1 . If you live near a park, you’ve probably observed this unique squirrel behavior. As winter approaches, these creatures begin what looks like preparation for a wide scavenger（觅食）hunt. In great numbers, these squirrels begin to bury nuts! This kind of behavior raises a lot of questions for squirrel enthusiasts—the most pressing being how the squirrels find their nuts again. Eastern gray squirrels, in particular, bury their nuts far and wide. Scientists themselves aren’t even quite sure of everything that goes into this hiding behavior, but they have some ideas.
For one, scientists have observed gray squirrels frequently burying and reburying their nuts. The scientists assumed that this behavior was to help always keep a fresh memory of the nuts! locations. However, it’s not only memory that the squirrels need to combat（战斗）in order to find their nuts! The gray squirrel community is rampant(猖獗的)with nut stealing. The squirrels can lose up to 25% of their hidden nuts to such thieves! Luckily, the squirrels have developed some clever methods to protect their nuts. Scientists have observed the squirrels creating false caches（储藏）in order to trick thieves. If the squirrels are worried about thieves, they will also start to hide their nuts in difficult-to-reach places（like under bushes or in muddy areas）.
While it might be frustrating for squirrels to lose their carefully hidden nuts, it can be beneficial for other organisms. In particular, it can help the forest itself! A study done at the University of Richmond reports that squirrels fail to recover up to 74% of the nuts they bury. This misplacing of so many acorns (the seeds of oak trees), the study says, is likely responsible for oak forest regeneration. When squirrels misplace these buried acorns, they allow for these seeds to eventually grow into full oak trees! The squirrels’ habit of widespread caching is also important to the growth of the forest, as it allows the genetic（基因的）information to spread far.
What seemed like a harmless scavenger hunt is actually part of an endless complex ecosystem in our forests!
1. In what aspect do squirrels puzzle people most?| A．The way they search for food. | B．The places they hide in winter. |
| C．The location of their hidden food. | D．The way they recover hidden nuts |
| A．They often fight with each other for food. |
| B．They tend to feel more secure in bushy places. |
| C．They are cautious about storing food for winter. |
| D．They survive largely thanks to their team spirit. |
| A．Squirrels can starve due to lack of food. |
| B．It can be beneficial that squirrels lose their nuts. |
| C．It’s easy to get squirrels’ genetic information. |
| D．Squirrels always misplace their nuts deliberately. |
| A．Why do squirrels steal nuts? |
| B．How do squirrels survive the winter? |
| C．The secrets behind squirrels’ burying nuts. |
| D．The ecosystem in the forest. |
2 . A recent study suggests that vitamin D pills can help speed up the time taken for burns to heal, and prevent scarring(结疤). The vitamin, which is produced naturally in the body when the skin is exposed to sunshine, is believed to help protect against burning.
Previous studies have shown that vitamin D pills help decrease redness and swelling after sunburn, and may be one of the reasons why the body produces the chemical.
The research from Birmingham University, has found they may also help relieve other types of burn. Researchers monitored 38 patients who had suffered serious burns for a year and recorded their levels of vitamin D. They found that those with the highest levels of vitamin D had better wound healing and fewer scars.
Professor Janet Lord said: “Low vitamin D levels were associated with worse results in burn patients including life-threatening infections(感染),death and delayed wound healing. Major burn injury severely reduces vitamin D levels and adding this vitamin back may be a simple, safe and cost-effective way to improve the condition for burn patients.” Professor Lord and her team are now focusing on finding out why there is a rapid loss of vitamin D in patients immediately following burn injury and hope that they may be able to prevent this in future.
The amount of reduction in patients’ vitamin D levels was not related to the severity(严重程度) of the burn, so levels may also be decreased in minor burn injury, suggesting taking vitamin D pills could also help people with everyday burns. Public Health England now recommends that all Britons take vitamin D pills in the winter because it is impossible to make sufficient quantities in the darker months.
1. What does the new study find?| A．People with low vitamin D levels get burned easily. |
| B．Vitamin D helps with the recovery from burn injury. |
| C．Vitamin D pills aid in reducing the swelling from burns. |
| D．Vitamin D is more beneficial to serious burns than minor burns. |
| A．The severity of one's burn reflects his vitamin D levels. |
| B．Vitamin D pills are more needed in the autumn months. |
| C．Burn patients lacking vitamin D are at high risk of infection. |
| D．Minor burns have no effect on patients’ vitamin D levels. |
| A．The researchers. | B．Vitamin D pills. |
| C．Previous studies. | D．Some kinds of vitamins. |
| A．Vitamin D: A Necessity for Our Health |
| B．Vitamin D Pills: When Are They Needed? |
| C．Vitamin D: How Much Does the Body Need? |
| D．Vitamin D Pills: Heal Burns &. Prevent Scarring |
3 . The world is filled with smart, talented, educated and gifted people. We meet them everyday. A few days ago,my car was not running well. I pulled it into a garage and the young mechanic had it fixed in just a few minutes. He knew what was wrong by simply listening to the engine. I was amazed. The sad truth is, great talent is not enough.
l am constantly shocked at how little talented people earn. I heard the other day that less than 5 percent of Americans earn more than $ 100,000 a year. A business consultant who specializes in the medical trade was telling me how many doctors and dentists struggle financially. It was this business consultant who gave me the phrase," They are one skill a way from great wealth.”
There is an old saying that goes, "Job means 'just over broke'". And unfortunately, I would say that the saying applies to millions of people. Because school does not think financial intelligence is intelligence, most workers "live within their means" They work and they pay the bills. Instead I recommend to young people to seek work for what they will learn, more than what they will earn.
When I ask the classes I teach, "How many of you can cook a better hamburger than McDonald's? " almost all the students raise their hands. I then ask,“So if most of you can cook a better hamburger, how come McDonald's makes more money than you?”The answer is obvious: McDonald's is excellent at business systems. The reason why so many talented people are poor is that they focus on building a better hamburger and know little or nothing about business systems. The world is filled with talented poor people. They focus on perfecting their skills at building a better hamburger rather than the skills of selling and delivering the hamburger.
1. What can we know about the mechanic from paragraph 1?| A．He is a talented person. | B．He is always amazing. |
| C．He has a good sense of hearing. | D．He is good at making money. |
| A．Live in their own circle. |
| B．Do in their own way. |
| C．Live within what they earn. |
| D．Spend more than they can afford. |
| A．Lacking financial intelligence. |
| B．Not working hard enough. |
| C．Not making full use of their talents. |
| D．Having no specialized skills. |
| A．What schools should teach students. |
| B．Why so many talented people are poor. |
| C．How McDonald's makes much money. |
| D．How young people can find a satisfactory job. |
4 . Access to green spaces has been found to have many benefits for both physical and mental health and wellbeing. As is reported recently, nearby green areas have been shown to improve children’s respiratory（呼吸的）health and greatly improve the quality of life in large cities.
Researchers from the University of Illinois College conducted a study published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology to examine any potential（潜在的）links between greenness and academic achievement for schools with mostly low income students. Therefore, 318 public elementary schools in Chicago were included in the study.
“The goal was to see if the greenness-academic achievement relationship holds for poor, urban schools because that’s where it matters,” said Ming Kuo, the leader of the research. “That’s where educators and policymakers are desperately trying to find ways to help kids reach their potential.”
High-resolution aerial imagery technology was used to quantify（量化）tree and grass cover for each School. The researchers then compared greenness to the academic performance for the schools using standardized test scores for math and reading.
The researchers found that tree cover was a reliable predictor of academic performance, both for reading and math. The more trees there were, the better the standardized test scores were. Other things like the number of students in each classroom, gender ratios（性别比），and the number of bilingual（双语的）students had no influence on test scores or academic performance.
The results showed that having trees outside of a school affected academic performance and that schools considered the most disadvantaged had half the number of trees as the least disadvantaged schools. While the study does not prove any cause and effect between tree cover and academic performance, it does suggest that simply planting more trees in schoolyards across disadvantaged districts may improve academic performance.
“Early math skills are one of the best predictors of later success, not just in math, but in school,” said Kuo. “So what we have here is a very exciting clue that maybe simply greening—planting trees in schoolyards—could potentially have a significant effect on math achievement and school success down the line for these kids.”
1. Why were the schools in Chicago chosen for the study?| A．They were mostly located in remote areas. |
| B．Their students had no access to green spaces. |
| C．They had students with physical or mental problems. |
| D．The majority of their students were from poor families. |
| A．The area of green spaces. | B．Their math skills. |
| C．Their native language. | D．The size of the class. |
| A．It’s urgent to reduce the number of students in a class. |
| B．It’s unwise to connect greenness with academic success. |
| C．Kids with better math scores enjoy greater success at school. |
| D．Schools in Chicago should increase their green cover by half. |
| A．Many factors can affect students’ test scores. |
| B．Trees help improve students’ school performance. |
| C．More greenness at school benefits children’s health. |
| D．It’s possible to predict students’ success in later life. |
5 . Being a college student during a pandemic （流行病）means you're probably working from home internship （实习）.Working remotely has become a positive trend （趋势）and more people are realizing that it's not only easy to do, but is also environmentally and economically （经济上）friendly.
Although, there are some challenges and difficulties to overcome when you work from home internship. Interns doesn't have interacting（互动）with the workmates and don't get as much hands-on experience, which can be disappointing at times.
It's important to make connections with your workmates while serving your internship. Normally, this is done by being in the office every day and gathering near the water cooler to chat or in meetings. Making connections and building relationships with coworkers while working from home is a major challenge. This can be done in a couple of different ways.
The first is to stick to meetings with your supervisor （上级）.Plan a weekly, or daily if necessary, meeting to talk about your projects and to build a relationship together. Besides, join in your team meetings when you can contribute something important or meaningful. You can even master the art of small talk so you know that your voice is being heard by every workmate. Il's admirable for a young intern, especially one who works from home, to speak up. Lastly, you can join in any teambuilding exercises or social events. Since working remotely has become the new normal, companies are trying to come up with activities that help coworkers unite together even when they aren't face-to-face.
1. What's the author's attitude towards “working remotely”？| A．Pessimistic. | B．Optimistic. |
| C．Uncertain. | D．Questioning. |
| A．The difficulty in interacting with others. |
| B．Being unable to get working experience. |
| C．Feeling disappointed all the time. |
| D．Losing touch with your supervisor. |
| A．One. | B．Two. | C．Three. | D．Four. |
| A．Communicating Much While Working from Home Internship |
| B．Getting the Most from Working from Home Internship |
| C．Combining Office Culture with Working from Home Internship |
| D．Experiencing Working from Home Internship when You Graduate |
6 . A first-year undergraduate student in Chengdu, recently complained online that her mother refused to raise her monthly allowance to 4, 500 yuan （ $ 633） even when she said her current allowance 2,000 yuan was not enough to cover her expenses, sparking a debate on how much money a college student needs per month. One expert shares his views on the issue with China Daily: Students should pursue education, not comfort.
Even for a college student studying in a first -tier city in China, 2, 000 yuan is enough to cover all his or her monthly expenses. In fact, for a college student in Chengdu a monthly allowance of 2, 000 yuan is more than enough. According to a survey conducted by a bookkeeping platform, the average monthly expense for an undergraduate in cities other than Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou was less than 2, 000 yuan in 2019; for Chengdu, it was 1, 900 yuan.
Claiming that she can hardly afford new clothing and cosmetics with her 2, 000 yuan monthly allowance, the undergraduate student in Chengdu criticized her mother for refusing to raise her pocket money. Her “meager” allowance, she said, prevented her from buying branded goods that her hostel-mates enjoyed.
By the time a person enters a college, she or he should have developed a healthy consumption habit. And a youth should adjust her or his consumption according to her or his family income. On a deeper level, the money they spend in college should depend on how much they value their parents’ hard work. Besides, some college students could take up part-time jobs to meet their monetary needs if they feel their parents don't or can’t send them enough money. In this way they can also learn to meet the requirements of life in the future and develop healthy consumption ion habits. More importantly, they should always bear in mind that education is their top priority in college.
1. What's the expert' s attitude to the issue about the undergraduate student?| A．supportive. | B．neutral. | C．He was critical. | D．He was unconcerned. |
| A．less than 2, 000 yuan | B．633 dollars | C．more than 2, 000 | D．1, 900 yuan |
| A．Empty. | B．Fruitful. | C．Mean. | D．Pitiful. |
| A．College students should keep their expenses in line with their family conditions. |
| B．College students should deal with their living expenses problems reasonably. |
| C．College students consumption level is determined by their parents. |
| D．College students should take up a part-time job to cover their expenses. |
7 . If you have ever tried a new sport or tried learning a musical instrument, you may well know that the hardest part is getting started. Once you have learned the skills, they return fairly easily, even if they are not used for long periods of time. Most experts put this down to "muscle memory," which means the brain remembers the action and can remember it when needed. There is another thing that may be as important in recalling formerly learned sport skills—the mistakes made while learning the task.
The study led by Reza Shadmehr included asking volunteers to play a simple video game: hitting a red target dot with a slightly smaller blue dot, similar to playing virtual darts. What the gamers did not know was that as soon as they mastered the game, the researchers moved the blue dot slightly off-course, so forcing them to restart the learning process. Though the volunteers did make mistakes every time the game was changed, they got faster at mastering it.
Reza believes that this has to do with the fact that in addition to performing the task to muscle memory, the brain is also correcting each wrong move and learning how to correct it. He compares it to having a coach that points out the mistakes and makes suggestions on how to improve.
What surprised the scientists is that making mistakes not only trains the brain to do better at a certain task, but also helps it learn faster from mistakes, even when the mistakes are made while learning an entirely different task. The brain keeps a general record of mistakes and draws on them whenever a new sport skill is being learned, to make sure that mistakes are not made again. This helps make leaning much faster and probably explains why people, who master one sport or musical instrument, are able to pick up others more easily.
Making mistakes is a good thing. So the next time you are practicing playing the piano, working on your tennis skill, or learning any other sport skill, don't get discouraged by the mistakes!
1. The second paragraph is mainly about _________.| A．how Reza carried out the experiment | B．when the gamers learned a game well |
| C．what games the volunteers were interested in | D．why the researchers liked to play virtual games |
| A．Mistakes make people learn faster | B．Mistakes add difficulty to learning |
| C．Mistakes will be repeated in learning | D．Mistakes speed up the actions in brain |
| A．learning is a course of practice | B．the brain can point out most mistakes |
| C．mistakes train the brain to do tasks better | D．mistakes will make people discouraged |
| A．Mistakes help achieve success | B．Mistakes should be corrected in time |
| C．Muscle memory makes you succeed | D．Muscle memory shows past experience |
8 . At one point in June last year, Zeng Jiapeng was more than 10,000 yuan in debt to a smart phone app. The 23-year-old Shanghai citizen pays for his online purchases of food, clothes, and travel with Huabei, a virtual credit card that's part of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s spreading stable of e-commerce. His spending often used to go beyond his only source of income: the 8,000-yuan monthly allowance from his parents. He tried to repay the debt in installments(分期), even borrowing from Jiebei, another Alibaba-owned credit service, but eventually his mother and father had to help him out.
Zeng’s story is typical of members of China’ Generation Z. These young consumers, born from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, have little income and therefore actually no credit history. Yet they have easy access to credit from a variety of banks, financial-tech companies, and peer-to-peer (P2P) Lenders(网络借贷平台), plus other channels that are unregulated. The spending habits of the young in particular are causing concern. In some cases the younger generation is being tempted to overconsume via credit secured through technology. Unsecured consumer lending has expanded 20% a year in China since 2008. The amount of consumer finance available through the Internet will more than double, to 19 trillion yuan, by 2021, from 7.8 trillion yuan last year. Official data showed that almost 70% of China’s 50 million P2P borrowers were younger than 40.
As for Zeng, he’s trying to be a little more frugal, even though he is now trying to earn a little by himself. “I deliberately set the credit limit at a lower level,” he says, “so that hopefully I can better match my income with spending.”
Regulators(监管部门)last year launched a breakdown on peer-to-peer lending, which, besides being a source of easy credit, had also become a popular investment vehicle. The sector has shrunk to less than half its peak size as a result of forced shutdowns.
1. What can we learn about Zeng Jiapeng from the first paragraph?| A．He was in debt because he bought smart phone app. |
| B．He likes purchasing goods on the app Huabei of Alibaba Group. |
| C．He always spent more than he earned from his salary in the past. |
| D．He depended on his parents to support him to repay his debt. |
| A．Impractical | B．Hardworking | C．Avoiding waste | D．Relying on others |
| A．hopeless | B．unreasonable | C．controlled | D．sensible |
| A．Overconsumption—A Bad Habit |
| B．China’s Generation Z—Hooked On Credit |
| C．Chinese Youth In the E—commerce Age |
| D．Zeng Jinpeng’s Financial Crisi |
9 . Are you an optimist（乐观主义者）or a pessimist（悲观主义者）? It seems that young people in China are more optimistic than youth in other countries.
Varkey Foundation, a UK non-profit organization, did a survey between last September and October. It asked 20,000 young people in 20 counties including China, the United States and the United Kingdom how they think and feel about the world. The survey found that 53 percent of those questioned in China think the world is becoming a better place, the highest percentage among the countries surveyed.
When asked why they felt hopeful for the future, 93 percent of Chinese youth think it's because of advances in technology. Medicine, renewable energy and computing may make life in the future easier. Some 64 percent of Chinese youth also think China is a good place to live. The biggest reason（29 percent）is that China is "a country in which anyone is able to get on if they work hard".
The survey also found young people in emerging economies are more hopeful about the future than those in developed countries. Following Chia, Indian youth were the second most optimistic（49 percent）. Those in France, Italy and Turkey are the most pessimistic. The rise of global terrorism worries them most.
However, Chinese young people seem to worry about something else. As much as 82 percent of them worry about climate change. China is the only country out of the 20 in which climate change was the biggest cause of fear for future.
Vikas Pota of the Varkey Foundation took this as a good thing. Chinese youths are more aware than anyone of how serious the climate problem is and will be pressing for change, he told the South China Morning Post.
1. In the survey, about ___________ felt hopeful about the world.| A．20 countries | B．10, 600 Chinese youth |
| C．20, 000 young people | D．53 percent of Chinese youth questioned |
| A．Technology advances quickly in China. | B．They have more abilities. |
| C．China is a good place to live. | D．Working hard always helps in China. |
| A．Young people in developed countries are more optimistic. |
| B．The Indian youth is the most pessimistic in the survey. |
| C．Global terrorism worries the young in countries like Italy. |
| D．About 80 percent of Chinese youth care most about jobs. |
| A．Chinese young people are more optimistic. |
| B．The life in the future in China is easier. |
| C．Chinese young people worry climate change most. |
| D．The young people in developed countries are worried about terrorism. |
10 . What will the future school look like is difficult to make clear, but most experts agree that the school will be electronic in the future .
" Present-day schools will no longer exist in the next century," says a report in The Age. "At that time, future schools will become community-style centers, which run seven days a week,24 hours a day. ” At the same time, computers will surely become a central part of the school in the future.
According to The Age, the distant learning will be popular and students will listen to teachers on computers. Going into classrooms on their computers, students will study at any time, which is very easy for them. However, it is necessary for students to go to the actual school in order to develop some social skills.
The Seashore Primary School is an imaginary school in the future created by the Education Department of Australia. At this school, all the teachers and students have laptop computers . Teachers check messages and call students back on a special telephone system and students use telephones to search for information or speak to their experts who teach their lessons. Besides, all the lessons are related to all sorts of subjects and all the students have their own learning plans created by teachers .
As one headmaster says, a laptop computer is students5 library, data storage （数据存储）as well as the bridge to a wider world. Technology has changed the emphasis of future learning. Thus, well pay more attention to the learning of kids rather than the teaching.
1. According to the report in The Age, students in future schools will _______.| A．have no teachers | B．study at a set time |
| C．mainly study online | D．never go to actual school |
| A．telephones are important in Australia |
| B．how future schools will work |
| C．every student needs a learning plan |
| D．students enjoy getting in touch with teachers |
| A．The Schools in the Future |
| B．Great Changes in Technology |
| C．The Seashore Primary School |
| D．Actual Schools to Be Replaced |
