Innovative Designs for Accessibility
Deadline: 2020-04-30
Award: $ 7,500 CAD
Open to: University students
The Innovative (创新的) Designs for Accessibility student competition challenges students across Canada to use their creativity to develop innovative, cost-effective and practical solutions to accessibility barriers for people with disabilities. (Read more)
Clean Tech CompetitionDeadline: 2020-04-13
Award: $ 28,000
Open to: Students 13-15 years old
The Clean Tech Competition is a unique, worldwide research and design challenge for pre-college youth. The competition is designed to build a deeper understanding of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) related concepts, recognize outstanding talent, and prepare the next generation of globally competitive innovators. (Read more)
Agile Robotics CompetitionDeadline: 2020-04-10
Award: $ 17,500
Open to: Adults
Agile Robotics Competition is a simulation-based (仿真) competition designed to promote agility(灵活) in industrial robot systems by employing the latest advances in artificial intelligence and robot planning. The competition will be held virtually (虚拟的), so there is no need to travel to compete. The competition will use the Gazebo simulation tool. (Read more)
Wearable Robotics Innovation ChallengeDeadline: 2020-04-24
Award: $ 5,000
Open to: Everyone
The Wearable Robotics Association is inviting entries that represent the most innovative new ideas in wearable robotic technology. The review committee will select as many as ten finalists. The one considered to be the most innovative will be announced at the conference and will receive $ 5,000 to accelerate the new technology. (Read more)
1. Which competition favors competitors with a creative mind in helping the disabled?| A．Innovative Designs for Accessibility. | B．Clean Tech Competition. |
| C．Agile Robotics Competition. | D．Wearable Robotics Innovation Challenge. |
| A．To make a research about STEM. |
| B．To encourage university students to be innovators. |
| C．To help students prepare for the university. |
| D．To find talented teenagers and develop their ability to innovate. |
| A．They are open to everyone. | B．Every competitor can get an award. |
| C．They are held in April. | D．They are held virtually. |
2 . Race walking shares many fitness benefits with running, research shows, while most likely contributing to fewer injuries. It does, however, have its own problem.
Race walkers are conditioned athletes. The longest track and field event at the Summer Olympics is the 50-kilometer race walk, which is about five miles longer than the marathon. But the sport’s rules require that a race walker’s knees stay straight through most of the leg swing and one foot remain in contact (接触) with the ground at all times. It’s this strange form that makes race walking such an attractive activity, however, says Jaclyn Norberg, an assistant professor of exercise science at Salem State University in Salem, Mass.
Like running, race walking is physically demanding, she says, According to most calculations, race walkers moving at a pace of six miles per hour would burn about 800 calories(卡路里) per hour, which is approximately twice as many as they would burn walking, although fewer than running, which would probably burn about 1,000 or more calories per hour.
However, race walking does not pound the body as much as running does, Dr. Norberg says. According to her research, runners hit the ground with as much as four times their body weight per step, while race walkers, who do not leave the ground, create only about 1.4 times their body weight with each step.
As a result, she says, some of the injuries associated with running, such as runner’s knee, are uncommon among race walkers. But the sport’s strange form does place considerable stress on the ankles and hips, so people with a history of such injuries might want to be cautious in adopting the sport. In fact, anyone wishing to try race walking should probably first consult a coach or experienced racer to learn proper technique, she says. It takes some practice.
1. Why are race walkers conditioned athletes?| A．They must run long distances. |
| B．They are qualified for the marathon. |
| C．They have to follow special rules. |
| D．They are good at swinging their legs. |
| A．It’s more popular at the Olympics. |
| B．It’s less challenging physically. |
| C．It’s more effective in body building. |
| D．It’s less likely to cause knee injuries. |
| A．Getting experts’ opinions. |
| B．Having a medical checkup. |
| C．Hiring an experienced coach. |
| D．Doing regular exercises. |
| A．Skeptical. | B．Objective. |
| C．Tolerant. | D．Conservative. |
3 . When you have looked through our brochure(手册) and have chosen two or three cottages(小木屋) you would like to stay in, please phone our Holiday Booking Office. The number is: 01225 892299.
31st March to 20th October
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Thursday 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Saturday closed
Sunday closed
21st October to 30th March
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Thursday 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Saturday 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Sunday closed
When a reservation(预订) has been made, it will be held for 7 days. We will give you a holiday reference number and ask you to complete the holiday booking form and return it, with a deposit(订金) of ONE THIRD of the cottage rental.
IF WE HAVE NOT RECEIVED YOUR COMPUTED AND SIGNED BOOKING FORM WITH A DEPOSIT WITHIN 7 DAYS, WE REGRET THAT YOUR RESERVATION WILL BE CANCELLED.
When we receive your booking form and deposit, your reservation will be confirmed-we will send you a Booking Confirmation, together with advice on how to reach your holiday cottage and the telephone number of a local contact so that you can get further details on the cottage before leaving home.
ARRIVAL
Please do not arrive at your holiday cottage before 3:30 p.m. or later than 7:00 p.m.
DEPARTURE
On the morning of departure, please leave your holiday property(住所) by 10 a.m. to allow caretakers enough time to prepare the property for the next visitors. We ask that you please leave the property as you found it. Please do not move the furniture as this can cause damage to the furniture.
LAST-MINUTE BOOKINGS
If you wish to make a last-minute booking, please telephone the Holiday Booking Office to check availability. If your reservation is made within 10 weeks of the holiday start date, full payment is due when booking.
ELECTRICITY
In most Wessex Cottages electricity must be paid for in addition to the holiday price. In some cottages, electricity is included in the rental and in very few there is no electricity at all.
1. What should you know about your booking?| A．The reservation can be made on weekends. |
| B．You need to fill a form before booking. |
| C．A deposit of one third of the cottage rental is needed. |
| D．The reservation of a cottage will be kept for 7 hours. |
| A．At 9:30 a.m. | B．At 9:00 a.m. |
| C．At 4:30 p.m. | D．At 5:00 p.m. |
| A．There is no electricity in many cottages. |
| B．Electricity price is more expensive than the holiday price. |
| C．Electricity is included in the rental in most cottages. |
| D．You don’t need to pay for it additionally in some cottages. |
| A．Full payment is unnecessary when booking. | B．Cottages may be unavailable. |
| C．The cost is lower than before. | D．Additional charges may be made. |
4 . The fitness center offers a variety of activities for members of all ages throughout the week.
Activities for Monday 12 July, 2017:
Learn to swim. Classes for preschool children aged five and under start at 10 am. Classes last 30 minutes and parents must attend with their children. Don't forget to book in advance, as places are limited, and to pack some warm clothes for after the lesson.
Woman's aerobics（有氧运动）. Sessions are for one hour and begin at 10:45 am, led by Melissa. Come along and join us every Monday for an exhilarating hour of exercise and fun. Leave your kids at the nursery and take time out for yourself. Wear a tracksuit or something similar.
Lunch time yoga. Take a break at lunchtime （1:00-2:00 pm） for an hour of meditation and yoga. Enjoy the peace and quiet of our meditation room, and relaxing sessions designed for active people with busy lives. Use your own mat（垫子）for floor work or huy one from us with some money.
Family Shootaround. 10:00-5:30 pm. Family Shootaround is open for members and guests to bring the family out for basketball. Half court games are only during this time. There are no full court games during Family Shootaround hours. All participants must sign in at the front desk and wear a wistband during the play.
1. When will Melissa be working?| A．From 10:00 am to 10:30 am |
| B．From 10:45 am to 11:45 am. |
| C．From 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm. |
| D．From 10:00 am to 5:30 pm. |
| A．Lunchtime yoga. | B．Women's aerobics. |
| C．Learn to swim | D．Family Shootaround. |
| A．The need to sign in |
| B．The need to book in advance. |
| C．The need to bring something. |
| D．The need to become a member. |
5 . There’s no doubt that one of the greatest human achievements is the exploration of the space. Ever since astronaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to be sent into the orbit around the moon in 1961, scientists have been pushing the boundaries further and further. But until now the exploration into the unknown has been dominated (主导) by men.
Of course, in the past, women were also included in the space projects and played an active role on the ground and behind the scenes. For example, they worked as seamstresses (女裁缝师), sewing vital spaceflight components. In fact, many of NASA’s key works would never have been possible without them. Recently Hollywood produced a movie called Hidden Figures to focus on a group of American female mathematicians, especially the black women, who helped NASA send the first American into space. But this was not women’s only contribution. Back in 1963, Soviet astronaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to be sent into space. However, after that, space flight programs were slow to employ women. In the USA. NASA didn’t accept applications from women to become astronauts until 1978.
But attitudes have changed and leading officials at NASA say that the first person to set foot on Mars should be a woman. The space agency aims to have a sex-balanced workforce but can only achieve that if equal numbers of men and women are trained for science and technology jobs. As Allison McIntryre told the BBC, “My director is a woman. We have female astronauts. We haven’t put a woman on the moon yet. And I think that perhaps the first person to step on Mars should be a woman.”
1. What did Yuri Gagarin do in 1961?| A．He landed on the moon in success. |
| B．He discovered many new boundaries. |
| C．He led scientists to explore the moon. |
| D．He made the first journey into the space. |
| A．To show women are the true heroes of NASA’s first launch. |
| B．To stress that black people have won equal rights in NASA. |
| C．To prove women can do as well as men in NASA’ projects. |
| D．To present women’s contributions to NASA’s space programs. |
| A．Uncaring. | B．Disapproving. |
| C．Supportive. | D．Disappointed. |
| A．Will the First Person to Step on Mars Be a Woman? |
| B．Great Achievements Have Been Made in Space Exploration? |
| C．Why Men Played an Important Role in Exploring the Unknown? |
| D．Men and Women Have Made Equal Contributions to NASA’s Projects? |
6 . On a rainy winter day, several decades ago, a British artist named Christopher got on a train in Oxford to go to London. When he began his journey, he never knew that it was the beginning of almost 40 years of accidents and near death experiences.
During the journey, the train fell into an icy river, killing 12 passengers. Christopher managed to swim back to the river bank. He only had a broken leg.
Two years later, Christopher was on a plane from London to Manchester when a door suddenly opened and he fell out. A few minutes later, the plane crashed; 27 people were killed. Christopher was so lucky that he landed in a haystack (干草堆).
A few years later, he was hit by a bus, but again had no serious injuries. Then a year after that, he was driving on a mountain road when he saw a truck coming straight at him. He drove the car off the road, jumped out, landed in a tree — and watched his car fall 100 meters down the mountain.
''There are two ways you can look at it, '' Christopher said. ''I'm either the worlds unluckiest man, or the world's luckiest. '' When a reporter asked Christopher what he thought, he chose the ''luckiest'' one.
Two years ago, aged 71, Christopher bought his first lottery ticket (彩票) in 50 years and won more than 2 million. After this, a TV company in America said they wanted him to make an advertisement. At first he accepted, but then he changed his mind. Christopher said he would not fly to Los Angeles for the filming, because he did not want to push his luck. Who knows? If he had accepted the invitation, maybe he would have had another accident. But Mr. Christopher is a lucky man. If he had had another accident, he probably would have survived that too!
1. What happened in the plane accident from London to Manchester?| A．Christopher fell out of the plane. |
| B．Christopher fell into an icy water. |
| C．Christopher landed in a tree. |
| D．Christopher was the only passenger to survive |
| A．worried | B．confused |
| C．doubtful | D．fortunate |
| A．Because he was not good at filming. |
| B．Because he had enough money. |
| C．Because he was sure of another accident. |
| D．Because he didn't want to risk his life. |
| A．A man with nine lives |
| B．The unluckiest man in the world |
| C．A man who traveled around the world |
| D．A man who earned ￡2 million in a lottery |
7 . A few years ago, a doctor gave a wrong prescription to a 9-year-old boy because he had accidentally clicked the next medicine listed in the drop-down menu. Unfortunately, the boy died.
Dr. Gidi Stein heard the story and felt forced to do something. “It was like killing someone with a spelling error. He just clicked on the wrong button…Stein said. “One would have thought there’d be some kind of spell-checker to prevent these terrible things from happening. But apparently this is not the case.”
Several things were immediately obvious to the 54-year-old Stein, who had previously studied computer science. “If you look at this problem from a bird’s eye view, there were so many places down the line where this decision could have been stopped-from the physician to the pharmacy (药房) even to the mother. All of them had all the relevant information to have the judgment that this was just the wrong drug for the wrong patient. For Stein, it represented a systematic failure.
Stein compared this with credit cards. “If you use your credit card in the daily routine over time, a pattern emerges of how we use our cards : the grocery store, the gas station in our local town. If your credit card would appear tomorrow in Zimbabwe, it would be unusual. The credit card company would call you and say, “‘Hey, was that you?’”
But nothing like that existed in the field of prescription drugs. So Stein set up a company called MedAware. He came up with a machine learning outliner detection system. In other words, he trained the computers to realize if a doctor accidentally prescribed the wrong medicine.
The system is already used in hospitals and doctor5 s offices. To date, MedAware has used their technology to help nearly six million patients in the United States and Israel.
1. What caused the boy’s death?| A．The doctor’s carelessness. | B．The doctor’s poor medical skill. |
| C．The failure of the computer. | D．The incomplete health care system. |
| A．He was annoyed and put the blame on the doctor only. |
| B．He was regretful and tried to prevent similar accidents happening. |
| C．He was embarrassed and mistook it as a systematic failure. |
| D．He was confused and detected the mistakes in prescriptions himself. |
| A．Credit cards are available for doctors’ prescriptions. |
| B．Instructions in using credit cards are offered to users. |
| C．The boy might have been saved with the technology like credit cards. |
| D．MedAware’s technology will benefit the patients in Zimbabwe. |
| A．MedAware’s technology helps doctors choose right medicine |
| B．MedAware’s technology checks the prescriptions doctors make out |
| C．Medical industry worldwide has enjoyed MedAware’s technology |
| D．The boy? s mother was not to blame for his death during the accident |
8 . As the world's resources become rarer because of continuing land development and the growing human population, the natural habitats of wild animals have continued to decrease. As a result, the survival of some species of wildlife is threatened. To help protect wildlife, a lot of practices should be carried out by environmentalist as well as the general public.
Create homes for species that are endangered because of losing their own natural habitats. Wildlife shelters should be developed, and habitats should be created in existing(现存的) national parks. Efforts(努力) should also be made to protect existing habits, such as providing food and water sources and limiting hunting. Breed(培育) endangered species in places such as zoos. Once the young animals grow up, they can be set free into the wild where they can continue to increase the population.
The general public may not realize that a species is endangered until it's too late. Educational programs making use of TV advertising and instructional meetings at national parks can be used to make the public know the situation.
The general public can help protect the wildlife by not hunting wild animals for sport or for a source of food. They should also stop supporting those who earn money from the illegal hunting of wild animals, such as hunters who kill animals for the only purpose of harvesting their body parts and selling them for money.
The public should avoid(避免) keeping wild animals as pets. This will limit the number of animals being tracked, trapped, sold and removed from their natural habitat.
1. Which of the following is not the measure of protecting animal habitats?| A．Developing wildlife shelters. |
| B．Creating new habitats. |
| C．Setting young animals free in the wild. |
| D．Protecting the existing habitats. |
| A．the general public may not know species are endangered. |
| B．many endangered species are facing the danger of extinction. |
| C．people can do much to protect the endangered species. |
| D．human activities can affect the existence of species. |
| A．some people hunt animals and sell them as pets |
| B．hunters get little money from hunting animals |
| C．general public do nothing about protecting the wildlife now |
| D．animal population becomes larger in the zoo |
| A．Environment. | B．Sports. |
| C．Technology. | D．Education. |
9 . I was in the seventh grade, and we had moved to New Jersey in November. By then, everyone already had had their own friends, and no one wanted to talk to a new girl. To make things worse, they put me in ''Section L''. I found out later that everyone called Section L ''Loserville''. It was sort of an open secret that it was the section for troublemakers and not-so-smart kids. When I found out, I wanted to scream. I had always been a good student and had amazing friends, and now everyone thought I was a loser!
I did text my friends in Illinois almost every night, especially my best friend, Ana. At first my friends wanted to hear all about it. But then some stopped texting back once I said something about how miserable I was. One night when I was texting with Ana, I complained about another friend who had just done that. Anas texts came really fast for the next few minutes and they surprised me. She said that she was tired of hearing about how bad everything was in New Jersey, too. She said she did not want to hurt my feelings but that I needed to stop feeling so sorry for myself all the time, and I had to try to make things better.
The next day, I thought a lot about what Ana had said. She was right!
I wish I could say that everything changed overnight after that, but it didn't, I was still stuck in ''Loserville'', and some people were still mean (苛刻) to me, even though I tried to just stay out of their way.
But what did change was me — I stopped feeling so sorry for myself and did something about making friends. I signed up to make sets for the school play. I met a lot of new people there, and suddenly I had friends to say hi to in the halls!
I still miss Illinois sometimes, but life in New Jersey isn't so hard anymore. Even though I couldn't change my situation, I could change my attitude — and that made all the difference.
1. ''Loserville'' is a section for ________.| A．smart students | B．low achievers |
| C．class leaders | D．new comers |
| A．Ana didn’t text back to her | B．she was a good student |
| C．her friends hurt her feelings | D．she was unfairly treated |
| A．She managed to go back to Illinois. | B．She ended the friendship with Ana. |
| C．She began to make friends with others. | D．She fought back with her classmates. |
| A．Everlasting Friendship | B．Say Goodbye to ''Loserville'' |
| C．An Incident at School | D．Unhappiness in ''Loserville'' |
10 . Technology is forever changing the way we get our news. Many people now get a lot of their news on electronic devices, instead of traditional media, such as newspapers, television or radio. Now, there is a new way we get the news: computer-created news readers.
Recently, China's Xinhua launched (推出) the world's first AI news presenters with the Chinese search engine Sogou. The news readers created by machine learning technology are based on two real-life newsmen. One is able to present newscasts in English; the other, in Mandarin Chinese.
One Xinhua's report said machine learning was used to examine video images and sounds of the two newsmen, which look and sound like real people.
Some machine learning experts said the system showed off China's latest progress in voice recognition, text-to-speech technology and data analysis. But several experts suggested that the term AI does not correctly describe abilities of the robotic news readers.
On social media, many Chinese noted that the AI presenters did not seem real. People blamed them for not being more lifelike. Others wondered about the effects robots might have on employment and workers. Some people argued that only low-level jobs requiring heavy labor will be easily replaced by robots. Others praised the technology as a way for companies to make money from low-cost labor machines.
Some businesses have experimented with similar technology for possible use in news operations. Britain's BBC recently released a video that used machine learning to make it look like one of its news readers speaking different languages. The London-based company that developed the system says its goal is to "remove the language barrier" for many different kinds of video across the Internet.
1. What does the author intend to do in Paragraph 1?| A．Introduce the topic of the text. |
| B．Summarize the different opinions. |
| C．Add some data about the AI presenters. |
| D．Compare different ways of getting news |
| A．To keep AI presenters from making any mistakes. |
| B．To make AI presenters speak more fluently. |
| C．To ensure images and sounds are like real persons. |
| D．To bring newscasts up to date every hour. |
| A．Robots will eventually replace human all over. |
| B．Robots may threaten some people's employment. |
| C．Robots may endanger most people's health. |
| D．Robots will rule over the world in the end. |
| A．BBC has removed the language barrier in newscasts |
| B．BBC's news readers can speak different languages |
| C．BBC shows interest in Xinhua's AI news presenters |
| D．BBC has done similar experiments as Xinhua does |
