3 . An advance in electronic publishing could make the e-book you are reading seem as dated as a silent film. Publishers hope to explore the growing success of e-books by releasing versions with added soundtracks（电影配音）and musical accompaniments.

The noises in the first multimedia books — released in Britain on Friday - include rain hitting a window in a Sherlock Holmes tale. When the plot of a book reaches the most exciting part, background scores will create tension.

Supporters argue that sound effects are the next logical development for e-books and will add excitement for younger readers. Critics, however, will argue that the noise will ruin the simple pleasure of having the imagination stimulated by reading.

Caroline Michel, chief executive of the literary agency, said the new generation of computer- literate readers was used to multiple sensory input. She said, “Young people have split computer screens where they may be watching television and replying to an email at the same time. If that's what the market wants then we should respond to the market.”

Book track's sound effects work by estimating the user's reading speed. Each lime you turn a page, the software reassesses where you have reached in the text and times the sounds to switch on accordingly. If the soundtrack becomes out of synch （同步），a click on any word will reset it.

Some authors fear that a soundtrack could destroy the peace and quiet of libraries and ruin the pleasure, of reading. David Nicholls, author of Our Day, the bestseller now released as a film, said, “This sounds like the opposite of reading. I have enough trouble reading an e-book because I'm constantly distracted by emails.

Stuart MacBride, the crime writer whose novel Shatter the Bones was an e-book bestseller, sells 18% of his books as electronic downloads. He said, “If I'm reading, I will do the noise in my head. I don’t need someone to tell me what lea cups clinking sounds like. That would irritate （激怒）me.”

1. What do publishers expect an e-book soundtrack to do?

A．Help to release an e-book as a film.	B．Help readers improve reading speed.
C．Add tension at a book's exciting point.	D．Get readers familiar with       the background.

2. Who is in favour of added soundtracks for e-books?

A．Mr. Darcy.	B．Caroline Michel.
C．David Nicholls.	D．Stuart MacBride.

3. What do we know about Stuart MacBride?

A．He was a person who was easy to get angry.

B．He knew a great deal about tea and tea culture.

C．Eighty-two percent of his books described crime.

D．He imagined sounds related to the story when reading.

4. What's the main idea of the passage?

A．Opinions about e-books with soundtracks.

B．Response to the need of the book market.

C．Reasons for traditional e-books becoming outdated.

D．Suggestions on encouraging readers’ imagination.

4 . The company SpaceX has already launched hundreds of its Star-link satellites, with plans to put as many as 42,000 of them in Earth orbit. Its goal is to provide high-speed Internet to billions of people. Moving toward that kind of access is important, but it comes at a cost. Glittering with reflected sunlight, these first orbiters, sent up in the past year, are brighter than 99 percent of the 5,000 or so other satellites now circling Earth, and obviously there are going to be a lot more. This sudden increase is bad for astronomy: the probability of a Star-link satellite crossing a telescope’s field of view and ruining an observation will be quite high near sunset. For that reason, my fellow astronomers have signed a petition (请愿书) calling for governments to protect the night sky from this invasion.

In response to protests, SpaceX has promised to address the visibility problem by, for example, applying experimental coatings — essentially painting the satellites black — but the company’s aggressive launch schedule remains unchanged. And the satellites’ illuminated (被照亮) surfaces are mostly their solar panels — exactly the part that cannot be painted over.

Unfortunately, at present no regulations govern how bright a single satellite can be, let alone thousands of them together. Even if there were such regulations, one nation’s laws can not hinder (阻碍) another country’s launches. Space literally has no borders, and the sky will need to be protected at an international level. As a consequence, we hope that the United Nations will find a way to think outside of the box to save the sky for everyone.

When I was growing up in Montana, it was a game to be the first to find a moving satellite among the host of stars in the night sky. Soon it could be a game to recognize the constellations (星座) behind a swarm of moving points of light.

1. What is the writer’s attitude toward Space X’s launching plans?

A．Indifferent.

B．Doubtful.

C．Optimistic.

D．Disapproving.

2. Why have my fellow astronomers signed the petition?

A．SpaceX plans to send too many Star-line satellites into space.

B．The Star-line satellites will possibly ruin an observation near sunset.

C．The first orbiters are brighter than most of other satellites circling Earth.

D．Space X fails to provide high-speed Internet to people around the world.

3. According to the author, who should shoulder the responsibility to save the sky?

A．The United States.	B．The United Nations.
C．The company SpaceX.	D．Just one nation.

4. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A．Preserve the Night Sky	B．Ban Star-line Satellites
C．Observe the Stars Attentively	D．Protest against Space X

5 . The Hear Clear Go Rechargeable Digital Hearing Aid is a popular member of our rechargeable hearing aid family for a good reason: it combines great performance with incredible value! This hearing aid features advanced third-generation digital technology at an unbelievably affordable price. The Go is packed with the same key technologies that all high-end digital hearing aids share while leaving out the extra fancy bells and whistles that increase costs and require expensive adjustments. With the Go, you’ll hear clearly while saving a lot of money.

With the Go’s included charging station, you won’t have to keep buying and replacing tiny hearing aid batteries! You’ll love the lightweight design. The Go is pre-programmed for most moderate to significant hearing losses — no costly professional adjustments needed. They are shipped directly to you and will help you hear better right out of the box!

You can spend thousands for an expensive hearing aid, or you can spend just $239 for a hearing aid that is great for most hearing losses (only $199 each when you buy a pair — hear up to 3 times better than wearing just one). We are so sure you will love your hearing aids. We offer a 100% Money Back Guarantee — Risk Free if you are not satisfied for any reason. No costly professional appointments needed! With our free telecare, you can call our friendly and caring staff from the comfort and safety of your home to discuss your hearing care.

1. What do we know about the Go?

A．Its price is unbelievably low.	B．It features fancy bells and whistles.
C．It includes charging station and batteries.	D．It needs expensive professional adjustments.

2. How much should you pay to buy a pair?

A．$239.

B．$478.

C．$199.

D．$398.

3. Where is the text most likely from?

A．A magazine.

B．A research paper.

C．A travel brochure.

D．A scientific journal.

6 . Spring Festival is traditionally a family holiday, but there are plenty of ways for travellers to celebrate Chinese New Year, which falls on February 12, 2021.

Watch a lion or dragon dance

Lion and dragon dances have been part of the festival since the Tang Dynasty. Closely related to kung fu, these dances demand strength and balance. Dragon dances are performed by a group of people who work together to bring the dragon's powerful yet graceful movements to life. Look out for the final and also the most exciting part of the dance called cai qing which means “picking the greens”. Competing groups will battle each other very hard to get the red envelope hidden in the green vegetables.

Eat and dress yourself up lucky

Like any festival in China, Chinese New Year is all about food. So prepare to eat yourself lucky. A whole fish is a popular choice. It means you'll have plenty of riches. Likewise, dumplings are also a lucky dish because they are said to look like the ancient silver coins. For more good luck, wear red underwear. If you happen to have been born in the Year of the Cow, you'd better wear them all year, as your ben ming nian is believed to be a year of bad luck. Also, on New Year's Day, don't clean anything-even yourself - or you'll be washing away the good luck.

Travel smart and cheap

Generally speaking, it is best to avoid travel in China at all during the busy Spring Festival period known as chunyun. But if you fly on New Year's Day, when offices are closed and Chinese families stay together, it can be surprisingly cheap with few passengers, particularly on popular routes, such as Beijing to Shanghai. You should avoid trying to head to major cities by public transport later than five days before or after New Year's Day, when millions of urban workers make their way home or back to work.

1. Why do dance groups fight so hard at the end of the dance?

A．To prove their power.	B．To show their kung fu.
C．To get the red envelope.	D．To hide the lucky vegetables.

2. What is a bad thing to do on New Year's Day?

A．Eating fish.	B．Wearing red underwear.
C．Making dumplings.	D．Having a shower in the evening.

3. When can you buy very cheap flight tickets during chunyun in 2021?

A．On February 6.	B．On February 8.
C．On February 12.	D．On February 18.

7 . The secret to happiness is keeping busy, research has found.

Keeping the mind occupied with tasks — no matter how meaningless — keeps off negative emotions, the study found.

However, the bad news is that humans are seemingly born to be lazy in order to save energy, according to Professor Christoper Hsee, a behavioral scientist at Chicago University.

In a study, 98 students were asked to complete two surveys. After they had completed the first, they were made to wait 15 minutes to receive the next one. They were given a choice of either handing in the first survey nearby or at a more distant location they had to walk to. Whichever option they chose, they received a chocolate bar. It turned out that approximately two-thirds (68 students) chose the lazy option. Those who had taken the walk reported feeling happier than those who had stayed put.

Prof. Hsee concluded that keeping busy helped keep people happy. He said the findings, reported in the journal Psychological Science, had policy implications.

“Governments may increase the happiness of idle citizens by having them build bridges that are actually useless,” he proposed.

At the individual level, he advised, “Get up and do something. Anything. Even if there really is no point to what you are doing, you will feel better for it.” He added, “Incidentally, thinking deeply or engaging in self-reflection counts as keeping busy, too.”

“You do not need to be running around. You just need to be engaged, either physically or mentally.”

1. Keeping busy can make people happy because________.

A．it can help people get rid of laziness	B．it can make people sleep better
C．it can help get rid of negative emotions	D．it can give people a sense of achievement

2. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?

A．The finding may contribute to politics.

B．The officials have taken Prof. Hsee’s advice.

C．In the study half students handed in the first survey nearby.

D．Governments can increase citizens’ happiness by building bridges.

3. What can we infer from the passage?

A．Everybody is born to be happy.

B．Only by keeping working all the time can you gain happiness.

C．Prof. Hsee’s finding was published in Psychological Science.

D．Keeping busy goes against human nature.

4. What is the author’s purpose in writing this passage?

A．To explain what happiness is.

B．To advise people not to sit around.

C．To advise people to do what they like to.

D．To show people how to take life correctly.

8 . About 12 million tons of plastic wastes are entering the oceans every year. This garbage pollutes the water, kills wildlife and breaks down into small pieces that fish and other creatures eat.

Now a group of Spanish fishermen will receive economic support to catch plastics. It is part of a new project. Carlos Martin is one of the fishermen taking part in the project. He and his partners collect the plastic in the ocean and bring it back to land every week. Martin thinks rivers carry a lot of plastics to the sea. He says his most concern is no more than that the plastics often get caught in the nets, which makes nets not work properly. They take on mud（泥）, causing the nets to break because they weigh so much.

Under the new programs, one million pounds will support ocean cleanup efforts for fishermen like Martin. The money is coming from the European Union and the Catalan government. Sergi Tudela, the General Director of Catalonia Fisheries, is responsible for the cleanup project. He said, "We are hopeful that if we are successful in this project, we can apply it to other areas in the Mediterranean（地中海）."

Government reports show that the amount of plastic wastes washing up along the Spanish coastline has grown by 65 percent in just six years. Fishing equipment makes up a large part of the about 8 to 12 million tons of plastics left in the world's oceans every year.

Martin says the fishing community now understands how big the problem is. He says, "In the past we didn't see it that way. We took the plastic garbage and threw it back into the water. I think that after a few year here we have realized the problem. Nothing is thrown into the water; we collect everything and bring it to shore.

1. What worries Martin most about plastic wastes at the beginning?

A．They pollute the sea environment.

B．They affect the quality and taste of fish.

C．They prevent the fishing nets from working well.

D．They kill wildlife and reduce his fishing amount.

2. What does Sergi Tudela probably consider doing?

A．Getting more money to support the project.

B．Getting help from other European countries.

C．Spreading the cleanup project to more places.

D．Praising the European Union for their helping to the oceans.

3. What do Martin's words in the last paragraph imply（暗示）about the fishing community?

A．Its members do a lot of work for free.

B．It has stopped using plastic fishing equipment.

C．It has made positive changes to fight plastic wastes.

D．Its members find people sill throw the garbage carelessly.

4. What would be the best title for the text?

A．New programs are changing fishermen's life

B．Money is given to Spanish fishermen to clean up oceans

C．Traditional fishing equipment causes a lot of plastic wastes

D．Spanish fishermen are encouraging people to clean up oceans

9 . When talking about the economics of online publishing, the first thing to remember is that job No. 1 isn’t to get the news to you. Rather, it is to monetize you, by selling you off, in real time, to the highest bidder. This happens every time you click on a link, before the page has even started to load on your phone. Once upon a time, if you and I both visited the same web page at the same time using the same web browser, we would end up seeing the same thing. Today, however, an almost unthinkably enormous ecosystem of scripts and cookies and often astonishingly personal information is used to show you a set of brand messages and sales links which are tailored almost uniquely to you.

That ecosystem raises important questions about privacy—the way that the minute you look at a pair of shoes online, for instance, they then start following you around every other website you visit for weeks. But whether or not you value your privacy, you are damaged, daily, by the sheer weight of all that technology.

Online ads have never got less annoying over time, and you can be sure that mobile ads are going to get more annoying as well, once Silicon Valley has worked out how to better identify who you are. The move to greater privacy protections might help slow the pace with which such technologies are adopted. But there’s no realistic hope that websites will actually improve from here. If you want to avoid the dreadful experience of the mobile web, you’ll only have one choice—which is to start reading your articles natively, in the Facebook or Apple News app. But it won’t be Facebook and Apple who killed the news brands. It’ll be ad tech.

1. What will happen if two people click on the same link today?

A．They will immediately get the news that they want.

B．They will see the same thing whenever they browse.

C．They will see different brand messages and sales links.

D．They will be recommended to the same bidder.

2. Why can the online ads send you the links unique to you?

A．Because the ecosystem knows who you are.

B．Because they know how to identify who you are.

C．Because you don’t care about your privacy.

D．Because you always use the same web browser.

3. How could we protect our privacy against mobile ads?

A．By slowing the pace with such technologies.

B．By improving the website functions.

C．By stopping using the mobile phones.

D．By reading articles in specific apps.

4. What’s the author’s attitude to the ad tech?

A．Negative.

B．Positive.

C．Unconcerned.

D．Optimistic.

10 . A deadly virus is spreading from state to state and has infected 26 million Americans so far, killing at least 14,000 people this season alone. It’s not a new pandemic (传染病) – it’s influenza.

The 2019-2020 flu season, which began September 29, is projected to be one of the worst in a decade, according to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. At least 250,000 people have been hospitalized with symptoms from the flu, and that number is predicted to climb as flu activity spreads quickly.

Dr. Nathan Chomilo, an assistant professor at University of Minnesota Medical School, said that the commonness of the flu often underplays its severity, but people should take it seriously.

The flu becomes dangerous when secondary infections emerge, the result of an already weakened immune system. Bacterial and viral infections worsen the flu’s symptoms. People with chronic illnesses are also at a heightened risk for flu complications.

Those complications include pneumonia(肺炎), inflammation in the heart and brain and organ failure – which, in some cases, can be deadly.

Influenza is tricky because the virus changes every year. Sometimes, the dominant strain in a flu season will be more virulent than in previous years, which can impact the number of people infected and the severity of their symptoms.

Most of these changes in the virus are small and insignificant, a process called antigenic drift. That year’s flu vaccine is mostly effective in protecting patients in spite of these small changes.

Occasionally, the flu undergoes a rare antigenic shift, which results when a completely new strain of virus emerges that human bodies haven’t experienced before.

This flu season, there’s no sign of antigenic shift, the most extreme change. But it’s happened before, most recently in 2009 with the H1N1 virus. It became a pandemic because people had no immunity against it, the CDC reported.

1. What do the numbers indicate in the first two paragraphs?

A．The flu is rather serious.	B．The flu is quite common.
C．The flu is easy to control.	D．The flu season lasts long.

2. When does the flu become dangerous?

A．There appear new symptoms of flu owing to antigenic shift.

B．The number of patients becomes large with the virus spreading.

C．Relative infections turn up because of the weaker immune system.

D．The virus changes its form with no immunity against it.

3. The underlined word “virulent” in paragraph 6 means ___________.

A．changeable

B．deadly

C．peaceful

D．different

4. Why is the H1N1 virus in 2009 referred to in the last paragraph?

A．To warn people that the antigenic shift is impossible.

B．To inform people that the virus can be cured.

C．To show people that the vaccine is effective.

D．To remind people that the virus can be changed.