1 . Captured(捕获的) carbon dioxide(CO2) could be used to extract(提炼) useful metals(金属) from recycled technology such as smartphone batteries rather than just being buried underground. The technique could help make it more economical to capture the greenhouse gas before it enters the atmosphere.
“If you also extract metals by filling CO2, you add value to a process that is known to be costly,” says Julien Leclaire at the University of Lyon, France.
CO2 is the main cause of modern climate change, so many people have attempted to develop technologies to capture it when it comes from power plants and other major sources. The gas can then be stored underground. The problem is that such carbon capture and storage (CCS) is expensive. “No one wants to pay the price for it,” says Leclaire.
To make CCS more appealing, Leclaire’s team has found a use for the gas.
His team collected CO2 from a car gas, cooled it, then pumped it into a mix of chemicals. The CO2 combined with the mix to make many molecules(分子) of various shapes and sizes.
The team found that this process could sort out mixtures of metals, because one metal would dissolve(溶解) in the liquid while another would form a solid. In a series of experiments, they successfully separated three kinds of metals-all of which are used in batteries, smartphones and computers.
If the process can be widely used, it could be a more environmentally friendly way to recycle batteries and other electrical equipment, says Leclaire. This is normally done using highly reactive chemicals, which are potentially polluting. Replacing them with CO2 should lead to a much lower environmental pollution, he says.
Other researchers and companies are trying to change captured CO2 into useful materials like plastics, which are normally produced from petrol, but this is chemically difficult. Leclaire says his approach is more in line with how CO2 behaves naturally. “Instead of copying what we know how to do better and cheaper with oil, let’s find things you can only do with CO2,” he says.
1. What can we learn from the first paragraph?| A．Extracting useful metals from recycled technology is widely used now. |
| B．Useful metals in the atmosphere are used to make smartphone batteries. |
| C．Abandoned smartphone batteries may have been buried underground before. |
| D．The greenhouse gas CO2 could be cleaned up after entering the atmosphere. |
| A．CO2 is the main cause of modern climate change. |
| B．CO2 can be used to recycle many resources. |
| C．Captured CO2 can be changed to useful gas. |
| D．CO2 is harmful to people’s health. |
| A．It could end the use of plastics. |
| B．It could reduce environmental pollution. |
| C．It could make more metals available to humans. |
| D．It could help reduce the cost of battery production. |
| A．The Ways to Make Smartphone Batteries |
| B．The Reason for Capturing Greenhouse Gas |
| C．Collecting CO? Is Starting to Make New Progress |
| D．Captured CO2 Could Be Used to Help Recycle Useful Metals |
2 . Once upon a time, when you first attended a youth sporting event, your parents probably weren't expecting you to become a professional athlete.They signed up for a basketball, football or swimming course for you in the hope that you might learn lessons about winning gentlemanly, losing with dignity(尊严)and insisting on it when things get hard. Yes, playing games is good exercise, but it is the life lessons that matter most.
For many of us, instead of looking to improve our minds and spirits, we began judging progress only by the size of our muscles or the numbers on a weighing machine. The thought that athletic competition is about greater life lessons and the building of character has been further undermined(削弱)by headlines about professional athletes.
“And yet there's still strong evidence that sports strongly improve certain personal qualities,” says Angela Lumpkin, Professor of the Department of Health, Sport and Exercise Sciences at the University of Kansas. And that's true for athletes of any age.Amateur sports(业余体育运动)provide a safe place for competition. They also provide a practice ground for managing stress.
The advantages of taking part in a sport can seep(渗透)into your professional life, too. In basketball, for example, “Getting everyone to play the right role on the court is the key to success,” says Alan Arlt, the founder of the Life Time Fitness basketball program Ultimate Hoops. “That is certainly useful in the business world, where everyone understands their own role in the organization.” “In athletic events, you go through good and bad times often in the period of two hours,” says former NBA head coach Flip Saunders. “Do you have the calm manner to settle yourself down, or do you totally lose it and get thrown out of the game which hurts both you and your team？All of that oncourt experience has a real effect on how you deal with reallife situations.”
1. What would parents expect when their children joined in sports?| A．To win as many games as possible. |
| B．To improve their health. |
| C．To make more friends. |
| D．To get through difficulties. |
| A．People play sports to build their character. |
| B．People still hold the idea that sports can keep us fit. |
| C．People keep playing sports to improve minds and spirits. |
| D．People pay more attention to the news of professional athletes. |
| A．support Lumpkin's idea |
| B．introduce the next topic |
| C．show another piece of evidence |
| D．show the main idea of the paragraph |
| A．how to succeed in the future |
| B．how to keep calm in certain situations |
| C．how to deal with reallife situations |
| D．how to understand the role on the court |
3 . You may think the best way to solve a tough problem is to keep working on it, even overnight. But the truth is just the opposite: Your best chance to get to the bottom of a problem is actually to sleep on it.
A team of researchers at Northwestern University, US, found that sleeping is useful in both strengthening and re-organizing memory. This can help you solve problems.
The researchers did an experiment with 57 students. They asked them to solve 42 difficult puzzles on the first day. The students worked on each puzzle while listening to different music. The research encouraged students to remember the music they heard while solving the puzzles. By the end, there were six puzzles that the students still hadn’t solved.
The students then went back home to sleep. They were given special sleep-monitoring(睡眠监测)and music devices (设备). The devices played music linked with the unsolved puzzles while the students were in the slow-wave sleep stage. This stage is when people are likely to dream and re-organize their memories.
The next morning, the students tried the unsolved puzzles again. Researchers found they were 55 percent more likely to solve them. The music activated(激活)the memories they had of the puzzles while they were sleeping. It allowed them to “work” on the puzzles in their sleep.
Earlier studies of both people and animals have shown that sleep cannot only strengthen memory, but also help us organize information in our brains. This study seems to support that understanding. So the next time you face a difficult problem, sleep on it. Then play some music to remind yourself of the problem.
1. What did the research at Northwestern University find?| A．Sleeping can help people solve problems. |
| B．Listening to music can improve memory. |
| C．Music can help people solve puzzles faster. |
| D．People can solve difficult puzzles in their dreams. |
| A．Some students didn’t listen to music while solving puzzles. |
| B．Some kept working on the puzzles when others were sleeping. |
| C．The students “worked” on the unsolved puzzles while sleeping. |
| D．Many students found it difficult to remember the music they heard. |
| A．This study supports earlier findings. |
| B．The finding is of little practical value. |
| C．This study should have had animals included. |
| D．No research has been done in this field before. |
4 . Most of us marry creativity to our concept of self either we're "creative" or we aren't, without much of a middle ground. "I'm just not a creative person!" a frustrated student might say in art class, while another might blame her talent at painting for her difficulties in math, giving a comment such as, "I'm very right-brained."
Dr. Pillay, a tech entrepreneur and an assistant professor at Harvard University, has been challenging these ideas. He believes that the key to unlocking your creative potential is to ignore the traditional advice that urges you to "believe in yourself." In fact, you should do the opposite: Believe you are someone else.
Dr. Pillay points to a 2016 study demonstrating the impact of stereotypes on one's behavior; The authors. educational psychologists Denis Dumas and Kevin Dunbar, divided their college student subjects into three groups, instructing the members of one to think of themselves as "romantic poets" and the members of another to imagine they were "serious librarians" (the third group was the control). The researchers then presented all the participants with ten ordinary objects, including a fork, a carrot, and a pair of pants, and asked them to come up with as many different uses as possible for each one. Those who were asked to imagine themselves as romantic poets came up with the widest range of ideas, whereas those in the serious-librarian group had the fewest. Meanwhile, the researchers found only small differences in students' creativity levels across academic majors.
These results suggest that creativity is not a fixed individual characteristic but a "malleable product of context and perspective, as long as he or she feels like a creative person. Dr. Pillay argues that, besides identifying yourself as creative, taking the bold, creative step of imagining you are somebody else is even more powerful. So, wish you were more creative? Just pretend!
1. According to the passage， who is more likely to unlock his creative potential?| A．An art major who always believes in himself. |
| B．A math major who has excellent academic performance |
| C．A physics major who likes to imagine himself as a poet. |
| D．A history major who works as a librarian on weekends. |
| A．The creativity of the college students. |
| B．The stereotypes of the college students. |
| C．The impact of stereotypes on one's behavior |
| D．The influence of creativity on one's behavior. |
| A．stable | B．sustainable | C．predicable | D．changeable |
| A．there is no doubt that we are either creative or not |
| B．a student who doesn't do well in art class is not creative |
| C．right brain determines whether a person is creative or not |
| D．if we pretend to be creative， then we might be really creative |
5 . British anthropologists Russell Hill and Robert Barton of the University of Durham, after studying the results of one-on-one boxing, tae kwon do, Greco-Roman wrestling and freestyle wrestling matches at the Olympic Games, conclude that when two competitors are equally matched in fitness and skill, the athlete wearing red is more likely to win.
Hill and Barton report that when one competitor is much better than the other, colour has no effect on the result. However, when there is only a small difference between them, the effect of colour is enough to tip the balance. The anthropologists say that the number of times red wins is not simply by chance, but that these results are statistically significant.
Joanna Setchell, a primate (灵长目动物) researcher at the University of Cambridge, has found similar results in nature. She studies the large African monkeys known as mandrills. Mandrills have bright red noses that stand out against their white faces. Setchell’s work shows that the powerful males—the ones who are more successful with females—have a brighter red nose than other males.
As well as the studies on primates by Setchell, another study shows the effect of red among birds. In an experiment, scientists put red plastic rings on the legs of male zebra finches and this increased the birds’ success with female zebra finches. Zebra finches already have bright red beaks (鸟喙), so this study suggests that, as with Olympic athletes, an extra flash of red is significant. In fact, researchers from the University of Glasgow say that the birds’ brightly coloured beaks are an indicator of health. Jonathan Blount, a biologist, and his colleagues think they have found proof that bright red or orange beaks attract females because they mean that the males are healthier. Nothing in nature is simple, however, because in species such as the blue footed booby, a completely different colour seems to give the male birds the same advantage with females.
Meanwhile, what about those athletes who win in their events while wearing red? Do their clothes give them an unintentional advantage? Robert Barton accepts that “that is the implication” of their findings. Is it time for sports authorities to consider new regulations on sports clothing?
1. According to their research, Hill and Barton conclude that _____.| A．the colour of clothing has an effect on most sport events |
| B．red should be the choice of colour for clothing in sports |
| C．red plays a role when competitors are equally capable |
| D．athletes perform better when surrounded by bright red |
| A．achieve | B．seek | C．keep | D．change |
| A．male birds use different body parts to draw attention |
| B．red is not the only colour to attract female birds |
| C．blue gives female birds the same advantage |
| D．blue can indicate how healthy a bird is |
| A．What Colour Implies More Power? | B．A Tip on Clothing. |
| C．Need to Change the Rules in Sports? | D．Red Is for Winners. |
6 . Popping food into the microwave for a couple of minutes may seem harmless, and Europe's stock of these quick-cooking ovens give out as much carbon as nearly 7 million cars, a new study has found, and the problem is growing. With costs falling and kitchen appliances becoming frequently updated, owners are throwing many microwave after an average of eight years. This is pushing sales of new microwaves which are expected to reach 135 million annually in the EU by the end of the decade.
A study by the University of Manchester worked out the emissions of carbon dioxide-the main greenhouse gas responsible for climate change - at every stage of microwaves, from production to waste disposal (处理). “It is electricity consumption by microwaves that has the biggest impact on the environment,” say the authors, who also calculate that the emissions from using 19 microwaves over a year are the same as those from a car. According to the same study, efforts to reduce consumption should focus on improving consumer awareness and behaviour to use appliances more efficiently. For example, electricity consumption by microwaves can be reduced by adjusting the time of cooking to the type of food.”
However,David Reay, professor of carbon management argues that,although microwaves use a great deal of energy, their emissions are minor compared to those from cars. In the UK alone, there are around 30 million cars. These cars emit more than all the emissions from microwaves in the EU. Backing this up, recent data show that passenger cars in the UK emitted 69 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2015. This is 10 times the amount this new microwave oven study estimates for annual emissions for all the microwave ovens in the whole of the EU. Further, the energy used by microwaves is lower than any other form of cooking. Among common kitchen appliances used for cooking, microwaves are the most energy efficient, followed by a stove and finally a standard oven. Thus,rising microwave sales could be seen as a positive thing.
1. What is the finding of the new study?| A．The use of microwaves emits more CO₂ , than people think. |
| B．CO2 emissions pose a major threat to the environment. |
| C．The frequent use of microwaves may do harm to our health. |
| D．Quick-cooking microwave ovens have become more popular. |
| A．They have a shorter life cycle than other appliances. |
| B．They take less time to cook than other appliances. |
| C．They are getting much easier to operate. |
| D．They are becoming more affordable. |
| A．Cooking food of different varieties. |
| B．Eating less to cut energy consumption. |
| C．Improving microwave users' habits. |
| D．Using microwave ovens less frequently. |
| A．It plays a positive role in environmental protection. |
| B．It makes everyday cooking much more convenient. |
| C．It will become less popular in the coming decades. |
| D．It consumes more power than traditional cooking. |
7 . Math, Taught like Football
Growing up, I thought math class was something to be endured, not enjoyed. I disliked memorizing formulas and taking tests, all for the dull goal of getting a good grade. But my problem wasn’t with math itself. In fact, I spent countless hours as a child doing logic and math puzzles on my own, and as a teenager, when a topic seemed particularly interesting, I would go to the library and read more about it.
By high school, none of my teachers questioned my mathematical talent, but none of them really encouraged it, either. No one told me that I could become a professional mathematician. What I wanted to do then was to play college football. My ambition was to get an athletic scholarship to attend a Big Ten school.
The chances of that happening were very low. In high school, I was just an above-average athlete and my high school was not a “feeder” school for college sports programs.
That didn’t stop me from dreaming, though. And it didn’t stop my coaches from encouraging me to believe I could reach my goal, and preparing and pushing me to work for it. They made video tapes of my performances and sent them to college coaches around the country. It didn’t matter that I didn’t initially attract much interest from the big schools. My coaches kept picking up the phone, and kept convincing me to try to prove myself. In the end, a Big Ten school, Pennstate, did offer me a scholarship.
A growing body of research shows that students are affected by more than just the quality of a lesson plan. They also respond to the passion of their teachers and the engagement of their peers, and they seek a sense of purpose. They benefit from specific instructions, constant feedback and a culture of earning that encourages resilience in the face of failure.
Until I got to college, I didn’t really know what mathematics was. I still thought of it as problem sets and laborious computations. Then one day, one of my professors handed me a book and suggested that I think about a particular problem. It wasn’t easy, but it was fascinating.
My professor kept giving me problems, and I kept pursuing them. Before long, he was introducing me to problems that had never been solved before and urging me to find new techniques to help crack them.
I am now a Ph. D. candidate in mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and I have published several papers in mathematical journals. I still feel that childlike excitement every time I complete a proof. I wish I’d known this was possible when I was a kid.
1. Why did the writer think math class in school was “something to be endured” before entering college?| A．Because he wasn’t interested in math. |
| B．Because his math teachers didn’t care to push him. |
| C．Because he was too smart and talented for math class. |
| D．Because he was training hard for an athletic scholarship. |
| A．passion | B．constant feedback |
| C．a sense of purpose | D．specific instructions |
| A．was busy looking for problem sets to crack |
| B．began to realize what mathematics really is |
| C．met with laborious computations in his studies |
| D．studied on his own just as he was in high school |
| A．Feeling the children excitement. |
| B．Different mathematical research. |
| C．Generating curiosity and creativity. |
| D．Being a professional mathematician. |
8 . Having a microchip implanted in a man's brain may be common in sci-fi movie plots, but it may soon become an actual possibility.
Elon Musk -a US tech tycoon, founder of Space X- has been working on this technology. On Aug 28, Musk gave a display of the chip, which was implanted into the head of a pig named Gertrude.
The chip, developed by Musk's company Neuralink, is the size of a coin. But don't let its size fool you. The tiny chip has over 3,000 electrodes （电极）attached to flexible threads, which can monitor about 1,000 neurons （神经元）.It collects neural signals from an area of the brain, and then transmits those signals wirelessly to nearby computers, according to MSN. That enabled researchers to monitor Gertrude's brain activity while she was walking around in the display.
Though the technology is still in its early stage, it is encouraging for humans. This technology would solve a lot of brain injuries and is essentia] for Al symbiosis, which will allow the human brain to combine with an artificial intelligence.
When the device can be applied to humans, its main goal will be to help those who have mobility difficulties. Musk hopes this technology can also be used to help those with hearing and eyesight issues.
Although such a device could repair those problems, putting it into practice is by no means a piece of cake. Currently, the device can transmit signals from about 500 neurons in the pig's brain. Compared to 80 billion neurons in a human brain, this number is tiny. And to cover the whole human brain also means the electrodes have to be much smaller.
Also, implanting the chip into the brain poses a potential danger. There is a risk of the immune system attacking this foreign body.
Right now, the hope of controlling the brain via controlling a few neurons seems overly optimistic. "There are many technological challenges ... to overcome before Neuralink can put its devices to the purposes," Yuan Lanfeng, an associate professor at the University of Science and Technology of China, told China Daily.
1. What do we know about Elon Musk's microchip?| A．It was inspired by sci-fi movie plots. |
| B．It is able to collect wireless signals. |
| C．It is tiny in size but powerful in function. |
| D．It has been implanted into a human's brain. |
| A．The operation of the chip in Gertrude’s brain. |
| B．The attachment of electrodes to flexible threads. |
| C．The development of neurons inside Gertrude's brain. |
| D．The transmission of signals from a nearby computer |
| A．To monitor animals’ brain activity. |
| B．To help people with mobility issues. |
| C．To develop a cure for immune system problems. |
| D．To contribute to the research on Al technologies. |
| A．Worried. | B．Excited. | C．Optimistic. | D．Challenged. |
9 . In the first days after a team of 25 delivery robots landed on George Mason University's campus in January,they appeared to cause curious glances and many photos but not much else.
It was clear,officials said,that more time and more data would be necessary to understand whether the robots would change the campus culture or become forgettable.Two months later,an extra 1,500 breakfast orders have been delivered autonomously,according to the technologists of Sodexo,a company that manages food service for GMU and works closely with the robots.
Research has shown that up to 88 percent of college students skip breakfast,primarily because of lack of time,but that number is starting to turn around when delivery robots arrive on campus.They're constantly seen making the 15 minute trip from campus restaurant to a handful of nearby dorms,as well as to other buildings across campus,where students meet them.Two months later,breakfast has replaced dinner as the go-to meal for robot delivery.
Sodexo officials have noted that college students are main users of food delivery apps and place a high value on convenience and multiple options when they dine.During the morning hours,restaurant experts say,there is generally more emphasis（强调）on speed than any other part of the day.Combine college students'love of food delivery with messy morning routines,and perhaps they have a perfect recipe for robots to deliver in the campus.
The robots also provide campus officials with valuable data showing how meal plans are being used,which could lead to changes in how the university serves students over time.Sodexo technologists also announced Monday that a new team of more than 30 robots is launching at Northern Arizona University
.
| A．They are on diets. |
| B．They have a tight schedule. |
| C．The food doesn't agree with them. |
| D．GMU doesn't offer delivery services. |
| A．College students. | B．Campus officials. |
| C．College professors. | D．Restaurant managers. |
| A．They make timely deliveries. |
| B．They were ignored at first. |
| C．They mainly carry dinner at present. |
| D．They have changed the whole campus culture. |
| A．Delivery services grow fast in college. |
| B．Breakfast in necessary for college students. |
| C．Robots help with GMU's campus management. |
| D．Delivery robots are changing students'eating habits. |
10 . Robots are often cast in popular science fiction as the bad characters that take over the world and enslave mankind. But with the beginning of some serious diseases, robots are increasingly being employed as helpers, taking on often dull, difficult and dangerous tasks and thus reducing humans' exposure to some terrifying virus.
In the United States, two of the main ways in which robotic technology is being used in the hospitals are to disinfect(消毒）hospital rooms and act as a telemedicine portal, allowing doctors and health care workers to communicate via video conference directly with patients without unnecessarily exposing themselves to those highly infectious virus.
In Boston, doctors, researchers and robotics engineers have teamed up to bring a friendly, dog-like, four-legged robot named Spot into Brigham and Women' s Hospital, allowing doctors to communicate with patients via telemedicine.
In March, at the start of the pandemic, a league from hospital, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Spot's manufacturer-Boston Dynamnics, began testing the robot's design to enable Spot to communicate with patients, thus reducing the exposure of frontline health care workers to the virus. In the place of a head, Spot has an iPad affixed to a stand, allowing doctors to conduct telemedicine services with their patients.
“Most people actually really like it,” says Dr. Peter Chai, an emergency medicine physician who serves as the hospital's chief researcher on the robot project.
Researchers are working to increase the robot's diagnostic abilities, enabling it to measure the patients temperature and his or her respiratory rate (呼吸率）.
Chai predicts that hospitals will continue to find more ways to use robots, and tie wonders whether robots can deliver supplies to rooms or see patients with other infectious diseases
1. What words can best describe the jobs robots are employed to do?| A．Normal and easy. | B．Exciting and dangerous. |
| C．Dirty and complex. | D．Frightening and difficult. |
| A．To save money. | B．To replace doctors. |
| C．To protect doctors from infecting virus. | D．To deliver supplies to patients and doctors. |
| A．It is a friendly dog. |
| B．It can deliver supplies to hospital rooms. |
| C．It can help adjust the patient's temperature. |
| D．It allows doctors to conduct telemedicine services. |
| A．Spot the Robot Dog |
| B．Train Robot Doctors |
| C．Robots Being Used in Hospital |
| D．Robots in Popular Science Fiction |
