1 . One day, when I was working as a psychologist(心理学家) in England, a young boy showed up in my office.
It was David. He kept walking up and down restlessly, his face pale, and his hands shaking slightly. His head teacher had introduced him to me before. “This boy has lost his family,” he wrote. “He is understandably very sad and refuses to talk to others, and I’m very worried about him. Can you help?”
I looked at David and showed him to a chair. How could I help him? There are problems which psychology doesn’t have answers to, and which no words can describe. Sometimes the best thing one can do is to listen openly and silently. And I would do in this way.
The first two times we met, David didn’t say a word. He sat there, only looking up to look at the children’s drawings on the wall behind me. I suggested we play a game of chess. He nodded. After that he played chess with me every Wednesday afternoon — in complete silence and without looking at me. It’s not easy to cheat in chess, but I admit I made sure David won once or twice.
Usually, he arrived earlier than agreed, took the chess board and pieces from the shelf and began setting them up before I even got a chance to sit down. It seemed as if he enjoyed my company. But why did he never look at me?
“Perhaps he simply needs someone to share his pain with,” I thought. “Perhaps he senses that I respect his suffering. ” Some months later, when we were playing chess, he looked up at me suddenly.
“It’s your turn,” he said.
After that day, David started talking. He got friends in school and joined a bicycle club. He wrote to me a few times, about his biking with some friends, and about his plan to get into university. Now he really started to live his own life.
Maybe I gave David something. But I have also learned that one — without any words — can reach out to another person. All it takes is a hug, a shoulder to cry on, a friendly touch, and an ear that listens.
1. What was David like when the writer first met him?| A．He was very nervous. | B．He was in deep sorrow. |
| C．He was mentally troubled. | D．He was frightened by the writer. |
| A．The writer didn’t know what to do. | B．The writer had a plan to help David. |
| C．The writer decided to keep silent. | D．The writer couldn’t solve the problem. |
| A．The writer cheated when playing chess. | B．David never looked at the writer. |
| C．Chess healed David’s wounded heart. | D．The writer gave his chess to David. |
| A．A boy fixed his mental problem by playing chess. | B．A psychologist should be good at listening. |
| C．A calm mind helps solve problems. | D．A listening ear matters in helping others. |
2 . For many parents, raising a teenager is like fighting a long war, but years go by without any clear winner. Like a border conflict between neighboring countries, the parent-teen war is about boundaries: Where is the line between what I control and what you do?
Both sides want peace, but neither feels it has any power to stop the conflict. In part, this is because neither is willing to admit any responsibility for starting it. From the parents’ point of view, the only cause of their fight is their adolescents’ complete unreasonableness. And of course, the teens see it in exactly the same way, except oppositely. Both feel trapped.
In this article, I’ll describe three no-win situations that commonly arise between teens and parents and then suggest some ways out of the trap. The first no-win situation is quarrels over unimportant things. Examples include the color of the teen’s hair, the cleanliness of the bedroom, the preferred style of clothing, the child’s failure to eat a good breakfast before school, or his tendency to sleep until noon on the weekends. Second, blaming. The goal of a blaming battle is to make the other admit that his bad attitude is the reason why everything goes wrong. Third, needing to be right. It doesn’t matter what the topic is—politics, the laws of physics, or the proper way to break an egg—the point of these arguments is to prove that you are right and the other person is wrong, for both wish to be considered an authority—someone who actually knows something—and therefore to command respect. Unfortunately, as long as parents and teens continue to assume that they know more than the other, they’ll continue to fight these battles forever and never make any real progress.
1. Why does the author compare the parent-teen war to a border conflict?| A．Both are about where to draw the line. |
| B．Both can continue for generations. |
| C．Neither has any clear winner. |
| D．Neither can be put to an end. |
| A．The teens tend to have a full understanding of their parents. |
| B．The teens agree with their parents on the cause of the conflict. |
| C．The teens cause their parents of misleading them. |
| D．The teens blame their parents for starting the conflict. |
| A．give orders to the other |
| B．know more than the other |
| C．gain respect from the other |
| D．get the other to behave properly |
| A．Solutions for the parent-teen problems. |
| B．Examples of the parent-teen war. |
| C．Causes for the parent-teen conflicts. |
| D．Future of the parent-teen relationship. |
3 . Robots have certain advantages compared to humans: They are efficient, tireless, can be repaired when damaged and they never get sick. This last trait has made them the star during our fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. While hundreds of thousands of medical workers have fallen ill dealing with this highly infectious virus and a lot more are forced to stay at home for fear of getting the disease, this isn’t a problem for robots.
This is why the COVID-19 outbreak is seen as the “tipping point”---noted The Independent Science reporter Anthony Cuthbertson---for robots to start to replace humans in certain jobs.
In areas like hospitals and healthcare facilities, robots are used to perform high-risk tasks. In China, for example, a hotel in Hangzhou employed a robot named “Little Peanut” to deliver food to people under quarantine（隔离期）. In Spain, robots are about to be used to test people for the coronavirus. Ultraviolet-light-disinfection (紫外线消毒) robots are also being widely used to clean hospital corridors and wards.
“Hospitals around the world are waking up to autonomous disinfection,” Per Juul Nielsen, CEO of Denmark’s UVD Robots, a leading company manufacturing disinfection robots, told Forbes. “We can’t build these robots fast enough.”
In non-medical companies, robots are also replacing human employees since they don’t have the problem of social distancing and will never take sick leave. Walmart and Amazon, for example, where robots are already used in sorting, packing and shipping, are planning to increase the number of robots in their facilities. Fast-food chains like McDonald’s are not only delivering food with robots in some areas, but also looking to use them as cooks and servers.
According to futurist Martin Ford, using more robots than human employees can prove to be rewarding for companies---even when the pandemic is over. “People will prefer to go to a place that has fewer workers and more machines because they feel they can lower overall risk,” Ford told the BBC.
But this sudden surge (激增) in robot demand doesn’t mean that they triumph over humans in every aspect. According to Bill Smart, a roboticist at Oregon State University, the human contact between doctors and patients is still important. Doctors comfort the patients and guide them through hard decisions while robots are only doing routine tasks, like cleaning and giving tests, just to free up doctors and nurses.
It might be true that robots have certain advantages over humans, but they are still secondary to human interaction.
1. What is the text mainly about?| A．The advantages of robots compared to humans. |
| B．Different views toward applying robots to fight COVID-19. |
| C．Why the COVID-19 outbreak has fueled robot demand. |
| D．The important role humans play in certain areas. |
| A．They can be repaired when damaged. |
| B．They test people for coronavirus more precisely. |
| C．They never get tired and can replace doctors and nurses. |
| D．They are not vulnerable to the coronavirus. |
| A．Its benefits are appealing and lasting. |
| B．Machines are less disturbing than humans. |
| C．It poses a threat to human employment. |
| D．There are some risks with the use of robots. |
| A．The demand for robots is too great to meet. |
| B．Human interaction is essential in some areas. |
| C．Doctors can make more accurate judgments than robots. |
| D．Robots need updating to improve contact with humans. |
4 . Choosing to forget something might take more mental effort than trying to remember it, researchers at The University of Texas discovered. Their findings suggest that in order to forget an unwanted experience, more attention should be focused on it.
“Decades of research has shown that we have the ability to forget something out of our own free will, but how our brains do that is still being questioned. Once we can figure out how memories are weakened and come up with ways to control this, we can design treatment to help people rid themselves of unwanted memories.” said Jarrod Lewis-Peacock, the study's senior author.
Memories are energetic constructions of the brain that regularly get updated, adjusted and reorganized through experience. The brain is constantly remembering and forgetting information—and much of this happens automatically during sleep.
Their findings not only confirmed that humans have the ability to control what they forget, but that successful intentional forgetting requires more activity than what is required to remember.
“A proper level of brain activity is important to this forgetting mechanism (机制). Too strong, it will strengthen the memory; too weak, you won’t change it,” said Tracy Wang, lead author of the study. “Importantly, it's the intention to forget that increases the activation of the memory, and when this activation (激活) hits the “proper level” sweet spot, that's when it leads to later forgetting of that experience”.
The researchers also found that participants were more likely to forget scenes than faces. “We're learning how these mechanisms in our brain respond to different types of information, and it will take a lot of further research before we understand how to use our ability to forget,” said Lewis-Peacock. “Hopefully we can find out how we process and get rid of those really strong memories, which can have a powerful effect on our health and well-being.”
1. What remains a puzzle to researchers?| A．How our memories can be strengthened. |
| B．How our brains voluntarily forget something. |
| C．What effect unwanted memories have on our brains. |
| D．Whether our brains can voluntarily forget something. |
| A．Casual. | B．Unpredictable. |
| C．Active. | D．Permanent. |
| A．it requires less attention to forget than to remember |
| B．the more active the brain is, the faster it forgets |
| C．humans can't keep memories under control |
| D．humans forget faces less easily than scenes |
| A．What It Takes to Forget an Unwanted Experience |
| B．Strong Memories Have a Great Influence on Health |
| C．Forgetting Uses More Brain Power than Remembering. |
| D．How to Train Our Brains to Voluntarily Forget Something |
5 . Unexpected connection between sleep and academic performance has been recently discovered.
Researchers have found that insufficient sleep and tiredness increase a person's risk of developing severe medical conditions, such as obesity （肥胖症），high blood sugar levels, and heart disease. Now, a new study has found that getting sufficient sleep is also the key to improving academic performance.
Jeffrey Gross, the university science professor who led the research, was not trying to find the relationship between sleep and grades when he handed out smartwatches to the 100 students in his chemistry class. Instead, the professor hoped the wrist-worn devices, which track a personas physical activity, would show a connection between exercise and academic achievements.
While Grosses data showed no relationship between these two factors, the study found something surprising. As the researchers were analyzing their data, they noticed that there was a linear （线性的）relationship between the average amount of sleep the students got and their results in the course's 11 quizzes, three midterm tests, and the final exam.
Even more interesting, it was not sufficient for students to just head to bed early the night before a test Instead, it's the sleep you get during the days when learning is happening that matters most.
When students went to bed each night was similarly important. Those who went to bed in the early hours of the morning performed poorly, even if the total sleep time was the same as a higher-performing student. "When you go to bed matters," Gross says. “If you go to bed at 10, or 12, or 1 at night, and sleep for seven hours, your performance is the same. But if you go to bed after 2, your performance starts to go down even if you get the same seven hours' sleep. So, quantity isn't everything."
Perhaps the most interesting was the huge impact that small differences in sleep patterns had on the students' grades. The overall course grades of students averaging six and a half hours of sleep each night were 25% lower than students who averaged just one hour more sleep. Similarly, students who varied their bedtime by even one hour each night had grades that dropped 45% below those with more regular bedtime.
Who knew getting straight AM just required some extra sleep?
1. Based on his original objective, which best describes Professor Gross's research findings?| A．Convincing. | B．Complete. |
| C．Accidental. | D．Doubtful. |
| A．Middle school chemistry students. |
| B．Volunteers from different universities. |
| C．University student athletes. |
| D．Professor Gross's own students. |
| A．Making the students wear special watches. |
| B．Using the students' normal test and quiz grades. |
| C．Giving the students regular quizzes after class. |
| D．Using students' university entrance test results. |
| A．A student who has a good night's sleep the night before an important test. |
| B．A student who sleeps from 11 pm to 6 a.m. each day. |
| C．A student whose normal bedtime varies between 9 p.m. and 12 p.m. |
| D．A student who sleeps for a total of 7 hours each night. |
6 . For years, life went something like this: We'd grow up in one place, head off to college, and then find a city to live in for a few years at time to pursue a job or higher education. The end goal was to find somewhere to settle down, buy a house, start a family, and begin the whole cycle all over again.
But a new model for living is emerging: More and more people are moving from city to city throughout their entire lives, sometimes as frequently as every month. Just ask Alex Chatzielefteriou, who has had a front-row seat watching this evolution unfold.
Six years ago, he launched a startup called Blueground that rents out beautifully designed, fully furnished apartments for a month at a time, at rates that are cheaper than hotels. Today, the company has 3,000 properties in six U.S. cities, along with Dubai, Istanbul, London, Paris, and Chatzielefteriou's native Athens, and a staff of 400. The company just invested $78 million to continue its rapid expansion and make each one feel unique and cosy, rather than standardized, like what you might find in a traditional hotel.
Chatzielefteriou first came up with the idea for Blueground while he was working as a management consultant for McKinsey. “The accommodation of choice for consultants is the hotel,” he says. “I had to spend five years in a hotel room, living in 12 different cities. I loved seeing the world, but I didn't love feeling like I didn't have a home.” As he spoke to his friends and coworkers, he realized that many people were frustrated with this restless lifestyle. And what's more, hotels aren't a particularly cost-effective solution for companies either. In Chatzielefteriou's case, McKinsey sometimes paid S10,000 or more for him to stay in a major city for a month, which was far more expensive than local rents.
1. What's the main purpose of the first paragraph?| A．To tell the end goal of our life. |
| B．To introduce the topic of the text. |
| C．To stress the importance of buying a house. |
| D．To explain the reason for people's flooding into cities. |
| A．His urge to have a home. |
| B．His desire to make money. |
| C．His friends' encouragement. |
| D．His experience in living in hotel. |
| A．It has obvious price superiority. |
| B．It has good geographical location. |
| C．It has beautifully designed apartments. |
| D．It has unique and comfortable environment. |
| A．The fall of traditional hotels. |
| B．The rise of a new living model. |
| C．The advantages of Blueground. |
| D．The disadvantages of traditional hotels. |
7 . Sometimes life can seem challenging (挑战的) and we usually get the feeling of “the grass on the other side is always greener”! We usually feel upset with the troubles that life throws at us.
The best thing to do at that point of time is to close our eyes and start counting of all the blessings in life that God has given us.
If we think deeply, our life is full of blessings that we hardly recognize. Listening to the singing of birds early in the morning, we realize that there are many people who spend their life in a world that is silent while many others spend their lives in a world that is dark and may have never seen a rainbow or the setting sun.
When you go out for a drive, pull down the window and look at the poor beggar standing under the hot sun, begging for filling his hungry stomach. We get three meals a day without realizing its importance. Isn’t that a blessing?
Whenever you are sad, look at the eyes of your parents and family filled with love and concern for you. There are many people who have never experienced the love of a family. Isn’t that a blessing?
As Mother Teresa once said, “We don’t need to do great things. We need to do small things with great love”.
The key to a happy life is when we consider others problems to be our own and try to help them. When we love people without any expectations and help them, our heart is filled with a sense of happiness and peace seeing the smile on their face.
So the next time whenever life knocks you down, close your eyes and…start counting!
1. What does the author intend to tell us?| A．True happiness lies in achieving wealth. |
| B．Blessings should be treasured in our life. |
| C．The singing of birds can make us happy. |
| D．Love from our family gives us courage to face life. |
| A．however happy we are, we never seem to be satisfied |
| B．though we are rich, we are poor in mind |
| C．we can have a better life if we work harder |
| D．there exists a greener grass on the other side |
| A．We have already known that life is filled with blessings. |
| B．It is a blessing to have three meals a day. |
| C．It’s natural to see a rainbow or the setting sun in life. |
| D．Mother Teresa calls on us to do great things in life. |
| A．Troubles in Life | B．Secrets of Life |
| C．A Sense of Happiness | D．Count Your Blessings |
8 . United States health officials are urging people to stop using electronic cigarettes, known as e-cigarettes. The call to action came after such products were linked to health problems. Five deaths have also been reported. E-cigarettes are a popular substitute for smoking products. The electronic devices heat liquid that includes flavoring, nicotine and other chemicals into vapor—very small particles that users breathe in. Nicotine is found in many plants, including tobacco. E-cigarettes or similar devices also can provide THC or other substances to users. THC is the natural chemical present in marijuana(大麻) plants that gives users the mental state known as a “high”.
E-cigarettes are said to be safer than normal cigarettes because they do not create the cancer-causing byproducts of burning tobacco.Yet health officials say e-cigarette users have reported shortness of breath and other breathing problems, such as coughing and chest pain. Some have been sick to the stomach, felt very tired, suffered weight loss or developed high body temperatures. One report noted that most of the 53 illnesses reported in Illinois and Wisconsin were related to THC vaping(气化) products. But nearly 20 percent of the patients inhaled(吸入)substances like nicotine from e-cigarettes. Most of the reported cases were of young men.
The report found that, “Since no single product or substance has been associated with the illness, persons should consider not using e-cigarettes while this investigation is ongoing.” Last November, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, reported that “e-cigarette use increased considerably among U.S. middle and high school students during 2017—2018.” Among high school students, it found e-cigarette use rose from 220,000 students in 2011 to 3.05 million in 2018.
On Monday, the Food and Drug Administration, or FDA gave a warning to JUUL Labs, maker of the best-selling e-cigarettes. The FDA accused the company of illegally marketing its products as being “safer than cigarettes” without the agency's approval.In a statement, the FDA's acting commissioner said that, “JUUL has ignored the law, and has made some of these statements in school to our nation's youth.” A JUUL spokesman said the company is studying the FDA's comments and “will fully cooperate”.
1. Which of the following can best describe e-cigarettes?| A．Deadly. | B．Harmless. |
| C．Infectious. | D．Effective. |
| A．They will be healthier. |
| B．They will lose weight. |
| C．They will feel excited. |
| D．They will be peaceful. |
| A．Students became its main marketing targets. |
| B．FDA didn't agree on its way of promoting its products. |
| C．It completely denied what it was accused of. |
| D．E-cigarettes were invented by it. |
| A．Say “No” to cigarettes |
| B．A sharp rise of e-cigarettes use among young people. |
| C．Safer e-cigarettes are needed for health. |
| D．E-cigarettes—a potential killer. |
9 . A new study says one part of the human brain may become smaller as the result of a condition known as jet lag which results from flying long distances in an airplane. People with jet lag feel extremely tired for several days. They may also have problems in thinking clearly and remembering.
Recently a researcher at the University of Bristol in Britain reported the findings of his jet lag study, which involved twenty women who worked for international airlines. They had served passengers on airplanes for five years. These flight attendants flew across many countries and at least seven time zones. In the study, the flight attendants had different amounts of time to recover from jet lag. Half the women spent five days or fewer in their home areas between long flights. The other half spent more than fourteen days in their home areas.
The researcher took some saliva from the women’s mouths to measure levels of a hormone (荷尔蒙) that increases during stress. He tested them to see if they could remember where black spots appeared on a computer screen. And he took pictures of their brains to measure the size of the brain’s temporal lobes (脑叶).
It was found that the women who had less time between flights had smaller right temporal lobes. This area of the brain deals with recognizing and remembering what is seen. The same group performed worse and had slower reaction times on the visual memory test. And their saliva samples showed higher levels of stress hormones.
The researcher believes the brain needs at least ten days to recover after a long trip. He says airline workers told him their ability to remember got worse after working on planes for about four years. Other studies have shown that increased feelings of stress can cause a loss of cells in the part of the brain that controls memory.
Scientists say more tests are needed to study the effects of jet lag on the brain. They want to find out if too much jet lag could permanently affect memory.
1. What causes jet lag according to the passage?| A．Having a long trip. | B．Flying across many countries. |
| C．Making lengthy flight journeys. | D．Traveling across several time zones. |
| A．The process of the study. | B．The result of the study. |
| C．The meaning of the study. | D．The preparation of the study. |
| A．The women who have longer flights fail the memory test. |
| B．The women who have longer rest at home show better memory. |
| C．The women who rest more than 14 days produce more hormones. |
| D．The women who have less time in flight have smaller right temporal lobes. |
| A．Solution to Jet Lag | B．Influences of Jet Lag on the Brain |
| C．Jet Lag PermanentlyAffects Memory | D．FlightAttendants’BrainsAre in Danger |
10 . Many people feel that dream is unique to humans. However, many dog owners will likely disagree on that. They have noticed that their dogs at various times during the sleep may shake legs, snort (哼) and sometimes growl (低声吼叫) which gives the impression that they are dreaming. These things may wonder us about whether dogs dream.
Scientists confirm that dogs probably do dream. It turns out that dog brains and human brains have many similarities during sleep cycles. Researchers used special machines to measure electrical activity in a dog’s brain and human’s brain. Scientists already knew that when humans dream, a certain part of the brain is active during sleep. Researchers discovered that the same part of the brain is active in sleeping dogs. Scientists have other data that back up these findings.
Many people dream that they are trying to move but cannot. Interestingly, part of that experience is not a dream. When people sleep, the brain produces a chemical that causes the dreamer to become temporarily paralyzed (使麻痹). Researchers think this happens so that people cannot physically act out dreams while they are sleeping. Dog brains make the same chemical. In one study during which this chemical was blocked, sleeping test dogs performed physical activities, such as standing up, sniffing around the room for imaginary rabbits, or chasing imaginary balls.
Because of these similarities, researchers believe that the content of a dog’s dream might come from the same source as a human’s dream. “People’s dreams are usually based on things they did that day,” says Dr. Samantha Hudspith. “So there is reason to believe that dogs dream about the things they’ve done that day. Of course, there will never be a way to prove this. Dogs cannot describe their dreams the way that humans can.”
1. What does the underlined phrase “back up” mean in the second paragraph?| A．Disagree. | B．Support. |
| C．Record. | D．Show. |
| A．It woke up. | B．It stopped dreaming. |
| C．It acted out its dream. | D．It couldn't move its body. |
| A．By telling stories | B．By giving examples. |
| C．By comparing details | D．By listing differences. |
| A．Do Dogs Dream? | B．Why Do Dogs Dream? |
| C．Signs of Dog Dreams | D．Similarities Between Humans and Dogs |
