1 . As we all know, insects can be remarkably agile (灵活的) in flight. This is really hard to build into flying robots, but MIT Assistant Professor Kevin Yufeng Chen has developed an insect-sized drone (无人机) that approaches insects’ agility.
Typically, drones require wide open spaces. “If we look at most drones today, they’re usually quite big,” says Chen. “Most of their applications involve flying outdoors. The question is: Can you create an insect-sized drone that can move around in very crowded and complex spaces?”
According to Chen, he overcame many problems when building the drone. The insect-sized drone requires a fundamentally different construction from a larger one. The large drone is usually powered by a motor, but the motor loses efficiency as you shrink it. So, Chen says, “For an insect-sized drone, you need to look for alternatives.” The principal alternative until now has been employing a small, rigid actuator (执行器) built from new materials. Chen designed a more agile tiny drone using soft actuators instead of hard ones.
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1. What can we know about the actuator designed by Chen?| A．It weighs about six grams. |
| B．It drives the insect-sized drone. |
| C．It loses efficiency too much. |
| D．It employs conventional materials. |
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 . 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. |
5 . Accompanied by her father, using a combination of aid and free climbing and taking advantage of some special equipment and ropes for protection, 10-year-old Selah made it to the top of El Capitan on June 12 after five days of big wall climbing.
Climbing the challenging and adventurous Nose route of El Capitan was a labor of love for Selah in more than one way. Her parents , Mike and Joy Schneiter, fell in love on this 3,000- plus-foot huge rock and she has always wanted to feel the way that her parents felt when they were up there together. Selah showed great interest in rock climbing at an early age. She wore her first rock-climbing equipment shortly after she learned to walk. She first dreamed of climbing El Capitan when she was 6 or 7.
El Capitan is a famous mountain-sized rock in Yosemite National Park. Getting to its top is no easy task. It's taller, as reported, than the tallest building in the world-Dubai’s Buri Khalifa. El Capitan and its difficult Nose route, which runs more than 3,000 feet high up the center of the rock's face, is considered one of the world's hardest big wall climbs and has attracted the best climbers over time. But never before had a youngster accomplished it.
Selah's achievement caught national attention. Outside Magazine called her the youngest documented person to climb the Nose. Ken Yager, president of the Yosemite Climbing Association, said he also couldn't think of anyone younger who has done it.
Selah is humble about her El Capitan accomplishment. "I'm not necessarily a special kid or anything like that, she said. "There were a few times when I would be so worn that it would kind of discourage me from holding on. But overall, it was just great to keep plugging away.”
Selah shared this advice for other young climbers dreaming of big walls, "It doesn't take necessarily a super special person to do something like that. You just have to put your mind to it.”
1. What do we learn about Selah climbing El Capitan?| A．She began her climbing on June 5. |
| B．She got inspired by her family history. |
| C．She managed without any external help. |
| D．She was the first female to reach the top. |
| A．To state El Capitan's height. |
| B．To prove El Capitan's popularity. |
| C．To introduce El Capitan's location. |
| D．To stress the challenge of climbing El Capitan. |
| A．Determined. | B．Generous. |
| C．Warm-hearted. | D．Fortunate. |
| A．Dream big and aim high. |
| B．Be committed to your ambition. |
| C．Chance favors the prepared mind. |
| D．Nothing is impossible for a genius. |
6 . As more and more people speak the global language of English, Chinese, Spanish, and Arabic, other languages are rapidly disappearing. In fact, half of the 6,000-7,000 languages spoken around the world today will be likely to die out by the next century, according the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
In an effort to prevent language loss, scholars from a number of organizations — UNESCO and National Geographic among them — have for many years been documenting dying languages and the cultures they reflect.
Mark Turin, a scientist at the Macmillan Center, Yale University, who specializes in the languages and oral traditions of the Himalayas, is following in that tradition. His recently published book, A Grammar of Thangmi and Their Culture, grows out of his experience living, working, and raising a family in a village in Nepal.
Documenting the Thangmi language and culture is just a starting point for Turin, who seeks to include other languages and oral traditions across the Himalayan reaches of India, Nepal, Bhutan, and China. But he is not content to simply record these voices before they disappear without record.
At the University of Cambridge Turin discovered a wealth of important materials —including photographs, films, tape recordings, and field notes — which had remained unstudied and were badly in need of care and protection. Now, through the two organizations that he has founded — the Digital Himalaya Project and the World Oral Literature Project — Turin has started a campaign to make such documents, found in libraries and stores around the world, available not just to schools but to the younger generations of communities from whom the materials were originally collected. Thanks to digital technology and the widely available Internet, Turin notes, the endangered languages can be saved and reconnected with speech communities.
1. Many scholars are making efforts to ________.| A．promote global languages | B．rescue disappearing languages |
| C．search for languages communities | D．set up language research organizations |
| A．having detailed records of the languages | B．writing books on language users |
| C．telling stories about language speakers | D．living with the native speakers |
| A．The cultural studies in India. | B．The documents available at Yale. |
| C．His language research in Bhutan. | D．His personal experience in Nepal. |
| A．Write, sell and donate. | B．Record, repair and reward. |
| C．Collect, protect and reconnect. | D．Design, experiment and report. |
7 . The Rise of Voice Technology
Voice technology has come a long way. Just a few years ago, it would have been unusable. But now, those who follow the technology know that it has got considerably better.
Writing with your voice raises several interesting questions. How difficult is it actually? Human speech involves a lot more starting and stopping with errors and the need for repairing broken sentences than you may think. Even gifted speakers make mistakes. To turn the spoken word into reasonable writing requires lots of planning. You’ll need some kinds of notes or other organisers to make it work.
Another question turning speech into writing raises is the style. How would writing make the change that people speak their writing rather than type? Chances are that it would come up with many more short sentences and more concrete language, which is good. It would probably also rely on prepared phrases a lot more often, which is not available when you are speaking quickly.
To confirm this, a column was not written, but dictated (听写). It was composed from brief notes written down for structure only, and it was edited for length, with all of the original errors kept in. Here were the results. The first was that the literal accuracy was extremely high. There weren’t many cases where the software had heard one word incorrectly and written down another. But the other result was that the readability of this column was rather bad. Obviously, the blame is not with the technology at all, which turns out to be rather good. Speaking into writing relies on a better human brain than the one we currently possess. Writing is hard. There’s a reason it can’t be done at the speed of speech, in real time.
To clarify the matter, this time paragraph breaks were added after the whole writing. Punctuations (标点) had to be spoken aloud, and after a full stop, the first word in the new sentence was capitalized automatically. Some minor punctuation marks were added to make it clearer. To improve accuracy, people “trained” the software beforehand, reading a prewritten passage aloud. Actually it turns out to be more effective. All of these ensure the satisfactory completion of turning speech into writing.
Language is the most important tool for human interaction, and voice is one beautiful part of language. With the maturity of modern technology, it has given birth to a great change in the human-computer voice interaction.
1. According to the passage, which helps to turn speech into writing in terms of style?| A．There is careful planning in advance. |
| B．Errors and broken sentences are avoided. |
| C．People type words as fast as they say them. |
| D．The writing contains more prepared phrases. |
| A．processing errors in a column. |
| B．adding minor punctuation marks. |
| C．increasing the number of brief notes. |
| D．integrating short paragraphs in writing. |
| A．human brains are responsible for poor dictated writing. |
| B．writing with voice promises to improve the quality of writing. |
| C．writing is an unnatural act that can hardly be learned and improved. |
| D．technology has a long way to go in the human-computer voice interaction. |
| A．Why people fully intend to turn speech into writing. |
| B．What role voice technology plays in improving readability. |
| C．Where the human-computer voice interaction is at an advantage. |
| D．How voice technology enables the change from speech into writing. |
8 . Japanese officials say they are pleased with the quality of the asteroid (小行星) material collected by a spacecraft and returned to Earth.
Last week, officials from Japan described the samples (样品), which were collected from the Ryugu asteroid in July 2019. Ryugu sits more than 300 million kilometers from Earth. Japan’s unpiloted Hayabusa2 spacecraft removed the material after making a hole into the asteroid.
The space agency said the July 2019 mission (任务) aimed to collect samples from below the surface of Ryugu. During an earlier operation in February 2019, Hayabusa2 collected material from a different part of the asteroid. The second collection effort resulted in sample pieces as big as 1 centimeter. The black material looked similar to charcoal and was very hard. It did not break apart when picked up or poured into another container.
Earlier this month, space officials described the samples Hayabusa2 removed on its first mission as smaller, sandy pieces. They were collected from the surface of Ryugu. Hayabusa2 was launched in December 2014 and arived near Ryugu in June 2018. The Japanese space mission aims to use the samples to learn more about how our solar system formed.
To get the second set of samples in July, Hayabusa2 used an impactor to knock the asteroid’s surface. The aim was to collect material unaffected by space radiation or other environmental conditions. The size differences suggest different hardness of the bedrock of the asteroid. One possibility is that the place of the second touchdown was a hard bedrock and larger particles broke and entered the container.
Hayabusa2 is now on another mission to a smaller asteroid, called 1998KY26. The Japanese government expects the aircraft to take 11 years to reach that asteroid. Hayabusa2’s new mission aims to study possible ways to prevent large meteorites (陨石) from hitting Earth.
1. What are these asteroid materials used to do?| A．Study how the solar system was born. | B．Determine the movement of asteroids. |
| C．Study the environment on the asteroid. | D．Uncover when the asteroid was formed. |
| A．To discover new planets. | B．To fetch more materials in space. |
| C．To travel around the solar system. | D．To explore ways to protect the earth. |
| A．They were collected in the same place. | B．They both were black and hard. |
| C．They came in different shapes. | D．They were of equal weight. |
| A．Japan Makes Progress in Studying Solar System |
| B．Japan Is Pleased with Latest Asteroid Samples |
| C．The Secret of an Asteroid Comes to Light |
| D．The Earth Faces Threats from Space |
9 . There are around 100 tribes(部落)that live in global isolation, mostly in South America and India. The Sentinelese have lived on one of the Andaman Islands in Eastern India for 60, 000 years. They protect their island by fighting against people from outside. Their language is different from any other known language. Another Andaman tribe is the Jarawa. In the past, they were independent and fought against anybody trying to make contact with them. But in 1998, the Indian government built a road across their land, and since then, they’ve had more contact with the outside world.
Some Amazon tribes avoid contact because of unhappy memories. The Mashco-Piro left their vegetable gardens after rubber companies killed most of their tribe at the beginning of the 20th century. Those who survived became nomadic(游牧的)and started hunting animals in the forest.
The Awa live in the Amazon forests ofBrazil. Out of 350 members, 100 have no contact with the outside world. They left their villages and adopted a nomadic lifestyle around 1850 to escape attacks by Europeans. In the following years, farmers in nearby communities started cutting the trees to expand their farmland. The Awa lost most of their hunting land. The few Amazon tribes that still exist are fighting to keep their traditional way of life.
Survival, an organization that fights for the rights of tribal people, says that uncontacted tribes are the most vulnerable(弱势的)humans on the planet and that’s why their environment should be unavailable to the rest of us. After years of pressure, the organization got Brazil’s government to clear non-natives from the Awa land. All non-Awa people are leaving so the tribe can get their forest back.
But some think it's impossible for tribes to stay isolated forever in a connected world. Contact will be made one day. So the question is：Whose choice should it be, ours or theirs?
1. What can we learn about the Sentinelese from the first paragraph?| A．They resist contact from the outside world. |
| B．They speakthe same language as the Jarawa. |
| C．They are wild about fighting with other tribes. |
| D．They have got help from the Indian govemment. |
| A．To protect their hunting land. | B．To search for food sources. |
| C．To avoid threats from Europeans. | D．To maintain their original way of life. |
| A．The tribes should be left undisturbed. |
| B．The tribes should fight for more living space. |
| C．The cribes should live in harmony with nature. |
| D．The tribes should adapt to the connected world. |
| A．The Nomadic Tribes in the World | B．Seeking Survival of Tribes |
| C．The Unavailable Tribal Environment | D．Protecting the Tribal Forests |
10 . Last year, 138,000 San Francisco residents used Airbnb, a popular app designed to connect home renters and travelers. It’s a striking number for a city with a population of about 850,000, and it was enough for Airbnb to win a major victory in local elections, as San Francisco voters struck down a debatable rule that would have placed time restrictions and other regulations on short-term rental services.
The company fiercely opposed the measure, Proposition F, with a nearly $10 million advertising campaign. It also contacted its San Franciscan users with messages urging them to vote against Proposition F.
Most people think of Airbnb as a kind of couch-surfing app. The service works for one-night stays on road trips and longer stays in cities, and it often has more competitive pricing than hotels. It’s a textbook example of the “sharing economy”, but not everyone is a fan.
The app has had unintended consequences in San Francisco. As the San Francisco Chronicle reported last year, a significant amount of renting on Airbnb is not in line with the company’s image: middle-class families putting up a spare room to help make ends meet. Some users have taken advantage of the service, using it to turn their multiple properties into vacation rentals or even full-time rentals. Backers of Proposition F argued that this trend takes spaces off the conventional, better-regulated housing market and contributes to rising costs.
“The fact is, widespread abuse of short-term rentals is taking much needed housing off the market and harming our neighborhoods,” said ShareBetter SF, a group that supported Proposition F. Hotel unions have protested the company’s practices in San Francisco and other cities, saying that it creates an illegal hotel system.
San Francisco is in the middle of a long-term, deeply rooted housing crisis that has seen the cost of living explode. Actually, explode is a generous term. The average monthly rent for an apartment is around $4, 000. Located on a narrow outcropping of land overlooking the bay, San Francisco simply doesn’t have enough space to accommodate the massive inflow of young, high-salaried tech employees flocking to Silicon Valley.
As the Los Angeles Times reported, some San Francisco residents supported the measure simply because it seemed like a way to check a big corporation. Opponents of Proposition F countered that the housing crisis runs much deeper, and that passing the rule would have discouraged a popular service while doing little to solve the city’s existing problems.
1. The intention of Proposition F is to ________.| A．place time limits in local election. | B．set limits on short-term rental. |
| C．strike down a controversial rule. | D．urge users to vote against Airbnb. |
| A．It shrinks the living space of middle-class families. |
| B．Users are taken advantage of by the service financially. |
| C．It makes the house market more competitive. |
| D．It indirectly leads to high house rental price. |
| A．explosion of the living cost | B．its geographic characteristics |
| C．generosity of local enterprises | D．inflow of migrant population |
| A．objective | B．supportive |
| C．negative | D．indifferent |
