1 . In the past, most libraries didn’t focus much on programs for kids whose age made it impossible for them to be quiet on demand. But growing knowledge about the importance of kids and teens learning through hands-on experiences has since caused a sea change in how libraries connect with young readers. Now libraries begin offering interactive programs for kids, including crafts, board games, and story times. These types of programs certainly aren’t designed to be silent.
What is paragraph 3 mainly about?| A．The past and the present of libraries. | B．The reason for the change of libraries. |
| C．The activities for young children in libraries. | D．The connection between libraries and readers. |
2 . The connection between people and plants has long been the subject of scientific research. Recent studies have found positive effects. A study conducted in Youngstown，Ohio，for example, discovered that greener areas of the city experienced less crime. In another, employees were shown to be 15% more productive when their workplaces were decorated with houseplants.
What is the first paragraph mainly about?
| A．A new study of different plants. | B．A big fall in crime rates. |
| C．Employees from various workplaces. | D．Benefits from green plants. |
3 . A small bowl bought at a yard sale in Connecticut for just $ 35 has been identified as a rare 15th-century Chinese antique.
The blue-and-white bowl was made by China's royal court during the Ming dynasty. It is now expected to sell for up to $500,000, according to Sotheby's auction(拍卖)house in New York, where the auction will take place next month.
The purchase was made last year near New Haven, Connecticut. “I was just hanging around there aimlessly. But when I saw this bowl, I didn't even bargain over the $35 asking price,” the owner said. Shortly after the purchase, he sent photos of the bowl to auction specialists, who identified it as an item of historical significance.
Upon closer inspection, the artifact was found to have originated from the period of Yongle Emperor, who ruled from 1403 to 1424 - a period noted for its distinctive porcelain (瓷器)techniques. It's now valued between $300,000 and $500,000, with the top estimate nearly 14,300 times the amount it was purchased for.
“I was deeply attracted by the techniques. You can see why this bowl is so highly-valued from the very smooth porcelain body, silky glaze(上釉)and special blue coloring, which were never reproduced in later dynasties,” McAteer, an auction specialist, said.
“The Yongle Emperor improved the porcelain techniques and elevated the importance of porcelain from being an ordinary bowl into a true work of art. This small bowl has both practical and artistic value, ”McAteer said.
1. What can we infer about the bowl's owner?| A．He found the bowl by accident. |
| B．He hesitated during the purchase. |
| C．He doubted whether the bowl was real. |
| D．He bought the bowl because it was cheap. |
| A．The blue color on it. | B．The long history it has. |
| C．The people who made it. | D．The unique techniques used. |
| A．Forsaw. | B．Promoted. |
| C．Assessed. | D．Acknowledged. |
| A．An Amazing Bowl | B．A Special Yard Sale |
| C．The Return of Porcelains | D．A Man Making Fortune |
4 . 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 |
5 . It might seem strange to be making predictions about 2021, but one thing is clear: technology has been affected just as much as every other part of our lives. Another clear thing is that today’s most important technology trends will play a big part in helping us deal with and adapt to the many challenges facing us. From the shift to working from home to new rules about how we meet and interact in public spaces, technology trends will be the driving force in managing the change.
One of the major technology trends that are likely to play out this year is 5G and enhanced connectivity. Each successive advance in mobile connectivity from 3G onwards has unlocked new use cases for the Internet. 3G made web browsing and data-driven services useful on mobile devices, 4G led to the growth of streaming video and music platforms as bandwidths (宽带) increased, and 5G, similarly, will open more doors in terms of what is possible.
5G means that services relying on advanced technologies such as augmented (增强的) reality and virtual reality, as well as cloud-based gaming platforms like Google’s Stadia, become a practical thing, anywhere at any time. They also threaten to make cable and fiber-based (光纤) networks redundant, with their need for us to be tied to a particular location.
In short, 5G and other advanced, high-speed networks make other new technologies available anywhere, any time. A great example is Norwegian fishery operator Salmar that uses a 5G network to automate the care and feeding of its fish. Image recognition algorithms (算法) are used to detect which fish are over or under-feeding, and automatically distribute food and medicine needed to keep them healthy. Initiatives like this will become increasingly important during 2021, where businesses look to increase automation across their workforces.
1. Which of the following is highly influenced by 5G technology?| A．Data-driven services. | B．Streaming video. |
| C．Music platforms. | D．Google’s Stadia. |
| A．Useful. | B．Unnecessary. | C．Expensive. | D．Special. |
| A．To show the development of Norwegian fishery. |
| B．To explain how to keep fish healthy. |
| C．To present the application of 5G technology. |
| D．To propose new initiatives for businesses. |
| A．Different predictions of technology trends. |
| B．Successive advances in mobile technology. |
| C．One of the technological highlights of the year. |
| D．The driving force in managing changes. |
6 . When you hear the beginning of your favorite song from the radio, suddenly your neck is covered in goose bumps.
It's such a thing that a group of scientists call “skin excitement”—a feeling of cold caused not by a drop in temperature or sudden scare, but by the sense of beauty. “Skin excitement” can come from a song, a painting, a moving movie scene, or even a beloved memory-pretty much anything that causes the giving out of pleasure-soaked dopamine in your brain. But it does not come for all of us.
Your favorite music uncovers a lot about your personality，and so does how you respond to that music. Studies suppose that as few as 55 percent of people experience “skin excitement” when listening to music. And if you count yourself among this group, the goose bumps on your skin aren't the only giveaway—scientists can read it in your brain, too. In a new study published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Harvard researchers performed brain scans on 10 students who said they reliably got cold when listening to music, and 10 students who didn't. They found that the cold-prone brains may really be excited by stronger emotions.
Cold-prone brains are generally more likely to show stronger emotional intelligence than no-cold brains. Cold-prone minds tend to have unusual active imagination, reflect more deeply on their emotions, and appreciate nature and the beauty of music and art to a stronger degree than no-cold brains.
So, what type of music causes the chills? It seems that the type is not so important; participants in the new study reported getting cold from songs of every kind. And any song connected with a strong emotional memory of the listener can produce the most reliable results. For me, that's the song Sailing to Philadelphia by Mark Knopfler, which I listened to as a kid in the car with my dad, on the way to the summer camp.
1. What can we learn about “skin excitement” in the text?| A．It helps to produce doparmine. | B．It is caused by the pain in the skin. |
| C．It can be experienced by every music listener. | D．It is the human body's reaction to something nice. |
| A．The percentage of music lovers in students. |
| B．The solutions to the goose bumps on one's skin. |
| C．The differences between cold-prone and no-cold brains. |
| D．The relationship between one's music preference and personality. |
| A．Beautiful and intelligent. | B．Emotional and dishonest. |
| C．Imaginative and sensitive. | D．Brave and strong-minded. |
| A．Responses to Music Vary among People | B．A Feeling of Cold Is Caused by Horrible Music |
| C．Your Favorite Music Reveals Your Personality | D．Favorite Music May Bring Forth Goose Bumps |
7 . “Human activity has wiped out two-thirds of the world’s wildlife since 1970,” CNN reported on September 10, 2020. Later that month, the Guardian reported that “40 percent of the world’s plant species are at risk of extinction”. Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich and his colleagues argued that “the ongoing sixth mass extinction may be the most serious environmental threat to the persistence of civilization”. Around the same time, the Daily Mail warned that “human civilization stands a 90 percent chance of collapse within decades due to deforestation”.
These horrible calculations and projections come from authoritative-sounding reports issued by international agencies, conservation groups, and peer-reviewed scientific journals. But is the future of wild nature and human civilization really so poor?
Data from uncontroversial mainstream sources strongly indicate that both humanity and the natural world are likely to be flourishing rather than collapsing at the end of this century. Humanity is becoming an urban species, and that’s good for the environment, since urban dwellers generally use less electricity, produce less globe-warming carbon dioxide, and have smaller land footprints than people living in the countryside. By 2100, it is estimated that 85 percent of people will be city dwellers, which would leave only 1.2 billion still living in the countryside. That means more space for the wildlife and less pollution from the agriculture.
The global tree-covering area increased by 865,000 square miles between 1982 and 2016. The researchers found that gains in forest area in the mild, subtropical and northern climatic zones are offsetting declines in the tropics. The Maryland researchers owe much of that increase to “natural afforestation on abandoned agricultural land”. “Furthermore, forests in mountainous regions are expanding as climate warming enables trees to grow at higher altitudes,” they added.
Humanity does face big environmental challenges in the coming century. But the scientific and economic evidence shows that most of the trends are positive or can be turned in positive direction by human wisdom. Rather than an age of extinction, the 21st century promises to be an era of environmental renewal.
1. Why does the author mention the reports in Paragraph 1?| A．To give examples. | B．To introduce the topic. |
| C．To make a contrast. | D．To support his opinion. |
| A．No one will choose to live in the countryside. |
| B．More space will be available for the wildlife. |
| C．Neither humanity nor the natural world will develop quickly. |
| D．Urban residents will do more walking than those in the countryside. |
| A．The expanding and disappearance in forest area aren’t evenly matched. |
| B．The forest area in the mild, tropic and northern zones is increasing. |
| C．There are more forests in mountainous regions due to the climate warming. |
| D．The plan of “natural afforestation on abandoned agricultural land” is unfavorable. |
| A．The Bright Future of Humanity |
| B．The Challenges in the Coming Century |
| C．Better Environment, Better Future of Human |
| D．21st Century: An Era of Environmental Renewal |
8 . The phrase “Keeping up with the Joneses" has been an American saying for decades, likely coming from a picture book, which describes a family in a constant straggle to achieve the social status of their neighbors, the Joneses. While the picture book is long gone, the saying remains and the phenomenon still exists.
The Joneses are everywhere, living a successful and wealthy life. Their skin is beautiful, their body is perfect, and they have much money. They have the good house, pets, smart children and they seem never to struggle. For people, the Joneses take the form of a particular family and they regard the Joneses as a description of perfection.
We tell ourselves constantly if we could become someone just like our neighbors, we would be happy. However, as we compare ourselves with others, we notice the deep pain that these comparisons bring about. Well then, what do we do about the Joneses? We should remind ourselves nobody is perfect and perfection is an illusion. So we should train our brains to question or change the distorted (歪曲的) ways of thinking, and see the big picture.
While the methods above do help us see others more clearly, the methods alone won't solve the problem. Moving away from comparison means turning inward to address our insecurities and inviting more mercy. From there, we can honestly begin to notice what we want for ourselves and work to reach those goals. That, finally, is the road to a peaceful mind.
As we move away from the comparative model of judging worth and stop seeing others, success as a treat, we can even feel glad that the Joneses have meaningful careers. We can hope their marriage is happy, their bank account is full, and that their children are successful. We can hope good things happen to the Joneses.
1. What does Paragraph 2 mainly talk about?| A．How "the Joneses" live. |
| B．What your neighbors have. |
| C．Why "the Joneses" are perfect. |
| D．How your neighbors affect you. |
| A．Being grateful to life. | B．Understanding others. |
| C．Gaining peace of mind. | D．Being close to perfection. |
| A．Follow our neighbors. | B．Avoid perfect people. |
| C．Show our love to other people. | D．Treat others with a normal attitude. |
| A．How Do We Become Perfect? |
| B．Should We Keep up with the Joneses? |
| C．How Should We Get on with Neighbors? |
| D．Does the Phenomenon of Comparison Exist? |
9 . Here on Earth where most of us live, we spend about a third of everyday lying down sleeping and two-thirds standing or sitting in an upright position.
That's not really how it goes in space when people are weightless and the zero gravity environment causes more liquid to shift to the head. Faces get swollen, legs lose volume and appear to be smaller. Many astronauts have complained of eye and back problems after coming back down to Earth and its gravity.
And now scientists say they have discovered some new risks with long-term space flight. A study published recently in JAMA Network Open, a medical journal, examined 11 healthy astronauts who had been on the International Space Station for six months. Eight of them had unusual characteristics observed in their blood. For instance, six of the astronauts had reverse （反向的）blood flow from their heads.
The lead author of the study says he doesn't know if that's actually harmful. The blood is still leaving the head from other pathways, so flowing backwards through a jugular vein（颈静脉） may not be dangerous. But he says it does show a change in how blood moves through the body while in space.
Another issue the study found was blood clots （凝块）. One astronaut had one. Another showed signs of a partial blood clot. That is potentially harmful as the clots can block the flow of blood to the lungs. The astronaut who had one was treated for the rest of the spaceflight and made it home safely.
What does all this mean? Well, one researcher says these issues have probably been oc- curring since humans first went into space and that they would likely resolve themselves when astronauts came back down to Earth. Knowing about them now gives doctors something else to monitor when people leave our atmosphere.
1. What causes the physical problems for astronauts?| A．Sleeping for a long time. | B．The zero gravity environment. |
| C．Staying in the spaceship. | D．The shift in their bodies. |
| A．Four. | B．Three. | C．Two. | D．One. |
| A．It is a common problem. | B．It is a new kind of disease. |
| C．It is a threat to people's health. | D．It was first found by astronauts. |
| A．Doctors have a new task for astronauts |
| B．Zero gravity stops astronauts flying in space |
| C．It's dangerous for astronauts to fly into space |
| D．New risks are found in long-term space flight |
10 . When you're struggling to finish a term paper, preparing a big presentation or studying for final exams, sleep might be the first thing you sacrifice so you have time to get all the work done. To make up for it , you might start drinking coffee to help you study late into the night. But there's bad news if you're trying to keep that kind of schedule for more than a couple of days.
"We were particularly surprised that the performance advantage invested by two daily 200-milligram doses (剂量)of caffeine was lost after lack of sleep for three nights, " lead author Tracy Jill Doty said in a statement. "These results are important, because caffeine is widely used to deal with performance decline following periods of lack of sleep. The data from this study suggests that the same effective daily dose of caffeine is unable to prevent performance decline over many days of lack of sleep. "
The sample size was very small (48 people), so we can't think everyone will respond the same way. Those 48 people slept five hours per night for five nights straight. They got a caffeine dose equal to a large cup of coffee around 8 am and another around 12 pm each day. For the first two days, the people who got caffeine were performing better on attention and reaction tests. But by the third day, the caffeine was no longer helping them perform any better than the people who didn't get any caffeine.
Increasing the caffeine dose may have changed that. "But the more caffeine you consume, the more negative side affects you feel," Doty said. "This work goes along with lots of other work showing that the negative effects of lacking sleep are difficult to overcome. This is true even with a heavy daily dose of caffeine.
1. Who will be the intended reader of the text?| A．Educators. | B．Students. |
| C．Adults. | D．Officials. |
| A．By listing examples. |
| B．By reasoning. |
| C．By analyzing results |
| D．By arguing |
| A．Caffeine fails to perform better over an extended time. |
| B．Increasing caffeine can promote one's performance. |
| C．Drinking too much coffee might lead to sleep loss. |
| D．Caffeine doesn't prevent performance decline at all. |
| A．Coffee: Sleep Loss. |
| B．Coffee: Performance Increase. |
| C．Enough Sleep Makes Coffee Work. |
| D．The More Coffee, the Worse Effects. |
