1 . The Maya city of Tikal is famous for its amazing palaces and temples. But something far more ordinary kept Tikal functioning: its water-purifying(净化) system, the earliest known of its kind.
Researchers recently discovered a volcanic mineral that traps microbes(微生物) and heavy metals in Tikal's largest reservoir(水库). Because the material is not found nearby, the finding suggests the presence of a man-made water-purifying device.
The finding denies the long-standing idea that the ancient worlds technological achievements belonged to the Eastern world, like Egypt, and China. The leading scientist of this research, Kenneth Tankersley says, “When talking about purifying water, the Maya were thousands of years ahead.”
Located in the forests of Central America, Tikal, is thought to have been home to more than 45,000 people. They had to struggle against a dry season lasting from November through April. Storing water in reservoirs was a solution, but that water had to be fit to drink, said Kenneth, “Keeping water clean was of great importance.”
A few years ago, the researchers were surprised to find that the largest reservoir, Corriental, had significantly fewer harmful chemicals than the others. “The water quality at Corriental was much higher.”
Somehow the Maya must have been purifying Corriental’s water, the team assumed. “The Maya used gardens as their bathrooms.” Kenneth said, “The water coming into the reservoir would not have been very clean.”
At the bottom of Corriental, scientists found four separate layers(层), each a few centimeters thick, of millimeter-scale “zeolites(沸石)”. This type of volcanic mineral can purify water and is still in widespread use today, Kenneth says, “Just about everything we drink, from bottled water to wine, runs through a zeolite purifying device.”
The Maya wouldn’t have known about the zeolite in rock, but they would have recognized the purifying effects, the researchers suggest. A zeolite-rich rock formation about 30 kilometers northeast of Tikal is the likely source of the material in Corriental reservoir, the team said last month in Scientific Reports. Water at this site “was clear and tasted good.”
1. What did the researchers find?| A．A new material called zeolites. | B．The purifying effects of zeolites. |
| C．An old water-purifying system. | D．High-quality water in Corriental. |
| A．By building the largest reservoir. | B．By using gardens as their bathrooms. |
| C．By getting rid of heavy metals. | D．By spreading four layers of zeolites. |
| A．The Maya drank bottled water. | B．The ancient Maya were very bright. |
| C．The system was created by accident. | D．The zeolites were found in Corriental. |
| A．the original water in Corriental was not clean enough |
| B．water supply in Tikal lasted from November to April |
| C．all ancient technological achievements belonged to the East |
| D．the Maya had a good understanding of the zeolite in rocks |
2 . Hidden beneath the surface in the roots of Earths astonishing and diverse plant life, there exists a biological superhighway linking together the members of the plant kingdom in what researchers call the "wood wide web".
The network is comprised of thin threads of fungus (真菌) that grow outwards underground up to a few meters from its partnering plant, meaning that all of the plant life within a region likely connected to one another. The partnership is beneficial for both parties involved, plants provide carbohydrates (碳水化合物) to the funguses and in exchange, the funguses aid in gathering water and providing nutrients to its partnering plant.
A study conducted by Rensen Zeng of the South China Agricultural University found that this also allowed for plants to warn one another of potential harm. The study showed Broad Beans used the fungal network to spy on one another for upcoming danger.
Like our Internet, this fungal connectivity is also full of crime. Some plants, such as Golden Marigolds have been found to release poisons into the network to slow down the growth of surrounding plants in the fight for water and light. Other plants, such as the Phantom Orchid, do not have the chlorophyll (叶绿素) and must get the necessary nutrients from surrounding plants.
Research suggests that animals such as insects and worms may be able to detect slight exchanges of nutrients through the network, allowing them to more easily find delicious roots to feed on; however, this has not been conclusively made clear in experimentation. The more we learn about this phenomenon, the more our understanding of the plant life of our planet will continue to change. Perhaps one day, we may be able to map out these complex networks entirely.
1. What is the function of the first paragraph?| A．To explain the aim of the web. |
| B．To introduce the main topic. |
| C．To give definition of diverse life. |
| D．To show the importance of plants. |
| A．compete for survival |
| B．gather more water |
| C．take in sunlight |
| D．break natural rules |
| A．Animals can also feed on the fungus. |
| B．Nutrient exchanges are too slight to detect. |
| C．No experiment can prove the phenomenon. |
| D．More needs to be done to work out the network. |
| A．The Partnership between Plants |
| B．The Unknown Roots of the Earth |
| C．The Superhighway Linking the Plants |
| D．The Mysterious Map Changing the World |
3 . London has a new unusual magazine. But it is not printed on paper. Everyone who has a television can receive it because it is on TV.
In order to read this magazine you have to have a decoder. Each page of it is numbered, so you only have to dial the number to choose which subject you want to read about. There is a wide choice — everything is included from cooking to the latest sports news.
If you want to read the news, the first thing you have to do is to turn to the index page which has an easy-to-remember page number, 100 for example. The news is on pages 101 to 109 so you push out the numbers and the news appears written across your screen. Perhaps you want to go out in the afternoon, so you press 181, and a brightly coloured weather map appears on the screen. But the weather is terrible so you decide to go shopping and dial 162 for a list of the week’s best bargains. But should you drive or take the train? To answer that question you only have to press 189 for the traffic report. It is very simple to use. But probably the best thing about the service is that it is being updated all the time. Journalists type new material directly onto the screen and whole pages of the magazine can be replaced in minutes.
London already has three services. One is transmitted (输送) by ITV while the other two on BBC. BBC engineers do not think that their idea will ever replace books and newspapers because they can be taken with you everywhere. But many people would agree that this is a breakthrough as great as the invention of printing, which could change not just our reading habits but our way of life thoroughly.
1. What can we know from the passage?| A．The magazine can be bought at any local newsstand. |
| B．Most of the postmen in London will lose their jobs some day. |
| C．The readers can get all kinds of information staying at home. |
| D．Everyone can read this magazine if they have a television. |
| A．Decoder. | B．Magazine. | C．Subject. | D．Program. |
| A．Help people find out the sum of certain figures. |
| B．Help people go shopping and have other entertainment. |
| C．Receive some special TV program for entertainment. |
| D．Read the information transmitted by TV signals. |
| A．A magazine printed and published in London. |
| B．A popular TV program about magazines. |
| C．An up-to-date way of keeping up to date. |
| D．A technology helping people to communicate. |
4 . 
Pesticides might just be a bee's worst enemy. They harm their brains, slow down their reproduction, and even kill their buzz. Now it seems they damage their social lives and reduce their ability to care for their young.
While previous studies have shown that commonly used neonicotinoid（新烟碱类）pesticides make bees sick and affect how they search for food and navigate, a new study gives more of an idea of how these chemicals affect the internal workings of a colony（种群）. Studying these effects has proved difficult, so the team employed a new technique. They stuck tiny QR codes to the backs of humblebees and tracked their movements using a robotic camera.
The researchers looked at 12 colonies housed in a lab, giving some the same level of imidacloprid—the world's most commonly used pesticide—that they'd be exposed to in the wild while keeping others pesticide-free as controls. They checked on them for a few minutes 12 times a day. The findings are published in the journal Science.
Unfortunately, the researchers found a number of obvious differences between the bees exposed to the pesticide and the controls. The bees given neonicotinoids spent less time interacting with other bees and more time resting. This pause in activity tended to happen more at night, but the researchers aren't sure why.
"Bees actually have a very strong circadian rhythm（生理节奏）," lead author James Crall explained in a statement. "So what we found was that, during the day, there was no statistically observable effect, but at night, we could see that they were crashing. We don't know yet whether the pesticides are destroying circadian gene regulation or if this is just some, maybe physiological feedback…But it suggests that, just from a practical perspective, if we want to understand or study these compounds, looking at effects overnight matters a lot."
1. What does the new study suggest about pesticides' effect on bees?| A．Pesticides lead to their disease. |
| B．Pesticides slow down their brain function |
| C．Pesticides upset their community. |
| D．Pesticides damage bees' internal parts. |
| A．The tools used to observe the bees. |
| B．The data recorded by the robotic camera |
| C．The researchers conducting the experiments. |
| D．The bees kept free from the pesticides. |
| A．The circadian rhythm of bees is stronger during the day. |
| B．It is vital to study the performance of bees at night |
| C．It is certain that pesticides affect bees only at night. |
| D．The pesticides do great harm to circadian gene regulation of bees. |
| A．To inform people of the worrying effects of pesticides. |
| B．To check the best time to observe experimental results. |
| C．To call for the toughest ban on the chemicals. |
| D．To recommend measures to improve the quality of pesticides. |
5 . 
Worried about the loss of rainforests and the ozone layer? Well, neither of those is doing any worse than a large majority of the 6,000 to 7,000 languages that remain in use on Earth. One half of the survivors will almost certainly be gone by 2050, while 40% more will probably be well on their way out. In their place, almost all humans will speak a small number of languages——Mandarin, English, Spanish.
Linguists(语言学家)know what causes languages to disappear, but what's less often remarked is what happens on the way to disappearance: languages' vocabularies, grammars and expressive potential all disappear. "Say a community goes over from speaking a traditional Aboriginal(土著的)language to speaking a Creole," says Australian Nick Evans, a language experts, "you leave behind a language where there's very fine vocabulary for the landscape. All of that is gone in a Creole. As speakers become less able to express the wealth of knowledge that has filled ancestors' lives with meaning over thousands of years, it's no wonder that communities tend to become weakened."
Due to the huge losses, some linguists struggle against the situation, for example, training many documentary linguists in language-loss hotspots such as West Africa and South America.
However, not all approaches to the preservation of languages will be particularly helpful. Some linguists are boasting(自夸)of more and more complicated means of recording languages: digital recording and storage, the Internet and mobile phone technologies. But these are encouraging the quick style of recording trip: fly in, switch on digital recorder, fly home, download to hard drive, and store gathered material for future research. That's not quite what some endangered-language experts have been seeking. Michael Krauss from the University of Alaska complained openly that linguists are playing with technology research while most of their raw data is disappearing.
Who is to blame? Linguists who go out into communities to study, document and describe languages, argue that theoretical linguists, like Noam Chomsky, who draw conclusions about how languages work, have had so much influence that linguistics has largely ignored the continuing disappearance of languages.
1. Why does the author mention rainforests and the ozone layer in Paragraph 1?| A．To highlight they are of great importance. |
| B．To show their connection with language loss |
| C．To indicate anxiety about environmental issues. |
| D．To introduce the topic concerning language loss. |
| A．People find it hard to describe their culture. |
| B．Vocabularies have to be changed. |
| C．People tend to turn to ancestors more |
| D．Focus is switched on new grammars. |
| A．Digital age further promotes some endangered languages. |
| B．An instant approach to language recording may not work. |
| C．Linguists have made poor use of improvement in technology. |
| D．Linguists' quick style of recording trip should be encouraged. |
| A．By 2050 only 600 to 700 languages will remain. |
| B．Local languages are preserved perfectly in West Africa. |
| C．Theoretical linguists may be responsible for the loss of languages. |
| D．Linguists have come a long way to save endangered languages. |
6 . 
I go to a gym in west London, always unwillingly. Exercise is too exhausting and boring. Always was. At school I made believe that I had headaches and parental notes too, to get out of PE classes and compulsory games. Now, twice a week, I dutifully get on cycling machines and other equipment and make myself work out for an hour. To get through the difficult hour, I people-watched: young and old, fit and unfit and Clayton Rose, one of the instructors.
Clayton is a personal trainer not only to body perfectionists, but to people who are mentally and physically disabled, the obese and hopeless. He treats them all the same. I have witnessed him listening keenly to a middle-aged working-class woman who goes on and on about her life, holidays, everything. Slim and attractive now, she was once so heavy that she was in a wheelchair. I have seen him calm down a young man with Tourette's syndrome（抽动症）and get him on a treadmill. I have also watched him pushing and coaching strong, cool men.
Clayton was shocked when I said I wanted to write about him. "Why? You know I'm not educated? I'm not clued up about politics and all that. Just an ordinary guy.”
He grew up in Twickenham, where his dad worked in a timber yard, his mum in an office. After college, the young man got into personal training and found his work. One of his best friends got seriously ill and was given months to live. Clayton put him on a program that kept him alive for almost five years: "I don't earn much, but I love my work; training and talking really helps people who don't have confidence, who are lonely, afraid, sick. Lots of people can't step into a gym. They need someone they can trust, someone who will be on their side.
The gym recently updated its equipment. The flashy new stuff confuses and upsets disabled customers. Me too. The private firm running these centers made decisions without considering these needs. Clayton is managing the chaos with grace and strength. Last week, when a young woman in a wheelchair started sobbing loudly, he calmed her down, restored her dignity, superhumanly contained his anger.
One of his colleagues thinks Clayton's "a legend". He is, and doesn't know it—a rare thing in this age of extreme narcissism（自恋）and monetized everything.
1. Why was I unwilling to go to a gym?| A．Because I suffered from headaches. |
| B．Because I had bad memories of PE classes. |
| C．Because I had to watch a large crowd exercising |
| D．Because I felt it tiring and no fun |
| A．He brings out the best in them. |
| B．He helps them with illness advice |
| C．He treats them differently. |
| D．He focuses on body perfection. |
| A．The pay he receives |
| B．The grace and strength it brings. |
| C．The comforting power he gives. |
| D．The disabled people on his side. |
| A．Reasons to go to a gym. |
| B．An instructor inspiring confidence. |
| C．Exercise with push and inspiration. |
| D．Rays of hope in the age of narcissism. |
7 . A decade ago, at the end of my first semester teaching at Wharton, a student stopped by for office hours. He sat down and burst into tears. My mind started cycling through a list of events that could make a college junior cry: his girlfriend had left him; he had been accused of cheating in exams; he forgot to turn in papers by the deadline. “I just got my first A-minus," he said, his voice shaking.
Year after year, I watch in sadness as students go all for straight A's. Some sacrifice their health; a few have even tried to charge their school after falling short. All hold the belief that top marks are a ticket to best graduate schools and high-paying job offers. I was one of them. I started college with the goal of graduating with a GPA of 4.0. It would be a reflection of my brainpower and willpower, revealing that I had the right stuff to succeed. But I was wrong.
The evidence is clear: academic excellence is not a strong predictor of career excellence. Across industries, research shows that the connection between grades and job performance is modest in the first year after college and unimportant within a handful of years. For example, a Google, once employees are two or three years out of college, their grades have no bearing on their performance. (Of course, it must be said that if you got D's, you probably didn't end up at Google.)
In a classic 1962 study, a team of psychologists tracked down America's most creative architects and compared them with their technically skilled but less original matches. One of the factors that distinguished the creative architects was a record of grades. “In college our creative architects earned about a B average," Donald MacKinnon wrote. “In work and courses which caught their interest they could turn in an A performance, but in courses that failed to strike their imagination, they were quite willing to do no work at all."
Academic grades rarely assess qualities like creativity, leadership and teamwork skills, or social, emotional and political intelligence. Yes, straight-A students master large amounts of information and reproduce it in exams. But career success is rarely about finding the right solution to a problem—it is more about finding the right problem to solve. This might explain why Steve Jobs finished high school with a 2.65 GPA, J. K. Rowling graduated from the University of Exeter with roughly a C average, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. got only one A in his four years at Morehouse.
1. Why did the author list the events that crossed his mind in the first paragraph?| A．To make sure he didn't misunderstand the student. |
| B．To make the real trouble of the student more striking. |
| C．To show sympathy for the student. |
| D．To describe an unusual meeting with a student. |
| A．Academic achievements don't always mean success in career. |
| B．Top marks meant well-paid job offers. |
| C．Nobody was to blame for falling short in school. |
| D．Marks didn't reflect willpower and brainpower |
| A．Straight A's don't necessarily lead to professional success. |
| B．Straight A's are a ticket to a number of opportunities. |
| C．Straight A's are of little value in future careers. |
| D．Straight A's can't help people find right solutions. |
| A．How to be a creative leader. | B．How to solve a challenging problem. |
| C．What is the right problem to solve. | D．What really interests them. |
8 . I decided to ski to the North pole. It was after I saw an advertisement in newspaper looking for people to join a team to ski 350 miles to the North Pole. Back in 1996, there had never been woman from the UK who had accomplished this challenge, I wondered what it would be like to survive in temperatures cold enough to freeze your flesh in seconds, so I sent off for the application form.
The application form full of pictures of male explorers arrived. The words “Are you man enough for the ultimate challenge?” made me angry and even more deter-mined to get on the team.
Over 500 individuals applied for a place in the team, and the selection process included physical and psychological tests designed to pick the best group. In one test, there was a huge rope ladder we had to climb, and I froze at the top because I have a fear of heights. I thought my hopes were fading as most other applicants sailed past, leaving me behind. But two others helped me over, and later I found out that the organizers were not looking for amazing individuals, but great team players, and this moment had shown them who would take care of others in the team.
I had revealed (显示) my weakness, and in a place like the Arctic, you have to be yourself, as there is nowhere to hide. These personalities of asking for help and showing weakness are necessary for women to master.
I realized that by being myself, I could succeed. I was selected for the team. I realized that I could achieve more than I ever imagined. More importantly, by sharing my story with others, I could inspire them to take a step into the new world and reveal more of their abilities.
1. How did the author react on seeing the advertisement?| A．She got cross. | B．She was uninterested. |
| C．She got frightened. | D．She was determined. |
| A．Spirit of teamwork. | B．Personal quality. |
| C．Individual ability. | D．Courage to challenge. |
| A．Shameful. | B．Beneficial. | C．Merciful. | D．Disturbing. |
| A．To inspire us to prepare for our future goal. | B．To advise women how to turn to others. |
| C．To encourage people to explore the unknown. | D．To make suggestions to her team members. |
9 . There has been a lot of publicity (宣传) recently surrounding 5G, the next generation of wireless technology for the world. But what is this technology and how might it change our lives?
What is 5G?
5G stands for fifth generation, meaning the next step in the progression of technology to replace the current 4G system. 4G was the replacement for 3G, which came after 2G, and so on. These systems are wireless computer networks. Earlier “G” systems were designed to improve mobile communication operations. Each new technology brought major improvements in speed and greatly increased network capacity. The new 5G system promises more of the same. It is expected to permit more users to do more things-at a faster rate. Higher internet speeds and larger network capacity should result in better performance for device users connected to 5G. However, technology experts say there is a major way that 5G is different than the earlier systems. It will move well beyond mobile network technology to affect many more devices and industries than other “G” versions.
When will it be available?
Before we can all use 5G, wireless companies and phone makers will have to complete and deploy (部署) a whole new system. New phones and communication equipment must be built. American wireless companies have been preparing for the new system for some time. They have been creating new network equipment and buying broadcasting space to carry 5G signals. They have built news G antennas(天线)to serve American cities and towns. Wireless providers will invest at least $275 billion n 5G-related networks in the United States, the industry group CTIA reported. The first U.S, launch of 5G is expected to happen sometime this year. Industry experts expect it will take a few more year to go nationwide. It will take even longer to reach rural areas. China is expected to launch 5G sometime in 2020, while European nations are likely to build their systems more slowly over time.
1. Which system is widely used nowadays?| A．5G. | B．2G. | C．3G | D．4G. |
| A．It will allow more users to do more things. | B．The internet speed will be much higher. |
| C．The users will spend much less money on it. | D．It will affect more devices and industries |
| A．5G system has nothing to do with phone makers. |
| B．There is much work to do before 5G comes into use. |
| C．New phones will be much smarter than those used now. |
| D．4G system will be stopped as soon as 5G comes into use. |
| A．USA→China→European nations. | B．China→USA→European nations. |
| C．USA→European nations→China. | D．European nations→China→USA. |
10 . Think about a remote control. Something so simple in function is seemingly capable of invisible magic to most of us. Only few have any real idea of why a remote control works. The rest of us just assume it should. And the longer a given technology exits, the more we take it for granted.
Consider for a moment a screen showing modern remote control users versus the first remote control users： the original users would be carefully aiming the remote directly at the television, reading the names of the buttons, and intentionally pressing the button. The modern users would be leaning on a sofa, pointing the remote any which way, and instinctively feeling for the button they desired.
Humans are known for being handy with tools, so it is no surprise that we get so comfortable with our technology. However, as we become increasingly comfortable with how to use new technologies, rather than being humbled by is originality, we consumers often become unfairly demanding of what our technology should do for us Once wonderful new inventions （such as televisions） quickly became commonplace. The focus of consumer attitudes towards them changed from gratitude with respect to discriminating preference. Televisions needed to be bigger and have a higher resolution. Video games needed to be more realistic. Computers needed to be more powerful yet smaller in size.
For children of the last twenty years born into this modern life, these technological wonders seem like elements of the periodic （周期的） table： a given aspect that is simply part of the universe. Younger generations don't even try to imagine life without modern conveniences. They do not appreciate the unprecedented （史无前例的） technology that is in their possession； rather, they complain about the ways in which it fails to live up to ideal expectations. "My digital video recorder at home doesn't allow me to program it from my computer at work. "
If it sounds as though were never satisfied, we aren't. Of course our complaints do actually motivate engineers to continually refine their products. After all, the expectation is that someone, somewhere is working on how to make the existing product even better.
1. What can we infer from paragraph 2？| A．Modern remote controls have no button and instructions. |
| B．Consumers' behavior towards new technologies changes over time. |
| C．Remote controls have become far more effective over the years. |
| D．Modern remote controls are designed more user﹣friendly. |
| A．Less realistic video games. |
| B．Wanting to make sacrifices. |
| C．Needing to understand technology. |
| D．More powerful smartphones. |
| A．The inspiration of modern technology comes from chemistry. |
| B．Younger generation loam technology while they learn chemistry. |
| C．Children naturally take modern technology for granted. |
| D．Children regard many technological inventions as remarkable. |
| A．blessing |
| B．approving |
| C．satisfied |
| D．critical |
