1 . Zoos have traditionally been built in a certain way: Animals on the inside, humans on the outside, peering in. This separation is good in theory—humans and animals need to be protected from one another—but terrible in practice, as animals end up living in an environment far from a natural habitat. A new plan for a Zoo in Denmark wants to reverse those roles, giving animals more freedom in captivity while effectively placing humans inside protective barriers.
Called Zootopia, the conceptual design has the goal of turning the safari(野外观兽旅行)style zoo into a place where animals determine interaction—not humans. “Try to imagine if you asked the animals what they would like. What would they decide?” says the director of the project. “They want their nature back, so to speak, and we are going to try to create that”.
In Zootopia, animals will wander free around the perimeter while humans observe, hidden away from view in underground passageways and naturalistic architecture structures. Visitors can watch lions through an underground enclosure disguised as a hill. They'll peek out at giraffes through windowed houses built into the side of a hilly plains. Outside of the main circular entrance, there will be no traditional buildings. “We want to take away human influence,” said Zootopia's designers.
The main challenge, of course, is to design the zoo in a way that the enclosure is still there but it's not visible. The two-phase plan, which will cost around $200 million, is still in the improving and approval phase; it'll be at least five years until we see any work finished on the park, and it's likely to take upwards of 10 years before it opens. Can the animals wait that long?
1. Why does a zoo in Denmark plan to create Zootopia?| A．to protect animals from humans. |
| B．to provide animals with a natural habitat. |
| C．to provide humans with more freedom in the zoo. |
| D．to protect humans and give animals enough freedom. |
| A．animals enjoy full freedom. | B．there will be no conventional buildings. |
| C．humans watch animals without being noticed. | D．humans can interact with animals at their will. |
| A．It’s tricky to design the enclosure. |
| B．Zootopia is now under construction. |
| C．There is a long way to go before Zootopia operates. |
| D．Zootopia arouses people’s concern about animals. |
| A．the future of Zootopia | B．the development of Zootopia |
| C．the fall of traditional zoos | D．the concept of a cage-free zoo |
2 . One of the best uses of technology is to make life easier.
A new product from Microsoft Corporation can do just that for people who have trouble seeing. They may be blind or visually impaired. The product, an app, is currently available for free for Apple’s iPhone and iPad. The app is called Seeing AI. “AI” is short for artificial intelligence, a term for computers with an ability to think and learn like human beings.
Seeing AI uses both a camera and artificial intelligence to identify places, objects and people. The app then announces what the camera sees so users will know what is in front of them.
People can also use Seeing AI to learn words in English. With the app open, you can point your iPhone or iPad at any object and it will say what the object is. With Seeing AI, users can hear a description of not just objects, but other people. It can even tell you about their emotions. It will not just say that someone is smiling. The app will say that the person is happy. Or surprised. Or angry. People can use the app when going to a store or supermarket. It can read product bar codes so users will know whether a can is filled with fruit or dog food. Microsoft says Seeing AI will soon be able to identify banknotes so people know whether they are holding a bill that is worth $100 or $1.
At restaurants, diners can use the new app to hear a list of drinks and other menu offerings. It can recognize both food choices and prices. People can use the app to read signs and get directions, although Microsoft warns against using it for navigation（导航） purposes.
One of the more interesting tools of Seeing AI is its ability to read documents. The app can read documents aloud and even help a user position them on the center of the electronic device.
The app is currently available in just the US, Canada, India, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Singapore---however, Microsoft says that the app will be available in other countries and districts soon.
1. Who is Seeing AI intended for?| A．people working at the restaurant |
| B．people having visual disabilities |
| C．people buying goods in the supermarket |
| D．people having difficulty in learning languages |
| A．describing a person | B．navigating |
| C．reading documents | D．reading product bar codes |
| A．It was developed by Apple | B．It can be used on computers. |
| C．It identifies things only by the camera. | D．It makes blind people’s life easier. |
| A．It will soon be available on Android. |
| B．It will replace people’s eyes. |
| C．It will have more new functions |
| D．It will only be used in European countries. |
3 . Recently according to a new research, humans have had a link to starches (含淀粉的食物) for up to 120,000 years — that’s more than 100,000 years longer than we’ve been able to plant them in the soil during the time of the ice Age’s drawing to an end. The research is part of an ongoing study into the history of Middle Stone Age communities.
An international team of scientists identified evidence of prehistoric starch consumption in the Klasies River Cave, in present-day South Africa. Analyzing small, ashy, undisturbed hearths(壁炉) inside the cave, the researchers found “pieces of burned starches” ranging from around 120,000 to 65,000 years old. It made them the oldest known examples of starches eaten by humans.
The findings do not come as a complete surprise — but rather as welcome confirmation of older theories that lacked the related evidence. The lead author Cynthia Larbey said that there had previously only been genetic biological evidence to suggest that humans had been eating starch for this long. This new evidence, however, takes us directly to the dinner table, and supports the previous assumption that humans’ digestion genes gradually evolved in order to fit into an increased digestion of starch.
Co-author Sarah Wurz said, “The starch remains show that these early humans living in the Klasies River Cave could battle against their tough environment and find suitable foods and perhaps medicines. And as much as we all still desire the tubers (块茎), these cave communities were gilling starches such as potatoes on their foot-long hearths. They knew how to balance their diets as well as they could, with fats from local fish and other animals.”
As early as the 1990s, some researchers started to study the hearths in the Klasies River Cave. Scientist Hilary Deacon first suggested that these hearths contained burned plants. At the time, the proper methods of examining the remains were not yet available. We now know human beings have always been searching for their desired things.
1. When did humans begin to farm starches?| A．After the Ice Age. | B．After the Middle Stone Age. |
| C．About 20,000 years ago. | D．About 100,000 years ago. |
| A．Starch diet promoted food culture. | B．Starch diet shaped humans’ evolution. |
| C．Starches had a variety of functions. | D．Starches offered humans rich nutrition. |
| A．They were smart and tough. | B．They preferred plants to meat. |
| C．They were generally very healthy. | D．They got along with each other. |
| A．Great Civilization of South Africa | B．The Evolution of Foods in History |
| C．Starches--the Important Food of Today | D．Big Findings--the Starches in Ancient Times |
4 . Do you like watching movies? The following movies are coming on soon. Please check and find the one you like. Click the name of each movie to get more information.
Brahms: The Boy II
Horror | Mystery |Thriller
Soon after a family moves into the Heelshire Mansion, their only son makes friends with a life-like doll called Brahms.
Director: William Brent Bell
Stars: Katie Holmes, Ralph Ineson, Owain Yeoman, Christopher Convery
Little Joe
Drama | Sci-Fi
Alice, a single mother, is a devoted senior plant breeder at a corporation engaged in developing new species. Against the company policy, she takes one plant home as a gift for her teenage son, Joe. The plant was created by genetic engineering and anyone touching it will become strange. Director: Jessica Hausner:
Stars: Emily Beecham, Ben Whishaw, Kerry Fox, Kit Conor
The Aeronauts
Action | Adventure I Biography | Romance
Pilot Amelia Wren (Felicity Jones) and scientist James Glaisher (Eddie Redmayne) find themselves in a hard fight for survival while attempting to make discoveries in a gas balloon. Director: Tom Harper
Stars: Felicity Jones, Eddie Redmayne, Himesh Patel, Phoebe Fox
Apparition
Horror | Adventure
A group of young people, guided by an APP that connects the living with the dead, find themselves at an abandoned castle, a place with a horrific history tied to each of them, for reasons they’ll soon discover.
Director: Waymon Boone
Stars: Mena Suvari, Kevin Pollak, Megan West, Jon Abrahams
1. What can we learn about Brahms: The Boy II?| A．William Brent Bell is in charge of it. |
| B．Brahms can live a life as a man does. |
| C．The audience may be amused by the movie. |
| D．The story was created by William Brent Bell. |
| A．Brahms; The Boy II. | B．The Aeronauts. |
| C．Apparition. | D．Little Joe. |
| A．They are liked by teenagers. |
| B．Their plots are both horrible. |
| C．They are played by young actors. |
| D．Their characters all behave strangely. |
5 . We are the products of evolution, and not just evolution that occurred billions of years ago. As scientists look deeper into our genes (基因), they are finding examples of human evolution in just the past few thousand years. People in Ethiopian highlands have adapted to living at high altitudes. Cattle -raising people in East Africa and northern Europe have gained a mutation (突变) that helps them digest milk as adults.
On Thursday in an article published in Cell, a team of researchers reported a new kind of adaptation - not to air or to food, but to the ocean. A group of sea-dwelling people in Southeast Asia have evolved into better divers. The Bajau, as these people are known, number in the hundreds of thousands in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. They have traditionally lived on houseboats; in recent times, they’ve also built houses on stilts (支柱) in coastal waters. “They are simply a stranger to the land,” said Redney C. Jubilado, a University of Hawaii researcher who studies the Bajau.
Dr. Jubilado first met the Bajau while growing up on Samal Island in the Philippines. They made a living as divers, spearfishing or harvesting shellfish. “We were so amazed that they could stay underwater much longer than us local islanders,” Dr. Jubilado said. “I could see them actually walking under the sea.”
In2015, Melissa Ilardo, then a graduate student in genetics at the University of Copenhagen, heard about the Bajau. She wondered if centuries of diving could have led to the evolution of physical characteristics that made the task easier for them. “it seemed like the perfect chance for natural selection to act on a population,” said Dr. Ilardo. She also said there were likely a number of other genes that help the Bajau dive.
1. What does the author want to tell us by the examples in paragraph 1?| A．Environmental adaptation of cattle raisers. | B．New knowledge of human evolution. |
| C．Recent findings of human origin. | D．Significance of food selection. |
| A．In valleys. | B．Near rivers. | C．On the beach. | D．Off the coast. |
| A．They could walk on stilts all day. | B．They had a superb way of fishing. |
| C．They could stay long underwater. | D．They lived on both land and water. |
| A．Bodies Remodeled for a Life at Sea | B．Highlanders’ Survival Skills |
| C．Basic Methods of Genetic Research | D．The World’s Best Divers |
6 . Life satisfaction is the way persons evaluate their lives and how they feel about their directions and options for the future. It's a measure of well-being and may be evaluated in terms of mood, satisfaction with relations with others and with achieved goals and self-concepts to cope with daily life. It's having a favorable attitude towards one's life as a whole rather than just an evaluation of current feelings. Life satisfaction has been measured in relation to economy, education, experiences, and residence, as well as many other topics.
Life satisfaction can reflect experiences that have influenced a person in, a positive way. These experiences have the ability to motivate people to pursue and reach their goals. As a matter of fact, in these experiences there are two kinds of emotions that may positively influence how people understand their life. Hope and optimism both consist of emotional processes that are usually directed towards the reaching of goals. People who have higher life satisfaction are always full of hope for a better future; additionally, optimism is linked to higher life satisfaction, while pessimism is related to symptoms in depression.
The psychologist, Yuval Palgi, studied the old-old-people who were primarily in their nineties. This subject group was found to have thought highly of their past and present, but they thought lower of their future. A large factor that was talked about in life satisfaction was intelligence. The experiments talk of how life satisfaction grows as people become older because they become wiser and more knowledgeable, so they begin to see that life will be better as they grow older and understand the important things in life more. But when they step into their nineties, future becomes a luxury to them.
According to Seligman, the happier people are, the less they are focused on the negative. Happier people also have a greater tendency to like other people, which promotes a happier environment, which then correlates to a higher level of the persons' satisfaction with their life.
1. What can we learn about life satisfaction from Paragraph 1?| A．It can be easily measured through income and education. |
| B．It includes a positive attitude towards people's entire life. |
| C．It merely determines people's attitude towards the future. |
| D．It has nothing to do with the evaluation of current feelings. |
| A．The wealthier a person is, the happier he will feel. |
| B．Happy people are more likely to get along well with others. |
| C．Happy people won’t be influenced by the negative items in life. |
| D．Intelligence plays a leading role in determining people’s happiness. |
| A．They were less hopeful about it. | B．They thought highly of it. |
| C．They felt satisfied with it. | D．They were scared of it. |
| A．Old People Have Much More Life Satisfaction |
| B．Life Satisfaction—the Key to a Happier Life |
| C．Optimism Ensures Life Satisfaction |
| D．Emotions Affect Life Satisfaction |
7 . We pick the upbeat tunes for parties and workouts, and save the low-key songs for romantic or sad moments. It’s hardly a new idea that music is mixed with our emotions. But how have our favorites changed over the decades, and what do these changes say about America’s shifting emotional landscape (景象)?
Researcher E. Glenn Schellenberg set out to examine songs popular in America during the last five decades, using a selection from Billboard Magazine’s Hot 100 charts, hoping to learn how emotional cues (提示) in music, such as tempo (slow to fast) and mode (major or minor key), have changed since 1960.
The most striking finding is the change in key. Songs written in a major key tend to sound warm and high-spirited, while songs in a minor key can sound darker and more melancholic (忧郁的). Over the last few decades, popular songs have switched from major to minor keys. Broadly speaking, the sound has shifted from bright and happy to something more complex. The study also finds America’s popular songs have become slower and longer. Even more interesting, is that our current favorites are more likely to be emotionally ambiguous, such as sad-sounding songs being fast or happy-sounding songs being slow.
A possible explanation for the changes is that the more contemporary music reflects the hardships that our society has gone through. However, Schellenberg believes that the steady increase in length and decrease in tempo doesn’t support the idea of growing difficulties fully because it would mean our problems have increased steadily over the last fifty years. He suggests that popular songs have become more complex over time because Americans are becoming more diverse and individualized in their musical tastes.
Though we can only guess about the specific causes of this evolution in music, Schellenberg’s initial observations have helped to open the door to research on the link between emotion and music consumption. Perhaps someday we’ll learn more of the secrets behind the music we love and the times we live in.
1. Why did Schellenberg start the study?| A．To change music styles. | B．To explore changes in music. |
| C．To select America’s favorite music. | D．To examine the creation of music. |
| A．Older songs were often more sad-sounding. |
| B．Popular songs have become warmer and shorter. |
| C．Recent hits are likely to be longer and more complex. |
| D．Current favorites tend to be composed in a major key. |
| A．The influences of the study. | B．The diversity of musical tastes. |
| C．The causes of the music changes. | D．The features of America’s society. |
| A．Positive. | B．Doubtful. |
| C．Disapproving. | D．Ambiguous. |
8 . While it's no surprise that heavy drinking comes with health consequences, women in particular are more likely to suffer from alcohol—including an increased risk of alcohol-related death, according to a new study.
The study, published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, looked at the death data of Americans 16 and older from 1999 to 2017. The researchers found nearly 1 million alcohol-related deaths in that time period and the largest annual increase of alcohol-related deaths occurred among Non-Hispanic white women.
"Historically, the most protective factor for women was that it was less common for women to drink a lot," Keith Humphreys, a professor of Stanford University tells Yahoo Lifestyle. "That was changed largely by alcohol companies. Women were targeted in advertising and it worked—and now women drink much more and now they're dying much more. ”
Excessive alcohol use can lead to several health problems over time—and women are particularly affected. "The risk of cirrhosis（肝硬化）and other alcohol-related liver diseases is higher for women than for men," according to the CDC. Drinking too much alcohol can also affect the brain, causing shrinkage（收缩）and memory loss. Research suggests that women are weaker than men to the brain damaging effects of alcohol abuse, and the damage tends to appear with shorter periods of excessive drinking for women than for men. Heavy drinking also influences heart health. The CDC states that studies show women who drink excessively have a higher risk of damaging the heart muscle than men, even for women drinking at lower levels.
The health consequences of drinking also develop more rapidly in women than in men. "You'll commonly see a woman who hasn't been drinking alcohol as long as men and the physical punishment comes faster,” says Humphreys.
1. How was the study done?| A．By doing experiments. | B．By comparing data. |
| C．By watching closely. | D．By asking and recording. |
| A．It explains the reasons for women to drink. |
| B．It compares the past and present of women. |
| C．It shows the newest finding about women drinking. |
| D．It comments on the terrible results of women drinking. |
| A．Two. | B．Three. |
| C．Four. | D．Five. |
| A．Women, Suffer More from Drinking | B．Drinking, Fashionable but Harmful |
| C．Drinking Does Harm to Health | D．Men and Women, Drink Less |
9 . I was 16 years old the day I skipped school for the first time. It was easily done: Both my parents left for work before my school bus arrived on weekdays, so when it showed up at my house on that cold winter morning, I simply did not get on. The perfect crime!
And what did I do with myself on that glorious stolen day, with no adult in charge and no limits on my activities? Did I get high? Hit the mall for a shoplifting extravaganza (狂欢)?
Nope. I built a warm fire in the wood stove, prepared a bowl of popcorn, grabbed a blanket, and read. I was thrilled and transported by a book—it was Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises—and I just needed to be alone with it for a little while. I ached to know what would happen to Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley and Robert Cohn. I couldn’t bear the thought of sitting in a classroom taking another biology exam when I could be traveling through Spain in the 1920s with a bunch of expatriates (异乡客).
I spent that day lost in words. Time fell away, as the room around me turned to mist, and my role—as a daughter, sister, teenager, and student—in the world no longer had any meaning. I had accidentally come across the key to perfect happiness: I had become completely absorbed by something I loved.
Looking back on it now, I can see that some subtle things were happening to my mind and to my life while I was in that state of absorption. Hemingway’s language was quietly braiding itself into my imagination. I was downloading information about how to create simple and elegant sentences, a good and solid plot. In other words, I was learning how to write. Without realizing it, I was hot on the trail of my own fate. Writing now absorbs me the way reading once did and happiness is their generous side effect.
1. Why did the author skip school on that day?| A．Because her parents left home early. | B．Because it was a cold winter morning. |
| C．Because she was fascinated by a novel. | D．Because she hated to take the biology exam. |
| A．Reading by the fire. | B．Travelling in Spain. |
| C．Breaking the regulations. | D．Being occupied by one’s passion. |
| A．Entering. | B．Destroying. |
| C．Mending. | D．Blocking. |
| A．I was tired of my real-life roles. |
| B．I learnt how to write on the internet. |
| C．Hemingway skipped school when he was young. |
| D．Becoming a writer was my childhood dream. |
10 . Robert Vallieres hikes for miles, often three times a week, climbing the high mountains, just to get a glimpse of his beloved birds.
Many years ago, as a young engineer in the army, Vallieres was struck in the head in a task in Gulf War, which ended his military career and left him fighting for his life. He was 28 years old and battled stress, survivor’s guilt and PTSD (创伤后应激障碍). “When you’re disabled and you really can’t move too much, you’re wondering if death is nearby.” he said.
Despite his condition, Vallieres still had to be a father to his little boy-a curious child who helped jump start his love for birds.
One day, his three-year-old son noticed a bird and asked his father what kind it was. Vallieres bought a bird identification book and started learning along with his son. He bought some small telescopes and the two began observing birds together near their home in New Hampshire.
Then came another turning point. Vallieres saw an ad in the newspaper for a birding trip in New Hampshire’s White Mountains and signed up.
Now it’s his joy and renewed purpose to track and save the peregrine falcon and the bald eagle-two species nearly wiped out by the chemicals used for killing pests. It’s hard physical work for anyone, which needs patience, keen observation skills and time. But Vallieres is a natural at it, because his military training made him a perfect match, especially in reading maps and navigating.
Vallieres says not only does his volunteering help with physical fitness, but also his mental state. “To find rhythm or purpose in life besides myself,” says Vallieres, “I shouldn’t get stuck on myself but have a way out.”
1. What led to Vallieres leaving the army?| A．Life failure. | B．Severe injury. |
| C．His son. | D．Love for birds. |
| A．By climbing mountains often. |
| B．By buying some small telescopes. |
| C．By strengthening the military training. |
| D．By signing up for protecting birds. |
| A．For his habit of reading. | B．For his experience in army. |
| C．For his devotion to career. | D．For his talent in drawing maps. |
| A．A Volunteer’s Story of Saving Birds |
| B．An Inspiring Story of Self-motivation |
| C．A Soldier’s Story of Healing through Birds |
| D．A Moving Story Between a Father and His Son |
