1 . In times of stress, particularly when the water gets too warm, the coral(珊瑚)erupts the algae(海藻), and the coral turns white, causing a state called coral bleaching(漂白). Just a few degrees of heat can lead to coral bleaching, putting the coral on a path to starvation and death.
Driven by climate change, marine heat waves are becoming one of the greatest threats to the existence of coral, which is important to the ocean ecology. But in some rare good news researchers have discovered coral can recover from bleaching even before a heat wave ends, suggesting it has the potential to survive long heat waves. Coral was thought to survive only if a heat wave lasted just a few weeks.
But no one had studied this process during a longer heat wave. Then in 2015, Julia Baum, a marine ecologist at the University of Victoria, began a survey of two common species: brain and star coral around Kiritimati in the central Pacific Ocean. They checked the condition of the coral as the heat wave struck and disappeared.
Starting in May 2015, the temperature rose about 1 ℃ within 2 months. As expected, coral that housed heat-sensitive algae bleached sooner than those housing the heat-tolerant kind of algae. As the water continued to warm, even heat-tolerant algae erupted.
Many brain and star coral on Kiritimati recovered from bleaching while the water was still unusually warm. Baum said, "The unexpected recovery provides new hope, because it means that even under lasting heat waves, there's a path forward for some of them."
An unusual feature of the recovery is that brain coral that started out with heat-sensitive algae had a higher survival rate(82%)than coral that began with heat-tolerant algae(25%). "That finding is surprising," said Baum, expecting that heat-tolerant algae would be better suited for helping coral survive a heat wave. But during a longer heat wave, it might be more advantageous to start with a heat-sensitive algae.
1. What results in coral bleaching?| A．The white algae. | B．The coral's death. |
| C．An attack of waves. | D．A rise in ocean temperature. |
| A．To prove that coral can stop climate change. |
| B．To study how coral bleaching comes about. |
| C．To figure out whether coral survives long heat waves |
| D．To explain why coral bleaching is a big threat to coral |
| A．Ashamed. | B．Confused |
| C．Worried. | D．Astonished. |
| A．Protect the ocean environment. | B．Reduce coral bleaching. |
| C．Grow more different algae. | D．Regulate the heat wave. |
2 . Children's average daily time spent watching television or using mobile device increased from 53 minutes at 12 months old to more than 150 minutes at 3 years old, according to an analysis by researchers at the National Institutes of Health. Children aged 7 were more likely to spend the highest amount of screen time if they had been in bad home-based childcare or were born to first-time mothers.
“Our results indicate that screen habits begin early,” said Edwina Yeung, an investigator in National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), “This finding suggests that interventions to reduce screen time could have a better chance of success if introduced early.”
In the research, mothers of 4,000 children responded to questions on their kids' media habits when they were 12, 18, 24, 30, and 36 months of age.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends avoiding digital media exposure for children under 18 months of age, introducing children 18 to 24 months of age to screen media slowly, and limiting screen time to an hour a day for children from 2 to 5 years of age. In the current study, researchers found that 87% of the children had screen time exceeding these recommendations. However, while screen time increased throughout infancy, after 8 years of age, screen time fell to under 1. 5 hours per day. The researchers believe this decrease relates to time consumed by school-related activities.
The study authors classified the children into two groups based on how much their aver- age daily screen time increased from age 1 to age 3. The first group, 73% of the total, had the lower increase, from an average of nearly 51 minutes a day to nearly an hour and 47 minutes a day. The second group, 27% of the total, had the higher increase, from nearly 37 minutes of screen time a day to about 4 hours a day. Higher levels of parental education were associated with the lower odds of inclusion in the second group.
1. Which of the following is a reason for children's addiction to the media?| A．Low economic level. | B．Poor family education |
| C．The media's attraction. | D．The shortage of parents' love. |
| A．To stop children using the media. | B．To help parents care for children well |
| C．To reduce children's screen time earlier | D．To increase intervention to children |
| A．By giving some examples. | B．By showing some data. |
| C．By analyzing some reasons. | D．By concluding some results. |
| A．Probability. | B．Price. | C．Cost. | D．Income. |
3 . Kemira Boyd had just jumped in the shower when she heard her stepmother, Tammy Boyd, knocking on the door. Kemira's 12-day-old daughter Ryleigh was choking. Kemira tried everything, but she still couldn't breathe. Kemira knew Ryleigh needed to get to the hospital fast.
They had barely driven out of their neighborhood when a police car appeared behind them. Deputy Will Kimbro figured that the speeding driver was either too distracted to notice him or unconcerned. Kimbro soon found out it was a frightening combination of the two.
Once she'd pulled over, Kemira handed the baby to Kimbro. He put a hand on her little chest. Ryleigh's heart was barely beating. Kimbro radioed for an ambulance. At that time Ryleigh's lips were already blue.
The fact that Kimbro was there was a miracle. He had recently completed a CPR class and knew how to treat a child.
“Although I was shocked, my training kicked in, and I went to work to keep that child alive,” said Kimbro. Then he began tapping Ryleigh's chest, hoping to press her heart back into action. Thanks to the CPR class, Kimbro knew the choking child didn't have a chance if there was a blockage, and he used one finger to clear her airway. That was a magic touch. 20 seconds later, Ryleigh began to cry. “If she's crying like that, she's breathing,” said Kimbro.
But they still had five more minutes until the ambulance would arrive, and Kimbro worried that Ryleigh would choke again. He continued with delicate chest compression and clearing her airway.
After transferring Ryleigh to the ambulance, Kimbro drove away. At the hospital, Ryleigh recovered quickly thanks to a determined police officer who was in the right place at the right time.
1. Why did Kemira stop her car outside her neighborhood?| A．She wanted to ask for help. | B．She had broken traffic rules |
| C．She needed to care for the child. | D．She planned to talk with Kimbro |
| A．Nervous. | B．Frightened. | C．Calm. | D．Curious. |
| A．The CPR class. | B．The doctors' help. |
| C．Kemira's reaction. | D．Kimbro's first aid. |
| A．An encounter saved a life | B．A CPR class is important |
| C．A clever and brave mother | D．A policeman's experience |
4 . Happiness is not a warm phone, according to a new study exploring the link between young life satisfaction and screen time. The study was led by professor of psychology Jean M. Twenge at San Diego State University (SDSU).
To research this link, Twenge, along with colleagues Gabrielle Martin at SDSU and W. Keith Campbell at the University of Georgia, dealt with data from the Monitoring the Future (MtF) study, a nationally representative survey of more than a million U. S. 8th-, 10th-, and 12th-graders. The survey asked students questions about how often they spent time on their Phones, tablets and computers, as well as questions about their face-to-face social interactions and their overall happiness.
On average found that teens who spent more time in front of screen devices — playing computer games, using social media, texting and video chatting — were less happy than those who invested more time in non-screen activities like sports, reading newspapers and magazines, and face-to-face social interactions.
"The key to digital media use and happiness is limited use," Twenge said. "Aim to spend no more than two hours a day on digital media, and try to increase the amount of time you spend seeing friends face-to-face and exercising — two activities reliably linked to greater happiness."
Looking at historical trends from the same age groups since the 1990s, it's easy to find that the increase of screen devices over time happened at the same time as a general drop-off in reported happiness in U. S. teens. Specifically, young peopled life satisfaction and happiness declined sharply after 2012. That's the year when the percentage of Americans who owned a smartphone rose above 50 percent. By far the largest change in teens' lives between 2012 and 2016 was the increase in the amount of time they spent on digital media, and the following decline in in-person social activities and sleep.
1. Which method did Twenge's team use for the study?| A．Calculating students' happiness. |
| B．Asking students certain questions. |
| C．Analyzing data from a survey. |
| D．Doing experiments on screen time. |
| A．By making a comparison. |
| B．By giving an example. |
| C．By making an argument. |
| D．By introducing a concept. |
| A．To draw a conclusion from the study. |
| B．To offer some advice to the readers. |
| C．To prove social activities' importance. |
| D．To support the researchers' finding. |
| A．Quitting Phones Equals Happiness |
| B．Screen Time Should Be Banned |
| C．Teens' Lives Have Changed Sharply |
| D．Screen-addicted Teens Are Unhappier |
5 . Covid-19 has brought a great deal of trouble for all of us since March 2020. During this time, mobile phones have been the solution for the boredom and restlessness caused from staying indoors. The most downloaded apps on play store 2020 are;
TikTok
TikTok was the most downloaded app. With over 111.9 million downloads, TikTok has seen a huge growth in 2020, twice more than what it got in 2019. 20% of its total downloads were from India and around 9. 3% of the total downloads were in the US.
Zoom
Zoom was the second most installed app in the overall downloads category. With nearly 94. 6 million installs, Zoom is the most used app for online meetings and virtual classrooms. 17% of its downloads were in the US and India. Offices and educational institutes were shut down and to continue working and studying from home, people relied heavily on Zoom for video conferencing and calling.
WhatsApp ranked third in overall downloads with more than 100 million downloads. It is one of the most popular and widely used chat applications; WhatsApp also supports communication between international phone networks.
It ranked fourth in the overall downloaded list. Facebook is the world’s most popular social networking application. Facebook builds technologies that give people the power to connect with friends and family, find communities and grow businesses.
1. What do we know about TikTok?| A．It is an India-based app. | B．It has most users in America. |
| C．It is used for growing business. | D．It has doubled its download than in 2019. |
| A．TikTok. | B．Zoom. | C．WhatsApp. | D．Facebook. |
| A．Communication. | B．Training. | C．Teaching. | D．Payment |
6 . Today, the most frightening living shark is the great white, which is over six meters long and bites with a force of two tonnes. Its fossil relative, Megalodon (meaning "big tooth") that lived about 23 to 3.6 million years ago, was over twice the length of a great white shark and had a bite force of more than ten tonnes.
Jack Cooper and his team used a number of mathematical methods to find out the size and proportions(比例)of this monster, by making close comparisons with a variety of living relatives that have certain similarities to Megalodon. He said, “I have always been mad about sharks. Megalodon was actually the very animal that inspired me to pursue palaeontology(古生物学) in the first place when I was just six years old, so I was over the moon to get a chance to study it. This was my dream project.”
Previously the fossil shark, known formally as Otodus megalodon, was only compared with the great white. Jack and his colleagues, for the first time, expanded this analysis to include five modern sharks. “ Megalodon is not a direct ancestor of the great white and is equally related to several modern sharks such as the salmon shark, as well as the great white. We collected detailed measurements of all five to make predictions about Megalodon,”Dr. Pimiento said.
The researchers discovered that the babies of all these modern sharks start out as little adults, and they don’t change in proportion as they get larger. Jack Cooper said, “This means we could simply take the growth curves(生长曲线) of the five modern forms and forecast the overall shape as they get larger and larger--- right up to a body length of 16 meters.”
The results suggest that a 16-meter-long Megalodon likely had a head round 4.65 meters long, a fin about 1.62 meters tall on the back and a tail around 3.85 meters high. The reconstruction of the size of Megalodon’s body parts represents a fundamental step towards a better understanding of this huge extinct shark.
1. Why is the great white mentioned in Paragraph 1?| A．To remind people to stay away from it. |
| B．To uncover its close relation with Megalodon. |
| C．To introduce the researchers' new findings about it. |
| D．To show Megalodon's giant body and strength by comparison. |
| A．A bit hesitant. | B．Very excited. |
| C．Really stressed. | D．Totally unprepared. |
| A．It proved the real existence of Megalodon. |
| B．It was based on data from five types of modern sharks. |
| C．It was aimed at finding the direct ancestor of the great white. |
| D．It compared Megalodon with the great white for the first time. |
| A．Their babies had the same body length as modern baby sharks. |
| B．Their body proportions changed dramatically during growth. |
| C．Their fin on the back could be as tall as an adult human. |
| D．Their bite force was equal to the great white’s. |
7 . Tourist Guide to the National Gallery
Opening hours: Daily 10: 00 am- -6: 00 pm; Friday 10: 00 am- 9: 00 pm
Closed: 2426 December
Reasons to visit:
With over 2, 300 paintings in the collection, there are hundreds of reasons to visit the Gallery. Here are some to get you started...
Get into great art. From Leonardo da Vinci to Vincent van Gogh: See priceless works of art for free.
Get creative. Brush up your skills, and create your own great works of art...
Learn about art. Discover more about paintings...
Regulations:
Talk in a low voice when you use your cellphone in the gallery
Please do not touch the paintings or other exhibits. Do not take pets in or cross the barriers.
Consume food and drink in designated areas only i.e. not in rooms that contain paintings.
Follow our no smoking policy in any part of the building.
Follow our no photograph policy in exhibitions where a sign is displayed.
Access:
The National Gallery aims to make access to the paintings enjoyable and welcoming to the widest possible public. There are a range of facilities to help you see the collection, visit exhibitions and come to events.
The Gallery offers British Sign Language-interpreted talks on paintings for visitors who are deaf, and special art sessions(展期) for visitors who can't see.
Address: The National Gallery, Trafalgar Square London WC2N 5DN
Click here to find more information.
1. What are visitors allowed to do in the National Gallery?| A．Make a phone call. | B．Take a dog in. |
| C．Smoke a cigarette. | D．Take photos. |
| A．Young visitors. | B．Deaf visitors. |
| C．Blind visitors. | D．Old visitors. |
| A．In a newspaper. | B．On a poster. |
| C．In a magazine. | D．On the Internet. |
8 . The populations of common animals are just as likely to rise or fall in number in a time of accelerating global warming as those of rare species, a study suggests.
Until recently, scientists were still accumulating data on how animal populations were shifting over time globally across the different regions of the planet.
Making use of the newly available data, a team of University of Edinburgh researchers studied nearly 10000 animal populations recorded in the Living Planet Database between 1970 and 2014 to provide a new perspective on animal population change. These include records of mammals, reptiles, sharks, fish, birds and amphibians.
The team found that 15 percent of all populations declined during the period, while 18 percent increased and 67 percent showed no significant change. Amphibians were the only group in which population sizes declined, while birds, mammals and reptiles experienced increases. The overall decline in amphibians makes them a priority for conservation efforts, researchers say, as their loss could have knock-on effects in food chains and wider ecosystems.
Gergana Daskalova, of the University of Edinburgh’s School of GeoSciences, who led the study, said, “We often assume that declines in animal numbers are prevalent everywhere. But we found that there are also many species which have increased over the last half of a century, such as those which do well in human-transformed landscapes or those which are the focus of conservation actions.”
Dr. Isla Myers-Smith, also of the School of GeoSciences, who co-authored the study, said, “Only as we bring together data from around the world, can we begin to really understand how global change is influencing the biodiversity of our planet.”
1. With the global temperature rising, what happens to the animals?| A．Rare animal species tend to decline. |
| B．Common animal species tend to increase. |
| C．Global wanning is accelerating with the loss of animal species. |
| D．The population of common animals changes just like rare ones. |
| A．By analyzing existing information. | B．By studying animals，behavior. |
| C．By comparing different studies. | D．By recording the data of animals. |
| A．Sharp. | B．Common. | C．Steady. | D．Relative. |
| A．Objective. | B．Optimistic. | C．Subjective. | D．Pessimistic. |
9 . In New Brighton, Minnesota, the Bartz brothers（Connor, Austin, and Trevor）have built beautiful snow sculptures in their front yard for the past five years. But they’re not ordinary snowmen--they’re huge and sea-themed!
The tradition began in 2012, after a family fishing trip in Florida, where Connor, then 17, caught a puffer fish. It encouraged the boys to make a super-sized fish out of snow. So they got to work, collecting as much snow as possible from around their neighborhood. After eight hours of shoveling（用铲子铲）and sculpting snow their 5-foot-tall puffer fish was complete. And it was a big hit! Before long. the locals and TV reporters began stopping by their front yard to enjoy their creation.
“Each winter, we decide which sea animals would work best and be the most fun to build,” Trevor said. Since 2012, they’ve made a shark, a turtle, an octopus（章鱼）and so, on, Their favorite is the octopus, which they built in 2016. It is their biggest sculpture yet, taking nearly 500 hours（and 150 tons of snow）to make!
The brothers also made sure it was just as much fun for visitors. “We liked that it was kid-friendly, with tentacles（触须）you could slide under,” Connor said. Named by Facebook fans, Octavius the octopus was a star appearing on national news stations.
To make the most of their project, the boys decided to raise money for a good cause. “Given that our work is made from snow, it made sense to collect money to help provide drinking water to people in need,” Austin said. They teamed up with One Day’s Wages, an organization that provides clean water to people in Haiti. By the end of winter, the brothers had raised $17, 263!
Their advice for anyone with big dreams: “If you want to be successful, work hard and have a good attitude,” Austin said. “Success might not come immediately. but take joy in what you are doing now. When we were younger, we made many snow creations that did not make the news, but we still had a pleasurable experience!”
1. What inspired the Bartz brothers to start their creations?| A．Their family traditions. | B．A fish caught by Connor. |
| C．Austin’s snowmen | D．Their neighbors’ praise. |
| A．It was the boys’ first creation. |
| B．It was the boys’ smallest sculpture. |
| C．It helped the boys make a lot of money. |
| D．It attracted wide attention. |
| A．Think twice. | B．Learn to be creative. |
| C．Start small and enjoy it. | D．Make use of everything. |
| A．Imaginative and caring. | B．Childish and friendly. |
| C．Open-minded and smart. | D．Hard-working and courageous. |
10 . A teenager of 17 walks into a corner store and grabs a Coca-Cola, but the cashier refuses to sell it to him because he is underage. That rule is expected to soon become reality in parts of Mexico, as lawmakers in several states push legislation (立法)to keep junk food away from children. know it can sound a bit difficult but we have to take action now," says Lopez, a lawmaker in Oaxaca's Congress.
More than 70,000 Mexicans have died from COVID-19, the world's fourth-highest recorded death toll, tracked by Johns Hopkins University. 89% of those who died in Mexico had an underlying medical condition such as obesity, diabetes (糖尿病)，high blood pressure and heart problems. That has led to a new urgency to change diets so that the younger generation doesn't suffer those illnesses.
The critics, however, say the leaders are using preexisting health conditions in COVID-19 patients to distract from a weak government response to the virus outbreak. Yet few people would deny that the country consumes large amounts of sugar-sweetened drinks and processed snacks with little nutrition --- or that Mexico has a major weight problem.
Oaxaca's governor approved the state's junk food prohibition last week. Legislators still have to complete the legal systems, and punishment could include fines and even jail. Lopez says legislators from all over the country have called her for advice. Many other states are debating a junk food ban. However, a nationwide law would not be easy. "There are powerful commercial interests that least want it to happen, but we must prioritize the well-being of our children," Lopez says.
1. What is Lopez 's attitude towards the junk food?| A．Negative. | B．Neutral. |
| C．Positive. | D．Indifferent. |
| A．Keep distance. | B．Avoid illnesses. |
| C．Break away. | D．Shift attention. |
| A．Selling children junk food has been banned nationwide in Mexico. |
| B．Most Mexicans who died of COVID-19 had other health problems. |
| C．The younger generation doesn't suffer any weight problems. |
| D．People who break the prohibition in Oaxaca will only be warned. |
| A．Teenagers. | B．Legislators. |
| C．Soft drink companies. | D．State governors. |
