1 . As we all know, insects can be remarkably agile (灵活的) in flight. This is really hard to build into flying robots, but MIT Assistant Professor Kevin Yufeng Chen has developed an insect-sized drone (无人机) that approaches insects’ agility.
Typically, drones require wide open spaces. “If we look at most drones today, they’re usually quite big,” says Chen. “Most of their applications involve flying outdoors. The question is: Can you create an insect-sized drone that can move around in very crowded and complex spaces?”
According to Chen, he overcame many problems when building the drone. The insect-sized drone requires a fundamentally different construction from a larger one. The large drone is usually powered by a motor, but the motor loses efficiency as you shrink it. So, Chen says, “For an insect-sized drone, you need to look for alternatives.” The principal alternative until now has been employing a small, rigid actuator (执行器) built from new materials. Chen designed a more agile tiny drone using soft actuators instead of hard ones.
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1. What can we know about the actuator designed by Chen?| A．It weighs about six grams. |
| B．It drives the insect-sized drone. |
| C．It loses efficiency too much. |
| D．It employs conventional materials. |
2 . Eighteen-year-old David Aguilar from Andorra was born without a right forearm due to a rare genetic condition but that has never stopped him from doing anything he wanted to do including typing on a computer with his partial arm.
Like most kids, David was a LEGO fan and he loved building cars, boats, planes, and motorbikes. But David also knew that he looked different and wanted to do something about it. “As a child I was very nervous to be in front of other guys, because I was different, but that didn’t stop me believing in my dreams,” David said. “I wanted to... see myself in the mirror like I see other guys, with two hands.”
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David plans to create affordable prosthetics for people who need them, saying, “I would try to give them a prosthetic, even if it’s for free, to make them feel like a normal person.”
1. How did David feel when standing in front of other kids?| A．Anxious. | B．Natural. | C．Confident. | D．Frightened. |
| A．To be an expert in building LEGO. | B．To become rich by selling prosthetic arms. |
| C．To offer disabled people cheaper prosthetics. | D．To start a company hiring more disabled people. |
3 . People trained to detect lies often rely on multiple signs, such as eye contact, length of responses and the details in what people say, but studies have shown that assessing a wide range of behavioural information can make it harder to decide if someone is lying. Bruno Verschuere at the University of Amsterdam and his colleagues wondered whether solely focusing on the detail of statements could provide more consistent results.
To test this idea, researchers asked 44 students to go for a walk or steal from a mock (模仿的) crime. Students were instructed to lie if they committed the fake theft.
Next, the researchers recruited 171 people to watch six truthful and six deceptive (欺骗的) interviews from these recordings, ranking interviewees’ eye contact and detail level. The results revealed that both truth-tellers and liars averted (转移) their gaze a similar amount, but truthful statements were substantially more detailed than deceptive ones, suggesting the latter is a more useful way to tell that someone is lying.
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1. Bruno Verschuere and his colleagues conducted the research to confirm that ________.| A．behavioral information played a vital role in finding out the truth |
| B．people should be trained to detect lies by referring to multiple cues |
| C．truthtellers and liars shared something in common when performing the task |
| D．it’s relatively easier to identify liars by relying only on the detail of statements |
| A．Liars turned away their eyes more often than truth-tellers. |
| B．Truthful statements included considerably more details than deceptive ones. |
| C．It’s difficult for participants to detect liars by using multiple cues like eye contact. |
| D．Participants who relied on one cue can distinguish lies from the truth faultlessly. |
4 . It isn’t easy to climb the Old Man of Hoy, one of the tallest in the United Kingdom. It is even more dangerous if you happen to be a blind climber, as Jesse Dufton is. The 34-year-old was born with a rare genetic disease (遗传病) that left him with less than 20 percent of his vision (视觉), which then kept dropping over the years. He chooses to climb, because it’s better than sitting at home feeling sorry for yourself, right? Climbing is not the most dangerous thing I do on an average day; crossing the road on the way to work is far more risky than Hoy.”
Dufton has been climbing mountains since childhood. As a skilled climber, his father would take him out at weekends. He was always physical then, always up for adventure. He played sports at school, though quickly grew frustrated (沮丧) with many of them. Badminton was a joke for someone like me, and even blind cricket — with a ball with a bell in it — annoyed me. “Instead he was attracted to climbing and skiing, and insists that climbing is one of the safer activities for a blind person to undertake. “True, you can’t see the handholds, or the footholds. You can’t see where the opportunities are, or where to place your hands and your gear (齿轮), so you just have to take it slowly. You search around until you can feel for something to hold onto, and then basically repeat the process over and over again. To keep calm in these situations helps.”
It was Jesse himself who made a documentary happen. He told the filmmaker Alistair Lee about his pastime, believing it might be worth capturing on film. I realized my story was quite unusual,” he says, adding that he felt almost duty-bound to share it. If somebody like me watches it, and they find it inspirational, then it wouldn’t be right for me to keep that from them, wouldn’t it?”
1. What is more dangerous in Jesse Dufton’s eyes?| A．Losing eyesight gradually. | B．Daily routines in his life. |
| C．Climbing the Old Man of Hoy. | D．Staying at home all day. |
| A．show his unique talent for climbing |
| B．inspire more people with disability |
| C．give credit to the brave climbers |
| D．educate people about risky sports |
5 . Explore Central Park, one of the largest city parks in the world and one of the most famous symbols of New York. Let’s have a look at its main sights.
Central Park is New York’s largest city park and one of the biggest in the world, with an area of 843 acres (about 3.4km2). This park is home to man-made lakes, waterfalls, grass and wooded areas. You will also find the Central Park Zoo, among other attractions in this greenspace of New York.
Besides being the city’s primary green lungs, Central Park is also a favorite spot for many New Yorkers. It is perfect for sunbathing, going for walks, or doing any outdoor sports. Something that we found curious is seeing so many people running with their babies in prams (婴儿车).
What can we learn about the Central Park from the text?| A．It is home to lakes and waterfalls. |
| B．It is perfect for doing outdoor sports. |
| C．It is the largest city park in the world. |
| D．It is the most famous symbol of New York. |
6 . Animal studies have demonstrated the strong impact of a male mammal’s nutritional history on its offspring (后代). For instance, male rats that experience starvation before mating produce offspring with altered blood sugar levels and changes in hormones like corticosterone (which helps fight stress) and insulin-like growth factor (which aids in baby development).
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Increasingly, biology reveals that a person’s health and well-being significantly impact the health and happiness of their future children. It is not solely because a tough man is more likely to be a great father or due to his genetic makeup. Regardless of a person’s inherited characteristics, the lifestyle choices they make throughout their life, even before considering parenthood, will have a lasting impact on their children’s physical and mental well-being.
What can be learned from the passage?| A．A strong male is likely to leave more offspring behind. |
| B．The lifestyle a male has chosen affects not only himself but also his children. |
| C．A healthy male usually gets the best genes to pass along to his future generations. |
| D．It is unlikely that a happy male will develop anxiety and depression. |
7 . In recent years, the psychologically rich life has been receiving greater research attention. It is full of strong emotions, both positive and negative, and new and interesting experiences. They are, however, seldom boring or dull.
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These findings suggest that while most people do struggle to be happy and have meaning and purpose in their lives, a sizable number of people are content only living a psychologically rich life. Indeed, other new research suggests that for a lot of people, the intensity (强度) of the experience matters more than only how “positive” or “negative” it was. As Oishi and his colleagues conclude, “we believe that taking the psychologically rich life seriously will deepen, broaden and enrich our understanding of well-being.”
At the end of the day, there is no one acceptable path to the good life. You have to find a path that works best for you. As Nietzsche put it: “No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life. There may be countless bridges but there is one path in the world that none can walk but you. Where does it lead? Don’t ask, walk!”
1. According to the passage, the psychologically rich life is _________.| A．full of meaning and purpose |
| B．nothing but different emotions |
| C．strong emotions and interesting experiences |
| D．all about being content with what you have |
| A．the psychologically rich life is the best one |
| B．more people prefer to live a psychologically rich life |
| C．there is no difference between,’ positive’ and ‘negative’ experience |
| D．studying psychological richness helps to understand well-being better |
8 . In Saskatchewan, Canada, vegetables have a short growing season. So a very unique farm in Hudson Bay is growing fresh, pesticide-free vegetables in a hydroponic (水培的) farm all year long. There the plants are grown in water instead of soil.
Growing vegetables in the middle of nowhere, about 300 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon, may seem like a big risk, but there is no other place for people to get locally grown food. Produce is available in local supermarkets but it is trucked in from far away.
The idea to turn the no longer used Stewart Hawke school into a farm came to the Nels when Hudson Bay asked for bids (投标) for the building in 2018. It was empty and if an alternative use wasn’t found, it would be pulled down.”
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What did the farm use to be?| A．A supermarket | B．A school | C．A garden | D．A factory |
9 . Steven Stein likes to follow garbage trucks. His strange habit makes sense when you consider that he’s an environmental scientist who studies how to reduce litter, including things that fall off garbage trucks as they drive down the road. What is even more interesting is that one of Stein’s jobs is defending an industry behind the plastic shopping bags.
Americans use more than 100 billion thin film plastic bags every year. So many end up in tree branches or along highways that a growing number of cities do not allow them at checkouts (收银台). The bags are prohibited in some 90 cities in California, including Los Angeles. Eyeing these headwinds, plastic-bag makers are hiring scientists like Stein to make the case that their products are not as bad for the planet as most people assume.
Among the bag makers’ argument: many cities with bans still allow shoppers to purchase paper bags, which are easily recycled but require more energy to produce and transport. And while plastic bags may be ugly to look at, they represent a small percentage of all garbage on the ground today.
The industry has also taken aim at the product that has appeared as its replacement: reusable shopping bags. The stronger a reusable bag is, the longer its life and the more plastic-bag use it cancels out. However, longer-lasting reusable bags often require more energy to make. One study found that a cotton bag must be used at least 131 times to be better for the planet than plastic.
Environmentalists don’t dispute (质疑) these points. They hope paper bags will be banned someday too and want shoppers to use the same reusable bags for years.
What is a disadvantage of reusable bags according to plastic-bag makers?| A．They are quite expensive. |
| B．Replacing them can be difficult. |
| C．They are less strong than plastic bags. |
| D．Producing them requires more energy. |
10 . Teens and younger children are reading a lot less for fun, according to a Common Sense Media report published Monday.
While the decline over the past decade is steep for teen readers, some data in the report shows that reading remains a big part of many children’s lives, and indicates how parents might help encourage more reading.
According to the report’s key findings, “the proportion (比例) who say they ‘hardly ever’ read for fun has gone from 8 percent of 13-year-olds and 9 percent of 17-year-olds in 1984 to 22 percent and 27 percent respectively today.”
The report data shows that pleasure reading levels for younger children, ages 2—8, remain largely the same. But the amount of time spent in reading each session has declined, from closer to an hour or more to closer to a half hour per session.
When it comes to technology and reading, the report does little to counsel (建议) parents looking for data about the effect of e-readers and tablets on reading. It does point out that many parents still limit electronic reading, mainly due to concerns about increased screen time.
The most hopeful data shared in the report shows clear evidence of parents serving as examples and important guides for their kids when it comes to reading. Data shows that kids and teens who do read frequently, compared to infrequent readers, have more books in the home, more books purchased for them, parents who read more often, and parents who set aside time for them to read.
As the end of school approaches, and school vacation reading lists loom (逼近) ahead, parents might take this chance to step in and make their own summer reading list and plan a family trip to the library or bookstore.
How should parents encourage their children to read more?| A．Act as role models for them. | B．Ask them to write book reports. |
| C．Set up reading groups for them. | D．Talk with their reading class teachers. |
