2 . Researchers found that sleep deprivation（剥夺）has something with overeating. They studied 17 healthy men and women for 11 days and nights in a lab, where researchers recorded their every movement and recorded everything they ate. That way, researchers could make calculations of how much energy the participants were taking in and how much they were burning off through activities.

After a three-day baseline period, one group was freely assigned to sleep and wake whenever they wanted for eight days, while another was woken up after only two-thirds of their usual sleep time—that amounted to about 80 minutes less sleep per night on average. The group that experienced such restricted sleep tended to eat more the following day, adding 549 extra calories to their usual diet, while those who slept as much as they wanted ate about the same on each of the eight experiment days as they did during the three-day baseline period.

The poorly sleeping group was likely to gain weight over the long term, if their sleep was continually restricted, since they didn't burn any more calories than their better sleeping counterparts. That may help explain why previous studies have found that shift workers who work at night and sleep during the day tend to gain more weight than day workers: their disturbed sleep pattern may enhance them to eat more while they don't expend any more energy to work off the added calories.

Therefore, it's important for people to remember that the relationship between sleep, eating and weight is a complex one. Getting a sufficient amount of sleep each night may play an important role in regulating how much we eat and how many calories we burn, and it may also help determine when we eat. Eating when we should be sleeping may increase the risk of weight gain, as the body is more likely to turn nighttime calories into fat rather than burning them off.

1. According to the researchers, there is a link between________.

A．sleep and health	B．sleep and activities
C．sleep and energy	D．sleep and overeating

2. People who are short of sleep may________.

A．eat less the following day	B．eat more the following day
C．wake earlier the following day	D．wake later the following day

3. The better sleeping people can________.

A．burn more calories	B．work at night
C．gain more weight	D．eat more than others

4. The author mainly wants to tell us that________.

A．the body can turn calories into fat at night

B．it is dangerous for people to gain weight

C．people should eat less to ensure a good sleep

D．people should pay attention to the relations between sleep, eating and weight

3 . Daphne Soares, a biologist, makes an amazing discovery about alligators. The first time she got really close to an alligator (短吻鳄) was when she was helping to bold down an eight-foot American alligator. It was then that she noticed is face was covered with little black spots. This led to the discovery of the little black dots.

She started her study of the black dots. When she read the books and scientific journals, she learned that people had noticed the dots, but no one really knew what the dots were for.

To find out the secret she placed electrodes (电极) on nerves coming from some of the dots. When the nerves fired, they sent a message to the brain and created a tiny electric current. Just then she heard a small sound over a loudspeaker. She tired to see if the dots acted like eyes and temperature sensors, but nothing worked.

One day she was careless with dropping a tool into an alligator’s tank. When she put her hand in the tank to get the tool out, she made small waves in the water. When they reached the alligator’s face, she heard a noise over the speaker. She then realized that the dots must be sensitive to the changes in pressure when hit by waves of water.

After that, she is now studying blind cavefish. She is trying to learn whether they are blind from birth or lose their sight as they grow up. She is also doing more research on crocodilians (鳄目). She wants to find out how the genes of alligators with pressure sensors only on their faces differ from the genes of crocodilians that have pressure sensors all over their body.

1. Why did Daphne Soares first get close to the alligator?

A．To observe its black dots.	B．To find the secret of its dots.
C．To help others to hold it up.	D．To prevent it from moving.

2. What happened when Daphne Soares first put electrodes on the nerves of some black dots?

A．A little noise was sent out.	B．An electric current created a message.
C．The nerves were on fire suddenly.	D．The nerves sensed temperature changes.

3. How did Daphne Soares first find the function of allogators’ black dots?

A．By experiment.	B．By reference.
C．By accident.	D．By comparison.

4. What can be inferred from the last paragraph?

A．Cavefish lose sight as they grow up.

B．Daphne Soares devotes her energy to research work.

C．Alligator’s genes are the same as crocodilian’s.

D．Daphne Soares discovered a new species of alligator.

4 . Research is done all the time and most of it goes straight by us, but sometimes we come across some results that are too interesting not to share. It can be fun to find out about new facts, but sometimes you come across things you’d rather not have known. Luckily, we’ve got some fun facts for you today! It turns out that your hand can tell you a lot about your personality. It’s really quite strange. This research mostly focuses on your fingers.

The secret lies in your ring finger and index finger（食指）. It can say a lot about what kind of man you are. Yes, this test only applies to men because the length of these fingers indicates the level of testosterone（睾酮）in men. There are three types: A, B and C.

A. The ring finger is longer than the index finger

We’re talking about handsome men here. They’re charming and can get along with everyone. Yet they are a little more aggressive and are quick to take risks. This also means that these people often make more money than their colleagues with a shorter ring finger.

B. The ring finger is shorter than the index finger

Men with these hands are very confident and can even be a little self-loving. These people have no trouble being alone often and don’t like being disturbed. When it comes to love, they do not take a risk out there a lot. They’re not the ones to make the first move.

C. The ring finger and index finger are the same lengths

Maybe this says enough already. Men with these hands are good mediators（调停者）, devoted and loving. Everything is balanced with these people. They’re calm and everything seems to run smoothly, as if it’s all organised.

1. Why does the author think the hands are strange?

A．We know nothing about them.	B．Both the hands are different.
C．They can let out the personality.	D．Some facts about them are fun.

2. What makes the research just apply to men?

A．The length of the fingers.	B．The existence of testosterone.
C．The ability to handle things.	D．The requirement of patience.

3. What is special about the men belonging to Type B?

A．They are attractive.	B．They are confident.
C．They are devoted.	D．They are aggressive.

4. What can be the best title for the text?

A．The new use of the fingers	B．The latest research into the hands
C．The three categories of the fingers	D．The secret of ring and index fingers

5 . Friday was "Chatty Bus day", an experiment aimed at getting people to talk to each other on public transport. This is not an idea that would appeal to those who commute in the rush hour, because there is a smaller distance within which it's just as uncomfortable to talk. Elbow(肘) room is a precondition for sociability. It is no coincidence that the first truly personal music player, the Sony Walkman, was invented in Japan where the commuter trains are literally crowded with people.

We will also not talk to strangers who are physically too far away, of course. No one wants to shout their small talk. Only on country buses or similar unhurried and uncrowded forms of public transport can people reach out to their neighbors, confident that they are doing so from a position of strength and autonomy.

For all these drawbacks, the idea of talking to strangers is still a good one, and the promotion of sociability is good for society. Although it does seem to be a general rule that people are friendlier the fewer there are of them and more hostile and indifferent as cities get more crowded, there are still considerable cultural variations. And there is evidence that friendlier places are also healthier, and their inhabitants happier.

It is true that the apparent loneliness of many people on public transport is a false impression.

Many will be caught up with conversations with distant friends on their phones; some will be talking to the people in books. Some may be in willed solitude with their headphones. But there are always people who would be interested in an unexpected conversation with a stranger. This need not go on for too long.

It is not large and possibly life-changing conversations that are what most people in loneliness miss most. What they really need is not deep thought but superficiality. The kind of conversation that you could have with anyone reminds you that you yourself might be anyone. It is a release from the prison of the self, which is where lonely people serve their sentences, uncertain whether they ever can be paroled(假释). Friendship may be too rare a gift to hope for, but sometimes the kindest thing to say is also the simplest: "Don't be a stranger"-and sometimes that's also enough.

1. According to Paragraph 1, why the first Walkman appeared in Japan partly?

A．its corporate culture

B．its overcrowded public transport

C．its people's creativity

D．its people's desire for personal space

2. Which of the following belongs to "these drawbacks" underlined in paragraph 3?

A．"Chatty Bus day" has not been introduced to other areas.

B．Walkman prevents passengers from talking to each other.

C．Passengers are unwilling to make small talk with strangers.

D．Improper physical distance discourages casual communication.

3. What is the author most likely to agree with?

A．Small talk to strangers will help ease loneliness on the road.

B．Lonely people are in desperate need of deep conversation.

C．People in less populated cities tend to be cold and distant.

D．It's inadvisable to talk to strangers who are physically too close.

4. What is the author's main purpose in writing the text?

A．To cast new light on human loneliness.

B．To introduce an experiment and its effects.

C．To advocate striking up conversations with strangers.

D．To explore the relationship between physical distance and willingness to reach out.

6 . Goolsbee, now a professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, said the rising number of Americans out of work forever paints a troubling picture about the recovery (恢复).

“If we are on path to only be two-thirds recovered,” Goolsbee wrote, “and then have millions of businesses closed down and the jobs there lost fast, there will be years for us to try to get back onto the path we were on before.”

And those everlasting job losses will influence the economy. People out of work may cutback spending or even stop it. They are at risk of falling behind on car payments, credit card bills and bank loan (贷款). Those risks are magnified by the fact that the government has so far failed to provide additional economic recovery policies (政策) — even though the US economy is in great need of them.

“Good insurance (保险) policies for people out of work have helped them pay the loan much more easily,” Principal’s Shah wrote, “but with everlasting job losses clearly rising and still no sign of an additional economic recovery package, the trouble will become more widespread and obvious.”

The hope is that those recognized as jobless at present will in the end get a job somewhere else. Even though some restaurants, shops and small businesses have shut down, new companies are opening each day here and there. But there is a time limit at play because the time of continuously out of job influences the chances of getting another job. “The longer you’re out of the job market,” said PNC’s Faucher, “the more difficult it becomes to find a new one.” Many Americans who had a job loss or had a too long vacation without any payment are eagerly looking forward to another job.

1. What does the underlined word “magnified” in Paragraph 3 probably mean?

A．Reduced.	B．Enlarged.
C．Avoided.	D．Unchanged.

2. What’s Shah’s attitude towards the government’s present economy policies?

A．Supportive.	B．Confused.
C．Disappointed.	D．Uninterested.

3. What can we learn about the Americans out of work?

A．Losing jobs gets them out of the job market.

B．They have more opportunities to have vacations.

C．They successfully get offers from new companies.

D．Losing jobs for long makes it harder to find a new one.

4. What’s the main idea of the passage?

A．The jobless usually spend less.

B．Insurance companies offer necessary loans.

C．More job losses suggest a dark economy future.

D．The economy recovery depends on the government.

7 . The biggest and the smallest of the world’s animals are most at risk of dying out, according to a new analysis, with vertebrates (脊椎动物) in the so-called “Goldilocks zone”—not too big and not too small—winning out. Action is needed to protect animals at both ends of the scale, they say. The research adds to evidence that animals are dying out on such a scale that a sixth extinction is considered under way.

One clue is body size. Research on birds and mammals has shown that those with larger bodies are more likely to go extinct. Yet, when the researchers made a database of thousands of birds, mammals, fish, amphibians (两栖动物) and reptiles (爬行动物) at risk of extinction, they found disproportionate (不成比例的) losses at the large and small ends of the scale.

“Surprisingly, we found that not only the largest of all vertebrate animal species are most threatened, but the very tiniest ones are also highly threatened with extinction,” Prof. Ripple told BBC News.

Large animals, such as elephants, rhinos (犀牛) and lions have long been the target of protection efforts. However, fish, birds, reptiles and amphibians that are the giants of their kind, such as the whale shark, Somali ostrich (鸵鸟) and the Chinese giant salamander (蝾螈), tend to be overlooked. Meanwhile, small species at risk--such as frogs and shrews (鼩鼱)--receive very little attention.

“I think, for the smallest species, first of all we need to bring higher awareness to them, because the larger ones get a lot of attention, but the smaller ones get very little,” said Prof. Ripple.

In the study, vertebrates with the smallest and the largest bodies were found to be most at risk of disappearing, whether they were on land or living in oceans, streams or rivers.

Heavyweights are threatened mainly by hunting, while featherweights are losing out to pollution and cutting down forests. “Ultimately, reducing global consumption of wild meat is a key step to reduce negative impacts of hunting, fishing, and trapping on the world’s vertebrates,” they write in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

1. What made the researchers feel surprised?

A．A sixth of animals are dying out.

B．Small animals are in great danger.

C．Great losses of birds and mammals.

D．Big animals are at risk of disappearing.

2. What should we do first for the smallest species according to Prof. Ripple?

A．Transform our habits.	B．Change our concepts.
C．Find ways to save small animals.	D．Take measures to stop pollution.

3. What presents the great threat to vertebrates according to the last paragraph?

A．Loss of forests.	B．Climate change.
C．Human activities.	D．Environmental pollution.

4. What would be the best title for the passage?

A．Size Matters When It Comes to Extinction Risk

B．Large Animals Are Badly in Need of Protection

C．Why a Great Number of Animals Are Dying out

D．What We Should Do to Protect Endangered Species

8 . Baggy has become the first dog in the UK—and potentially the world—to join the fight against air pollution by recording pollutant levels near the ground.

Baggy wears a pollution monitor on her collar so she can take data measurements close to the ground. Her monitor has shown that air pollution levels are higher closer to ground level, which has helped highlight concerns that babies and young kids may be at higher risk of developing lung problems.

Conventional air pollution monitors are normally fixed on lampposts at about nine feet in the air. However, since Baggy stands at about the same height as a child in a pushchair（婴儿车）, she frequently records pollution levels which are much higher than the data gathered by the Environment A gency.

The doggy data research was the idea of Baggy's 13-year-old owner Tom Hunt and his dad Matt. The English youngster noticed that pollution levels are around two-thirds higher close to the ground than they are in the air at the height where they are recorded by the agency. Tom has since reported the shocking findings to the government in an attempt to emphasise that babies are at higher risk of developing asthma（哮喘）.

Matt Hunt said he was "very proud" of his son because “when the boy gets an idea, he keeps his head down and gets on with it, and he really does want to do some good and stop young kids from getting asthma."

“Tom built up a passion for environmental protection at a very early age," Matt added. “He became very interested in gadgets（小装置）. About one year ago, he got this new piece of tech which is like a test tube. One Sunday afternoon, we went out to do some monitoring, and he said, why don't we put it on Baggy's collar and let her monitor the pollution？'So we did it."

Tom said, "Most of the time, Baggy is just like any other dog. But for the rest of the time she is a super dog, and we are all really proud of her."

1. With a monitor on her collar, Baggy can ____________.

A．take pollutant readings	B．record pollutant levels
C．process collected data	D．reduce air pollution

2. What can we learn from the Baggy data?

A．High places are free of air pollution.

B．Higher pushchairs are more risky for kids.

C．Conventional monitors are more reliable.

D．Air is more polluted closer to the ground.

3. What is Tom's purpose of doing the research?

A．To warn of a health risk.	B．To find out pollution sources.
C．To test his new monitor.	D．To prove Baggy's abilities.

4. According to the passage, which word can best describe Tom Hunt?

A．Modest.

B．Generous.

C．Creative.

D．Outgoing.

9 . The gender gap in maths-related subjects is obvious. In almost all countries, far fewer women than men choose STEM（理工科）careers.

It's not that girls and women are bad at maths. In the UK in 2019, for example, 39% of 18-year-old girls who studied maths at A-level achieved an A or A*, compared to 42% of boys. For A-level physics, 29% of girls achieved the top two grades, compared to 28% of boys. But in both subjects, boys heavily outnumbered girls-by more than 3:1 in the case of physics. So why are so many girls turning their backs on these subjects?

A study published recently in the journal PNAS suggests that the answer may in fact lie in male-female differences in academic ability, but the ability in question is reading, not maths. Thomas Breda, at Paris School of Economics, and Clotilde Napp, at Paris Dauphine University, wondered whether this male-female difference in reading could help explain the gender gap in STEM careers. Every three years, hundreds of thousands of 15-year-olds in more than 60 countries take part in the PISA study. Students complete tests in maths, reading and science, and answer questions about their future career intentions. When Breda and Napp looked at the data from PISA 2012, they realized they were on to something.

"There were small gender gaps in maths performance at 15 years old, but these gaps were too small to explain the huge gender segregation（隔离）in STEM," says Breda. But for reading, the tables were turned; the girls were much better than the boys. As a result, when a boy and a girl had similar scores in maths, the girl usually had an even better score in reading.

When Breda and Napp compared each student's scores in reading and maths, they found the greater a student's advantage in reading, the less likely they were to plan a career in maths, even when their maths score was also high. Notably, this was true for both boys and girls.

"It makes a lot of sense," says Sarah Cattan, of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. "It shows that what matters most when boys and girls choose their field of study is not how good they are in maths or in reading, but how good they are in maths relative to reading."

1. What do the data in Paragraph 2 show?

A．The average gender difference in maths performance is small.

B．Those who are good at maths are also good at physics.

C．Physics tends to be easier for girls than maths.

D．Girls are not better than boys at maths.

2. According to Breda and Napp, who is most likely to plan a career in maths?

A．Tom whose maths is worse than reading.

B．Lisa whose maths is better than reading.

C．Lily whose reading is better than maths.

D．Jack whose reading is as good as maths.

3. According to Sarah Cattan,what do students value much when making further study choices?

A．Their comparative strength instead of absolute ability.

B．Their gender advantages in a specific academic field.

C．Their future job landing possibility in an industry.

D．Their particular interest in a certain subject.

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．Why are we drawn to STEM careers?

B．Are boys worse at reading and writing?

C．Why are girls bad at maths-related subjects?

D．Are good readers more likely to give up maths?

10 .
1. According to the Code, visitors should act _______ .

A．with care and respect	B．with relief and pleasure
C．with caution and calmness	D．with attention and observation

2. What are you encouraged to do when travelling in New Zealand?

A．Take your own camping facilities.	B．Bury glass far away from rivers.
C．Follow the track for the sake of plants.	D．Observe signs to approach nesting birds.

3. Where is the code most likely read?

A．A letter from your pen pal in New Zealand.

B．An advertisement put by a travel agency.

C．A brochure handed out by New Zealand Tourism Bureau.

D．A poster on the gate of the New Zealand’s national park.