1 . Fu Cong, a Chinese-born pianist, died on Monday at a hospital in London, where he had lived for many years.
A lover of classical music from a young age, Mr. Fu began taking piano lessons when he was 7. He made his first stage appearance in 1952. The concert caught the attention of officials in Beijing, who selected him to compete and tour in Eastern Europe. Mr. Fu soon moved to Poland, where he studied at the Warsaw Conservatory (音乐学校) on a scholarship. To prepare for the fifth Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 1955, he practiced so hard that he hurt his fingers and was nearly cut from the first round of the competition.
Mr. Fu was one of the first Chinese pianists to achieve global fame when he took third place in the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1955. He also won a special prize for his performance of Chopin's mazurkas. Almost overnight, he became a national hero. To China, Mr. Fu's recognition in a well-known international competition was evidence that the country could stand on its own artistically in the West. Chinese reporters came to interview Mr. Fu, while many others went to his father, Fu Lei, for advice on child-raising.
In 1981, a volume of letters written by his father, was published in China. Full of advice, encouragement, life teachings and strict paternal love, the book Fu Lei's Family Letters became a best-seller in China. Besides influencing a generation of Chinese, Mr. Fu's words resonated (引起共鸣) long after his death with the person for whom they were intended.
“My father had a saying that 'First you must be a person, then an artist, and then a musician, and only then can you be a pianist,'" Mr. Fu Cong once recalled in an interview. "Even now, I believe in this order-that it should be this way and that I am this way.”
1. What is paragraph 2 mainly about?| A．Fu Cong's achievements in music. | B．Fu Cong's stage performances. |
| C．Fu Cong's experiences of learning music. | D．Fu Cong’s efforts for competitions. |
| A．It earns Chinese arts a place in the West. |
| B．It promotes the spread of Chinese culture. |
| C．It proves Chinese people's love for music. |
| D．It enables Chinese art education to be recognized. |
| A．Fu Lei's Family Letters. | B．Young people of China. |
| C．Fu Cong and his family. | D．Readers of Fu Lei's Family Letters. |
| A．It's easy to be an artist. |
| B．It requires various qualities to be a pianist. |
| C．Everyone should develop an interest in art. |
| D．Talent is of greatest importance for a pianist. |
2 . 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. |
3 . The beauty of the outdoors naturally encourages people to go outside. The drive toward the natural world is present in normal times. Now, as many people are locked indoors, spending hours in front of screens, the pull of watching wind blow branches of neighboring trees is hardly matched. Forest therapy is one way to satisfy the demand while improving personal health and well-being.
Inspired by the Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku, or "forest bathing", forest therapy is a guided outdoor practice, which encourages people to experience the pleasures of nature through all of their senses and be present in the body.
Research on shinrin-yoku began in Japan in the 1980s when leaders there noticed a sharp rise in stress-related illnesses in the country, resulting from people spending more time working in technology and other industrial work. Specific settings were created to guide people in outdoor experiences. Research showed forest bathing may help reduce stress, improve attention, and lift moods.
Stress raises levels of cortisol, which plays a role in high blood pressure, heart disease and headaches. In test subjects, levels of cortisol decreased after a walk in the forest. Trees give off oils called phytoncides that have special properties and may influence immunity(免疫力). Exposure to natural tree oils helps lift depression, lower blood pressure. One study showed a rise in the number and activity of immune cells, which fight viruses and cancer, among people who spent three days and two nights in a forest compared with people taking an urban trip. This benefit lasted for more than a month after the forest trip!
Don't worry if you don't have three days to spend in the forest. A recent study showed spending at least 120 minutes a week in nature improved self-reported health and well-being. It doesn't matter whether the 120 minutes represents one long trip, or several shorter visits to nature. So, even as we are honoring physical distancing, it's possible and essential to get outside for 20 minutes every day and enhance our well-being.
1. What does the underlined sentence in paragraph 1 imply?| A．Interaction between neighbors is rare. |
| B．The beauty of nature is often ignored. |
| C．People's urge to be outside is stronger. |
| D．Public physical condition is worsening. |
| A．To find a way to help people work out. |
| B．To deal with a national health crisis. |
| C．To provide an effective exercise guide. |
| D．To get people away from technology. |
| A．What long-term stress could cause. |
| B．How long people should stay in nature. |
| C．How forest therapy affects the body. |
| D．Whether exposure to forests is helpful. |
| A．Limiting time spent outdoors properly. |
| B．Spending at least 2 hours in nature a day. |
| C．Making a plan to exercise every day. |
| D．Keeping our connection with nature. |
4 . With a quick movement, the little creature vanishes in the air like it never existed and somehow appears dramatically-this is a part of the film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. But in reality, “disappeared” fantastic creatures can also reappear.
The Global Wildlife Conservation(GWC) announced on Oct 30 they have rediscovered the Voeltzkow's chameleon(变色龙)in Madagascar. The last time that the animal was seen was in 1913.
This discovery excited the researeh team, but the finding was not easy. The GWC organized an expedition as part of its Seareh for Lost Species program, an attempt to rediscover species that have not been observed by scientists for at least a decade. They headed into the forests of northwestern Madagascar in April 2018. But they didn't have much luck for a long time. Just days before the trip was to end. the tour guides spotted one of the chameleons. Ultimately, the team discovered three males and 13 females.
Male Voeltzkow's chameleons are up to 164 millimeters long and are light green with dark stripes, which get darker when they are angry or stressed. Females are smaller than males, growing to about 150 millimeters long. They can change their skin to a pattern of red dots and a stripe of purple against a background of black and white.
“The Voeltzkow's chameleon adds color and beauty to the planet, and reminds us that even when all seems lost, a great adventure can reawaken hope." said Don Church, president of the GWC. "Now we have so much to learn about this extraordinary reptile(爬行动物)・including how we can best save it from extinction.”
This isn't the only time a species thought to be extinct has been rediscovered. In fact, this year scientists discovered a frog that has been missing for more than 50 years in a Brazilian jungle. Another example is the Albany adder snake, which was rediscovered in 2016. The species had disappeared for over a decade and was generally believed to be extinct.
So how are these "lost" species able to make a comeback? If the environment changes in favor of certain species that have been considered extinct, the population size of those species may recover again. As they reach greater numbers, the chance of humans discovering them increases.
1. Why is the part of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them mentioned?| A．To lead to a discussion about animal extinction. |
| B．To warn of the difference between reality and fiction. |
| C．To demonstrate that magic can be found in real life. |
| D．To further discuss the reappearance of creatures. |
| A．How luck determined the fate of a lost species. |
| B．How the GWC rediscovered the Voeltzkow's chameleon. |
| C．An introduction to the Seareh for Lost Species program. |
| D．The solutions to make “lost" species come back. |
| A．They can change their colors to green and yellow. |
| B．Female chameleons are much longer than male ones. |
| C．The color of the males' skin can reflect their mood. |
| D．Male chameleons outnumber female ones by a lot. |
| A．The rediscoveries may be due to environmental changes. |
| B．The habitats of frogs and snakes are quite similar. |
| C．Human beings are to blame for species extinction. |
| D．Extinct reptiles would be the first group to be rediscovered. |
5 . 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 |
6 . They say everything is bigger in Texas. While that may be true, some of the best things in Texas are quite small. Case in point: tiny Mount Vernon, a town of just under 3,000 people. But if you do come across Mount Vernon, you might just get an intention to stay. That happens a lot around here, and it’s worth noting how remarkable that is.
Tom Wilkinson was born in Mount Vernon 87 years ago and moved back after he retired from his career as a college English professor in Dallas. Like many of his neighbors, Wilkinson can track his ancestors back to the pioneers who settled here in the 1870s. And like many, he values the simple life you can’t easily find in big cities. “People are still polite. They hold the door open for you.” he says, “We grow strong roots here!”
Preserving and honoring the past has been key to helping Mount Vernon survive. The residents have restored and reopened some of the empty stores, including the old barbershop, built more than 100 years ago. An old general store was turned into a combination space. Wander in on any given day and you might find a book club discussion, a Coffee Ladies meet-up, or a work session for the local genealogy(家谱) group among the tables of people chatting over cups of coffee and plates of food.
Mount Vernon has the kind of big hearts you tend to find in a small town. For instance, when a local policeman was diagnosed with cancer last year, ten-year-old Lola McKellar set up a lemonade stand to raise money for his treatments. In 2015, when a 350-year flood sent water rushing into local homes, an army of volunteers showed up to get a wheelchair-bound neighbor and his wife to higher ground, and then came back to help rebuild.
1. What does the author think of Mount Vernon?| A．Remote. | B．Wealthy. |
| C．Primitive. | D．Attractive. |
| A．He preferred the simple and natural life. | B．He could continue his language teaching. |
| C．He could live together with his ancestors. | D．He could meet more neighbors of his age. |
| A．It is in danger of extinction. | B．It is quickly changing over time. |
| C．It is conservative but harmonious. | D．It is being disturbed by the outside world. |
| A．The history of Mount Vernon. | B．The humanity of Mount Vernon. |
| C．The volunteers of Mount Vernon. | D．The reconstruction of Mount Vernon. |
7 . Throughout history, music spread among people of different cultures.In today’s technological advanced society, however, people spread music online, sometimes without an artist’s permission.This can lead to many problems, and music companies are now cracking down on this practice.Sharing music online without permission is theft (盗窃).
Sharing music online prevents recording companies from making money from their efforts.They say that sharing music online has resulted in a huge drop in profits and sales over the past 10 years.People who find music for free online are not paying for CDs or every MP3 downloaded.To truly understand the influence of music piracy (盗版) on creators, one must understand how many people are involved in the recording process.For the sale of each album, profits must be shared between musicians, sound engineers, music producers, managers, advertisers, and the company selling the product.Many people believe sharing music only affects the recording artist, but the reality is that sharing hurts business for all companies involved.
There are many people who don’t see the harm in sharing music online and even think they have the right to do it.One online blogger states that he originally paid for an entire CD and that he should be able to do with the material whatever he wants.While he may have legally paid for the music, he does not have the right to provide permission, which means people like the blogger are thieves.
Although we don’t spread today’s music the same way we did before, there’s no doubt that people around the world love to share music.However, internet piracy would prevent musicians from continuing producing albums for fear of theft.Therefore, if people want to continue listening to their favorite artists, they need to buy their music so that artists will make enough profit to continue their music careers.
1. The underlined phrase “cracking down on” in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to ________.| A．bringing up carefully | B．speaking highly of |
| C．dealing seriously with | D．destroying completely |
| A．artists are taking action to protect their right |
| B．sharing music files online affects a lot of people |
| C．online music sharing increases sales of music CD |
| D．a person who bought a CD has the right to share it online with others |
| A．Topic—Argument—Explanation | B．Opinion—Discussion—Description |
| C．Main idea—Comparison—Supporting statements | D．Introduction—Supporting statements |
| A．Music Piracy is Theft | B．Is Sharing Music Right? |
| C．What is Music Piracy? | D．Music Piracy is Good for Music Lovers |
8 . A US government study has found that facial recognition technology is getting better at identifying people wearing masks. The study is part of an ongoing research by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The agency has examined the effectiveness of more than 150 facial recognition systems on people wearing face coverings . The systems are powered by machine learning algorithms (算法).
The first results of the study were announced in July, as health officials across the world urged people to wear masks to limit the spread of COVID-19. New findings were released this week . Police agencies have long used facial recognition technology to search for and help catch criminals. It can also be used to unlock phones or other electronic devices. Some robots use facial recognition technology to recognize the people they are communicating with. However, the wide use of masks in public has created major difficulties for such systems.
The study looked at facial recognition systems already in use before the pandemic. It also looked at systems specially developed to work on masked faces. The NIST said it processed a total of 6. 2 million images for the experiment People in the images were not actually wearing masks. So, the researchers digitally added different mask shapes to faces in the pictures for use in the study. In some cases, up to 70 percent of a person’s face was covered in the images. Overall, the research shows the top-performing facial recognition systems fail to correctly identify unmasked individuals about 0. 3 percent of the time and the failure rate rose to about 5 percent with masked images. Many of the lower performing algorithms, however, had much higher error rates with masked images — as high as 20 to 50 percent.
In the latest findings, researchers included results from 65 new facial recognition systems that have been developed since the start of the pandemic. “Some of these systems performed “significantly better” than the earlier ones，” Mei Ngan, a lead researcher on the project, said in a statement. The study also found round-shaped masks — which cover only the mouth and nose — led to fewer errors than wider ones that stretch across the cheeks. The new study also ran tests to see whether different colored masks would affect error rates. The team used red, white, black and light blue. The research findings suggested that generally, the red and black masks led to higher failure rates than the other colors.
1. How does the author mainly present the study finding?| A．By giving definitions and examples. |
| B．By giving examples and a brief description. |
| C．By presenting data and making a comparison. |
| D．By giving definitions and presenting data. |
| A．The speed of the machine learning algorithms. |
| B．The operators’skill in performing algorithms. |
| C．The number of the tested people. |
| D．The diversity of face coverings. |
| A．A girl wearing a white round-shaped mask. |
| B．A lady with a red mask stretching across her cheeks. |
| C．A man wearing a light blue mask covering his mouth and nose. |
| D．A man wearing a black mask with his nose and mouth covered up . |
| A．Objective | B．Negative |
| C．Uncaring. | D．Doubtful. |
9 . What happens when you cross stem cells from a frog heart and frog skin? Not much-that is, until you program those cells to move. In that case, you've created a xenobot, a new type of organism that's part robot, part living thing.
Now a team of scientists has used living cells from frog embryos and assembled them into entirely new life-forms. These millimeter-wide xenobots can move toward a specific target and pull themselves through after being cut.
These are novel living machines," says Joshua Bongarch a computer scientist and robotics expert at the University of Vermont who co-led the new research. "They're neither a traditional robot nor a known species of animal. It's a new living, programmable organism.
Xenobots borrow their name from Xenopus laevis, the name for the African clawed frog from which the researchers harvested the stem cells. They combined together well two different kinds of cells-heart and skin cells. The heart cells are competent in expanding and contracting, which aids the xenobot in locomotion, and the skin cells administer structure. Besides, they can't accomplish tasks without the help of computers.
By studying these curious organisms, researchers hope to learn more about the mysterious world of cellular communication. Plus, these kinds of robo-organisms could possibly be the key to drug transmission in the body or greener environmental clean-up techniques.
“Most technologies are made from steel, concrete, chemicals, and plastics, which degrade(降解)over time and can generate harmful ecological and health side effects the authors note in a research paper. "When these xenobots finally do stop working, they fall apart harmlessly.
“Promising as these organisms are, when we start to mess around with complex systems that we don't understand, we're going to get unintended consequences Michael Levin, a biophysicist and co-author of the study, says in a press statement.
1. What do we know about the xenobot?| A．It is not easy to degrade over time. |
| B．It can recover itself after being cut. |
| C．It will never die with a computer inside. |
| D．It is named after a kind of American frog. |
| A．Appearance. | B．Position. |
| C．Application. | D．Movement. |
| A．recycle waste in nature. |
| B．replace certain damaged organs. |
| C．deliver medicine inside patients. |
| D．improve communication technology. |
| A．Xenobots can be put into the market soon. |
| B．Xenobots are created totally by accident. |
| C．More research should be done on xenobots. |
| D．It is hard for people to understand xenobots. |
10 . People speak English in different parts of the world. The same words can be used in different ways, depending on where you live. People can also have completely different ways of saying the same thing.
The Oxford English Dictionary(OED) is asking the public to help it add new words. Editors want to find the regional differences in English around the world. They want to expand its record of the language.
Last year, the OED, BBC Radio and the Forward Arts Foundation teamed up to find local words in the United Kingdom. It resulted in more than 100 regional words and phrases being added to the dictionary. One was “cuddy winter”, which means a left-handed person.
Now, the OED is widening its search to English speakers around the world. Eleanor Maier, an editor at OED, said the response has been great. Editors are listing a bunch of suggestions to include in the dictionary.
These include Hawaii's “hammajang” which means “in a disorderly state”. Another is the word for a swimming costume, " lookers" or “duckers”. It is used in Scotland.
The OED also might include the word “ frog-drowner” , which Americans might use to describe a downpour of rain. Another possibility is “brick”. It means “very cold” to people in New Jersey and New York City.
The dictionary has already found that, depending on location, a picture hanging off center might be described as “agley”. It might also be called “catawampous” or “ahoo”.
“The OED aims to cover all types of English,” Maier said. That includes scientific words, slang and regional language. Maier also said that it can be difficult for the OED's editors to identify regional words. The terms are more often spoken than written down.
The appeal is called Words Where You Are. It is looking for more suggestions. “We were surprised and pleased by the number of regional words we were able to include,” said Maier.
1. "Cold" is closest in meaning to .| A．hammajang | B．dockers | C．brick | D．ahoo |
| A．agley | B．frog-drowner | C．cuddy winter | D．brick |
| A．It is challenging to create a complete collection of regional words. |
| B．People pay little attention to the appeal for regional words. |
| C．People use regional words only when they are home or with close friends. |
| D．Having an understanding of regional words can be helpful when communicating. |
| A．It's time to trace the source of local words. |
| B．The same English words can be used to say different things. |
| C．Oxford Dictionary aims to enlarge its collection to appeal to locals. |
| D．Oxford Dictionary will include more regional words from around the globe. |
