidly discover new treatments by repurposing existing medications.
1. What do we know about a drug used off-label?| A．It is sold without a label. |
| B．It is available at a low price. |
| C．Its uses extend beyond the original ones. |
| D．Its clinical trials are rejected by doctors. |
| A．are used off-label |
| B．treat rare diseases |
| C．result in sleep issues |
| D．are medical breakthroughs |
| A．They are possible treatments. |
| B．They are environmental factors. |
| C．They can be easily recognized in real-world data. |
| D．They should be taken into serious consideration. |
| A．AI examines benefits of existing drugs. |
| B．AI identifies off-label uses for drugs. |
| C．AI finds new drugs for common diseases. |
| D．AI proves the power of drug research. |
2 . It has been four years since the Flashfood App was set to hit Canadian grocery stores and make it easier for shoppers to buy soon-to-expiry (保质期) food at a discount. Much to my delight, I heard it advertised recently on a radio station and figured it’s time for an update, especially since people became more aware of food waste’s role in the climate crisis.
The first thing I did was download the App. I hadn’t done it before because it was limited to a few locations, but now it’s all over Canada. I could see immediately that many brands of yogurt are all marked down 50 percent. Users pay for the food using the App, and then pick it up at a marked location in the store. There is no need for you to worry about them actually being bad.
It makes sense for retailers to get behind this App because it offers a win-win situation for everyone involved. Flashfood sells 75% of the products made available through its App while saving consumers an average of 50% on those grocery items, and it has 300 000 active users right now. That number is expected to grow naturally as Flashfood partners with more grocers.
“As a food retailer, we are in the business of providing food, not wasting it. The Flashfood program allows us to provide our customers with a convenient and environmentally sustainable (可持续的) way to purchase food. Loblaw sells 77% of the items it puts on Flashfood, moving an average of ＄800 to ＄1000 worth of goods weekly at each of its largest stores,” said Gord Chem, senior VP with Loblaw’s Real Canadian Superstores.
I love looking for discount deals at the grocery store and always keep an eye out for the hot pink clearance stickers. But it’s always random, and I never know what I’m going to get from week to week. The appeal of Flashfood is that I can see what’s available, pre-purchase it, and leave it off my shopping list.
1. What can we know about the food on the Flashfood?| A．It’s delivered directly to the customers. | B．Users can pay for it in the marked store. |
| C．Much of it is charged at half the price. | D．It’ll be a month away before it goes bad. |
| A．reliable | B．doubtful | C．creative | D．beneficial |
| A．By making a comparison. | B．By listing some examples. |
| C．By explaining the cause. | D．By introducing the result. |
| A．Customers can buy much cheaper food on a recent app. |
| B．Canadians have a smart approach to reducing food waste. |
| C．A win-win situation has been set for Canadians involved. |
| D．Canadians adopt a new way of protecting the environment. |
3 . Time and how we experience it have always puzzled us. Physicists have created fascinating theories, but their time is measured by a pendulum (钟摆) and is not psychological time, which leaps with little regard to the clock or calendar. As someone who understood the distinction observed, ''When you sit with a nice girl for two hours it seems like a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove, a minute seems like two hours. ''
Psychologists have long noticed that larger units of time, such as months and years, fly on swifter wings as we age. They also note that the more time is structured with schedules and appointments, the more rapidly it seems to pass. For example, a day at the office flies compared with a day at the beach.
Expectation and familiarity also make time seem to flow more rapidly. Almost all of us have had the experience of driving somewhere we've never been before. Surrounded by unfamiliar scenery, with no real idea of when we’ll arrive, we experience the trip as lasing a long time. But the return trip, although exactly as long, seems to take far less time. The novelty of the outward journey has become routine.
When days become as identical as beads (小珠子)on a string, they mix together, and even months become a single day. To counter this, try to find ways to interrupt the structure of your day-- to stop time, so to speak.
Learning something new is one of the ways to slow the passage of time. One of the reasons the days of our youth seems to be full and long is that these are the days of learning and discovery. For many of us, learning ends when we leave school, but this doesn't have to be.
1. What is the underlined sentence in paragraph 1 used to show?| A．Psychological time is quite puzzling. |
| B．Time should not be measured by a pendulum. |
| C．Physical time is different from psychological time |
| D．Physical theory has nothing to do with the true sense of time |
| A．Our sense of time changes. |
| B．We spend less time at the beach |
| C．More time is structured and scheduled |
| D．Time is structured with too many appointments. |
| A．excitement | B．unfamiliarity | C．imagination | D．amusement |
| A．To give various explanations about time |
| B．To describe how we experience time physically |
| C．To show the differences of two kinds of time |
| D．To explain why time flies and how to slow it down |
4 . University of Pennsylvania researchers say that for the first time they have linked social media use to increases in depression and loneliness． The idea that social media is anything but social when it comes to mental health has been talked about for years， but not many studies have managed to actually link the two． To do that， Penn researchers， led by psychologist Melissa Hunt， designed a study that focused on WeChat， Snapchat and Instagram．
The study was conducted with 143 participants， who before they began， completed a mood survey and sent along photos of their battery screens， showing how often they were using their phones to access social media． "We set out to do a much more complete study which attempts to imitate real life．" Hunt said．
The study divided the participants into two groups： The first group was allowed to maintain their normal social media habits． The other， the control group， was restricted to 10 minutes per day on social media． The restrictions were put in place for three weeks and then the participants returned and were tested for outcomes such as fear of missing out， anxiety， depression and loneliness．
The results showed a very clear link between social media use and increased levels of depression and loneliness． "Using less social media than you normally do would lead to significant decreases in both depression and loneliness，" Hunt said．
Social media invites what Hunt calls "downward social comparison．" "When you're online， it can sometimes seem that everyone else is cooler and having more fun and included in more things and you're left out，" Hunt said． And that's just generally discouraging． "Every minute you spend online is a minute you are not doing your work or not meeting a friend for dinner or having a deep conversation with your roommate．" And these real life activities are the ones that can encourage self﹣esteem and self﹣worth， Hunt added．
"People are on their devices， and that's not going to change，" she said． But as in life， a bit of control goes a long way．
1. Before the study was conducted， the participants completed a survey to ．| A．imitate people's real life |
| B．link loneliness to depression |
| C．show their use of social media |
| D．prove social media is important |
| A．people's fear of missing out |
| B．higher levels of depression |
| C．obvious relief in loneliness |
| D．lower levels of happiness |
| A．Hiking out with friends． |
| B．Making comparison with others． |
| C．Playing computer games in spare time． |
| D．Logging onto social media and having fun． |
| A．A Study on Social Media． |
| B．How to Improve Mental Health． |
| C．People Addicted to Social Media． |
| D．Social Media Influences Mental Health． |
5 . 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．To advocate the habit of washing hands. |
| B．To call on schoolchildren to compete in a contest. |
| C．To encourage more inventions from everyday items. |
| D．To introduce a contest making handwashing fun for kids. |
6 . Languages will continue to diverge. Even if English were to become the universal language, it would still take many different forms. Indeed the same could happen to English as has happened to Chinese: a language of intellectuals which doesn’t vary hugely alongside a large number of variations used by local peoples.
We will continue to teach other languages in some form, and not just for reasons of practical use. Learning a language is good for your mental health; it forces you to understand another cultural and intellectual system. So I hope British education will develop a more rational approach to the foreign languages available to students in line with their political importance. Because so many people believe it is no longer important to know another language, I fear that time devoted to language teaching in schools may well continue to decline. But you can argue that learning another language well is more exhausting than, say, learning to play chess well—it involves sensitivity to a set of complicated rules, and also to context.
Technology will certainly make a difference to the use of foreign languages. Computers may, for instance, relieve the hard work that a vast translation represents. But no one who has seen a computer translation will think it can substitute for live knowledge of the different languages. A machine will always be behind the times. Still more important is the fact that no computer will ever get at the associations beyond the words associations that may not be expressed but which carry much of the meaning. In languages like Arabic that context is very important. Languages come with heavy cultural baggage too—in French or German if you miss the cultural references behind a word you’re very likely to be missing the meaning. It will be very hard to teach all that to computer.
All the predictions are that English will be spoken by a declining proportion of the world’s population in the 21st century. I don’t think foreign languages will really become less important, but they might be perceived to be— and that would in the end be — a very bad thing.
1. According to the text,we can infer that Chinese _______.| A．is a language full of cultural background |
| B．is narrowly used by local peoples |
| C．will be regarded as important as English |
| D．will soon become the universal language |
| A．Foreign languages should be taught for political importance. |
| B．Learning another language is just like learning to play chess well. |
| C．British education lacks a rational approach to the teaching of foreign languages. |
| D．Learning a language need to know a country’ cultural and intellectual system. |
| A．It can replace for live knowledge of the different languages. |
| B．It can always keep the pace with the times in the translation. |
| C．It can reduce the hard work that a vast translation represents. |
| D．It can express the implied meaning beyond word associations. |
| A．Learning foreign languages is a challenging job. |
| B．Learning a language is good for your mental health. |
| C．Cultural background blocks the understanding of a language. |
| D．Computers play an important role in learning foreign languages. |
7 . Working out can help teenagers boost their grades, a new study suggests. Adolescents who routinely engaged in moderate to vigorous（剧烈的）exercise showed long-term improvements in their academic performance, the British Journal of Sports Medicine study reported.
“Our study suggests that the effect of physical activity may be quite large,” John Reilly, a professor at the University of Strathclyde said. The researchers looked at a sample of about 5000 children who were involved in a long-term study that tracks children born in the UK between 1991 and 1992. When children reached 11 years old, their daily physical activity levels were measured using an accelerometer（加速器）for three to seven days. The device, similar to a pedometer（计步器）tracking the number of steps taken, recorded the average time children exercised, which was 29 minutes a day for boys and 18 for girls.
“The actual levels of daily physical activity at age 11 were quite low,” Mr. Reilly noted. The children had their academic performance tested at ages 11 and 13 with compulsory national tests for students, and also at 15 or 16 with the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) exam. The tests assessed the children’s abilities in English, math and science subjects. The results showed that the more children participated in moderate to vigorous physical activity, the higher their test scores were at age 11 in all three subjects. For girls, science scores were most strongly linked to exercise.
When children were tested again at age 13, their academic scores were still linked to how much they had exercised when they were 11 years old. By the time the youngsters took the GCSE exam, each 17-minute-per‑day increase in physical activity for the boys was linked to an improvement in their scores. Every additional 12-minute increase a day in exercise for the girls was also linked to an increased score, especially in the science category.
The researchers have called for more studies to look at the possible academic benefits that could be derived if students exercised the recommended 60 minutes or more a day.
1. What’s the study about?| A．The influence of exercise on students’ scores. |
| B．The secrets of students’ ranking high in class. |
| C．The causes of students’ participating in sports. |
| D．The ways of improving students’ physical conditions. |
| A．To record how long students exercise. |
| B．To record the walking speed of students. |
| C．To record how many steps students walk. |
| D．To record the number of calories students consume. |
| A．Students at age 11 do more exercise than at other ages. |
| B．Boys at age 13 get more benefits by doing more exercise. |
| C．Girls’ science scores are more closely related to exercise. |
| D．More and more students do exercise to improve their scores. |
| A．adopted. | B．acquired. |
| C．concluded. | D．displayed. |
8 . For several decades, there has been an organized campaign intended to produce distrust in science, funded by those whose interests are threatened by the findings of modern science. In response, scientists have tended to stress the success of science. After all, scientists have been right about most things, from the structure of the universe to the relativity of time and space.
Stressing successes isn’t wrong, but for many people it’s not persuasive. An alternative answer to the question “Why trust science?” is that scientists use the so-called scientific method. But what is called the scientific method isn’t what scientists actually do. Science is dynamic: new methods get invented; old ones get abandoned; and at any particular point, scientists can be found doing many different things. False theories sometimes lead to true results, so even if an experiment works, it doesn’t prove that the theory it was designed to test is true.
If there is no specific scientific method, then what is the basis for trust in science? The answer is the methods by which those claims are evaluated. A scientific claim is never accepted as true until it has gone through a long process of examination by fellow scientists. Scientists draft the initial version of a paper and then send it to colleagues for suggestions. Until this point, scientific feedback is typically fairly friendly. But the next step is different: the revised paper is submitted to a scientific journal, where things get a whole lot tougher. Editors deliberately send scientific papers to people who are not friends or colleagues of the authors, and the job of the reviewer is to find errors or other faults. We call this process “peer review” because the reviewers are scientific peers—experts in the same field—but they act in the role of a superior who has both the right and the responsibility to find fault. It is only after the reviewers and the editor are satisfied that any problems have been fixed that the paper will be printed in the journal and enters the body of “science.”
Some people argue that we should not trust science because scientists are “always changing their minds.” While examples of truly settled science being overturned are far fewer than is sometimes claimed, they do exist. But the beauty of this scientific process is that science produces both creativity and stability. New observations, ideas, explanations and attempts to combine competing claims introduce creativity; transformative questioning leads to collective decisions and the stability of scientific knowledge. Scientists do change their minds in the face of new evidence, but this is a strength of science, not a weakness.
1. Scientists stress the success of science in order to ________.| A．promote basic knowledge of science |
| B．remind people of scientific achievements |
| C．remove possible doubts about science |
| D．show their attitude towards the campaign |
| A．It’s an easy job to prove its existence. |
| B．It usually agrees with scientists’ ideas. |
| C．It hardly gets mixed with false theories. |
| D．It constantly changes and progresses. |
| A．It seldom gives negative evaluation of a paper. |
| B．It is usually conducted by unfriendly experts. |
| C．It aims to perfect the paper to be published. |
| D．It happens at the beginning of the evaluation process. |
| A．it is not uncommon for science to be overturned |
| B．scientists are very strong in changing their minds |
| C．people lose faith in those changeable scientists |
| D．changes bring creativity and stability to science |
9 . Microplastics are everywhere in our environment. It's hardly surprising that the tiny fragments have also been found in humans. A new study shows that Americans are consuming as many as 121,000 particles each year.
Measuring 50 to 500 microns in length, microplastics come from a variety of sources, including large plastics that break down into smaller and smaller pieces. Therefore, much remains unknown about the common existence of these materials within the human body, as well as their impact on human health.
Hoping to fill in some of these gaps, a research team led by Kieran Cox, a PhD candidate at the University of Victoria, looked at 26 papers assessing the amount of microplastics in commonly consumed food items, among which are seafood, sugars, salts, honey, alcohol and water. The team also evaluated the potential consumption of microplastics through inhalation （吸入）using previously reported data on microplastic concentrations in the air and the Environmental Protection Agency's reported respiration rates. Based on these data, the researchers calculated that our annual consumption of microplastics via food and drink ranges from 39,000 to 52,000 particles. When microplastics taken in through inhalation are taken into account, the range jumps to between 74,000 and 121,000 particles per year.
The authors of the study found that people who drink exclusively from plastic water bottles absorb an additional 90,000 microplastics each year, compared to 4,000 among those who only consume tap water. "This shows that small decisions, over the course of a year, really matter and have an impact." Cox says. The new study, according to its authors, was the first to investigate "the accumulative human exposure" to microplastics. But in all likelihood, the research tells only a small part of the entire story. Collectively, the food and drink that the researchers analyzed represent 15 percent of Americans' caloric intake. The team could not account for food groups like fruits, vegetables and grains because there simply is not enough data on their microplastic content.
For those worried about microplastic consumption, cutting down bottled water is a good place to start. But to the heart of the problem, we have to stop producing and using so much plastic.
1. What makes it difficult to know microplastics commonly exist in the human body?| A．The quality. | B．The quantity. |
| C．The shape. | D．The size. |
| A．By studying papers. | B．By comparing the impacts. |
| C．By analyzing the data. | D．By conducting experiments. |
| A．Drinking less plastic bottled water helps to take in fewer microplastics. |
| B．The study is among the earliest to investigate human exposure to microplastics. |
| C．Cox's team gained comprehensive information of microplastics taken in by humans. |
| D．People consume 74,000 to 121,000 particles of microplastics per year from food and drink. |
| A．The Potential Problems of Microplastics |
| B．Microplastics Coming From Various Sources |
| C．Microplastics Found Within Human Bodies |
| D．The Impact of Microplastics on Human Health |
10 . Given a choice, would Three Little Robots being chased by a big bad wolf A) build successively more wolf-resistant houses or B) kill the wolf with their nail gun? If you chose B), you're probably a robot who hasn't yet met Quixote, a learning system that teaches robots how not to kill by using fairy tales.
While Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and Bill Gates try to scare us with tales of robots killing humans, a team of researchers at Georgia Institute of' Technology is scaring robots by using fairy tales to teach them how to make proper decisions when faced with real-world dilemmas while lacking a moral （道德的）compass. They suggest robots can be taught moral behavior using books. Reading fairy tales or story books can help them learn what is good and bad and how to behave well in a society.
“Fables（寓言）from various cultures can provide artificial intelligence with social skills and role models essential to the peaceful coexistence of men and robots, "scientists at Georgia Institute of Technology claim in a new study.
According to researchers, to make a robot understand the actions of a human it must first turned the moral lessons contained in fables -into a specifically designed architecture of reasoning, compatible with artificial intelligence.
An early example of this reasoning is a system called "Quixote." named for the leading character of Miguel de Cervantes' classic novel. Quixote uses fable plots to give machine intelligence guidance for moral problem-solving and, depending on what deeds characters engage in, the system sends either reward or punishment signals, causing robots to act more humanely, researchers suggest.
The function of Quixote is dependent upon another system called "Scheherazade", a previous project started by the same team. Scheherazade collects different story plots from Internet and develops interactive stories. Those stories are then turned into decision flow-charts, providing a "huge number of branching paths" following every step taken.
Quixote is in the early development stage, according to researchers, noting that it works currently with robots that interact with humans in only a very small range of function.
1. What can we infer from paragraph 1?| A．Robots are afraid of wolves. | B．Robots are fond of fairy tales. |
| C．Robots are advancing. | D．Robots are constantly given choices. |
| A．It would be punished by Scheherazade. | B．It would apologize. |
| C．It would reason with human beings. | D．It would be rebuilt. |
| A．Quixote makes fables meaningful to A. I. | B．Quixote gives robots intelligence. |
| C．Quixote collects stories from Internet. | D．Quixote is an independent system. |
