1 . China has just officially opened its FAST radio telescope to international scientists. Scientists across the world can submit proposals for astronomical observations using the telescope.
FAST is short for Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (球面射电望远镜) and it is also believed to be the world's largest radio telescope and the most sensitive single-dish radio telescope. The receiving surface area of FAST is 250,000 square meters, about the size of 30 standard football fields. Its construction was completed in September 2016 and it officially began operating in January 2020.
The major scientific task of the telescope is the observation of pulsars (脉冲星) – the rotating neutron stars. The study of pulsars can help to confirm the existence of gravitational radiation and black holes, and help solve many other major questions in physics. Another scientific goal of FAST is to search for outer space civilization.
The telescope is located in a naturally deep and round karst depression in southwest China's Guizhou Province. The first advantage of the selected site is the altitude. The average altitude of Guizhou is about 1,100 meters, which maximizes the effectiveness of the observation equipment. Secondly, the radio telescope needs to have a “big pan” to receive better signal. The huge natural depression could reduce the amount of excavation (挖掘) and difficulty of construction. Moreover, the selected site in Guizhou is far away from cities, and has a small population, which reduces the interference (干扰) caused by wireless devices such as TVs, mobile phones and radios from human activities.
FAST has identified over 300 pulsars. Experts predict that the number could reach 1,000 in five years and that the telescope could locate and identify the first pulsar outside the galaxy. With the opening-up to international scientists, China's FAST is expected to make more contribution to astronomical research in the future.
1. What do we know about FAST?| A．It is opened to global scientists. | B．It is a project under construction. |
| C．It has provided service since 2016. | D．It has found a pulsar outside the galaxy. |
| A．To study black holes. | B．To observe the pulsars. |
| C．To explore the sun. | D．To seek space civilization. |
| A．It's close to urban areas. | B．It reduces engineering amount. |
| C．It possesses a shallow depression. | D．It's at the highest altitude in China. |
| A．Major Scientific Tasks of FAST | B．Ways to Select the Site for FAST |
| C．Contributions FAST Has Made | D．Facts about FAST Radio Telescope |
2 . Fritillaria plants should be simple to spot. The usually bright green plants often stand alone amid the rocks that top the Himalayan and Hengduan mountains in southwestern China — easy pickings for traditional Chinese medicine herbalists, who've ground the bulbs （鳞茎) of Fritillaria into a cough-treating powder for more than 2, 000 years. The demand for the bulbs is intense, since about 3,500 of them are needed to produce one kilogram of the powder,worth about $480.
But some Fritillaria are remarkably difficult to find，with leaves and stems that are barely distinguishable from the gray or brown rocky background. Surprisingly, the plants’ camouflage(伪装) seems to have evolved in response to people.
In wide open areas with little cover, like mountaintops, blending in can help the plants avoid hungry herbivores, says Yang Niu, a botanist at the Kunming Institute of Botany in China. But after five years of studying camouflage in Fritillaria, he did not spot any animals feeding on the plants.
So Niu, his colleague Hang Sun and sensory ecologist Martin Stevens of the University of Exeter in England decided to see if humans might be driving the evolution of the plants’ camouflage.
During their research, local herbalists noted the total weight of the bulbs harvested each year from2014 to 2019 at seven study sites. These records indicated contemporary harvesting pressure on the plants. In the meantime, the researchers assessed the ease of harvesting by recording how long it took to dig up bulbs at six of those sites. On some slopes, bulbs are easily dug up, but in others they can be buried under rocks. Both measures have revealed a striking pattern: The more harvested a site is, the better the color of a plant matches its background.
However, camouflage can present some challenges. Pollinators(花粉传播者) might have a harder time finding the camouflaged plants, and the gray and brown coloration could impair photosynthetic(光合) activity. Still, these Fritillaria show how adaptable the plants can be. The plants can better change their appearance than we might have expected.
1. What is the first paragraph mainly about?| A．The reason for picking Fritillaria. | B．The surviving skills of Fritillaria. |
| C．The history of traditional Chinese medicine. | D．The appearance of Fritillaria. |
| A．Fritillaria disguise themselves where people harvest often. |
| B．Animals drive Fritillaria to hide themselves better. |
| C．Frequent human activities make it easier to spot Fritillaria. |
| D．Fritillaria usually hide under rocks. |
| A．Plants can constantly change how they-look. |
| B．Camouflage can do harm to Fritillaria to some degree. |
| C．Fritillaria play an important role in the eco-system. |
| D．All plants are not good at camouflaging. |
| A．The Wall Street Journal. | B．The Economist. |
| C．Current Biology. | D．Conde Nast Traveler. |
3 . Lithium(锂) batteries power many of what we use today — from smartphones and laptops to electric toothbrushes and hand-held vacuum cleaners. But as we know from our phones, which hold less and less juice the older they are, lithium batteries have their limitations. In extremely hot or cold weather, their performance also falls. And there are also concerns around the safety and sustainability (可持续性) of lithium batteries. Mining the metals needed for them comes with a high social and environmental cost.
This has urged scientists around the world to try and develop new types of battery that can overcome these problems. One group are not only trying to find new ways to power our devices, but also settle the issue of food waste at the same time. Vincent Gomes, a chemical engineer at the University of Sydney, and his team, including Labna Shabnam, are turning waste from the world’s smelliest fruit, durian(榴莲果) into a super capacitor (电容器) that can charge mobile phones, tablets and laptops within minutes.
They heated, freeze-dried and then baked the inedible spongy core of each fruit in an oven at temperatures of more than 1, 500C (2732F). The black, highly porous, ultralight structures they were left with could then be fashioned into electrodes of a low-cost super capacitor. The super capacitors can be charged in 30 seconds, and could be used to power a range of devices.
The researchers’ dream is to use these sustainable super capacitors to store electricity from renewable energy sources for use in vehicles and houses.
1. What does the underlined sentence in Paragraph 1 mean?| A．The phone will spill liquid after used a long time. |
| B．The maturer the fruits are, the less juice they will contain. |
| C．The longer you use your phone, the shorter its battery life will be. |
| D．The battery life of a phone will be longer if you don't use it frequently. |
| A．They may hold juice when they are old. |
| B．They go out of service in extreme weather. |
| C．They are beneficial to environmental protection. |
| D．Their production is costly both socially and environmentally. |
| A．It can charge vehicles. | B．It’s fashionable. |
| C．It’s environmentally-friendly. | D．It can charge a tablet in 30 seconds. |
| A．Lithium batteries have many limitations. |
| B．The issue of the food waste has been solved. |
| C．The world’s smelliest fruit could power your phone. |
| D．Sustainable lithium batteries are a promising super capacitor. |
4 . Think back to the last time you pooped. Was it hard or soft? Was it dark or light brown? You might find these questions uncomfortable. Yet the wastes our bodies shed can say a lot about our health. And it is hard to remember past poops and pees well enough to describe to doctors. There's something in those wastes not visible to the eye. But smart toilets can help.
Scientists hope that one day such toilets will be able to diagnose cancer and viruses. But that’s for the future. The smart toilet being developed at Stanford University can take pictures of your feces, track how often you go and measure how long each poop takes. It also can measure the number of white blood cells and types of protein in urine (尿), which could indicate an infection of the urinary tract or bladder. The data will move through the Internet to a secure computer. An artificial-intelligence program then will assess the data. If it finds a problem, the program can notify a patient's doctor.
But how will the toilet know who is on the seat? Seung-min Park, a biomedical engineer on the project, and his team use a scanner to image the butt. The user just sits down on the seat. An image of the butt will later be used to identify data obtained from that person’s toilet visit.
However, potential users may not want to have a camera underneath their butts, Park says. So on the next model, his team will replace the camera with an infrared or laser scanner.
Scanning one’s privates is hardly the only privacy issue with smart toilets. The data could be misused by insurance companies or others. And some toilets might one day be able to test your DNA, containing details you don't want to share with anyone.
Park appreciates such privacy concerns. However, he also thinks the benefits may outweigh the risks. “The more you expose your privacy,” he believes, “the better the health care.”
1. What do we know about the smart toilet being developed at Stanford?| A．It helps diagnose cancer and viruses. |
| B．It can provide information about a potential disease of users. |
| C．It can inform the doctor if a problem appears. |
| D．It tells the eating habits of users. |
| A．They may lead to privacy invasion. | B．They have limited functions. |
| C．They may offer inaccurate diagnoses. | D．They are too expensive. |
| A．Contradictory. | B．Critical. | C．Prejudiced. | D．Favorable. |
| A．Smart Toilets Are Not So Smart |
| B．Smart Toilets Are Invading Your Privacy |
| C．Smart Toilets Will Replace Traditional Ones |
| D．Smart Toilets Will Guard Your Health |
5 . School districts across the United States have reported that the number of students failing classes has risen many times higher than usual numbers.
Educators see a number of factors. Students learning from home often miss assignment —- or school completely. Internet availability is limited or not effectively established, making it difficult to complete and upload assignments. And teachers not seeing their students in person have fewer ways to note who is falling behind. That is especially true with many students keeping their cameras off during online classes.
The increase in failing grades has been seen in districts of all sizes around the country. In the Salem-Keizer Public School district, hundreds of students at first had grade scores of 0.0% .This showed that students simply were not taking part in school at all. In New Mexico, more than 40% middle and high school students were failing at least one class as of late October. In Houston, Texas, 42% students received at least one F in the first grading period of the year, double the amount in a usual year.
For it, schools have taken measures. Some schools are giving students more time to complete assignments. Advisory teams have increased contact with students. Teachers have been asked to temporarily stop assigning graded homework. And parents of Hispanic students were invited to learn how they can see their children’s grades online. I n Charleston, administrators are considering bringing in a grading system which permits instructors to give 50s instead of 0s to make it less harmful to students’ grades. “I' m an English teacher, not a math teacher, but I' ve learned zeros are very, very damaging to an average, ”Jody Stallings said.
1. What is Paragraph 2 mainly about?| A．Teachers’ helplessness in online classes. |
| B．Students’ ineffective access to the Internet. |
| C．The causes of assignments being missed by students. |
| D．The reasons for the increase in students’ failing grades. |
| A．By comparing facts. | B．By presenting statistics. |
| C．By answering questions. | D．By showing public opinions. |
| A．Introducing a new grading system. |
| B．Parents increasing their contact with students. |
| C．Teachers canceling the deadline for assignments. |
| D．Instructing parents to monitor students learning online. |
| A．Approving. | B．Critical. | C．Anxious. | D．Ambiguous. |
6 . Avi Loeb, a scientist, believes that we are not alone in the universe. The belief fits with Loeb’s alien (外星的) spaceship theory that at least one alien spaceship might be flying over the orbit (轨道) of Jupiter, which won the international attention last year.
Astronomers in Hawaii found the first known interstellar (星际的) object in late 2017. It was a bit of light moving so fast past the sun that it could only have come from another star. Almost every astronomer on the planet was trying to figure out how the object, called “Oumuamua” got to our far-away, part of the Milky way galaxy. “One possibility is that ‘Oumuamua’ is debris (碎片) from an advanced technological equipment,” Loeb said. “Technology comes from another solar system just showed up at our door.”
“‘Oumuamua’ is not an alien spaceship,” Paul Sutter, another scientist wrote. He suggested Loeb was seeking publicity. Most scientists think “Oumuamua” is some sort of rock. They think it could be an icy wandering comet.
Loeb says that “Oumuamua’s” behavior, means it can’t be a block of rock shaped like a long photo. He thinks it's more likely an object that’s very long and thin, perhaps like a long pancake or a ship’s sail. Loeb says that if someone shows him evidence that contradicts his beliefs, he will immediately give in.
Loeb believes himself a truth-teller and risk- taker in an age of very safe, too-quiet scientists. “The worst thing that can happen to me is that I would be relieved of my management duties, and that would give me even more time to focus on science,” Loeb says. He said he wouldn’t mind giving up all the titles he had and returning to the Israeli farming village where he grew up.
1. What does Loeb say about “Oumuamua”?| A．It is an icy comet. |
| B．It looks like a long photo. |
| C．It is actually some sort of rock. |
| D．It may come from another alien civilization. |
| A．Searches for. | B．Depends on. |
| C．Turns to. | D．Goes against. |
| A．He is foolish. |
| B．He is unsatisfied with his titles. |
| C．He is a firm believer in scientific truth. |
| D．He is uncertain about his career future. |
| A．Have Aliens Paid a Visit in Spaceships? |
| B．Do We Really Know about Space Theory? |
| C．Scientists Are Working on High Technology |
| D．Astronomers Are Encouraging Space Travel |
7 . Sirio Persichetti, seventeen years old, can not speak and feed himself. Sirio has spastic tetraplegia, a disease that affects movement in three of a person's four legs and arms. His mouth is permanently open, which prevents him from forming words correctly or swallowing. He is fed liquid nutrition through a tube in his stomach. And he has had a tracheotomy to help him breathe.
But he deals with his condition with such a love for life that his mother, Valentina, decided to create a website for him. He made accounts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to share his everyday life. He shares heart-warming videos of himself under the title Sirio and the Tetrabonds. The videos have touched the hearts of people all over the world. “I wanted to tell the story of disability in a different way, tell it for what it is and give people alike hope,” Sirio said.
The public’s reaction to young Sirio has been huge. Some of his videos have been watched more than130, 000 times. “In a short time, the response, especially from families living in similar situations, was powerful and exciting so we decided to keep going,” his mother said. Sirio’s followers respond with a countless number of “likes” and messages of support.
Sirio said he wanted to end the stigma —- or unfair beliefs— that often surrounds disability. I wanted to show that children with special needs can still have fun and lead a happy life. Valentina said she never expected her son to become famous on social media. “But we realized that is useful,” she added, “that it helps and is a necessary step to make the life of many people much more normal.”
1. What do we know about Sirio from Paragraph 1?| A．He was born with the disease. |
| B．He is unable to use his arms and legs. |
| C．He relies on liquid nutrition to support life. |
| D．His disease has cost his family a great deal. |
| A．To inspire others like him. |
| B．To raise money for his disease. |
| C．To find a possible cure for his disease. |
| D．To escape from his bitter life for the time being. |
| A．Optimistic. | B．Ambitious. | C．Cooperative. | D．Obedient. |
| A．An Unusual Disease Changes a Teenager’s Life |
| B．A Student with Disability Has Taken off on the Internet |
| C．Those at a Disadvantage Tend to Arouse People’s Sympathy |
| D．A Special Teenager Tries to Change People’s Ideas about Disabilities |
8 . Instagram has launched (发布) a machine learning technology to its app that better identifies self-harm and suicide (自杀) content in the UK after tragic death of a 14-year-old schoolgirl Molly Russell, who viewed Instagram content connected to anxiety, depression, self-harm and suicide before ending her own life in November 2017.
Molly’s family later found she had been viewing content on social media, particularly pictures on Instagram, linked to anxiety, depression, self-harm and suicide, which her father, Ian Russell, believed to “help to kill her.” Ian has demanded that web companies should take more responsibility for filtering (过滤) harmful content from the Internet, which may possibly contribute to more young people’s deaths.
Concerns have been raised about self-harm and suicide content online, especially how platforms deal with such content and its impact on certain users, young people in particular. Social media platforms are now increasingly being pressured to develop technology to help remove harmful content as quickly as possible, rather than waiting for users to report it.
Now, the new tool from Instagram automatically searches for suicide-related images and words on the platform. It then makes the content less visible (可见的) in the app or, in some cases, removes it completely after 24 hours if the machine learning decides it breaks the app’s safety rules.
Instagram boss Adam Mosseri said, “Our technology finds posts that may include suicide or self-harm content and sends them to human reviewers to make the final decision and take the right action.” Between April and June this year, around 90 percent of such kind of harmful content on Instagram was found by its own technology before any real user reported it to the platform. “But our goal is to get that number as close as we possibly can to 100 percent,” Mosseri added. “And I hope this could in some way help avoid tragic deaths like Molly Russell’s.”
1. What does Molly’s father mean by saying “help to kill her”?| A．Someone on Instagram helped her to kill herself. |
| B．She was suffering from cyberbully on Instagram. |
| C．Content on Instagram had negative effects on her. |
| D．She didn’t get any help from social media. |
| A．Social media platforms are all taking action to remove harmful content from the Internet. |
| B．Users can report harmful content online to the platform if they see any. |
| C．All images and words that the new technology finds will be completely removed. |
| D．Instagram has already achieved their goal to find 100 percent of harmful content in its app. |
| A．Negative. | B．Positive. |
| C．Doubtful. | D．Worried. |
| A．A new technology brought out by Instagram after a teenager’s death |
| B．A schoolgirl’s tragic death after viewing harmful content online |
| C．Ways to prevent young people from self-harm and suicide |
| D．How to deal with depression, self-harm and suicide content online |
9 . The winners of The Cultural City of East Asia in 2021 have been chosen, with four cities in China, Japan and South Korea winning the title, the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced on Sunday.
Shaoxing of East China’s Zhejiang Province, Dunhuang in Northwest China’s Gansu Province, Suncheon in South Korea and Kitakyushu in Japan were selected through votes held in their respective countries in 2020. Choosing Dunhuang and Shaoxing at the same time marks the first time that one country has selected two cities in the program.
These four cities are major cultural landmarks in their respective countries. Dunhuang was a major stop on the ancient Silk Road and is best known for its nearby Mogao Grottoes, which contain some of the finest examples of Buddhist art from a period extending 1, 000 years. Suncheon is an eco－city in South Korea that is a major agricultural and industrial center and also known for Suncheon Bay. Kitakyushu city was formed in 1963 through a combination of five big cities centered around the ancient city of Kokura. It is also where the already delayed 12th meeting of the three countries’ culture ministers will be held in 2021. Suncheon and Kitakyushu also won The Cultural City of East Asia in 2020.
These four cities are active centers for art and cultural communication. According to the announcement, the four cities will work closely together to promote cultural development and prosperity in East Asia through sustained cultural cooperation and close exchanges, and will jointly support the preparation and hosting of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo in 2021 and the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in Beijing in 2022.
The “The Cultural City of East Asia” program was created based on an agreement reached at a meeting of ministers of culture from Japan, China, and South Korea in 2013. Every year one or two cities in each country are selected with the aim to develop their ties through culture and arts; those cities host a variety of cultural and artistic events to introduce traditional and modern arts and culture as well as different lifestyles to visitors.
1. What’s special about the selection of The Cultural City of East Asia in 2021?| A．All the cities were on the list for the first time. |
| B．All the cities are well－known all over the world. |
| C．Two cities of one country were selected in a year. |
| D．Three countries work together to make the selection. |
| A．Shaoxing. | B．Dunhuang. | C．Suncheon. | D．Kitakyushu. |
| A．The culture of the four cities. | B．The mission of the four cities. |
| C．The history of the four cities. | D．The comparison of the four cities. |
| A．To preserve local traditional arts, culture and lifestyles. |
| B．To support the preparation and hosting of the Olympics. |
| C．To strengthen the city relationship through culture and arts. |
| D．To host various cultural and artistic events to attract visitors. |
10 . Koalas live in the eucalyptus （枝树）forests of southeastern and eastern Australia. They rely on the eucalyptus tree for both habitat and food. In fact, they seldom leave these trees. When not sleeping, they're usually eating. They can eat more than a pound of eucalyptus leaves a day. Eucalyptus is poisonous, so the koala's digestive （消化的）system has to work hard to digest it, breaking down the poisons and taking in the limited nutrients （营养）.That's why koalas sleep for 18 to 22 hours a day — they get very little energy from their diet.
Koala numbers decreased in the late 19th and early 20th century from hunting for their fur. Now they face serious threats from habitat loss. Land clearing and bush fires-especially the 2019-2020 Australia Bushfire Season-have destroyed much of the forest they live in. Koalas are easy to be affected by climate change. Increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is decreasing the nutritional quality of eucalyptus leaves and causing longer, more serious droughts and wildfires. In response to drought, koalas are forced to stop sleeping and come down from the trees to find water, putting them at a higher risk of being killed.
Koalas have been identified by the Australian government as one of the 113 animals requiring urgent （紧急的）help. Ensuring there's the right kind of forest for them to return to is extremely urgent. State governments should create new koala reserves and persuade landowners not to cut down eucalyptus trees. Meanwhile, getting the public to understand koalas' living habits and their health will throw light on koala biology, which helps to develop plans to better protect the species.
1. What can we learn about koalas?| A．They like moving around very much. |
| B．They have developed smart survival skills. |
| C．They can be found everywhere in Australia. |
| D．They often got ill while eating eucalyptus leaves. |
| A．Koalas' newly-formed habits. | B．Koalas' decreasing population. |
| C．The potential threats to Koalas. | D．The outcomes of increased carbon dioxide. |
| A．Conduct the research on their living habits. |
| B．Make sure they can have their habitat back. |
| C．Realize that they are sensitive to climate change. |
| D．Educate people about the awareness of protecting them. |
| A．A nature magazine. | B．A travel brochure. |
| C．A sports newspaper. | D．A health magazine. |
