1 . At the beginning of my 8:00 a. m. class one Monday at my college, I cheerfully asked my students how their weekend had been. One young man said that his weekend had not been very good. He then proceeded to ask me why I always seemed to be so cheerful. His question reminded me of something I’d read somewhere before: “Every morning when you get up, you have a choice about how you want to approach life that day”, I said to the young man. “I choose to be cheerful”. “Let me give you an example”, I continued.
The other 60 students in the class ceased their chatter and began to listen to our conversation.
As soon as I got to my office, I called to ask for a tow truck(拖车). The secretary in the office asked me what had happened. “This is my lucky day”, I replied, smiling. “Your car breaks down and today is your lucky day?” She was puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“I live 17 miles from here”, I replied. “My car could have broken down anywhere along the freeway. It didn’t. Instead, it broke down in the perfect place: off the freeway, within walking distance of here. I’m still able to teach my class, and I’ve been able to arrange for the tow truck to meet me after class. If my car was meant to break down today, it couldn’t have been arranged in a more convenient fashion.” The secretary’s eyes opened wide, and then she smiled. I smiled back and headed for class. So ended my story to the students in my economics class.
I scanned the 60 faces in the lecture hall. Despite the early hour, no one seemed to be asleep. Somehow, my story had touched them. Or maybe it wasn’t the story at all. In fact, it had all started with a student’s observation that I was cheerful. A wise man once said: “Who you are speaks louder to me than anything you can say”. I suppose it must be so.
1. What do we know about the writer according to paragraph 1?| A．He likes to tell stories. | B．He is strict with his students. |
| C．He remains cheerful in his life. | D．He always makes random choices. |
| A．Close to his school. | B．On the freeway. | C．Near his home. | D．On the campus. |
| A．Sensitive. | B．Observant. | C．Optimistic. | D．Troublesome. |
| A．A good beginning is half done. |
| B．A bad workman blames his tools. |
| C．All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. |
| D．Deeds take priority over words in education. |
2 . Fu Cong, a Chinese-born pianist, died on Monday at a hospital in London, where he had lived for many years.
A lover of classical music from a young age, Mr. Fu began taking piano lessons when he was 7. He made his first stage appearance in 1952. The concert caught the attention of officials in Beijing, who selected him to compete and tour in Eastern Europe. Mr. Fu soon moved to Poland, where he studied at the Warsaw Conservatory (音乐学校) on a scholarship. To prepare for the fifth Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 1955, he practiced so hard that he hurt his fingers and was nearly cut from the first round of the competition.
Mr. Fu was one of the first Chinese pianists to achieve global fame when he took third place in the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1955. He also won a special prize for his performance of Chopin's mazurkas. Almost overnight, he became a national hero. To China, Mr. Fu's recognition in a well-known international competition was evidence that the country could stand on its own artistically in the West. Chinese reporters came to interview Mr. Fu, while many others went to his father, Fu Lei, for advice on child-raising.
In 1981, a volume of letters written by his father, was published in China. Full of advice, encouragement, life teachings and strict paternal love, the book Fu Lei's Family Letters became a best-seller in China. Besides influencing a generation of Chinese, Mr. Fu's words resonated (引起共鸣) long after his death with the person for whom they were intended.
“My father had a saying that 'First you must be a person, then an artist, and then a musician, and only then can you be a pianist,'" Mr. Fu Cong once recalled in an interview. "Even now, I believe in this order-that it should be this way and that I am this way.”
1. What is paragraph 2 mainly about?| A．Fu Cong's achievements in music. | B．Fu Cong's stage performances. |
| C．Fu Cong's experiences of learning music. | D．Fu Cong’s efforts for competitions. |
| A．It earns Chinese arts a place in the West. |
| B．It promotes the spread of Chinese culture. |
| C．It proves Chinese people's love for music. |
| D．It enables Chinese art education to be recognized. |
| A．Fu Lei's Family Letters. | B．Young people of China. |
| C．Fu Cong and his family. | D．Readers of Fu Lei's Family Letters. |
| A．It's easy to be an artist. |
| B．It requires various qualities to be a pianist. |
| C．Everyone should develop an interest in art. |
| D．Talent is of greatest importance for a pianist. |
3 . The public nowadays has a misunderstanding of forest fires, believing that fires should be kept out of every type of forest. Many of us can recall Smoky the Bear's famous warning: “Remember, only YOU can prevent forest fires”. However, that's not always the case. Under the right conditions, and when conducted safely, fire can create many environmental benefits as well as help prevent larger, uncontrollable wildfires.
After a forest fire, many wildlife species will move into recently burned areas to feed on these newly available foods. Some reptiles and amphibians such as the pine (松树） snake prefer forests frequently burned by fire. As Herbert Stoddard put it, “One of the most harmful things modern man has done to birds has been his attempt to exclude fire from fire-type pine forests. Within a few years most forests choke up with bushes, lose their prairie-like vegetation (草原般植被） and can no longer support birds dependent on periodic burning for their food supply and proper cover.”
If you are asked to picture the forest floor, what do you see? Pine needles, cones, leaves, branches might come to mind-all sources of fuel. If these fuel sources build up without any type of removal, the 'fuel load' can lead to fires catastrophic to forests and people alike. In contrast, prescribed fire can be used by forest professionals every couple of years to keep forest fuels at an appropriate and manageable level. They can also minimize the spread of pest insects and disease and remove unwanted tree and plant species. Plus, they can create and maintain important wildlife habitats rich in grasses and promote the growth of trees, wildflowers and other various plants.
Many organizations and agencies work to promote fire on the landscape when and where appropriate. Smokey Bear even has an updated warning: “Only You can Prevent Wildfires,” as the Forest Service has over the last few decades developed policies and procedures to include prescribed fire as a management tool, as well as continuing their work to prevent and fight wildfires.
1. Why did the author mention Smoky the Bear's warning?| A．To introduce the topic of the passage. |
| B．To clarify a misunderstood concept. |
| C．To show the significance of fire prevention. |
| D．To raise people's awareness of forest protection. |
| A．Forest bushes. |
| B．Fuel sources. |
| C．Pine forests. |
| D．Periodic burning. |
| A．To put out wildfires. |
| B．To keep the forest balance. |
| C．To remove tree and plant species. |
| D．To keep the fuel rich in the forest. |
| A．One Match Can Start A Forest Fire |
| B．Where There Is Smoke There Is A Fire |
| C．Not All Forest Fires Are Created Equal |
| D．Why Not Keep The Forest Fire Burning |
4 . What do you think of 80s pop music? Do the names George Michael, Madonna and Michael Jackson sound familiar? Well, these are just some of the names that were well-known in the music scene of the 80s and early 90s. The 80s pop music scene was an important step to the popularity (普及) of present-day music. A new wave in the music scene was introduced, which made such music styles as punk rock, rap music and the MTV popular. Although it was an end to the old 60s and 70s styles, it was also the beginning of something big. The popularity of music videos meant that artists now replaced their guitar-based music with visual displays. A new wave of artists came on the scene and the entire industry developed quickly.
The most famous 80s pop music video is Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Introduced in 1982, few people can forget the video not only because of its never-be-foreseen images, but also because of the popularity it received. Think of how 80s pop music changed the lives of people who grew up in the 80s. Ask a young man today to tell you the names of the “New Kids on the Block” and he will start talking about the neighbor kids who just moved in. These are not the answers you might have heard in the 80s. Though today’s young men do not recognize how cool 80s pop music was, most people will always remember it for what it was and these are happy memories they will always love.
Some of the 80s pop music legends (传奇人物) include Madonna, U2, AeroSmith and of course the King of Pop Michael Jackson. Let’s not forget Prince, Tina Turner, Phil Collins and Motown’s Lionel Ritchie. Some of these musicians played music that has stood the test of time. Undoubtedly, the 80s pop music scene will live on for many more years to come.
1. What is the text mainly about?| A．The characters of 80s pop music. | B．What made 80s pop music popular. |
| C．80s pop music’s steps to popularity. | D．The effects of 80s pop music. |
| A．guitar-based music | B．the MTV | C．rap music | D．punk rock |
| A．it changed the lives of people | B．he sang it in a special style |
| C．it was made into a music video | D．it left people with happy memories |
| A．80s pop music is and will remain popular | B．80s pop music has many faults |
| C．80s pop music is now out of date | D．we shouldn’t forget the great musicians of the 80s |
5 . It’s time for bed, the lights are out, and yet you’re wide awake. You do eventually manage to fall asleep, but even then, it’s a very shallow, restless sort of sleep.
Now more research suggests you needn’t look further than outside your window and at the moon for the cause of this sleeplessness. However, in a surprising twist, the findings weren’t entirely what the researchers expected. While we know that humans are a species ruled by light, the “lunar phase effect” (月相效应) affects sleep even when artificial sources of light are accounted for.
Rather than people staying up later and sleeping less during the full moon, it was just before the full moon that sleep was shorter and lighter. “It turns out that the nights before the full moon are the ones that have most of the moonlight during the first half of the night,” said Horacio Iglesia, a professor of biology at the University of Washington in The Guardian. The opposite was true just before the new moon — people tended to sleep more and go to bed earlier.
Ninety-eight participants across three Indigenous communities in Argentina wore wrist monitors tracking sleep patterns over the course of one to two months. While one community had no access to electricity, the second community had limited access, and the third community was located in an urban setting with full access to electricity.
The study also found that this lunar phase effect on sleep also appeared to have greater impact on people who had more limited access to electricity. In every community, participants’ peak (高峰) sleepless period occurred in the three to five days leading up to the full moon night, while the opposite was true for the new moon, the study authors found.
Wanting further insight, the researchers compared their data to the results of a similar study of 464 Seattle-based students at the University of Washington. The findings proved consistent.
This research supports the view that try as we may, we can’t ever fully get away from some forces of nature.
1. What makes it hard for people to fall asleep?| A．Visual distance. | B．Faded light. |
| C．Artificial light. | D．Bright moonlight. |
| A．Before the full moon. | B．During the full moon. |
| C．Before the new moon. | D．During the new moon. |
| A．The third community slept least during the new moon. |
| B．Lunar phase effect affected the first community more. |
| C．Peak sleepless period often happened at the same night |
| D．The result of the research differed from previous ones. |
| A．Shallow Sleep Does Harm to Health | B．The Moon Affects Our Sleep Cycles |
| C．People Live in Harmony with Nature | D．Sleep Patterns Differ from Each Other |
6 . Every day, it seems that some new algorithm (算法) enables computers to diagnose a disease with unprecedented accuracy, renewing predictions that computer's will soon replace doctors. What if computers could replace patients as well? If virtual humans could have replaced real people in some stages of a coronavirus vaccine trial, it could have sped development of a preventive tool and slowed down the pandemic. Similarly, potential vaccines that weren't likely to work could have been identified early, reducing trial costs and avoiding testing poor vaccine candidates on living volunteers. These are some of the benefits of “in silico medicine”, or the testing of drugs and treatments on virtual organs or body systems to predict how a real person will respond to the therapies.
The modeling begins by feeding anatomical data drawn from noninvasive (非侵入式) high- resolution imaging of an individual's actual organ into a complex mathematical model of the mechanisms that govern that organ's function. Algorithms running on powerful computers resolve the resulting equations and unknowns, generating a virtual organ that looks and behaves like the real thing.
In silico clinical trials are already underway to an extent. Heart Flow Analysis, for instance, enables clinicians to identify CAD (冠心病) based on CT images of a patient's heart. The Heart Flow system uses these images to construct a fluid dynamic model of the blood running through the coronary blood vessels, thereby identifying abnormal conditions and their severity. Without this technology, doctors would need to perform an invasive operation to decide whether and how to intervene. Experimenting on digital models of individual patients can also help personalize therapy for any number of conditions and is already used in diabetes care.
The philosophy behind in silico medicine is not new. The ability to create and simulate the performance of an object under hundreds of operating conditions has been a cornerstone of engineering for decades, such as for designing electronic circuits, airplanes and buildings. Various obstacles remain to its widespread implementation in medical research and development.
The predictive power and reliability of this technology must be confirmed, and that will require several advances. Those include the generation of high quality medical databases from a large, ethnically diverse patient base that has both women and men; improvement of mathematical models to account for the many interacting processes in the body; and further modification of Al methods that were developed mainly for computer-based speech and image recognition and need to be extended to provide biological insights.
In recent years American and European regulators have approved some commercial uses of computer-based diagnostics, but meeting regulatory demands requires considerable time and money. Creating demand for these computer-based diagnostic tools is challenging as well. In silico medicine must be able to deliver cost-effective value for patients, clinicians and health care organizations to accelerate their adoption of the technology.
1. According to the text, “in silico medicine” might help ________.| A．discover the cause of an illness |
| B．quicken the creation of new medicine |
| C．recognize the symptoms of a disease earlier |
| D．avoid including unhealthy volunteers in trials |
| A．works effectively in CAD treatment |
| B．offers personalized therapies to patients |
| C．reduces the chances of invasive operations |
| D．builds models after identifying abnormal conditions |
| A．money and time from the regulators |
| B．replacement of old mathematical models |
| C．more proof of its effectiveness and dependability |
| D．progress in speech and image recognition technology |
| A．Looking to Al to End Experimental Study |
| B．In Silico Medicine Saved Millions of Lives |
| C．Exploring the Future of Algorithm in Medicine |
| D．Virtual Patients Could Revolutionize Medicine |
7 . The Rise of Voice Technology
Voice technology has come a long way. Just a few years ago, it would have been unusable. But now, those who follow the technology know that it has got considerably better.
Writing with your voice raises several interesting questions. How difficult is it actually? Human speech involves a lot more starting and stopping with errors and the need for repairing broken sentences than you may think. Even gifted speakers make mistakes. To turn the spoken word into reasonable writing requires lots of planning. You’ll need some kinds of notes or other organisers to make it work.
Another question turning speech into writing raises is the style. How would writing make the change that people speak their writing rather than type? Chances are that it would come up with many more short sentences and more concrete language, which is good. It would probably also rely on prepared phrases a lot more often, which is not available when you are speaking quickly.
To confirm this, a column was not written, but dictated (听写). It was composed from brief notes written down for structure only, and it was edited for length, with all of the original errors kept in. Here were the results. The first was that the literal accuracy was extremely high. There weren’t many cases where the software had heard one word incorrectly and written down another. But the other result was that the readability of this column was rather bad. Obviously, the blame is not with the technology at all, which turns out to be rather good. Speaking into writing relies on a better human brain than the one we currently possess. Writing is hard. There’s a reason it can’t be done at the speed of speech, in real time.
To clarify the matter, this time paragraph breaks were added after the whole writing. Punctuations (标点) had to be spoken aloud, and after a full stop, the first word in the new sentence was capitalized automatically. Some minor punctuation marks were added to make it clearer. To improve accuracy, people “trained” the software beforehand, reading a prewritten passage aloud. Actually it turns out to be more effective. All of these ensure the satisfactory completion of turning speech into writing.
Language is the most important tool for human interaction, and voice is one beautiful part of language. With the maturity of modern technology, it has given birth to a great change in the human-computer voice interaction.
1. According to the passage, which helps to turn speech into writing in terms of style?| A．There is careful planning in advance. |
| B．Errors and broken sentences are avoided. |
| C．People type words as fast as they say them. |
| D．The writing contains more prepared phrases. |
| A．processing errors in a column. |
| B．adding minor punctuation marks. |
| C．increasing the number of brief notes. |
| D．integrating short paragraphs in writing. |
| A．human brains are responsible for poor dictated writing. |
| B．writing with voice promises to improve the quality of writing. |
| C．writing is an unnatural act that can hardly be learned and improved. |
| D．technology has a long way to go in the human-computer voice interaction. |
| A．Why people fully intend to turn speech into writing. |
| B．What role voice technology plays in improving readability. |
| C．Where the human-computer voice interaction is at an advantage. |
| D．How voice technology enables the change from speech into writing. |
8 . What defines (定义) a generation? Often, experts say, members of a generation are defined by the events that shaped their lives as young adults.
“World events like wars, pandemics (大流行病) and racial unrest can be especially formative,” says Meg Jay, a psychologist and author of “The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter — and How to Make the Most of Them Now”. Because our 20s are often when we have our first jobs and first relationships and first moves and first real-world experiences, these big events become important parts of our life stories.
In 2020, it was a pandemic.
For the last three months of 2020, the Monitor followed twelve 2l-year-olds from around the world. We wanted to understand how this global health crisis is encoding itself in the cultural DNA of a generation coming of age in its shadow. Their lives and circumstances as they rolled into 2021 varied wildly. But the lives of the 2l-year-olds we met had many obvious similarities. Separately, for instance, the internet was their collective lifeline to the world. In Mexico, an art student isolating in her family home posted a daily piece of art to Instagram to remind herself that time had not stopped altogether. In Germany, a labor organizer negotiated contracts and planned strikes via Zoom.
By the end of 2020, many of the world’s 21-year-olds had lost jobs; others wondered if they’d ever find one. In the U. S, youth unemployment doubled between July 2019 and July 2020. Also, the pandemic opened fault lines, and stressed old ones. In India, Jordan, and South Africa, our 21-year-olds wondered how they’d collect enough money for mobile data for online studies. In Mexico, Canada, and Germany, 21-year-olds reflected on loneliness as a privilege — that they were alone because they could isolate, their lives not dependent on doing otherwise.
We found a generation suspended (悬停) between the world they’d grown up in and uncertain arrival of their future.
1. According to Meg Jay, what determines the future of the people in their twenties?| A．Their fundamental changes of working circumstances. |
| B．Their great efforts of coping with uncertainties in life. |
| C．Their first experiences of the major events then. |
| D．Their deep reflections on the attitudes to life. |
| A．Significant employment challenges. | B．Potential social problems. |
| C．Special individual privileges. | D．Global health crises. |
| A．Approving. | B．Negative. | C．Critical. | D．Concerned. |
| A．The World Children Have Grown up in Defines a Generation |
| B．A Young Generation Was Suspended But Ready to Start |
| C．A Great Pandemic Has Brought Various Global Crises |
| D．World Events Changed the Lives of Young Adults |
9 . Until now, scientists haven’t been able to study the new rock on the moon.The new samples from Chang’e 5 will change this. They’re from near Mons Rümker, a volcanic mountain where the rock is thought to be much younger-- about 1 billion years old.
There are a lot of reasons scientists are eager to study this younger rock, one of which is that it could help us more precisely date not only the moon, but many rocky planets and other objects.
Here’s how that works: Scientists date lunar rock by using something called a chronology curve（年代学曲线）, says Jollliff, a scientists at Washington University in St. Louis. Basically, they estimate the age of the rock by counting the number of craters（火山口） in the area the rock comes from; those increase as objects strike the rock over time. To make this estimation, scientists need to match the number of craters to a precise age. Right now, they only have data points for lunar rock that is 3 to billion years old. Modern techniques can date the new sample extremely accurately, and once scientists know its precise age, they can add a valuable data point to their chronology curve. The dating system will also help us more accurately estimate the age of all sorts of objects in space, like rocky planets and other moons.
Another reason scientists are keen to study this young volcanic rock is to find out more about how volcanism works on the moon. Jollliff says that it’s unclear why there was volcanic activity on the moon for such a long period of time. Most of the moon; s volcanic activity, he says, is thought to have occurred 3 or 4 billion years ago, when the moon was still pretty young. But since the moon does not have plate structure, which drives volcanism on Earth, it’s unclear what could have caused much later volcanic activity. “That’s something that you can find out of the samples by studying them in the lab,” Jollliff says.
1. What does the underlined word “this” in paragraph 1 refer to?| A．The fact of being unable to study the new rock. |
| B．The new rock from near Mons Rümker. |
| C．One of the reasons to study the moon;s new rock. |
| D．The study of the moon’s younger rock. |
| A．ensure there was volcanic activity on the moon. |
| B．more precisely date only the moon. |
| C．date lunar rock by using a chronology curve. |
| D．explore how volcanism works on the moon. |
| A．Scientistsare keen to study this young volcanic rock. |
| B．Scientists can’t know why volcanic activity exists on the moon. |
| C．The moon’s volcanic activity occurred 3 or 4 billion years ago. |
| D．It’s clear what could have caused much later volcanic activity. |
| A．How scientists study the younger rock. |
| B．Why the research is important. |
| C．Why the younger rock is worth studying. |
| D．What scientists do to study the younger rock. |
10 . It is widely believed that smiling means a person is happy, and it usually occurs when they're meeting another person or a group of people. However, a new study led by the body language expert Dr Harry Witchel shows this isn't always the case.
In his research, he asked 44 participants aged 18—35 to play a geography quiz game consisting of nine difficult questions so that they often got the answer wrong. Participants seated interacted with a computer alone in a room while their faces were video recorded.
After the quiz, the participants were asked to rate their experience using a range of 12 emotions including “bored”, “interested” and “frustrated”. Meanwhile, their facial expressions were then computer analysed frame by frame in order to judge how much they were smiling based on a scale of between 0 to 1.
Dr Witchel said: “According to some researchers, a real smile reflects the inner state of cheerfulness or amusement. However, behavioral ecology theory suggests that all smiles are tools used in social interactions, meaning cheerfulness is neither necessary nor rich for smiling. Our study showed that in these humancomputer interaction experiments, smiling isn't driven by happiness; it is associated with subjective involvement(主观参与) , which acts like a social fuel for smiling, even when socialising with a computer on your own.”
Surprisingly, participants didn't tend to smile during the period when they were trying to figure out the answers. However, they did smile right after the computer game informed them if their answer was correct or wrong. Participants smiled more often when they got the answer wrong. Dr Witched added: “During these computerised quizzes, smiling was greatly increased just after answering questions incorrectly.This behaviour could be explained by selfratings of involvement, rather than by ratings of happiness or frustration.”
1. Why did Dr Witchel use difficult questions in the quiz game?| A．To make it hard for participants to answer them correctly. |
| B．To make the answer period last as long as possible. |
| C．To discover the most intelligent participants. |
| D．To create a stressful situation for participants deliberately. |
| A．Other researchers' opinion of a real smile is quite right. |
| B．Smiles aren't necessarily useful tools in social interactions. |
| C．Subjective involvement doesn't motivate smiling in social interactions. |
| D．Witchel's study finding is consistent with behavioural ecology theory. |
| A．Participants were asked to interact with each other in the quiz. |
| B．Participants in the quiz smiled less often when they got the answer wrong. |
| C．In Dr Witchel's opinion, smiling is connected with subjective involvement. |
| D．Dr Witchel thinks that a real smile reflects the inner state of cheerfulness. |
| A．What Contributes to Real Happiness? |
| B．How to Identify Whether a Person Is Really Happy? |
| C．Smiling Doesn't Necessarily Mean Happiness. |
| D．People Generally Hold a Wrong View on Happiness. |
