1 . I'm always surprised when I hear the stats (统计数据) about how little time kids spend outside. One study found children are spending less than half the amount of time outdoors than they did just 20 years ago. Meanwhile, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that kids spend an average of seven hours a day using electronic media.
My own childhood was filled with outdoor time. I built forts in the woods, rode my bike with friends, went ice skating in the winter, climbed trees and rocks, and read books on a platform in a tree on hot days.
But my nature time wasn't limited to after-school and weekend activities. I attended a public school in New York's Hudson Valley, and we spent almost all our gym outside. We spent science classes on the acres that surrounded our school, collecting samples from trees and learning about everything from chemistry to physics.
All that outside time isn't just about health and getting kids to exercise more. Several studies also have linked outside time to higher test scores, lower anxiety and aggression, more creativity and improved attention spans.
A public school in Vermont, is taking these results seriously. Eliza Minnucci’s kindergarten class there engages in Forest Mondays, during which the students spend the whole day in the woods, rain or shine.
Minnucci said that playing outdoors involves plenty of learning. It’s fairly easy to weave lessons into nature play. Kids wanted to know the names of birds, plants, rocks and clouds. We followed streams into larger streams into larger streams into a pond and created bridges with logs and stones. We even made up stories about ants and butterfly. For the older kids, we had more defined lesson plans, but we were still outside the whole time, and we would often go off on a tangent(转向)if something interesting was happening, so the learning experience was always fresh and engaging. Besides learning and moving around freely instead of sitting at desks, the kids were having fun while they learned, which made them excited for the next lesson.
1. Why does the author mention little outdoor time kids spend at the beginning of the passage?| A．To make the official data known. |
| B．To focus on children s mind and body. |
| C．To introduce the topic for the passage. |
| D．To explain the reason for little outdoor time. |
| A．Bad for kids, attention. |
| B．Harmful to kids, anxiety. |
| C．Doubtful of kids' test scores. |
| D．Beneficial to kids’ mind and body. |
| A．Physics and teamwork. |
| B．Chemistry and investigation. |
| C．Biology and geology. |
| D．Language and creativity. |
| A．Kids Get Creative in Playing Outdoors |
| B．Why Outdoor Education for Kids Matters |
| C．Learning Outdoors Is the Goal of Education |
| D．Outdoor Lessons Involve Kids' Learning |
2 . The transatlantic car carrier, Oceanbird, is being designed by Wallenius Marine, a Swedish shipbuilder,with support from the Swedish government.
With a capacity(容量) of 7,000 vehicles, the 650 foot-long vessel will have a similar size to ordinary car carriers, but it will look totally different. The ship will have five “wing sails”, with each being 260 feet tall. These sails are capable of turning 360 degrees, and it can be shortened to 195 feet in order to pass under bridges or withstand rough weather.
Although the general theory of wing sails is not new, designing the Oceanbird’s sails has been a challenge, says Mikael Razola, the research project manager for Oceanbird. “That’s because these are the tallest sails that have ever been constructed. The top of the sails will be more than 100 meters above the water surface. At such a height, the wind direction and speed change a lot,” says Razola.
To better understand the atmospheric conditions(大气条件) at this height, Wallenius put sensors on top of its existing vessels to gather data of wind. “All of this information has helped us make the most of the power available in the wind and design an efficient wing vessel,” says Razola.
With its special sails, Oceanbird will outperform conventional car carriers in the aspect of exhaust emission. Nowadays, the shipping industry is under pressure to reduce emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. According to the International Maritime Organization, the UN body that regulates global shipping, shipping accounted for 2. 89% of global manmade greenhouse gas emissions in 2018. And in the same year, this organization introduced a mandatory( 强 制 的 ) 50% reduction of total annual greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Oceanbird is designed to exceed(超过) the target---Wallenious said the ship would emit 90% less CO2 than other car carriers.
With a stop speed of about 10 knots, Oceanbird will be slower than standard car carriers, which can travel at 17 knots. It will take around 12 days, instead of the standard seven to cross the Atlantic. “This long journey will require some scheduling changes as well as acceptance from carmakers,” said Razola. “But the response so far has been very positive. ”
Researchers in Wallenious have built a 7-meter model of Oceanbird which will sail in Stockholm’s archipelago to gather data that will help finalize the ship’s design. “It will take around three years to launch the full-size version. Our ambition is to see Oceanbird sailing in 2024,” Razola said.
1. What is Paragraph 2 mainly about?| A．The design of Oceanbird. |
| B．The capacity of Oceanbird. |
| C．The operating method of wing sails. |
| D．The sailing conditions for car carriers. |
| A．The lack of financial support. | B．The lack of previous theories. |
| C．The wind conditions at different heights. | D．The tough weather on the Atlantic Ocean. |
| A．Increase the sailing speed. |
| B．Arrange a scientific sailing schedule. |
| C．Handle the conflicts between carmakers. |
| D．Use standard ships instead of Oceanbird |
| A．Giant and inconvenient. |
| B．Low-cost but inefficient. |
| C．High-capacity and high-speed. |
| D．Well-designed and environment-friendly. |
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 . 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 |
5 . Research has shown that 85 percent of communication is nonverbal, so choosing what to wear to an interview is clearly an important part of your overall presentation. It won’t make up for weak answers, but it can communicate some positive things about your personality and what you might be like to work with.
· Blue：You can’t go wrong with darker shades of blue, especially navy. Choosing from this powerful color will project an image of someone who is in control. From the interviewer’s point of view, the color blue suggests calm, stability, trust, truth, confidence and security. These are all great messages to send without saying a word.
· Gray: After blue, gray is the second most popular color to wear for an interview. Like darker blue, it’s not a distracting color to the interviewer, which means they’ll be focused more on what you’re saying and how you’re saying it. Gray means sophistication （老成）, so use it to your advantage.
· Black: This is a commanding color and represents authority. Black also suggests excitement, so use it carefully when putting together your interview outfit. You may want to use it as an accent （着重色） —like in a scarf or tie, for instance—rather than as the primary color.
· Red：This is an extremely powerful color. It’s so strong that you should only use it as an accent color. Reds are associated with energy, passion, desire, power and aggression. People think of intensity （紧张） and passion when they see the color red, so use it carefully or it could send the wrong message to the interviewer.
· White：White shirts and blouses are always appropriate. It sends the message of simplicity, cleanliness, precision and goodness.
1. What is the best title of the passage？| A．How to Prepare for Your Job Interview |
| B．A Research on Colours |
| C．Colorful Clothes Never Fail |
| D．What the Colors of Your Clothes Say about You |
| A．Because it will make up for your weak answers. |
| B．Because it suggests something about your personality. |
| C．Because it will make you feel better. |
| D．Because the interviewer judges a person by his appearance. |
①stability ②energy ③power ④confidence ⑤security
| A．①②④ | B．②③④ | C．①④⑤ | D．②③⑤ |
| A．gray | B．red | C．black | D．white |
| A．job interviewees should think twice before wearing red clothes |
| B．the colors can send all the messages you want to convey |
| C．you can wear white clothes if you want to appear active |
| D．gray is the most popular color to wear for an interview |
6 . Ever wondered if dogs can learn new words? Yes, say researchers as they have found that talented dogs may have the ability to grasp new words after hearing them only four times.
While previous evidence seems to show that most dogs do not learn words, unless eventually very well trained, a few individuals have shown some extraordinary abilities, according to a study published in the journal Scientific Reports.
“We wanted to know under which conditions the gifted dogs may learn novel words,” said researcher xuekw Claudia Fugazza from the Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary. For the study, the team involved two gifted dogs, Whisky and Vicky Nina. The team exposed the dogs to the new words in two different conditions.
In the exclusion-based task, presented with seven known toys and one new toy, the dogs were able to select the new toy when presented with a new name. Researchers say this proves that dogs can choose by exclusion when faced with a new word, they selected the only toy which did not have a known name.
However, this was not the way they would learn the name of the toy. In fact, when they were presented with one more equally new name to test their ability to recognize the toy by its name, the dogs got totally confused and failed.
The other condition, the social one, where the dogs played with their owners who pronounced the name of the toy while playing with the dog, proved to be the successful way to learn the name of the toy, even after hearing it only 4 times. “The rapid learning that we observed seems to equal children’s ability to learn many new words at a fast rate around the age of 18 months,” Fugazza says. “But we do not know whether the learning mechanisms(机制) behind this learning are the same for humans and dogs. ”
To test whether most dogs would learn words this way, 20 other dogs were tested in the same condition, but none of them showed any evidence of learning the toy names, confirming that the ability to learn words rapidly in the absence of formal training is very rare and is only present in a few gifted dogs.
1. What was the purpose of the study published in Scientific Reports?| A．To better train dogs’ ability to learn new words. |
| B．To further confirm previous evidence about dogs. |
| C．To prove extraordinary memory abilities of gifted dogs. |
| D．To explore favorable conditions for gifted dogs’ new-word learning. |
| A．Slow to understand. | B．Quick to learn. | C．At a loss. | D．In a panic. |
| A．Learning through playing applied to most dogs. |
| B．The social condition helped dogs learn new words. |
| C．Dogs’ new-word learning turned out to be less effective. |
| D．Dogs shared similar learning mechanisms with children. |
| A．Gifted Dogs Can Learn New Words Rapidly. |
| B．Dogs Identify Newly-named Toys by Exclusion. |
| C．Dogs Can Acquire Vocabulary through Tons of Training. |
| D．Gifted Dogs Have Similar Learning Abilities to Humans. |
7 . 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 |
