1 . Think about all those successful people in your life that you know. How many of them build their success overnight? How many of them didn’t care about their goals? How many of them gave up after the first failure?
Most of the people we know to be successful were very persistent and devoted to their dreams. In other words, they work hard towards their dreams and keep trying, even if their goals aren’t easy to achieve. They didn’t give up just because they faced barriers and problems. They might even get encouraged by them.
Persistence really matters. It can help build your character. Nothing builds your character more than overcoming failures and problems in life. You get tougher and can handle anything life might throw at you. Each time you win your urge to give up, you make your mind and personality a bit stronger. Each of those wins will build your character to be healthier and to handle more stress.
When you are committed to something, you are willing to learn what it takes to be successful. You will be required to learn new skills and solve new kinds of problems. When you are persistent about your goals, you will have to learn new ways of doing things. Sometimes you might notice that to solve a particular problem, you need to learn more about it. When you study more about the topic, you discover new exciting subtopics to know about. As you think more in-depth into that problem, you will be exposed to new ideas and thoughts. Persistence is the driver behind your ability to learn what you need to know.
When you keep building your persistence and willpower, you will face many failures. Things don’t always end up as you have planned. With persistence, you will learn how to solve those problems and get back up after a failure. You will learn that failure is not the end of the world. Life goes on, and so can you. Each time you decide to overcome your failure, you will learn something new, and you will be a bit stronger than before. Those changes won’t show daily, but slowly they will start to stack up. If you look back and analyze your process, you will discover that you handle the stressful situation more efficiently, and after failures, you won’t go into despair. You rather know how to handle each failure as you have accumulated experiences from them and handle challenging situations.
Persistence is a basic quality to develop in life because it is closely related to personal development and improvement. As you already know, it is not easy, but it is worthy of your effort.
1. The underlined word “them” in Paragraph refers to________.| A．dreams | B．successful men | C．most of the people | D．barriers and problems |
| A．Persistence builds your character. |
| B．Persistence teaches you how to manage failures. |
| C．Persistence improves your skills and abilities. |
| D．Persistence helps you handle a stressful situation. |
| A．People with persistence seldom suffer from failures. |
| B．Learning new skills will make you more persistent. |
| C．Persistent people are easier to get out of a bad mood. |
| D．Successful people usually have stronger personalities. |
| A．explain the importance of being persistent | B．analyze the character of successful people |
| C．offer some suggestions about being persistent | D．show how to deal with problems and face failures |
2 . Israeli researchers say they have created the world's first three-dimensional, or 3D-printed heart using a patient's own cells. They described the experiment as "a major medical breakthrough." Tal Dvir, the lead researcher on the project, said in a statement that it was the first time that human cells had been used with 3D printing technology to successfully create a whole heart. Dvir added that the "printed" heart contains blood vessels which are needed to pump blood. The development marks a step forward for 3D printing in the medical field.
The researchers took samples of fatty tissue from patients. This material was then used to develop “ink” for the 3D printing process. First, the researchers created patches of tissue from the patient’s own cells. Later, they used that same process to create a small version of a whole heart. Using the patient’s own cells is important to reduce the risk that the body’s system to fight infection will reject a transplanted organ.
The goal, the researchers said, is to treat heart disease. The World Health Organization reports that heart disease is by far the leading cause of death worldwide. For patients with severe heart disease, a heart transplant is currently the main treatment available. The researchers hope their invention can help ease the demand for heart transplant donors.
Dvir says that the newly-created heart represents great progress. However, more research and development is needed to produce a fully operating, transplantable organ. One of the biggest challenges for the engineering team will be finding a way to create a human-sized heart.
Dvir said his team planned to transplant heart models designed for animals, possibly within the next year. He added that, for human use, “simpler organs” will likely be produced before hearts. “Maybe, in ten years, there will be organ printers in the finest hospitals around the world,” Dvir said. He hopes such methods will be used “routinely” to produce organs in the future.
1. Why should patients’ own cells be used to create a 3D heart?| A．To avoid being rejected. | B．To make it suitable to print. |
| C．To fight infection. | D．To build up immune system. |
| A．To adopt printing technology. | B．To create human organs. |
| C．To treat heart disease. | D．To develop organ printers. |
| A．They will be developed to create organs routinely. |
| B．They will be widely used to treat different diseases. |
| C．They will be used to transplant organs for animals. |
| D．They will be applied to various fields in the world. |
| A．An artificial heart. | B．A major medical breakthrough |
| C．A scientific project | D．A great research team. |
3 . Rosie Dutton teaches a weekly class for 10- and 11-year-olds. During a recent class, Dutton used apples to brilliantly explain the effects of bullying.
Rosie Dutton started out by showing the class two perfect-looking apples. But unknown to the students, she had dropped one of the apples repeatedly on the floor. She picked up the dropped apple and began insulting (侮辱；损害) it.
“I started to tell the children how I disliked this apple, that I thought it was ugly and it was a horrible color,” Dutton wrote. “I told them that because I didn't like it, I didn't want them to like it either.”
They passed that apple around in a circle and the kids joined in on the insults. Then, Dutton took a completely different approach with the other apple.
“We then passed another apple around and started to say kind words to it,” the 31-year-old wrote.
She eventually cut both of them open to reveal that the apple that had been insulted was bruised (青肿的) inside. The apple that received praise wasn't.
“When people are bullied, especially children, they feel horrible inside and sometimes don't show or tell others how they are feeling,” Dutton wrote in her post. “If we hadn't cut that apple open, we would never have known how much pain we had caused it.”
“Unlike an apple, we have the ability to stop this from happening. We can teach children that it's not OK to say unkind things to each other,” the 31-year-old explained in her post. She later added, “More and more hurt and damage happens inside if nobody does anything to stop the bullying. Let's create a generation of kind, caring children.”
1. What didn't the students know in advance?| A．She had dropped one apple repeatedly on the floor. |
| B．She had dropped two apples repeatedly on the floor. |
| C．The two apples were perfect-looking in appearance. |
| D．She had picked the two apples from the same tree. |
| A．By reading famous sayings. | B．By listing the numbers. |
| C．By making comparisons. | D．By quoting some examples. |
| A．brave | B．considerate |
| C．active | D．honest |
| A．One woman found an incredible way to teach a history lesson. |
| B．People have the ability to stop bullying from happening again. |
| C．A teacher encourages students to put what they learned to use. |
| D．A teacher uses a bruised apple to show bad effects of bullying. |
4 . Maeve Higgins once set herself a task. The Irish-born comedian wanted to see what life would be like if she stopped laughing at things that weren’t funny. Turns out it wasn’t as easy as she thought. “It was so hard,” she says. “ Laughter is a lubricant (润滑油) and is expected, and it’s really hard not to do it.”
Higgins suggests there’s something particularly special about being part of the shared experience that is live comedy — that curious magic that occurs when people come together specifically to laugh.
Comedy is more than just a pleasant way to pass an evening, humour more than something to amuse. They’re interwoven into our everyday existence. Whether you’re sharing an amusing story at a party or telling a dark joke at a funeral, humour is everywhere. But what is it for? And can humour, as comedy, change how we feel, what we think or even what we do?
As an essential part of human interaction, humour has been on the minds of thinkers for centuries. One of the most enduring theories of humour was put forward by the philosopher Thomas Hobbes. It asserts that humour appears to make fun of the weak and exert superiority. While this is clearly the function of some comedy, it’s far from a complete explanation for the overall purpose of humour.
For some comedians, it’s not just about getting laughs — it’s about changing what we think and maybe even what we do. If there’s one comic who is really typical of this, it’s Josie Long. A social justice activist and a comedian, Long has a reputation for delightful, optimistic humour and storytelling.
As her career has evolved, she has consciously put social and political topics at the heart of her act. She believes that comedians have a role to play in challenging some of the most pressing issues of the day.
British comic Stephen K Amos sells out venues seating thousands, year in, year out. Amos firmly believes that when comics consciously deal with pressing or controversial （有争议的）social issues like racism, they can reach people on a much more meaningful level than that achieved by briefly lifting someone’s mood. And while it may be difficult to quantify, he says, the social and psychological impact of comedy deserves much greater recognition.
The research backs this up. Although the role of comedy is to be entertaining first and foremost, Sharon Lockyer, a sociologist who studies humour, has identified a number of possible other functions. These include challenging stereotypes (刻板印象).
Amos’s work frequently settles the issues of race by challenging stereotypes.”I don’t do things for shock value,” he says. “ I do stuff that matters to me. In the old days it was just about doing jokes. We’ve moved on — people are talking about things that matter. ”
1. What do the first two paragraphs mainly talk about?| A．The benefits of laughing. |
| B．What a comedian’s daily work is about. |
| C．Why Maeve Higgins chose to be a comedian. |
| D．Maeve Higgins’ understanding of the appeal of comedy. |
| A．Protect the weak from the evil. |
| B．Encourage people to be stronger. |
| C．Be determined to improve oneself. |
| D．Show you are better than other people. |
| A．By gradually influencing people’s attitudes. |
| B．By urging politicians to try and solve the issues. |
| C．By quickly yet thoroughly changing people’s thinking. |
| D．By calling on the whole society to pay attention to the issues. |
| A．getting people to laugh |
| B．promoting social progress |
| C．influencing people’s ideas |
| D．making people more productive |
5 . One of Britain' s most outstanding scientists says the growth in the use of electronic tablets and smart phones is causing people to spend so much time indoors that they need to take regular vitamin D supplements to make up for the lack of sunlight they receive naturally.
Geneticist Steve Jones said he himself was a follower to the cause and urged others to follow. “I never thought I would be a person who would take vitamin supplements；I always thought it was absolute nonsense. But now I take vitamin D every day. Today, because I knew the sun wasn't going to shine, I took an extra one,” he said.
Exposure to the sun is the major source of vitamin D. However, people are spending less and less time outdoors in many areas. The problem is particularly serious in Scotland. "The Scots are the whitest people in the world because their entire body systems are crying out for vitamin D," he said, adding that life expectancy in Scotland is two years shorter than in England or Wales. Multiple sclerosis (多发性硬化症), a medical condition which is often seen in northern Europe, is also higher in Scotland than in England.
Vitamin D helps with the absorption of Ca, which helps keep bones strong. And Jones said the fact that rickets (佝偻病) was making a comeback in Britain after nearly 50 years was another sign of how changing behavior patterns were bringing physical harm.
Jones admitted that concerns over the damaging effects on skin of long-time exposure to the sun were reasonable, but said sunlight was healthy and necessary for the human body, and could help in lowering blood pressure. "If you lie on the beach for an hour, you will drop your blood pressure by about 10 points, because it relaxes your blood vessels (血管). So, get out in the sun while we still can," he said.
1. How are people affected by the rise of technology according to the text?| A．They are more sensitive to sunlight |
| B．They take more vitamin D supplements. |
| C．They get less vitamin D than before. |
| D．They become addicted to electronic games. |
| A．Skeptical. | B．Cautious. |
| C．Worried. | D．Supportive. |
| A．Because they are in great need of sunlight. |
| B．Because their blood pressure is very low. |
| C．Because they enjoy a short period of sunshine. |
| D．Because they are easy to get multiple sclerosis. |
| A．Get out and gain more Vitamin D |
| B．Keep away from tablets and phones |
| C．Pay attention to the importance of sunlight |
| D．Take vitamin D supplements to keep healthy |
6 . A robot with a sense of touch may one day feel “pain”, both its own physical pain and sympathy for the pain of its human companions. Such touchy-feely robots are still far off, but advances in robotic touch-sensing are bringing that possibility closer to reality.
Sensors set in soft, artificial skin that can detect both a gentle touch and a painful strike have been hooked up to a robot that can then signal emotions, Asada reported February 15 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This artificial “pain nervous system,” as Asada calls it, may be a small building block for a machine that could ultimately experience pain. Such a feeling might also allow a robot to “sympathize” with a human companion’s suffering.
Asada, an engineer at Osaka University, and his colleagues have designed touch sensors that reliably pick up a range of touches. In a robot system named Affetto, a realistic looking child’s head, these touch and pain signals can be converted to emotional facial expressions.
A touch-sensitive, soft material, as opposed to a rigid metal surface, allows richer interactions between a machine and the world, says neuroscientist Kingson Man of the University of Southern California. Artificial skin “allows the possibility of engagement in truly intelligent ways”.
Such a system, Asada says, might ultimately lead to robots that can recognize the pain of others, a valuable skill for robots designed to help care for people in need, the elderly, for instance.
But there is an important distinction between a robot that responds in a predictable way to a painful strike and a robot that’s able to compute an internal feeling accurately, says Damasio, a neuroscientist also at the University of Southern California. A robot with sensors that can detect touch and pain is “along the lines of having a robot, for example, that smiles when you talk to it,” Damasio says. ‘It’s a device for communication of the machine to a human.” While that’s an interesting development, “it’s not the same thing” as a robot designed to compute some sort of internal experience, he says.
1. What do we know about the “pain nervous system”?| A．It is named Affetto by scientists. | B．It is a set of complicated sensors. |
| C．It is able to signal different emotions. | D．It combines sensors and artificial skin. |
| A．Delivered. | B．Translated. | C．Attached. | D．Adapted. |
| A．Robots can smile when talked to. |
| B．Robots can talk to human beings. |
| C．Robots can compute internal feelings |
| D．Robots can detect pains and respond accordingly. |
| A．Machines Become Emotional | B．Robots Inch to Feeling Pain |
| C．Human Feelings Can Be Felt | D．New Devices Touch Your Heart |
7 . When I was a kid, my sister and I would fight all the time over nearly everything. But as we grew older, our bond strengthened by sharing secrets, offering advice and trading clothes. Having a sister by my side while growing up taught me many lessons about the unique bond.
And now, thanks to an 8-year long study that’s making the rounds on the Internet again, science is confirming what I know is true. In the study, researchers discovered that having an older or younger sister can help ease the anxiety for kids between the ages of 10 and 14 years. They also found that people with sisters can “learn how to make up and to have control over their emotions again, which are skills that undoubtedly serve children well.
The revival of this study actually comes on the heels of another newer study, which shows that it’s not just the older kids and parents who influence and shape children as they grow. It turns out that younger siblings(兄弟姐妹) do too, and what’s more, they may also give their older siblings a greater chance of developing empathy (同情).
The Canadian study followed 452 pairs of siblings, all between a year-and-a-half and 4 years old. The researchers found that having a younger sibling increased the older sibling's level of empathy.
This research confirms that sisters are pretty amazing in making the world a much lovely place. As the mom of two boys, I often wonder what kinds of lessons they will learn from their younger sister. Perhaps they will be the same lessons I learned from mine that cooler heads always win. This study gives me hope that all those endless arguments between my kids may actually be laying the groundwork for conflict-settlement skills.
1. What can we learn from the study?| A．Children under four develop empathy fastest. |
| B．It is normal for siblings to quarrel. |
| C．Having siblings is not always a headache. |
| D．Having sisters is helpful to mental health. |
| A．Result | B．Beginning. |
| C．Reappearance. | D．Significance. |
| A．They love their mom very much. |
| B．They have a higher level of empathy. |
| C．They often quarrel with one another. |
| D．They have learned the same lessons as the the author. |
| A．Siblings have a unique bond. |
| B．Siblings have something in common. |
| C．Having siblings is good to children. |
| D．Children having siblings are considerate. |
