1 . Cuaya and her colleagues decided to use brain images from MRI scanning to shed light on her hunch. They worked with dogs of various ages that had, until the experiment, only heard their owners speak just one of the two languages, Spanish or Hungarian. Not surprisingly, getting the dogs to happily take part in the experiment took some creative coaxing and animal training! The researchers first needed to teach Kun-kun and her 17 fellow participating dogs including a labradoodle, a golden retriever and Australian shepherds, to lie still in a brain scanner. Their pet parents were always present, and they could leave the scanner at any point.
What did Cuaya consider when choosing dogs for study?
| A．Age limits. | B．Brain patterns. |
| C．Language exposure. | D．Owners' commands. |
2 . Goffin’s cockatoos, a kind of small parrot native to Australasia, have been shown to have similar shape-recognition abilities to a human two-year-old. Though not known to use tools in the wild, the birds have proved skilful at tool use while kept in the cage. In a recent experiment, cockatoos were presented with a box with a nut inside it. The clear front of the box had a “keyhole” in a geometric shape, and the birds were given five differently shaped “keys” to choose from. Inserting the correct “key” would let out the nut.
In humans, babies can put a round shape in a round hole from around one year of age, but it will be another year before they are able to do the same with less symmetrical (对称的) shapes. This ability to recognize that a shape will need to be turned in a specific direction before it will fit is called an “allocentric frame of reference”. In the experiment, Goffin’s cockatoos were able to select the right tool for the job, in most cases, by visual recognition alone. Where trial-and-error was used, the cockatoos did better than monkeys in similar tests. This indicates that Goffin’s cockatoos do indeed possess an allocentric frame of reference when moving objects in space, similar to two-year-old babies.
1. How did the cockatoos get the nut from the box in the experiment?| A．By following instructions. | B．By using a tool. |
| C．By turning the box around. | D．By removing the lid. |
| A．Using a key to unlock a door. | B．Telling parrots from other birds. |
| C．Putting a ball into a round hole. | D．Grouping toys of different shapes. |
3 . Psychologist Susan Levine, an expert on mathematics development in young children the University of Chicago, found children who play with puzzles between ages 2 and 4 later develop better spatial skills. Puzzle play was found to be a significant predictor of cognition(认知) after controlling for differences in parents’ income, education and the amount of parent talk, Levine said.
1. In which aspect do children benefit from puzzle play?| A．Building confidence. | B．Developing spatial skills. |
| C．Learning self-control. | D．Gaining high-tech knowledge. |
| A．Parents’ age. | B．Children’s imagination. |
| C．Parents’ education. | D．Child-parent relationship. |
4 . At 88, I remain a competitive runner. The finish line of my life is drawing close, and I hope to reach it having given the best of myself along the way. I’ve been training my body to meet the demands of this final stretch. But, I wonder, should I have asked more of my mind?
If I didn’t exercise, I would release the hungry beasts that seek their elderly prey on couches, but not in the gym. The more I sweated, the more likely it was my doctor would continue to say, “Keep doing what you’re doing, and I’ll see you next year.” My mind, on the other hand, seems less willing to give in to discipline. I have tried Internet “brain games”, solving algebraic problems flashing past and changing the route of virtual trains to avoid crashes. But these never approach my determination to remain physically fit as I move deeper into old age.
Though I have many friends in their 70s, 80s and 90s, I’ve been far too slow to realize that how we respond to aging is a choice made in the mind, not in the gym. Some of my healthiest friends carry themselves as victims abused by time. Other friends, many, whose aching knees and hips are the least of their physical problems, find comfort in their ability to accept old age as just another stage of life to deal with. I would use the world “heroic” to describe the way they cope with aging.
One such friend recently called from a hospital to tell me a sudden brain disease had made him legally blind. He interrupted me as I began telling him how terribly sorry I was: “Bob, it could have been worse. I could have become dead instead of blind.”
In spite of all the time I spend lifting weights and exercising, I realized I lack the strength to have said those words. It suddenly struck me that I’ve paid a price for being a “gym rat”. If there is one characteristic common to friends who are aging with a graceful acceptance of life’s attacks, it is contentment. Aging had to be more than what I saw in a mirror.
But rather than undertaking a fundamental change in the way I face aging. I felt the place to begin would be to start small. A recent lunch provided a perfect example.
I’ve always found it extremely difficult to concentrate when I’m in a noisy setting. At this lunch with a friend in an outdoor restaurant, a landscaper began blowing leaves from underneath the bushes surrounding our table. Typically, after such a noisy interruption, I would have snapped, “let’s wait until he’s finished!. ”, then fallen silent. When the roar(吼叫)eventually faded, my roar would have drained(消耗)the conversation of any warmth. It troubled me that even a passing distraction(分心)could so easily take me from enjoying lunch with a good friend to a place that gave me no pleasure at all. I wanted this meal to be different.
My years in gyms had taught me to shake off pains and other distractions, never permitting them to stop my workout or run. I decided to treat the noise this way. I continued talking with my friend, challenging myself to hear the noise, but to hold it at a distance. The discipline was so familiar to me in the gym—this time applied to my mind— proved equally effective in the restaurant. It was as though I had taken my brain to a mental fitness center.
Learning to ignore a leaf blower’s roar hardly equips me to find contentment during my passage into ever-deeper old age. But I left the lunch feeling I had at least taken a small first step in changing behavior that stood in the way of that contentment.
Could I employ that same discipline to accept with dignity the unavoidable decline awaiting me like the finish line? Hoping that contentment will guide me as I make my way along the path yet to be travelled.
1. The author’s question in Paragraph 1 implies that ________.| A．he feels unsatisfied with the result of the brain games. |
| B．he has never believed the necessity of mind training. |
| C．He has realized he should mentally prepare for aging. |
| D．he feels regret for not sharpening his thinking skills |
| A．He takes physical illnesses as they come. |
| B．He fears that his illness will become worse. |
| C．He needs to find a way through those hardships. |
| D．He sees life as a series of disappointments. |
| A．he had made small changes to adapt to aging. |
| B．the restaurant was not an ideal place for eating |
| C．distractions were not uncommon in everything life. |
| D．his roar had spoiled the friendly conversation. |
| A．Benefits of Regular Exercise |
| B．Old Age Hate and Blessing |
| C．Never Too Old to Learn |
| D．The Secret to Aging Well |
5 . It’s common knowledge that the woman in Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous painting seems to look back at viewers, following them with her eyes no matter where they are in the room. But this common knowledge turns out wrong.
A new study finds that the woman in the painting is actually looking out at an angle of 15.4° off to the viewer’s right — well outside the range that people normally believe when they think someone is looking right at them. In other words, said the study author, Horstmann, “She’s not looking at you.”
This is ironic (讽刺), because the entire phenomenon of a person’s gaze (凝视) in a photograph or painting seeming to follow the viewer is called the “Mona Lisa effect”, which is absolutely real. If a person is illustrated or photographed looking straight ahead, even people viewing the portrait from an angle will feel they are being looked at. As long as the angle of the person’s gaze is no more than about 5 degrees off to either side, the Mona Lisa effect occurs.
Horstmann and his co-author were studying this effect for its application in the creation of artificial-intelligence avatars (虚拟头像) when Horstmann took a long look at the “Mona Lisa” and realized she wasn’t looking at him.
To make sure it wasn’t just him, the researchers gathered 24 people to view images of the “Mona Lisa” on a computer screen. They set a ruler between the viewer and the screen and asked the participants to note which number on the ruler intersected (相交) Mona Lisa’s gaze. To calculate the angle of Mona Lisa’s gaze as she looked at the viewer, they moved the ruler farther from or closer to the screen during the study. Consistently, the researchers found, participants judged that the woman in the “Mona Lisa” portrait was not looking straight at them, but slightly off to their right.
So why do people repeat the belief that her eyes seem to follow the viewer? Horstmann isn’t sure. It’s possible, he said, that people have the desire to be looked at, so they think the woman is looking straight at them. Or maybe the people who first coined the term “Mona Lisa effect” just thought it was a cool name.
1. It is generally believed that the woman in the painting “Mona Lisa” ________.| A．attracts the viewers to look back |
| B．seems mysterious because of her eyes |
| C．fixes her eyes on the back of the viewers |
| D．looks at observers wherever they stand |
| A．The Mona Lisa effect does not really exist. |
| B．The mystery of the woman’s smile in the painting. |
| C．The angle of the gaze in Mona Lisa effect. |
| D．Mona Lisa effect does not occur with Mona Lisa. |
| A．confirm Horstmann’s belief |
| B．create artificial-intelligence avatars |
| C．calculate the angle of Mona Lisa’s gaze |
| D．show how the Mona Lisa effect can be applied |
| A．Horstmann thinks it cool to coin the term “Mona Lisa effect”. |
| B．The Mona Lisa effect contributes to the creation of artificial intelligence. |
| C．Feeling being gazed at by Mona Lisa may be caused by the desire for attention. |
| D．The position of the ruler in the experiment will influence the viewers’ judgement. |
6 . Because the commercial internet has been developed with so little regard for privacy, tech companies have been able to turn personal data into considerable profits, raising billions of dollars off their ability to collect and sell information about anyone who has wandered within shouting distance of their software. This week, Google announced a step in the right direction-but not a huge step, nor one that will stop Google from continuing to collect immense amounts of personal data.
At issue is how online companies track internet users as they browse (浏览) from site to site online, typically through cookies (information that a website leaves in your computer so that the website will recognize you when you use it again). The most harmful version, “third-party” cookies, is the web alternative of a company posting security guards across the internet to monitor what you do, even when you’re on other companies’ sites.
Google declared in a blog post Wednesday that it would no longer use or support third-party cookies, nor would it create or use any other technology that tracks individual users across the web. Given that Google is a main supplier of online advertising technology, its change in approach will impact far and wide.
That’s welcome news, although with huge amounts of warning. As Lee Tien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation noted, third-party cookies were already on the retreat, with Apple and other makers of popular web browsers moving to block them. Meanwhile, Google, Facebook and other Big Tech companies continue to collect personal information in large quantities from people who use their sites and services through first-party cookies and similar techniques.
The concerns about personal data collection are the same whether it’s being collected through first-party or third-party techniques, said Michelle Richardson of the Center for Democracy and Technology. “Companies may use the information to discriminate among internet users, offering different goods, services and even prices to different users.”
Instead of helping advertisers track individuals, Google says, it is improving a technology that assigns users namelessly to large groups with common interests. That’s an improvement, even though it too may be at risk of abuse. But why do any form of tracking at all? Privacy advocates say pitches (兜售) can be targeted effectively by basing them on where the user is at the moment, not where he or she has browsed previously online.
Ultimately, lawmakers are going to have to lay down regulations giving people far more control over whether and how personal information is used online. Ideally the federal (联邦的) government will set a strong floor under online privacy protections, but until then it will be up to state lawmakers or voters to act, as this state has done with its groundbreaking online privacy laws. It’s good to see Google move the ball forward, but there’s much farther to go.
1. What does the underlined phrase “on the retreat” in Para 4 most probably mean?| A．Exposed. | B．Removed. | C．Emerging. | D．Fading. |
| A．is developing new technologies to stop data collection |
| B．refuses to work with companies tracking privacy |
| C．intends to abandon its advertising technologies |
| D．resolves to stop the use of third-party cookies |
| A．are still collecting personal information |
| B．are blocked by big companies like Apple |
| C．are mainly used by advertising companies |
| D．are less concerning than third-party cookies |
| A．It is less satisfactory than expected. |
| B．It needs to be more forceful to be effective. |
| C．It will accelerate the disappearance of cookies. |
| D．It has driven lawmakers to make new regulations. |
7 . Urban planners may soon have a new way to measure traffic jams. By putting in the different routes by which vehicles can travel between locations, researchers have developed a new computer algorithm (运算法则) that helps quantify regions of jams in urban areas and suggests ways around them.
The study, published in the Journal of Physics: Complexity, used traffic speeds from taxis in New York City to demonstrate how road infrastructure (基础设施) and driver behavior can create complex road networks that differ among cities.
The team approached the issue by designing a computer algorithm to capture the topology-or relationship between the different routes between locations-of road networks. “We found that the most significant traffic bottlenecks in Manhattan seem to arise as a result of the city’s structural layout,” said study co-author Daniel Carmody. “For example, the fact that a bridge enters Manhattan at a range where traffic is already limited due to Central Park slows traffic in the area considerably.”
The researchers performed a comparative analysis using traffic patterns in Chengdu, China, to test if the algorithm works equally well in areas with different layouts. Manhattan has a long and thin structure, while Chengdu is round. There are significant differences in the way traffic moves between these two different setups, the researchers said.
“The bottlenecks in Chengdu seem to arise due to the function of the buildings in a particular area,” Carmody said. “For example, it is hard to travel in and out of the central business district in Chengdu because of the large amount of traffic alone. Beltways, or faster streets around busy areas, have emerged in circles around this area, which is not surprising because this feature was intentionally built into the city.”
In Manhattan, the bridges and underpasses that form the entry and exit points cause traffic slowdowns. However, in lower Manhattan, where drivers seem to obey the lower posted speed limits, traffic moves more smoothly, forming a new traffic beltway with the southern end of Central Park acting as a block between lower and central Manhattan.
“It surprised us that there is an emergent beltway in such a busy area of Manhattan,” Carmody said. “This indicates that, unlike in Chengdu, beltways seem to arise from driver behavior even when they aren’t part of the structural plan of a traffic network.”
“The researchers have imagined that this technology could give urban planners a means to quantify traffic patterns, leading to better traffic,” Carmody said. “As methods of transportation develop, new problems will emerge, and we hope that our tools will give planners new ways to measure what is going on with city traffic.”
1. According to the new study, what contributes to traffic jams in Manhattan?| A．The number of bottlenecks and beltways. |
| B．The location of bridges and underpasses. |
| C．Road facilities and driver behavior. |
| D．Road signs and urban population. |
| A．compare the layouts of the two cities |
| B．find better infrastructure for one city |
| C．design traffic patterns with the algorithm |
| D．assess the effectiveness of the algorithm |
| A．Because of lower posted speed limits. |
| B．Because drivers follow the traffic rules. |
| C．Because it is planned in the traffic network. |
| D．Because a beltway has emerged around the area. |
| A．City planners. |
| B．Slower drivers. |
| C．Infrastructure developers. |
| D．Road sign designers. |
8 . Hartley got to Gentral Slalion nearly an hour before his train was due to leave. A lifetime in the theatre had given him a healthy — indeed excessive (过分的) — sense of punctuality; a lifetime of unwanted cups of coffee, constant checking of the time, yet another turn around the block before that all too often pointless, tiresome audition (试镜).
Hartley was 75 — pretty fit for his age, legs holding lip, memory still ticking over nicely — though the occasions for punctuality were now rather fewer. But he was a creature of habit and couldn’t change now.
He repaired to the restaurant purchased a coffee and a blueberry muffin, tired and failed to find a litter-free table. The coffee was awful, the muffin was stale — but the coffee was always awful, the muffin always stale. Hartley refused to let himself be annoyed. His visit to the city had not been without its pleasures. Lunch with an old actor-chum (好友), then a film — regrettably not utilizing (利用) his own talents — had rounded out an agreeable day.
Hartley was a good actor, although the calls on his talents were now infrequent. But really, he thought draining his awful coffee, he’d had a reasonably good career. Something to be proud of. But he’d never had that break-through part.
He headed for his platform. Just as the train was about to pull out a man ran down the platform, jumped aboard as the door slammed shut and sank into the seat next to Hartley.
“Cutting it a bit fine”, he said.
“Indeed”, Hartley replied. “A close run thing”.
The man — forty-ish, amiable looking — gave him an amused glance.
This brief exchange served as an adequate ice-breaker and they chatted their way through the outer suburbs and into the countryside. Having satisfactorily disposed of the sad state of the railways, country versus city living, his neighbour asked Hartley what he did—or had done—for a living.
Hartley hated telling people he was an actor. He was not ashamed of his job. Not in the least, but he had long tired of reactions ranging from “what have I seen you in” to “how do you learn all those lines”.
So in situations like this he simply selected an occupation from a former role. Bit risky, of course. You say you’re a doctor and find yourself meeting the quizzical（疑问的）gaze of a heart surgeon. But he’d never been caught out and it was harmless enough game, Hartley felt. It amused him, and he’d given some damn good performances too.
“I’m a lawyer”, he replied. “Retired several years ago. Property law. Bit of criminal stuff”.
The train was slowing down. The man glanced out of the window.
“My station. I had you quite wrong then”.
He stood and took down his briefcase from the overhead rack.
“Yes, I’d have said you were an actor. The voice especially. Still, lawyers are actors in a way, don’t you think? Plenty of drama in a courtroom”.
The train drew into the station.
“I’m a film director. Casting a feature at the moment. You study faces. On the train. Everywhere. Always on the lookout. Anyway, enjoyed our chat. Bye.”
1. What did Hartley think of his not telling his occupation?| A．Harmful to his acting career. | B．Amusing despite the risk |
| C．Helpful to protect his identity | D．Upsetting when caught out. |
| A．He assumed Hartley had given another answer. |
| B．He understood Hartley’s profession was acting. |
| C．He thought Hartley practiced a different profession. |
| D．He mistook Hartley for another person. |
| A．shows the readers how unexpectedly Hartley’s career ends |
| B．describes Hanley’s shock on finding the man is a director |
| C．confirms Hartley's lack of luck in spite of his acting skills |
| D．proves the man will reconsider giving Hartley a chance to act |
| A．Acting up | B．Employ talents |
| C．Selecting an occupation | D．Casting a feature |
9 . What do you want to be when you grow up? My answer has always been a vet.
We didn’t have pets growing up because my mother was scared of animals. She passed on some of this fear to me. It’s not common you find someone who’s scared of animals but wants to be a vet. Still, I knew this is what I wanted.
Vet school was nothing like I had imagined. Within the first few weeks, any fears I had about being a vet vanished (消失). In the fourth year, we were introduced to surgery. I loved it. Stitching (缝) wounds was like a satisfying game of Tetris (俄罗斯方块), where all the pieces fit beautifully together to make something broken whole again. It solidified my belief that this was the right fit for me.
These were the most challenging and rewarding two years of my life, and before I knew it, they were over. I was officially a veterinary surgeon (兽医). Surprisingly, I felt empty after I finished. Why wasn’t I excited to move on? I had completely forgotten to think about what comes next. I panicked! I felt as if I had spent the last decade of my life writing exams and working crazy hours only to come out on the other side, completely clueless.
There were so many options to choose from. I could start a clinic, work at another practice or even pursue further studies. It was my father who suggested I travel to gain some perspective. I hesitantly decided to spend some time in New Zealand with my aunt who also happens to be a vet.
New Zealand was beautiful! I finally had a chance to think about what I wanted. One of the vets there allowed me to observe their practice. Working with vet nurses really stood out for me. We don’t have vet nurses in India! It is a blessing (幸事) to have such experienced and dedicated individuals as a part of your support system. After a whole year of what felt like aimless wandering (徘徊), this experience helped me decide I wanted to work overseas.
So, to all the other confused vets out there who haven’t figured things out: It’s completely okay to feel confused and lost! Most people feel the same way at some point in their careers. Don’t be afraid to try new things even if you feel difficult or impossible.
1. What do we know from the first two paragraphs?| A．The author’s mother was hurt by an animal. |
| B．Being a vet has always been the author’s dream. |
| C．The author kept different kinds of pets as a child. |
| D．Many people in the author’s family work as vets. |
| A．To express how she loved being a vet. |
| B．To prove how challenging vet school was. |
| C．To explain why she loved the game as a child. |
| D．To show the complexity of veterinary surgery. |
| A．To start a clinic there. |
| B．To get fresh ideas about her career. |
| C．To visit her aunt. |
| D．To travel around the country. |
| A．Passion is the key to your career success. |
| B．Travel helps you learn more about yourself. |
| C．Stick to your dream no matter what happens. |
| D．It’s important to find yourself again when feeling lost. |
10 . Your best friend that follows you around when the sun comes out - your shadow - doesn’t serve an important function like your heart or brain, but what if you could use shadows to create electricity? When using solar panels (电池板) that are powered by light, shadows can be boring because it means electricity can’t be created. However, researchers from the National University of Singapore have engineered a way to create power from the shadows present everywhere.
A team of the university created a machine that can collect energy from shadows. It is created by placing a thin coating of gold onto silicon (硅). Like in a normal solar panel, when put in light, the silicon electrons (电子) become energized and the energized electrons then jump from the silicon to the gold. The voltage (电压) of the part of the machine that is placed in the light increases relative to the dark part and the electrons in the machine flow from high to low voltage. They are sent through an external circuit (外电路) creating a current that can be used to power another machine. The greater the contrast between light and dark, more energy is provided by the machine.
The team is working on improving the performance of the machine, borrowing approaches from solar panels to gather light. Increasing the amount of light the machines can receive allows them to better make use of shadows, as well as developing shadow energy collecting panels that can successfully gather from indoor lighting. The team is also researching the use of other materials other than gold to drop the price of the machine, meaning they would be more cost effective and easier to apply in society.
Shadows are present everywhere and perhaps one day in the future we will be able to collect energy from them by placing the shadow-effect energy machine around the world in places that have been considered unfit for solar panels to work, or indoors. “A lot of people think that shadows are useless,” Tan says, but “anything can be useful, even shadows.”
1. What is Paragraph 1 mainly about?| A．Your best friend always stays with you after the sunrise. |
| B．The shadow has the same function as the heart and brain. |
| C．Shadows can stop solar panels from creating electricity. |
| D．Researchers have found a way to create power from shadows. |
| A．The silicon produces electricity when it is in the light. |
| B．The gold produces power with the help of the silicon. |
| C．The energized electrons flow from high to low voltage. |
| D．An external circuit creates current using another machine. |
| A．Using solar panels in the machine. |
| B．Increasing the amount of light received. |
| C．Developing light energy collecting panels. |
| D．Bringing down the price of gold. |
| A．A gym. | B．A park. | C．A farm. | D．A playground. |
