1 . The idea of billions of people going through a few masks a week during this pandemic definitely rings alarm bells, but a team of researchers in Melbourne may have the solution.
They’ve discovered that adding millions of discarded face masks to road-paving (铺路) mixtures would actually lower the cost of the road, while preventing billions of them from landfills. Just one kilometer of road would need three million masks, and the polypropylene (聚丙烯) plastic used to make single-use surgical face masks also increased the flexibility and durability of the road.
The new material is a mixture of about 2% torn masks, with recycled concrete aggregate (RCA)—a material obtained from waste concrete and other minerals from destroyed buildings. This recycled material was found in the study to be ideal for two of the four layers generally required to create roadways. Paving a kilometer of two-way road with the RCA and three million face masks would result in a change of 93 tons of waste from landfills.
The final product then is more resistant to wear than asphalt (沥青), as well as being cheaper too, provided there was a method for collecting masks. The research team did a cost-analysis and found that, at $26 per ton, the RCA was about half the cost of mining raw materials, and as much as a third of the cost of shipping the used masks to a landfill.
The widespread application would be ideal for large infrastructure (基础设施) projects. For example, Washington has the 11th worst roads in terms of unaddressed repairs in the U.S. If the damaged roads in Washington state were repaired with the RCA/mask mixture, it would reuse nearly 10 billion masks, sparing American landfills hundreds of millions of tons of trash.
It’s said that the team is looking for private industry partners or governments willing to give their plastic mask road an opportunity for a large-scale test.
1. What does the underlined word “discarded” mean in paragraph 2?| A．Recycled. | B．Produced. |
| C．Mixed. | D．Abandoned. |
| A．2% torn masks, concrete and tons of trash. |
| B．Polypropylene plastic and building materials. |
| C．Single-use surgical masks and recycled concrete aggregate. |
| D．Waste concrete and other minerals from destroyed buildings. |
| A．To tell us what the team has found. |
| B．To prove this material is cost-effective in paving roads. |
| C．To explain repairing roads costs a lot of materials. |
| D．To praise the hard work the team has done. |
| A．The material used to pave roads is made of masks. |
| B．Generally speaking, it requires two layers to create roadways. |
| C．It remains to be tested whether the solution is practical. |
| D．The damaged roads in Washington were repaired with the RCA. |
2 . Jamie Wardley is a special kind of artist—an ice sculptor. He first trained as a sand sculptor. Later,he learnt about ice sculpture. Now he does sand sculpture in the summer. And in the winter, he sculpts ice.
When sculpting ice,Wardley has to work in cold temperatures. If the weather is cold enough, he can work outside. But winter in the United Kingdom is not always very cold. So often he works in a large freezer where the temperature is about -12℃.
Wardley enjoys sculpting ice outside in the winter. When he sculpts in the open air, people can watch. They can be part of the creative process.
Wardley makes ice sculpting sound simple. But the tools Wardley uses are sharp and dangerous. And the ice is very heavy. Each block of ice weighs 120 kilos. And some larger sculptures are made from several combined blocks of ice. Sometimes ice sculptures can be as big as buildings. In Kemi, Finland there is an ice hotel called the Snow Castle. Each year, Wardley helps build the Snow Castle.
Inside the Snow Castle, the temperature is -50℃. Even the dining tables are made of ice. So you have to wear winter clothes when eating and wear a hat when sleeping. “The ice hotel is built every year in January. Then it melts in April. Each year we rebuild it and create a new design,” Wardley said.
The Snow Castle is a large and amazing work of ice, but Wardley's smaller ice sculptures are special too. One winter, in the city of Bradford, the UK,Wardley created several small sculptures. He used the sculptures to tell a story which contained an important message about goodwill and understanding.
Ice sculptures are temporary works of art. When the temperature rises, they will melt. But that does not mean that their beauty is lost. The sculptures from that day in Bradford have now melted away, but their message of goodwill, understanding, and acceptance remains.
1. According to the text, Wardley________.| A．loves sand sculpture more than ice sculpture | B．sculpts ice in a large freezer in the summer |
| C．worked as an ice sculptor in the beginning | D．enjoys carving ice outdoors in the winter |
| A．Easy and amazing. | B．Special but difficult. |
| C．Boring and dangerous. | D．Simple but temporary. |
| A．It lies in the city of Bradford, the UK. | B．It is too cold for people to live in. |
| C．It requires to be built every year. | D．It is built between January and April. |
| A．They never melt in people's hearts. | B．It takes time to understand them. |
| C．Their beauty doesn't last forever. | D．They add more beauty to Bradford. |
3 . Almost every family buys as least one copy of a newspaper every day. Some people subscribe to as many as two or three different newspapers. But why do people read newspapers?
Five hundred years ago, news of important happenings--battles lost and won, kings or rulers overthrown(推翻)or killed--took months and even years to travel from one country to another. The news passed by word of mouth and was never accurate. Today we can read in our newspapers of important events that occur in faraway countries on the same day they happen.
Apart from supplying news from all over the world, newspapers give us a lot of other useful information. There are weather reports, radio, television and film guides, book reviews, stories, and of course, advertisements. The bigger ones are put in by large companies to bring attention to their products. They pay the newspapers thousands of dollars for the advertising space, but it is worth the money for news of their products goes into almost every home in the country. For those who produce newspapers, advertisements are also very important. Money earned from advertisements makes it possible for them to sell their newspapers at a low price and still make a profit.
1. The phrase “subscribe to” in the first paragraph means“________”| A．go to the newspaper stand and buy | B．send their own news stories to |
| C．agree to buy for a specific period of time | D．become faithful readers of |
| A．bad news traveled quickly and good news slowly |
| B．few people cared about events that took place in faraway countries |
| C．kings and rulers were often overthrown or killed |
| D．news was passed from one person to another |
| A．wasted | B．not much |
| C．well spent | D．of no use to anyone |
| A．Five hundred years ago it took a long time for news to reach other countries. |
| B．Newspaper advertisements turn people’s attention away from their products. |
| C．The news that we read in newspapers is mainly about new products. |
| D．When newspapers are sold at a low price, the newspaper producers will lose money. |
4 . In the field of educational technology, some apps might be getting too smart. There are more and more apps providing help for students.
PhotoMath
The new, seemingly magic app allows users to take pictures of a math problem, and then receive a step-by-step solution. It is now the number one free app on the App Store. A PhotoMath spokeswoman says educators have welcomed the app with positive reviews, but the software causes a lot of angry public discussion and disagreement. Why? It is because students can use it to cheat when doing their math homework.
Price: Free
iHomework
Whether you’re a high school student or a college student, there’s one thing you’ve got for sure: a lot of homework. iHomework can help you keep track of all your homework. It can help you arrange it in a particular order according to types, or based on deadlines.
Price: Free
Wolfram Alpha
Wolfram Alpha is similar to PhotoMath, but it focuses on older students studying high levels of math and doesn’t support photos. The service also produces step-by-step solutions to advanced topics, making it a popular tool for college students.
Price: $2.99
Homework Helper
Chinese Internet search company Baidu has launched (发起) an app called Homework Helper with which students can get answers to homework. Users post a picture or type their homework questions onto online forums (论坛), and those who answer the questions can win e-coins that can be used to buy devices like iPhones and laptops. The app has logged 5 million downloads, much to the concern of many parents who argue that the students spend less time thinking about challenging problems.
Price: Free
1. What is the problem of the app PhotoMath?| A．It can’t recognize pictures. |
| B．It doesn’t provide a step-by-step solution. |
| C．It encourages students to use smartphones. |
| D．It makes cheating at homework more likely to happen. |
| A．Offering services to office workers. |
| B．Making students organize their school work. |
| C．Helping deal with advanced math problems. |
| D．Creating chances to discuss math online. |
| A．It is thought highly of by teachers. |
| B．It is unpopular among Chinese students. |
| C．Many parents think it harmful to children’s study. |
| D．Answering questions on the app wastes students’ time. |
5 . If you walked by James Fasulo’s bedroom, in Queens, New York, you might hear the 8-year-old talking. You might think he was speaking with a friend, or with his 4-year-old sister, Anna. More likely, James would be talking to his smart speaker, an Echo Dot. “I use it daily,” he says.
James often asks his Dot to tell jokes, report the time and temperature, and play music. And his sister? “She asks it to play songs from Frozen,” he says.
As of December 2017, there were about 67 million smart speakers in households in the United States, according to a study by National Public Radio and Edison Research. A year later, that number had jumped to nearly 119 million. That’s a 78% increase.
“Families are very interested in trying these products,” says Caroline Knorr of Common Sense Media. Kids like James and Anna also love that they are fun.
Smart speakers include devices (设备) such as Google Home and Amazon Echo. Common Sense Media made a survey of more than 1, 000 parents with kids ages 2 to 8. The survey asked about how kids use smart speakers. It also asked about privacy.
Nearly half of the parents said their kids use the speakers, and half of those kids use them daily. Of parents who have, at some point, turned off a smart speaker’s microphone (麦克风), about one-third of them did it because they didn’t trust the device.
“A smart speaker might behave like a human in some of the ways it answers us,” says Florian Schaub, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Information. “But that’s really a company collecting data (数据) about you. Everything you say to a smart speaker is recorded by these companies.”
“Companies use the recordings in different ways,” Schaub says, “such as to personalize service or decide which ads to play.” If users don’t like this, he suggests they mute the speaker when it’s not in use and consider setting privacy controls.
James Fasulo says he doesn’t worry about privacy. But his mom, Nancy Ellwood, does. “Sometimes, the speaker flashes (闪现) its lights when we’re not talking directly to it, ” she says. “I wonder what it’s doing.”
1. What do we know about James Fasulo’s Echo Dot?| A．It can move around freely. |
| B．It can be controlled by voice. |
| C．It is mainly used to play music. |
| D．It is shaped like a human being. |
| A．Smart speakers are less helpful for kids. |
| B．Google Home is smarter than Amazon Echo. |
| C．Some users have less trust in smart speakers. |
| D．Smart speaker users have rapidly increased in number. |
| A．Fix up. | B．Talk to. |
| C．Turn off. | D．Research into. |
| A．Anna Fasulo. | B．James Fasulo. |
| C．Caroline Knorr. | D．Nancy Ellwood. |
6 . Since the day the car and the airplane coexisted people have dreamed of combining them into one all purpose, go — anywhere, do — anything vehicle. However, there are a lot of reasons why cars and airplanes have yet to join forces.
They have very different needs, like the number of wheels. The four wheels on a car distribute its weight and provide traction and stability. A 3-wheeled car is much more likely to roll when taking a turn at high speed. But airplanes have 3 wheels because when they're on the ground they don't need to take turns at speed, so a 4th wheel would just be unnecessary weight. Tricycle wheel arrangements are also better suited to landing in crosswinds.
Aircraft also have other needs like wings. Whether they're fixed wings like an airliner or rotary wings like a helicopter, to generate enough lift they have to be much larger than the restricted freeway lanes and parking spaces would allow. So most designs for flying cars have wings that are either detachable （可拆卸的）or foldable.
That hasn't stopped some people from trying, and now one Dutch company, PAL-V, thinks their Liberty design has made flying cars a practical reality.
In 2005, the company discovered the work of another Dutch company, Carver, which made 3-wheeled cars that leaned like motorcycles. As for generating lift, PAL-V chose a rotary design called autogyro. Unlike a helicopter, the rotor （旋转翼）of an autogyro is unpowered in flight. Instead, the air flowing over it causes it to spin and generate lift. Autogyros also have short takeoff and landing requirements, so setting one down in an emergency is less dangerous than in a fixed-wing aircraft.
The Liberty received road certification in Europe in October of 2020, hoping to deliver to their first customers starting in 2022.
1. What can be learned from Paragraph 1?| A．Flying cars have long been dreamed of by humans. |
| B．The coexistence of cars and airplanes satisfies people. |
| C．The car and the airplane are less popular nowadays. |
| D．Cars and airplanes were invented at the same time. |
| A．To compare vehicles like cars and airplanes. |
| B．To explain the functions of wings and wheels. |
| C．To present two major problems to be solved. |
| D．To show the basic rules of vehicle designs. |
| A．It can be controlled more easily. |
| B．Its take-off needs less space and time. |
| C．It consumes less power when flying. |
| D．Its landing is less dangerous in emergency. |
| A．Europe gives Liberty a warm welcome. |
| B．Flying cars will replace the other vehicles. |
| C．Liberty can be seen globally once marketed. |
| D．PAL-V succeeds in making flying cars a reality. |
7 . Facebook's recent acknowledgment that social media may be making its users feel bad in some cases is a significant milestone. So far, the technology industry hardly has talked about the downsides of their products.
Academic research in a Facebook blog post in December documented that when people spend a lot of time passively consuming information, they feel worse. For example, clicking or liking too many links and posts can have a negative effect on mental health. Some researchers also believe that reading rosy stones about others leads to negative comparisons about one's life and that being online too much reduces in-person socializing. Social media may well be making many of us unhappy, jealous and anti-social. Although Facebook said that, as a result of the assessments, it would make some changes to its platform. It also highlighted some of the benefits of using the social network. It explained that “sharing messages, posts and comments with close friends and recalling about past interactions” can make people feel better. “The research and other academic literature suggest that it’s how you use social media that matters when it comes to your well-being,” Facebook said.
But that approach doesn’t seem to be an effective solution for those who can’t pull themselves away from such platforms. The Pew Research Center estimates that 24 percent of teens go online “almost constantly”. It is becoming a matter of addiction.
We need to be aware of what we are up against. Remember when we would just pick up the phone and call someone rather than email them and create greater misunderstandings. This may be an old-fashioned choice, but the right one. And maybe we should just turn away from our screens sometimes and meet our friends and family in person.
1. Why is Facebook’s acknowledgement considered as a milestone?| A．The acknowledgement has drawn a wide public attention. |
| B．Facebook has come to admit their products' negative effects. |
| C．The technology industry has made progress in mass production. |
| D．The technology industry have never brought bad feelings to users. |
| A．Socializing in person. |
| B．Reading others’ rosy stories. |
| C．Liking your friends’ links and posts. |
| D．Sharing messages with close friends. |
| A．Subjective. |
| B．Approval. |
| C．Acceptable. |
| D．Unsatisfied. |
| A．How to Use Social Media |
| B．Acknowledgement from Facebook |
| C．Off Screens Whether Change Or Not |
| D．Gap Between Real Life and Network. Life |
8 . The way you learn most effectively will impact many different aspects of your life. Visual learners process information best when it’s presented with images drawn on a whiteboard, charts or graphs. Visual learners usually process pictures before they read printed text and are also able to visualize concepts quickly. People who are visual learners prefer when instructions are printed rather than given verbally (口头地), and may often write or draw when conceptualizing (构思、将……概念化) or attempting to make sense of a new topic. Many visual learners remember something better once they’ve written it down or drawn it out.
Auditory (听觉的) learners process information best when it’s said out loud, such as in a lecture setting or spoken presentation. These types of learners can easily recall what others say and prefer to talk through topics they find complex or difficult to understand. People who are auditory learners prefer verbal directions and may use repetition or repeat things aloud to memorize. They may ask questions to understand the subject matter better and may need to hear something repeated more than once before they fully comprehend. Auditory learners also often benefit from listening to recordings as a method of absorbing new concepts.
Kinesthetic (动觉的) learners process information through experience rather than by being shown or told. These types of learners prefer to do things that are more “hands-on.” They prefer to touch and feel items and can easily recall things they’ve done. People who are kinesthetic learners like to make and create things using their hands, and remember information best when they are physically involved. Kinesthetic learners like to participate in the process by shadowing or assisting, and prefer to practice or rehearse concepts as a way to absorb new information.
Take time to consider how you prefer to lake in new information. Think about the last time how you worked to ensure you retained the information? The answer to these questions will help you discover which learning styles work best for you.
1. What do visual learners do to form an idea in mind?| A．Visualize or read. |
| B．Process or present. |
| C．Recall or speak. |
| D．Write or draw. |
| A．Visual learners. |
| B．Auditory learners. |
| C．Kinesthetic learners. |
| D．Lifelong learners. |
| A．Reflect perfectly. |
| B．Watch closely. |
| C．Memorize carefully. |
| D．Inquire constantly. |
| A．To help readers explore learning styles. |
| B．To introduce effective learning methods. |
| C．To arouse readers’ curiosity about learning. |
| D．To inform a new scientific study about learning. |
9 . Our adventure started in December 2018 when our daughter got engaged, She and her then fiance live in Chicago but grew up in Phuket, Asia, so a wedding there sounded perfect.
Fast forward year. The pre-wedding activities were fun, and the wedding and reception were beautiful. But our adventure had only just began!
The morning after the wedding, my husband and I took off for the northeast coast of Borneo. We flew to the town of Sandakan, a gateway to wildlife adventures.
Our destination was the Kinabatangan Weilands Resort on the Kinabatangan River. This area is one of Malaysia's most important wildlife habitats. As we travelled along the riverbank on our first afternoon, we observed an orangutan building a treetop nest. Next, we caught sight of monkeys swinging from trees. We also spotted red birds and watched kingfishers dive for fish.
After dinner, eight guests, plus our guide and boatman, boarded the boat again—the night was absolutely dark. We started down to the river. Suddenly, a snake dropped into the water from overhanging branches and then jumped into our boat! It quickly jumped out again to our great relief! When we reached the mouth of the river, the red eyes of crocodiles greeted us. That frightening sight shook everyone up! But when we rounded a bend in the river, we saw mango trees lit up like Christmas trees from fireflies. A glorious scene!
The next morning found us once again in a boat. To our delight, approximately 40 elephants paraded by. We couldn't believe our luck as the elephants only frequent that area once a year.
Upon our return to Sandakan, we learned that everything in Malaysia was shutting down and numerous flights were being cancelled due to COVID-19. However, we made it home. It was an adventure for the ages!
1. What can we learn about Kinabatangan Weilands Resort?| A．A variety of creatures live in harmony there. |
| B．It is regarded as a gateway to wildlife adventures. |
| C．The author went there to attend her daughter`s wedding. |
| D．It is Malaysia's most significant wildlife habitat. |
| A．The river reflecting moonlight in the dark. | B．The mango trees shining because of fireflies. |
| C．The colorful animals and insects hanging in trees. | D．The various fish swimming lively in the water. |
| A．Because she made it home without delay. | B．Because the snake didn't cause any injury. |
| C．Because she got in observe rare scene. | D．Because the COVID-19 virus didn't infect her. |
| A．Observing Various Habitats in Sandakan. | B．My Once-in-a-lifetime Adventure into Nature. |
| C．Exploring Tourist Adractions it Sandakan. | D．The Perfect Wedding of My Daughter. |
10 . “If music is the medicine of the soul, let it play on,” said a famous person. I think he said so probably because he had got some help from music. Music has some strange functions. Medical scientists have found that a person who feels stressed can actually listen to a certain kind of music and become relaxed.
Researchers said that since stress comes as a result of some events in life such as starting a new family, starting a new business and starting a new job, one can actually listen to good music and feel good because good music touches humans in a positive way. Music helps you forget these events that make you worried and remember the important events that once happened in your life.
Depression(抑郁症) is a disease caused by stress, smoking, social problems, etc. Depression is also caused by difficulties such as failure in business. Depression may bring us weakness, headaches and loss of concentration. Good music makes one remember happy moments or days. If you play music about love, it makes you feel like falling in love again though you may have had several upset experiences. And such good feelings make you healthy.
Anxiety is another health problem that can be controlled by music. Anxiety is one of the side effects of some major health problems such as liver cancer and breast cancer. Good music makes you feel relaxed and relieves the pain caused by these diseases and you will feel better. Good music also makes you sleep better, and you need to know that sleep puts your body in a healthy condition. Good sleep takes away the effects of stress, depression and anxiety from a person.
1. What do you know about music according to the famous person in Paragraph 1?| A．Music can treat many kinds of diseases. |
| B．Music can help you keep mentally healthy. |
| C．Music can take the place of medicine in treating illness. |
| D．Music can make you remember things that happened in the past. |
| A．By letting people have a good sleep. | B．By making people think positively. |
| C．By showing something new to people. | D．By making people focus only on important things. |
| A．Stress | B．Depression. | C．Anxiety. | D．Upset |
| A．The benefits of listening to music to health. |
| B．Stress can bring us many kinds of diseases. |
| C．Some diseases have something to do with music. |
| D．Tips for us to live a healthy and comfortable life. |
