1 . Independent living at home is the ideal for every aging person. But a fall or other health-threatening incidents can change everything rapidly.
The wearable “panic buttons” introduced in the late 1980s were a great advance. But they only work if people actually wear them and can reach the button in an emergency. Today there are passive wearables that automatically detect falls, and camera-based systems to monitor elder safety.
Coming from a 40-year career in the semiconductor and wireless communication field, Rafi Zack decided to find a better alternative. “People aren’t devoted to wearing small devices 24/7, and camera-based systems are an invasion（侵犯）of privacy,” he points out, “The most challenging aspect is a fall. How fast we can detect a fall matters because the medical situation worsens quickly. Sometimes people stay on the floor for a long time. We have to find out how to solve that problem.”
Zack is a co-founder, CEO and vice president of R&D at EchoCare Technologies which has developed ECHO (Elderly Care Home Observer), a cloud-connected monitor based on radar technology and machine learning.
Because radar sees through walls, one ECHO unit fixed on the ceiling or wall can monitor one person (or two persons, in a future version) in a standard-sized apartment in a senior living facility. The device detects falls, breathing difficulties, drowning in a bathtub and other dangerous events. It gives out warnings to potential health worsening conditions by continuously monitoring and analyzing the person’s location, posture（姿势）, motion and breath. EchoCare tested the device in the United States, Japan, Australia and Israel. ECHO was certified（认证）in 2019 in Japan with the most aging population in the world.
“Bathrooms were the main testing area where about 17,000 deadly accidents happen annually.” said SMK Director and Executive Vice President Tetsuo Hara. “Bathroom makers, home security service providers and nursing homes are highly interested in EchoCare’s solution.” Zack noted, “As more and more elder people live alone as a result of social distancing, there is an increased need to monitor them without the burden of wearables or privacy-invading cameras.”
1. What’s the advantage of ECHO over “panic buttons”?| A．It has camera-based systems. | B．It has been widely accepted. |
| C．It can function without cameras. | D．Its buttons can be easily reached. |
| A．It is designed to send out warnings regularly. |
| B．It monitors dangerous health-related events. |
| C．It was certified in many developed countries. |
| D．It detects more than one person at the same time. |
| A．It’ll become more popular with the elderly. |
| B．It’ll stop 17,000 deaths happening annually. |
| C．It’ll be used in nursing homes and hospitals. |
| D．It’ll help elderly people to live an active life. |
| A．An Advanced Medical Instrument |
| B．A High-tech Monitor for the Elderly |
| C．The Invention of a Healthcare Device |
| D．The Improvement of a Medical Facility |
2 . Smartphones, tablets and other digital devices can be addictive. They affect sleep. They draw kids into an alternate universe, often distracting（使分心）them from more productive-and healthier-real-world activities. And they are often linked to anxiety and depression, learning disabilities and obesity（肥胖）. Yet for many teenagers, cellphones and social media are also absolutely necessary tools for planning their social lives, keeping up with schoolwork and staying in touch with out-of-town friends and relatives.
How can parents make the most of the constructive uses of screen-based technology while minimizing its harmful effects？
The key is helping kids use technology as a tool, not a toy, “where there’s some purpose other than the medication of boredom,” says Jim Taylor, a psychologist and author of the book Raising Generation Tech：Preparing Your Children for a Media-fueled World. Taylor, like many other medical and mental health professionals, advises parents to set limits and stick to them. They should restrict the amount of time their kids spend on devices, create tech-free zones-no cellphones in their bedrooms, for example-and tech-free times, such as at the dinner table, in restaurants and on family outings.
Perhaps the best thing you can do is serve as a good role model by exhibiting the same online behavior you expect of your children, says Dr. Elias Aboujaoude, a Stanford University psychiatrist. “If parents are breaking their own rules,” Aboujaoude says, “kids cannot be expected to behave differently.”
Chad Landgraf, 44, of Oklahoma, told me he was worried about how addicted his 12-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter became when they were on their devices. So, hoping to set an example, he switched from e-books to old-fashioned print. “When I had my Kindle or ipad open, they. didn’t know if I was reading or surfing the net,” Landgraf says. “But at least if I have a paper copy of a book, they know I am reading. Modeling seems like the easiest way.”
1. What may be the result of children’s using digital devices?| A．Health improvement. | B．Free creation. |
| C．Sleep disorder. | D．Good conduct |
| A．Killing time by using screen-based technology. |
| B．Forbidding kids using smartphones. |
| C．Setting clear boundaries for kids. |
| D．Restricting tech-free family time. |
| A．He was afraid of becoming addicted. | B．He expected to be a role model. |
| C．He was tired of surfing the net. | D．He preferred paper copies of books. |
| A．Parenting in a digital world | B．Learning to be intelligent parents |
| C．Using smart devices wisely | D．Helping children behave themselves |
Shooting down an ice-covered track, a bobsled（大雪橇）can go faster than 80 miles an hour, and riders can feel force five times stronger than the pull of gravity. A race can be won or lost by one hundredth of a second. How do bobsleds go faster than cars on a highway? The answer is a combination of athletics and science.
At the start of a race, the crew push their sled, building up speed before they jump in for the ride. For months before the race, the crew have built up power in their legs. The push is the crew's only chance to add speed. All other work goes into keeping friction and drag（摩擦力和阻力）from slowing the sled down.
The design of the sled's runners（滑板）reduces their friction with the ice. The friction of a moving runner melts a little ice right under the runner, and the runner rides on that thin layer of water. The runners are rounded on the bottom. Runners that are too flat may not melt enough ice for fast ride. Runners that are too round may become too warm, softening the ice and slowing the sled down. No amount of rounding is perfect for all races because the hardness of the ice depends on the weather on race day.
Bobsleds used to be open. The riders did not sit inside a hull（外壳）. As the crew sped down the track，the air would create drag. Today, a sled's hull reduces drag by splitting the air in front of the sled and making it flow smoothly along the slides. As with the runners，strict rules apply to the hull. For example，no team may add any part that would create helpful air currents.
Reducing friction and drag creates another challenge: high speeds. “The faster the sleds car travel on the run, the more thrilling the race,” one research team wrote. “But the track must not be too fast: he crew still need to be able to reach the bottom safely.”
1. What's the text mainly about?| A．The shape of the sled. | B．The design of the runners. |
| C．The safety rules applying to the sled. | D．The elements relating to the sled's speed |
| A．Proper amount of melted ice is needed for a fast ride. |
| B．The rounder the runners are, the faster the sled goes. |
| C．Thin layer of water would drag the runners backward. |
| D．A sled's movement has nothing to do with weather. |
| A．It's comfortable to sit in. | B．It leads to beneficial air flow. |
| C．It helps to create a safe ride. | D．It's free from strict rules. |
| A．Safety is the most important. | B．Keeping high speed is difficult. |
| C．Riders' desire to win is understandable. | D．The crew's cooperation is necessary. |
4 . The Arctic's permafrost is inciting— and fast. That's bad news, because these frozen soils store billions of tons of carbon, just waiting to be released. So is there a way to save the permafrost? One team of researchers thinks it may have found a possible solution: big animals, herbivores - animals that eat only plants.
Back in 1996 researchers started an experiment called Pleistocene Park. They fenced in about eight square miles of land in northeast Siberia. Then they introduced different types of herbivores: reindeer, horses, bison, sheep and other large creatures.
Since then, scientists have studied these animals' effects on the ecosystem. One outcome is that these large herbivores help keep the ground very cold — cooler than it would otherwise be.
“The snow in winter is important for soil temperature, because it acts as an insulating layer. So the air in winter, at the high latitudes, is much colder than the soil." Philipp Porada, a vegetation ecologist at the University of Hamburg. "So the idea of this experiment was to introduce large herbivores — and to quantify their effects on soil temperature to see if they can actually protect permafrost soils against melting. And this works because of the animals' trampling (践踏), and this leads to less insulation of the soil against cold air temperatures and results in a cooling effect.”
Freezing air reaches the soil more easily. Porada and his colleagues realized the significance of this effect, so they pulled data from Pleistocene Park and Sweden to model what effect herbivores could have on permafrost if they lived in large numbers in the Arctic.
They found that even in a worst-case situation, some four degrees Celsius of global wanning: “These herbivores in the model reduce soil temperature substantially, by 1.7 degrees on average. And this leads to a preservation of around 80 percent of the original — today's permafrost area. Without the herbivore effect in the model, only 50 percent of the permafrost area would remain by the year 2100. So we can say the effect of the herbivores in the model leads to a substantial preservation of permafrost soil."
1. Why is the Pleistocene Park Experiment mentioned?| A．To provide the past research data. |
| B．To share soil preservation experience. |
| C．To introduce a way to save permafrost. |
| D．To prove animals' effect on soil temperature. |
| A．Covering. | B．Blocking. |
| C．Storing. | D．Freezing. |
| A．Cooling the ground. | B．Heating the soil |
| C．Damaging the ground. | D．Softening the soil. |
| A．Permafrost Is Disappearing | B．Preservation of Permafrost |
| C．An Experiment on Herbivores | D．Herbivores Help Save Permafrost |
5 . Last weekend was terrible for awards ceremonies. The BAFTAS,defined by a painful monologue（独角戏）from Joanna Lumley, was watched by 500,000 fewer people than last year. Meanwhile,the number of 18﹣to 49-year-olds watching the Grammys has reached an all-time low.
Don't expect the Oscars to fare any better；they have lost millions of viewers since 2014. Add to the fact that comparatively few people have watched most of the nominated films and you have got a ratings time bomb.
Viewers are deserting awards shows in groups and something needs to be done. But what？Reorganize them to celebrate really popular work？That's what the Oscars put forward last year when it suggested a best popular film category﹣and it was swiftly booed（喝倒彩）out of town.
Another option would be to shorten the length of the ceremonies, but this won't work either. The Oscars recently announced plans to hide several categories in ad breaks,and the anger in some quarters（the cinematographers, makeup artists and editors who this year won't get their moment on the small screen）has been obvious.
What else can they do？ Fewer songs？ Shorter speeches？ An In Memoriam section that consists of the words： "People die： get over it"？
Fortunately, I have the perfect solution： don't televise awards shows. Just don't do it. Awards shows are the opposite of good television. They're too long and too boring because of regular and repeated patterns and too self﹣important. And by God, we should have learned by now not to give celebrities any more attention than they already have. It just makes them think that we want to hear them giving out half﹣baked opinions about Donald Trump and Brexit.
I'm not suggesting that the awards shows shouldn't happen. I'm just saying that the awards should be announced in the form of a press release at the end of the ceremony, followed by a handful of You Tube clips showing some nice outfits and a couple of speeches. That's how most of us consume them now anyway.
1. Why does the writer mention the BAFTAS and the Grammys？| A．To introduce the topic of the article. |
| B．To support the topic of the paragraph. |
| C．To attract the readers' attention. |
| D．To make comparison with the Oscars. |
| A．The best popular film category. |
| B．The best actress. |
| C．The reorganized Oscars. |
| D．The deserted awards show. |
| A．Awards shows are better if shortened. |
| B．Awards shows are excellent television. |
| C．Awards shows are important to us. |
| D．Awards shows should be shown in another form. |
| A．The bright future of awards shows. |
| B．What terrible awards shows. |
| C．Stopping the television of awards shows. |
| D．Boycott attention to celebrities. |
6 . It is possible that interstellar（星际的）space explorers could face problems communicating with all the arrivals, their spoken language having changed in isolation（与世隔绝）along the way.
Therefore, a new paper by two American scholars Andrew McKenzie and Jeffrey Punske recommends that such crews include members with knowledge of what is likely to occur and how to adapt. They co-authored the article “Language Development During Interstellar Travel”, in which they discuss the concept of language change over time.
In a recent interview, McKenzie gamed it out.
“If you’ re on a spaceship for 10 generations; new concepts will emerge, new social issues will come up, and people will create ways of talking about them,” McKenzie said, and these will become the vocabulary particular to the ship. People on Earth might never know about these words. And the further away you get, the less you’re going lo talk to people back home.
So if we have Earth English and spaceship English, you will have to learn a little Earth English to send messages back, or to read the information that came with the spaceship.
“Also, keep in mind that the language back on Earth is going to change, too. So they may well be communicating like we’d be using Latin-communicating with this version of the language nobody uses.”
The authors also point out that an adaptation in the form of sign language will be needed for use with and among crew members who, genetics tell us，are sure to be born deaf.
“Every new spaceship will essentially offload linguistic（语言学）immigrants to a foreign land. Given the certainly that issues such as whether they will be discriminated will arise, and the uncertainty of exactly how they will progress, we strongly suggest that any crew exhibit strong levels of linguistic training in addition to simply knowing the required languages. There will be need for an informed linguistic policy on board that can be maintained without referring back to Earth-based regulations.”
If a study of the linguistic changes aboard ship could be performed, it would “add to its scientific value,” McKenzie and Punske conclude.
1. What does the underlined phrase “game it out” mean?| A．Offer a new concept. | B．Make a further study. |
| C．Give a detailed explanation. | D．Lose the game completely. |
| A．They will forget Earth English. | B．They will be using sign language. |
| C．They may have their own language system. | D．They may make adaptations to Earth English. |
| A．Through Earth-based linguistic policy. | B．Through adequate language training. |
| C．By knowing the required language. | D．By referring to informed rules. |
| A．Why space travelers change their language. |
| B．How language is changed in the future time. |
| C．The language challenge during interstellar travel. |
| D．New concepts of language created in a spaceship. |
7 . The conductor on the podium (指挥台) has no baton (指挥棒), no tailcoat and no musical score, but Android Alter 3 is kicking up a storm as it guides a symphony orchestra's players through their paces.
The robot has a humanoid face, hands and lower arms, which gesture with what could pass for passion as it bounces up and down and rotates during the live performance of Keiichiro Shibuya's opera Scary Beauty in the Emirate of Sharjah.
Video from the recent performance in the Emirate of Sharjah showed the machine turning to face orchestra members and waving its arms. Alter 3 even sang at times.
Shibuya said the involvement of robots in the everyday lives of humans is continually increasing. But, he said he thinks people will need to decide in the future how artificial intelligence can best improve the human experience.
Shibuya added that he believes humans and robots can learn to work together to create beautiful art. "This work is a metaphor of that relations between humans and technology," he said. Shibuya noted that sometimes the music-leading robot can "get crazy", making it difficult for the musicians to keep up. But other times, the humans and machines cooperate very well.
Shibuya said the robots and AI that exist today are "far from complete". He is interested in studying how such incomplete technology can be combined with art.
"I think this is a very exciting idea…We came to see what it looks like and how much is possible," said Anna Kovacevic. Another audience member, who gave his name only as Billum, said after the show, "You know, a human conductor is so much better." Although he said he is interested in AI and looks forward to big developments, he concluded on the project: "The human touch is lost."
1. What does Shibuya think of Alter 3?| A．It is not perfect at present. | B．It teams up with humans well. |
| C．It often makes humans crazy. | D．It is better than human conductors. |
| A．The performance drew mixed reactions. |
| B．Billum took no interest in the performance. |
| C．The audience were fascinated by the performance. |
| D．The audience thought Alter 3 would have a bright future. |
| A．Positive | B．Negative. | C．Objective. | D．Critical. |
| A．Robot Cooperates with Humans |
| B．Robot Conducts Human Orchestra |
| C．The Significance of Robots in Art |
| D．The Relations Between AI and Humans |
8 . Just as a hungry brain craves (渴望) food, a lonely brain craves people. A new brain study demonstrates this. After being left alone, it shows people's brains would be activated at the sight of other people. The action was in the same brain region that speeds up when a hungry person sees food.
Livia Tomova, a neuroscientist, who studies how the brain produces mental activities, and her colleagues began this study. They recruited (招募) 40 people. On one day, the participants had to fast—not eat anything at all—for 10 hours. On another day, the same people were placed in a room for 10 hours. They couldn't see anyone. No friends, no family and no social media. They weren't even allowed to check their email. After both days, Tomova and her colleagues put the people in a MRI machine. It shows activity in the brain by tracking how much blood is flowing to each region.
At the end of each day, the participants showed high activity in a brain area called the midbrain. The scientists were interested in two, small areas within it. Both areas produce dopamine, a chemical that is important in craving and rewards. The two areas activated when hungry participants saw pictures of tasty pizza or juicy hamburgers. After the volunteers had been isolated, those brain areas became active when they saw social activities they missed. It might be playing sports or chatting with friends.
The midbrain plays an important part in people's motivation to seek food or friends. In fact, it responds to food and social signals even when people aren't hungry or lonely. But hunger and loneliness increased the reactions and made people's responses specific to the thing they were missing. And the more hunger or isolation the volunteers said they were experiencing, the stronger the activity in this part of the brain. Tomova and her colleagues published their results November 23 in Nature Neuroscience.
1. How does Tomova test out the result of the study?| A．By stimulating desire. | B．By controlling blood flow. |
| C．By monitoring brain activity. | D．By examining mental activities. |
| A．It consists of two areas. | B．It helps motivate desire for food. |
| C．It stops working when people are full. | D．It decreases responses to lost friends. |
| A．A midbrain area. | B．A social activity. | C．A volunteer. | D．A hamburger. |
| A．Dopamine—a Sure Sign of Age | B．Midbrain—a Nest for the Thoughts |
| C．Hunger Makes Mental Health Struggle | D．Loneliness Makes Our Brains Need People |
9 . Sophia Gholz is an award-winning children's book author, music lover. and magic seeker. Sophia enjoys writing fiction with humor and heart. When writing nonfiction, she pulls on her love of science and her family background in ecology.
Her book, The Boy Who Grew a Forest, shares the true story of Jadav Payeng, a man in India who single- bandedly planted an entire forest over the course of his lifetime. When he was younger, Jadav Payeng was shocked by the destruction of his island home. So he took matters into his own bands and began planting one seed at a time. Jadav's forest is now over 1300 acres and provides a home to many animals, some endangered. Jadav is still planting today and his hard work has now been celebrated around the world.
To write this story, Sophia got to know more about Jadav Payeng and his forest through a documentary film called Forest Man. Influenced by her father, a forest ecologist and a scientist, she grew up learning about the importance of trees and the natural world. When she heard about a man on a m1ssion to reforest an entire island on his own, she was drawn to this story.
As for research, most of her research was done online. She read every news article that she could find about Jadav and listened to every interview. Then she reached out to several people who had met or interviewed Jadav as well, including the producer of his short documentary film.
She hopes that The Boy Who Grew a Forest lights a spark in everyone who reads it to go out and care for our beautiful planet. She'd love young readers to be inspired to plant or to learn more about animal habitats, biodiversity and science in general.
1. What is the second paragraph mainly about?| A．A story on how to plant trees. | B．Endangered animals in the forest. |
| C．Destruction of Jadav's island home. | D．A book introducing a tree- planting hero. |
| A．He has quit planting recently. | B．He is known to many people. . |
| C．He was an actor of Forest Man. | D．He planted trees with his family. |
| A．Humorous and skilled. | B．Creative and outgoing. |
| C．Determined and diligent. | D．Controversia1 and helpful. |
| A．To encourage research on wildlife. | B．To describe a boy's farming experience. |
| C．To stress the importance of planting trees. | D．To advocate the action to protect the earth. |
10 . An 8-year-old boy I know is small for his age, shorter and slighter than his friends, even smaller than his 5-year-old sister. Concerned about the increasing use and possible risks of growth hormone(生长激素), I asked his mother if she’d considered treating him with it. She replied, “Not really. He’s built like his father, who was short and slight as a boy and didn’t shoot up until college.”
His father, at 41, is now 6 feet tall, though still very slender. He recalls being a reasonably athletic child but without the physical power of his friends, making up for what he lacked in mass with speed and agility. “I enjoyed competitive sports and worked on skills others didn’t have,” he told me, and said he encourages his son to recognize and capitalize on the skills he has.
If only every parent with a short but healthy child approached the matter as sensibly. Experts estimate that 60% to 80% of children who are short for their age do not have a growth hormone deficiency(缺乏) or other medical condition that limits growth. But knowing there’s a therapy available to increase height, some parents seek a medical solution for a perceived problem, even when there is no medical abnormality. They should also know, however, that new research has linked growth hormone treatment to serious unfavorable health effects years later.
Dr. Adda Grimberg, a doctor at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, recalled that “Twenty years ago, families were focused on health. They came in with a child who was not growing right and wanted to know if there was an underlying disease. Now, more and more, they’re focused on height. They want growth hormone, looking for a specific height. But this is not like online shopping; you can’t just place an order and make a child the height you want.”
In 2003, the Food and Drug Administration approved use of recombinant human growth hormone for the condition known as “idiopathic short stature”, or short build of unknown cause, which is not a disease. But it has caused a growing number of parents to consider using the hormone to boost the height of their children.
The resulting rush to therapy reflects concerns about a widespread societal bias(偏见) against shortness, rather than a true medical need. Experts have noted that the practice backs up the belief that short stature is unacceptable, leading to an increasing demand for therapy. It is far better, Dr. Grimberg suggested, to help a short child develop coping skills than to buy inches through medicine.
1. As for the parents’ attitude to their 8-year-old boy’s shortness, the author is ________.| A．critical | B．tolerant | C．supportive | D．worried |
| A．They are eager to get the expected result. |
| B．They spare no effort to sort out the cause. |
| C．They feel disturbed by their children’s health. |
| D．They help develop their children’s coping skills. |
| A．It might be officially recommended. |
| B．It may fuel height discrimination. |
| C．It is pushed by a medical need. |
| D．It is targeted at certain diseases. |
| A．Shower the Short with Growth Hormones |
| B．Find Replacement for Growth Hormones |
| C．Assess the Effects of Growth Hormones |
| D．Weigh the Use of Growth Hormones |
