1 . How do top athletes handle defeat and disappointment? Can an athlete turn to his or her teammates for support or encouragement? The following top performers' responses will be helpful to you.
Think positively
Siri Lindley is a top triathlete（三项全能运动员）, competing in events that combine long-distance running, swimming and cycling. "I try to use what I learn from each loss to make me stronger and more determined," she says. "Then I pick my head up and start thinking positive, and I visualize myself succeeding the next time. Let the losses make you stronger.”
Stick with it
Allen Johnson won a gold medal in the 110-meter hurdles at the 1996 Olympics, but he knows that he can't win every race. "When I don't win, I have to accept the fact that I made a mistake or that someone was better on that day," he says. "You can't be the best every day, but you can be the best on some day."
Pick yourself up
Figure skater Michael Weiss is one of the best in his sport, but there have been a lot of failures along the way. "I look at failing as a part of growing," he says. "When you lose and you are feeling down, without teammates to lift you up, you have to be strong enough to pick yourself up."
Learn from mistakes
Gymnast Shannon Miller has won several Olympic medals, including two golds. "If I make a mistake in the middle of a competition, I try to forget about it because I have to go on," she says. "If I do poorly over the course of an entire meet, I go back to the gym and figure out what went wrong. It's so important to learn from your mistakes."
1. What do we know about Allen Johnson?| A．He is a top triathlete. | B．He is a hurdler. |
| C．He is a figure skater. | D．He is a gymnast. |
| A．Siri Lindley. | B．Allen Johnson. |
| C．Michael Weiss. | D．Shannon Miller. |
| A．They solve difficulties positively. | B．They ask teammates for help. |
| C．They compete in events freely. | D．They view themselves as the best. |
2 . When we sleep, our brains clear out the memories we've made while we're awake, deciding what to keep and what to discard. Forgetting is an active process, explained the authors of a study published in the journal Science. But less is known about this process during the different stages of sleep.
The team found that during the rapid eye movement （REM） sleep stage, when active sleep happens and we are thought to dream, special nerve（神经）cells appear to actively lead to forgetting. What are known as MCH neurons（神经元）sit in the hypothalamus ——a part of the brain which helps with a range of functions such as sleep, appetite and emotions. Past research has suggested these cells help to control REM sleep patterns.
The team looked at MCH neurons in mice, and found 52.8 percent were active during REM sleep, compared with 35 percent when the mice were awake. They also turned MCH neurons on and off during memory tests. MCH cells appeared to send messages to the part of the brain to stop the formation of memories.
Study co-author Thomas Kilduff said the team was surprised to find that mice performed better on learning and memory tasks when the MCH cells were inhibited（受抑制）.“This result suggests that stimulation of the MCH neurons may disturb memory strengthening - that is, MCH neurons may help forgetting," Kilduff explained.
Asked what motivated the study, Kilduff said, "There is research argument about the role of sleep-in learning and memory, specifically, whether REM sleep, slow-wave sleep or both types of sleep are important for memory strengthening."
Kilduff acknowledged the study was conducted only on mice, not on humans. Also, mice are animals that remain active at night, with periods of sleeping and being awake distributed throughout the day and night, whereas most humans have a single sleep period that usually occurs at night, he said.
1. What does the underlined word “discard" in Paragraph 1 mean?| A．Get rid of. | B．Bring in. |
| C．Make use of. | D．Dream about. |
| A．All of them are active. |
| B．Over half of them are functioning. |
| C．Most of them can control emotions. |
| D．35 percent of them can refresh memories. |
| A．It was highly questioned. | B．It helps explain dreams. |
| C．It could apply to all people. | D．It was limited in some way. |
| A．Entertainment. | B．Sports. |
| C．Tech and Science. | D．Culture. |
3 . Vaccination（接种疫苗）is among the most effective ways to help us prevent diseases. For viruses that don't change too much-the measles virus（麻疹病毒）, for example—getting vaccinated is a once-and-for-all method to prevent you from becoming infected with the virus. If you had two measles vaccines when you were a child, you will be protected for life.
However, it's a different story when it comes to influenza（流行性感冒）, commonly known as "the flu", which generally peaks between December and February. Flu vaccines cannot protect us in the long term.
There is no long-term immunity（免疫）, according to Theodore Strange, associate medical director at Staten Island University Hospital in New York. "The virus essentially 'changes its coat'—HIN1, H2N3, and so on," he told the website Healthline.
Apart from a person's immune protection from flu vaccination declining over time, flu viruses are also constantly changing. So the vaccines are likely to be updated from one season to the next to protect against the viruses that research suggests may be the most common during the upcoming flu season.
Thus, to develop effective flu vaccines, over 100 national influenza centers around the world conduct year-round surveillance（监测）for influenza. Researchers will test thousands of influenza virus samples from patients, according to the official website of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention（CDC）. The World Health Organization also suggests there are three or four influenza viruses that are most likely to spread among people during the upcoming flu season.
But even when a vaccine is developed, getting it can prove to be difficult, as it is in high demand and short supply. The timing of influenza vaccine production and distribution is unpredictable, thus the availability of the flu vaccine supply does not always coincide with（与……一致）peak demand.
So scientists prioritize（划分优先顺序）access to the vaccination. The CDC recommends key populations, such as medical staff, teachers, students, children and those aged 60 and above, receive flu vaccines.
This year the situation seems more complicated, as the upcoming flu season coincides with the COVID-19 pandemic. This could overwhelm hospitals, straining（过度使用）resources and healthcare workers' time.
1. What do we know about influenza?| A．Influenza viruses are continuously changing. |
| B．It commonly peaks between November and December. |
| C．Getting two flu vaccines can protect people against the viruses. |
| D．HINI and H2N3 are the most easily infectious flu viruses. |
| A．They update vaccines once a year. |
| B．They monitor the flu throughout the year. |
| C．They focus on one or two viruses during a period. |
| D．Influenza centers worldwide share virus samples from patients. |
| A．Because not all people can afford it. |
| B．Because some people refuse to get vaccinated. |
| C．Because the vaccine is not safe for everyone. |
| D．Because the vaccine doesn't always meet the demand. |
| A．It could be more challenging than ever for medical workers. |
| B．Enough resources have been prepared to cope with it. |
| C．Flu vaccines will be provided for the public in November. |
| D．The flu vaccines are expected to help prevent COVID-19. |
4 . If your friend says she feels relaxed, but you see that she closes her hands into fists, you may doubt her words. Robots, however, might believe her. Body language says a lot, but robots have great difficulty in observing tiny body movements and can miss important social signals as a result.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University developed a body-tracking system that might help solve this problem. The system called OpenPose can track body movement in real time. One important quality of the OpenPose system is that it can track not only a person's head, body, arms and legs but also his fingers. To do that, the researchers used a dome （圆顶状物）lined with 500 cameras, where they recorded body movements at different angles and then used those pictures to build a data set.
They then passed those pictures through a keypoint detector to identify and label specific body parts. The software also learns to connect the body parts with different people, so it knows, for example, that a particular person's hand will always be close to his or her upper arm. This makes it possible to track multiple people at once.
The pictures from the dome were recorded in 2D. But the researchers used 3D technology to help the system understand how each movement appears from different angles. With all of this data processed, the system can determine how the whole hand looks even if some fingers cannot be seen.
Now that the system has this data set to draw from, it can run with just one camera and one computer. It no longer requires the camera-lined dome to determine body poses, making the technology mobile and accessible.
The researchers say this technology could be used for interactions between humans and machines. It could play a huge role in VR （虚拟现实）experiences, allowing finer detection of the user's physical movement without any added hardware. It could also help with more natural interactions with a home robot. You could tell your robot to “pick that up"， and it could easily understand what you're pointing at. By interpreting your physical gestures, the robot may even learn to read emotions by tracking body language. So when you' re silently crying with your face in your hands because a robot has taken your job, it might offer you a tissue.
1. What does the underlined words “this problem" in Paragraph 2 refer to?| A．Humans are addicted to technology. |
| B．Human-robot relationship is poor. |
| C．Robots show too much trust in humans. |
| D．Robots fail to interpret physical gestures. |
| A．It tracks one person at a time. |
| B．It can track slight body movements. |
| C．It uses a dome to recognize people. |
| D．It can take 500 pictures in one second. |
| A．The data set. | B．3D technology. |
| C．A powerful computer. | D．A camera-lined dome. |
| A．What robots are expected to do in the future? |
| B．Why is body language so important? |
| C．Robots learn to read body language. |
| D．Robots can and will change our lives. |
5 . Tommy, a 26-year-old chimp(猩猩),lives in a small cage in a used truck sales lot in New York. Retired from movie work and whatever else once occupied him, he has no chimp friends to keep him company — just a TV. He is worlds away from the rainforest of Western Africa, where chimps spend most of their lives in trees, hunting, and socializing together.
His owner hasn't broken any laws, but an animal rights group called the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) is trying to change the view. The group says chimps have such a humanlike intelligence that they should be recognized as “legal persons" and be placed in an animal shelter and wander free.
You've probably heard the term “animal rights”, but animals don't actually have rights in many countries. Animal-welfare laws punish people who mistreat animals, but that's not the same as chimps having a right to liberty or anything else.
NhRP's first step is to ask a judge to end people's unjust arrest on behalf of Tommy and other privately owned chimps. If the court decides to recognize chimps as legal persons, NhRP's next step will be arguing for what rights the chimps should be granted. "The right that we believe they should have most of all is the right to bodily liberty," says Wise, a NhRP group member. "They should be able to choose how to live their lives.”
Tommy's owner, Pat Lavery, says he rescued Tommy from a careless owner about a decade ago and denies the chimp is mistreated or unhappy. "He likes being by himself," he says.
“There's a danger in making a jump to say they're just like people," says Richard Cupp, a professor who writes about animals and the law. "If we' re really focused on chimps being very, very smart, then who knows if maybe someday we might …say, ‘Hey, here's a particular human being that's not very smart at all, maybe the chimps have higher status than this person.’”
1. What can we know about Tommy?| A．He is living a very lonely life. |
| B．He dislikes living in the rainforest. |
| C．He likes watching movies very much, |
| D．He was illegally bought by Pat Lavery. |
| A．Great progress has been made on improving animal rights. |
| B．Pat Lavery is thought to mistreat Tommy by NhRP. |
| C．Animal rights are going from bad to worse. |
| D．Animal rights have been admitted in western countries. |
| A．To ensure chimps' bodily safety. | B．To stop illegal hunting of chimps. |
| C．To help chimps find their families. | D．To help chimps enjoy their freedom. |
| A．Hopeful, | B．Uncaring. |
| C．Worried. | D．Supportive. |
6 . Immersive Van Gogh
From the creators of the blockbuster show in Paris seen by over two million visitors and still wowing crowds in Toronto, the west coast premiere (首场) of the Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit will bring the art of Vincent to life in Los Angeles.
Immersive art is not just a technical way to represent video and audio in huge spaces. The word immersive indicates a deep commitment of intentions which connect images and sounds in a way that the audience is able to experience a different way of the art.
True to its name, this exhibition transforms the iconic (偶像的) paintings of Vincent van Gogh into moving, wall-filling projections. “Immersive Van Gogh” promises half-a-million cubic feet of projections that pull from some of the post-impressionist’s most recognizable pieces, including The Bedroom, Sunflowers and, yes, The Starry Night.
You will experience art like never before—lose yourself in entrancing, moving images that highlight brushstrokes, detail, and color—truly illuminating (照亮) the mind of the genius.
LOCATION
The Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit is located at a secret place situated in the heart of Los Angeles. To be announced before the exhibit opens, existing ticket holders will receive an email with the place name and location once it is made public.
TICKET PRICES
| VIP TICKETS—$99.99 ●Priority access ●Van Gogh cushion (a gift for you) ●Limited edition poster | PREMIUM TICKETS—$59.99 ●Van Gogh cushion (rental) ●Limited edition poster |
| BASIC TICKETS—$54.99 ●Admission only | CHILD TICKETS—$29.99 ●Ages 6—16 (children 5 and under do not require a ticket) ●Admission only ●Child tickets are not subject to change of date fees |
Tickets are available online at www.vangoghla.com.
GIFT SHOP
Stop by our Exhibit Gift Shop to take the magic of Van Gogh home with you! From clothing and jewelry to home décor, children’s books, and so much more, you will find unique and thoughtful souvenirs at the Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit. Also be sure to check out at our online store!
Experience the organic landscapes of Van Gogh’s imagination, and journey through his brilliance and madness in a completely new and unforgettable way.
1. According to the passage, the Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit ________.| A．presents Van Gogh’s art in a modern way |
| B．begins a journey to Van Gogh’s hometown |
| C．displays Van Gogh’s paintings on moving walls |
| D．designs projects on Van Gogh’s learning experience |
| A．An email. | B．A website. |
| C．The ticket office. | D．The gift shop. |
| A．$109.98. | B．$154.98. |
| C．$159.98. | D．$199.98. |
7 . White-crowned sparrows are tough birds, able to survive the hustle and bustle (喧闹) of many North American cities. But growing noise pollution has forced males to sing louder, less effective songs in order to be heard by opponents and fellows.
Elizabeth Derryberry, a behavioral ecologist, and her colleagues have studied white-crowned sparrows in and around San Francisco for more than 2 decades, comparing their songs with recordings made in the 1970s. As traffic levels increased, the lowest frequencies of the sparrows’ songs rose, so as not to be drowned out by the background noise of vehicles. But their top frequencies remained about the same, narrowing the total bandwidth (频宽) of their communication.
Birds sing louder in noisy environments, and research has shown the resulting stress can speed aging and throw their metabolisms (新陈代谢) into disorder. Noise can also keep them from hearing their own chicks or the warnings of fellow birds; it may even be driving down bird diversity in many cities.
When the pandemic lockdown began in mid-March, a photo of the empty Golden Gate Bridge made Derryberry wonder how the sparrows were responding to the quieter conditions. She couldn't travel to California, but her colleague, Jenny Phillips, a behavioral ecologist in California, recorded the birds in San Francisco and the surrounding areas. Her recordings revealed that the sparrows were singing 30% softer, on average, than before the lockdown. What’s more, they were singing songs with bandwidths typical of birds recorded in the 1970s.
The new finding is “good news from the point of view of the birds”, says Sue Anne Zollinger, a zoologist who studies birds at Manchester Metropolitan University. By showing the sparrows can adjust their songs to their environment, the study suggests species with more flexible behaviors can deal with aspects of changing environments.
1. What is the second paragraph mainly about?| A．A new study of sparrow species. |
| B．Influence on birds from city traffic. |
| C．Frequencies of sparrows’ songs. |
| D．The difficulty of birds, communication. |
| A．Losing completely. | B．Decreasing noticeably. |
| C．Promoting slowly. | D．Controlling successfully. |
| A．It provided a good comparing situation. |
| B．It was a suitable place to watch birds. |
| C．A famous zoologist happened to help out. |
| D．Sparrows there were the most active then. |
| A．Silenced Big Cities Calling Back Birds |
| B．Tough Birds Fighting against City Noises |
| C．Birdsong Accidentally Retaking Its Former Glory |
| D．Changing Environments Destroying Bird Species |
8 . I’m an architect. One of my services is helping clients move into new office space. Last year, a client was moving into a storefront. The space had formerly been occupied by a photography studio, which looked as if it had been abruptly abandoned.
Piled against one wall was a huge pile of photos. I gazed at one photo. A family, all dressed up, smiling. They'd put on their best clothes, come here to the studio, sat for the photos. A moment in time captured (捕捉到) a moment of life. I stood there, picturing all those smiling faces packed into a dumpster (垃圾大铁桶). Two days later, after getting permission, my family drove two minivans to the abandoned studio. We loaded armful after armful of photos into the vans.
“We'll have to put them in the basement. I wonder why the company just left them there," my wife Dawn said when we got home. "It was said the company had gone broke and shut all its stores around the country, " I said.
We pulled the photos into the basement. I looked up the company, a national chain. There were news stories about customers around the country losing their portraits (肖像),calling phone numbers that no longer worked. I imagined what it would feel like to lose a treasured family portrait. I knew all about the power of small gestures to give someone a welcome shot of hope.
The kids helped me sort the photos. We made a spreadsheet of names and whatever contact information we could find, sending a group text message inviting people to set up a time to collect them. People began arriving at the house. But it was only a few people.
“Try social media," said the kids.
I posted a message to a community board on Facebook. The phone rang. And rang. E-mails poured in. Then the COVID-19 temporarily blocked our project. When lockdown eased, we restarted reuniting people with photos, returning more than 60 of the 105 photos.
1. Where did the author find some deserted photos?| A．At his working place. | B．At a friend's home. |
| C．At his former office. | D．At a client's studio. |
| A．His curiosity to study them. |
| B．His eagerness to help the owners. |
| C．The intention to collect them for fun. |
| D．The idea of selling them for money. |
| A．The breakout of a disease. | B．The poor mailing channel. |
| C．The owners' neglect. | D．The author's hesitation. |
| A．It's disappointing. | B．It's imaginable. |
| C．It's encouraging. | D．It's interesting. |
9 . In recent years computer scientists have come up with several different ways of creating false videos of people using Artificial Intelligence (AI). These videos are usually called “deepfakes”. Some deepfakes work by putting the face of one person onto a different person in a video. Others work by taking an existing video of a person and changing it so that the person says or does something they didn't say or do.
At first, creating deepfakes was complex. It required special knowledge, hundreds of pictures of the person who was being faked, and lots of time. Now it's much simpler. There are websites and apps that allow almost anyone to create deepfakes. An app recently came out which allowed users to put their faces into famous movie scenes. The process lakes about eight seconds, requires one picture, and can be done on a mobile phone. One group of computer scientists created a program that allowed them to edit the words conning out of someone's mouth in a video just like you might edit a document on the computer.
It's one thing to swap the faces of famous actors. But what happens if someone puts out a fake video of a politician, for example, making it look like they broke the law? There's also the problem of the time it takes to figure out that something is fake. Even if a video is proven to be fake, it could be too late. Millions of people might have already seen and believed it. On the other hand, what happens if a video is actually real, but people don't trust it because they're told it's a deepfake?
Many deepfakes are so good that only another AI system can tell that they're fake. Experts are working hard to create new AI tools that can identify faked videos. Many people are confident that people can defeat deepfakes soon. However, personally, it is very challenging because this technology has always fallen behind the deepfakes.
1. What can be learnt about deepfakes?| A．They are all made by apps. | B．They are improving rapidly. |
| C．They are mainly used to joke. | D．They'll lose popularity soon. |
| A．The anxieties raised by them. | B．The results caused by them. |
| C．The ways of making them. | D．The doubts about them. |
| A．Optimistic. | B．Supportive. | C．Disapproving. | D．Uncertain. |
| A．To recommend new AI tools. | B．To explain the importance of AL |
| C．To describe a technology trend. | D．To stress technology revolutions. |
10 . Richard Ripley knows he wouldn’t be the man he is today without one special woman.
Richard and his brother, Kevin, were placed into disparate adoptive homes at a young age because of their parents’ deep drug addiction. Kevin was placed with the Ripley family while Richard went to live in four separate homes over the course of three years, suffering abuse along the way. Richard and Kevin only saw each other every few months, but during their visits, Mrs. Ripley grew to care for Richard, too.
“Mrs. Ripley would take us for lunch at McDonald’s as Kevin always liked the food, and when she first noticed the scars all over my body,” Richard wrote. “She immediately made arrangements for me to join their family.” Unfortunately, Mr. Ripley passed away from cancer shortly after Richard joined the family. But even in the face of hardship, Mrs. Ripley never once considered parting with Kevin or Richard.
“Nobody would have blamed her for taking us back. But instead she took us to court and made it permanent,” Richard continued. “She must have been super stressed, but that’s not at all what I remember. I just remember the words that she gave me. It was always: ‘You’re smart.’ And ‘You’re handsome.’ And ‘You survived all bad things because you’re strong.’ There are very few forces as powerful as a mother’s love.”
Thanks to her unfailing love and guidance, Richard grew up to be the strong, successful man she always knew he could be. He joined the Marines (海军陆战队)... and graduated from law school! And, of course, his mom was always there by his side, celebrating right along with him.
Now, as a parent himself, Richard couldn’t be more grateful to the Ripleys for making his life worth living and giving him a future to look forward to.
1. What does the underlined word “disparate” in paragraph 2 mean?| A．Wealthy. | B．Faraway. | C．Different. | D．Large. |
| A．The abuse he suffered. | B．Kevin’s sincere request. |
| C．The death of her husband. | D．The blame from others. |
| A．Demanding. | B．Encouraging. | C．Ambitious. | D．Creative. |
| A．Man must be strong. | B．Hard work pays off. |
| C．Where there is love, there is hope. | D．Kindness makes one’s soul noble. |
