2 . When you are travelling in Thailand, which means of transport is the best choice?

You can rent a variety of motorbikes or bikes in Thailand. It seems to be very popular in most of the beaches and islands along the places in the north. The most popular bikes are the little 125 cc Honda Dream which you can get for about 150 baht (铢)a day or as little as 3,000 baht per month, making it the cheapest way to tour Thailand for the people from other countries.

Sometimes you will have to go somewhere by taxi. When you are in cities in Thailand, especially in Bangkok, always remember to get a taxi that is traveling on the roads. Some drivers outside hotels refuse to use the meter (计程表). They will ask a price which is several times the price when they use the meter!

The quality of the roads in Thailand is generally pretty good, so renting cars is another way to get around. The big car rental companies may offer you slightly older cars at a very reasonable price. It is a little surprising considering that the cost of buying a car in Thailand is more than that in the West. Petrol is also reasonably priced in Thailand, more expensive than American prices, but much cheaper than what is paid in Europe. In the past, Bangkok could be a difficult place to drive in—signs were generally in Thai (泰语)only, making it a hard job to find exactly where you were by looking around. But now, the situation is improved. In a lot of places, even the farthest corners of the country, street signs are in both Thai and English.

1. To a foreigner, the cheapest way to get around Thailand is renting a ______.

A．car

B．taxi

C．bike

D．motorbike

2. What is the writer's advice about taking a taxi in Thailand?

A．To take a taxi going on the road.	B．To take a taxi parked outside hotels.
C．To make sure there is a meter in it.	D．To bargain with the driver over the price.

3. Why was it difficult to drive in Bangkok in the past?

A．Because there were too many traffic jams on the roads.

B．Because there were no signs showing directions.

C．Because the signs were written only in their own language.

D．Because the quality of the roads was not good.

4. In which part of magazine can this passage be found?

A．Entertainment

B．Tourism

C．Market

D．Advertisement

3 . Next-generation fitness equipment and robots help you cook dinner. Those are a few of the countless new products expected to be shown next week at CES, the annual tech conference that typically sets the tone for the biggest trends of the year. Home automation（自动化）, health and 5G will once again be hot topics, but many companies will also introduce pandemic-specific features to reflect our increased time at home.

Each year, reporters, exhibitors and investors typically explore Las Vegas showrooms filled with giant TVs, smart cars and robots, but CES will be online only for the first time in its 54-year history due to Covid-19.

The Consumer Technology Association, the nonprofit behind the four-day event starting Monday, said 1,800 exhibitors from around the world will fill its "digital venue" this year—a number that's down significantly from 4,000 in-person exhibitors last year. The move will allow tech companies from countries which have never attended before to take part in the online exhibition, but could also make it harder for smaller companies to get noticed without a physical showroom.

Registered attendees will be able to stream and re-watch keynotes from companies such as Verizon (VZ) and General Motors (GM), tune in to breakout sessions -- about how, for example, technology is playing a role in vaccine deployment（疫苗的应用）—and search through a registry of exhibitors to watch new product presentations.

It'll lack some of the signature ingredients（因素）of the trade show, such as hands-on time with the latest small machines and networking. But the technology that makes our lives more connected and convenient will still gain popularity.

1. What are the new products mainly connected with?

A．The popularity of 5G.	B．Countless housework
C．People’s daily life.	D．Everyday busy work.

2. What do we know about the tech conference?

A．It attracts fewer exhibitors this year.	B．It takes place every two years.
C．It is usually held on the Internet.	D．It prohibits small companies to attend.

3. What’s the author’s attitude towards the move?

A．Disappointed.

B．Doubtful.

C．Ambiguous.

D．Supportive.

4. Where are the text possibly from?

A．A brochure.

B．A textbook.

C．A guidebook.

D．A newspaper.

4 . The lander-ascender (上升器) combination of China's Chang’e 5 robotic lunar probe (探测器) has finished gathering subsurface samples and packed them in vacuum container and is continuing collecting surface samples, according to the China National Space Administration.

The administration said in a statement on Wednesday morning that the drilling and packing processes of rocks and soil from 2 meters beneath lunar surface concluded at 4:53 am. A mechanical arm is continuing gathering surface samples.

The combination landed on the moon at 11:11 pm on Tuesday, becoming the third spacecraft that has successfully touched down on the lunar surface this century. The first two aircraft that had achieved this are also from China — the Chang’e 3 and 4. The combination is tasked with collecting about 2 kilograms of samples.

China’s largest and most sophisticated lunar probe, Chang’e 5 was launched by a Long March 5 heavy-lift carrier rocket early on Nov 24 at the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan province, undertaking the world’s first mission since 1976 to return lunar samples to Earth. The spacecraft is composed of four parts — orbiter (轨道飞行器), lander, ascender and re-entry capsule (返回舱).

Before the landing, Chang’e 5 separated into two parts — the orbiter-reentry capsule combination and the lander-ascender combination — in a lunar orbit early on Monday morning so as to prepare for the landing operation.

While the lander-ascender combination is carrying out surface operations, the orbiter-reentry capsule combination is traveling in a lunar orbit at an average altitude of around 200 km above the moon. After all surface operations are done, an engine on the ascender will lift it to meet the reentry module. It will transfer the lunar samples to the module and then separate from it.

The orbiter-reentry combination capsule will then return to the Earth’s orbit, where the pair will break up and the reentry capsule will return to a preset landing site in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region in mid-December.

If the mission is successful, it will make China the third nation to bring samples back from the moon, after the United States and the former Soviet Union.

1. What does the underlined word “sophisticated” in Paragraph 4 refer to?

A．Popular.

B．Advanced.

C．Necessary.

D．Difficult.

2. Which one shows the correct order of the whole operation?
a. landing on the moon.
b. separating Chang’e 5 into two parts.
c. launching Chang’e 5 lunar probe from the rocket.
d. collecting subsurface and surface samples.
e. returning to the Earth’s orbit.

A．cbade.

B．baced.

C．bcaed.

D．cbdae.

3. What can we infer from the text?

A．Chang’e 5 has finished collecting samples on the surface.

B．The reentry capsule will return with the lunar samples.

C．The orbiter-reentry capsule will be together all the time.

D．The reentry capsule will return to the launch center.

4. Where can we most probably read this text?

A．In a travel brochure.	B．In a geography textbook.
C．In a science newspaper.	D．In a personal diary.

5 . Health experts have long known that vitamin D is important for healthy bones and teeth. It may also help to protect the body against diseases such as diabetes and cancer. And now, researchers say vitamin D might help fight brain diseases called dementia (痴呆).
Dementia is a brain disease that damages thinking and memory processes, which scientists call “cognitive (认知) abilities.” Dementia is difficult to treat. Taking care of someone who has dementia is extremely demanding. And the disease is very frightening to sufferers. Chris Roberts suffers from dementia. He says the worst part of living with this disease was getting lost while driving. “The worst thing that I found was getting lost in the car, not just forgetting where I was going— I wouldn’t know where I was.” More than 47 million people around the world suffer from dementia. The World Health Organization reports that 60 percent of them live in low- and middle-income countries.
We get vitamin D from some foods like nuts, lentils (扁豆) and fatty fish. We also get vitamin D from the sun. But that is not dependable. In some parts of the world, there is not enough sunlight to provide enough vitamin D. Also, sunblock prevents the vitamin from entering the body. To add to the problem, the skin’s ability to process vitamin D weakens as a person ages.
Researchers at Rutgers University in New Jersey are exploring the relationship between vitamin D and dementia. The team recently measured vitamin D levels and cognitive ability in older people. Nutritional sciences professor Joshua Miller led the team. He said cognitive abilities differed among the study subjects. He said tests showed that about 60 percent of the group was low in vitamin D.
1. Which of the following is true about vitamin D?

A．Vitamin D can decrease people’s risk of heart diseases.

B．Vitamin D helps the body fight against cancer.

C．Vitamin D is mainly obtained from the sun.

D．The need for Vitamin D decreases as people age.

2. What does the underlined word “demanding” mean in Paragraph 2?

A．Boring but rewarding.

B．Disturbing and frightening.

C．Disgusting and stressful.

D．Hard and tiresome.

3. What does Paragraph 3 mainly talk about?

A．How vitamin D affects people’s health.

B．Where people get vitamin D.

C．Whether sunlight can produce vitamin

D．D. Why people’s age influences the production of vitamin D.

4. Where can we most probably read the passage?

A．In a travel brochure.

B．In a literature magazine.

C．In a science journal.

D．In a commercial advertisement.

6 . We tend to believe that older people are more positive and younger people are more sensitive to social cues (暗示).

Recently scientists investigated this idea by testing 10,000 men and women. They wanted to see if age affected a person’s ability to identify subtle facial emotions, such as fear and anger.

The researchers from McLean Hospital in the US used a Web-based platform to collect happiness data. It showed the participants two headshots (头部特写) of random people. They were then asked to identify which subject was angrier, happier, or more fearful. The research found that younger people were able to better identify angry and fearful facial cues than older people.

“From the previous studies , we know that the everyday experiences of an adolescent are different from an older person, but we wanted to understand how these experiences might be linked with differences in basic emotion understanding,” wrote Laura Germine, the study’s senior author.

But what is it that makes young people more sensitive?

“This is the exact age when young people are most sensitive to forms of negative social cues, such as bullying,” Lauren Rutter, the study’s lead author, told Science Daily. “The normal development of anger sensitivity can contribute to some of the challenges that arise during this phase of development.”

On the contrary, across the whole 10,000-person survey, researchers found no decline in the perception (感知)of happiness among older participants.

“What’s remarkable is that we see declines in many visual perceptual abilities as we get older, but here we did not see such declines in the perception of happiness,” Germine told Neuro Science News.

She added that these findings fit well with other research, showing that older adults tend to have more positive emotions and a positive outlook.

Following the paper’s release, Rutter told Neuro Science News that gathering their primary research online allowed the team to tap into a “much larger and more diverse sample set” than previous studies.

1. What is the result of the research?

A．We are often bullied while young.

B．We become less positive as we get older.

C．The younger we are, the happier we feel.

D．The younger, the more sensitive; the older, the more positive.

2. What makes young people more sensitive according to the text?

A．Their family backgrounds.	B．Their negative experiences.
C．People around them.	D．Their visual perceptual abilities.

3. How does the author support the theme of the text?

A．By giving examples.	B．By stating arguments.
C．By explaining statistical data.	D．By providing results.

4. Where is the text most probably taken from?

A．An announcement.	B．A science magazine.
C．A travel guide.	D．An official report.

7 . Self-driving cars have been backed by the hope that they will save lives by getting involved in fewer crashes with fewer injuries and deaths than human-driven cars. But so far, most comparisons between human drivers and automated vehicles have been unfair.

Crash statistics for human-driven cars are gathered from all sorts of driving situations, and on all types of roads. However, most of the data on self-driving cars' safety have been recorded often in good weather and on highways, where the most important tasks are staying in the car's own lane and not getting too close to the vehicle-ahead. Automated cars are good at those tasks, but so are humans.

It is true that self-driving cars don't get tired, angry, frustrated or drunk .But neither can they yet react to uncertain situations with the same skill or anticipation of an attentive human driver, nor do they possess the foresight to avoid potential perils. They largely drive from moment to moment, rather than think ahead to possible events literally down the road.

To a self-driving car, a bus full of people might appear quite similar to an uninhabited corn field. Indeed, deciding what action to take in an emergency is difficult for humans, but drivers have sacrificed themselves for the greater good of others. An automated system's limited understanding of the world means it will almost never evaluate ( 评估) a situation the same way a human would. And machines can't be programmed in advance to handle every imaginable set of events.

Some people may argue that the promise of simply reducing the number of injuries and deaths is enough to support driverless cars. But experience from aviation (航空) shows that as new automated systems are introduced, there is often an increase in the rate of disasters.

Therefore, comparisons between humans and automated vehicles have to be performed carefully. To fairly evaluate driverless cars on how well they fulfill their promise of improved safety, it's important to ensure the data being presented actually provide a true comparison. After all, choosing to replace humans with automation has more effects than simply a one-for-one exchange.

1. What makes the comparison between self-driving cars and human-driven cars unfair?

A．Self-driving cars never get tired.	B．Statistics are collected differently.
C．Machines can make decisions faster.	D．Self-driving cars know the world better.

2. What does the underlined word”perils” in Paragraph 3 most probably mean?

A．Dangers.

B．Self-driving cars.

C．Pedestrians.

D．Human-driven cars.

3. In which aspect can self- driving cars beat human-driven cars?

A．Driving steadily.	B．Climbing steep slopes.
C．Evaluating the cost of loss.	D．Making complex decisions.

4. Where is the text most likely from?

A．A poster.

B．A novel.

C．A brochure.

D．A magazine.

8 . Working women make up nearly half of the U.S. workforce, and 51 percent of professional workers, like doctors, lawyers, nurses and accountants, are female. While climbing the career ladder can be rewarding, it often comes with one big downside: weight gain!

New research published this week in the International Journal of Obesity shows that working women are more likely to be overweight, and the more you work, the more pounds you're likely to pile on. Like many women, I work..., a lot! As a self­employed nutrition communications specialist, I sit at my desk, in front of a computer, for hours on end. Sitting alone is one of the worst things you can do for your health, and it's directly linked to being overweight and increased fatness, so the fact that women in the workforce gain weight isn't that surprising. If you work, you have less time to move around. Obesity researchers are revealing many other ways that employment is harmful to your diet and waistline.

In the International Journal of Obesity study, some 9, 276 Australian women aged 45－50 had their body weight and employment status monitored for two years. Results? Those who worked more than 35 hours were likely to gain weight compared to those who worked fewer hours or were out of the workforce. What' s more, the more hours a woman worked in a week, the more weight she gained.

The authors of the Australian study attribute weight gain among working women to inactivity, lack of time for food preparation, more use of prepared foods, high levels of stress, lack of sleep and consuming more alcohol. I'll also add in travel，meals eaten out and working at night as other factors that I can find to make balancing work with a healthy diet a challenge.

1. The text above is probably taken from__________.

A．a sports report	B．a fashion journal
C．a health and fitness magazine	D．an advertisement post

2. A woman who works as an accountant is more likely to__________.

A．gain more weight	B．have more time to move around
C．work a full time job	D．keep a balanced diet

3. Which is NOT the cause of working women weight gaining according to the passage?

A．Lacking time for food preparation.	B．Using more prepared food.
C．Consuming too much alcohol.	D．Taking part in more activities.

4. What can be a suitable title for the test?

A．Less activity leads to fat.	B．Ways of gaining weight.
C．Effects of weight gaining.	D．Working women more likely pile on pounds.