1 . A trial project by the Montreal Children’s Hospital suggested that the use of medical hypnosis (催眠) can reduce pain and anxiety in patients. The project also resulted in a reduction in the amount of medicines used to perform medical-imaging (医学影像) procedures.
“During the examination children don’t move. It works perfectly. It’s amazing,” said Johanne L’Ecuyer, a medical-imaging technologist at the hospital.
The project was inspired by a French team from Rouen University Hospital Centre where examinations are done under hypnosis instead of general anesthesia (麻醉).
A French medical-imaging technologist — also a hypnotist — was invited to train a few members in the medical-imaging department of the children’s hospital. In all, 80 examinations were conducted for the project between January and September, 2019, focusing on the imaging procedures that would cause anxiety.
Hypnosis is not a state of sleep: It is rather a modified (改变的) state of consciousness. The technologist will guide the patient to this modified state — an imaginary world that will disassociate itself more and more from the procedure that follows.
“The technologist must build up a story with the patient,” Ms. L’Ecuyer said. “The patient is left with the power to choose what he wants to talk about. Do you play sports? Do you like going to the beach? We establish a subject that we will discuss throughout the procedure.”
Everything that happens next during the procedure must be related to this story — an injection (注射) becomes the bite of an insect; the heat on the skin becomes the sensation of the sun and a machine that rings becomes a police car passing nearby.
“The important thing is that the technologist associates what is happening outside the patient’s body with what the patient sees in his head,” Ms. L’Ecuyer said. “It requires creativity on the part of the technologist, imagination, a lot of patience and kindness.”
The procedure appealed to the staff a lot when it was introduced in January. “It spread like wildfire that someone from France was here to train the technologists,” Ms. L’Ecuyer said. She added that she had a line of staff at her door wanting to take the training
What is the passage mainly about?
| A．An easy way to communicate with patients. |
| B．The standard method of conducting hypnosis. |
| C．An introduction of medical-imaging technology. |
| D．The use of hypnosis in medical-imaging procedures. |
2 . Google has announced plans to stop supporting tools designed to follow Internet users across the web in order to target them with specific advertising.
Such tools are known as cookies-small data files that are stored on an Internet user's computer as they browse （浏览）different websites. This data can be read by web servers to identify web browsing behaviors of the user. Cookies make it possible for users to avoid having to repeatedly enter their user names and passwords to get access to websites they use often. But the use of cookies raises major privacy concerns, with critics saying a user's browsing history should not be recorded just to target them with ads.
Google announced in 2020 it had decided “to remove support for third-party cookies" from its Chrome browser. In another online announcement, Google repeated this promise, saying it will not build new tools to replace current cookie technology.
In explaining its decision, Google referred to a Pew Research study that found 72 percent of Americans feel that almost all of what they do online is tracked by advertisers. Google's decision to remove third-party cookies also followed increasing efforts to protect privacy in Europe and the United States. Google said the current Internet advertising model needs to change to answer “the growing concerns people have about their privacy and how their personal identity is being used.”
In January, however, Google's plan was questioned by British competition regulators. The country's Competition and Markets Authority announced it had launched an investigation into whether the changes would give Google an unfair advantage over competitors in Internet advertising. The agency said it received objections to the plan from Marketers for an Open Web, a league of technology and publishing companies. The group accuses Google of “abusing its dominant position” by attempting to create a new advertising model.
In its latest statement, Google said, “We will not build alternate identifiers to track individuals as they browse across the web, nor will we use them in our products.”
1. According to the text, what do you know about cookies?| A．Cookies are inconvenient for web users. |
| B．The users should repeat their passwords to enter websites. |
| C．Google uses Cookies to monitor the web users' private life. |
| D．The tracks of the web users can be followed by the web servers. |
| A．To use a alternative tool. |
| B．To get more personal information, |
| C．To respond to concerns about privacy. |
| D．To create a fair Internet advertising platform. |
| A．It was organized by an agency of the US. |
| B．All people don't accept the Google's plan. |
| C．Google has the biggest advantages on the Internet. |
| D．Marketers for an Open Web is in favor of the Google's plan. |
| A．Privacy should be protected. |
| B．Google will change advertising model. |
| C．There should not be many advertisements on the web. |
| D．Cookies will be removed from Google for privacy protection. |
3 . “Now I just don’t believe that.” Surely all of us, at some point, have watched a movie and thought: It’s simply badly researched, or, the makers must think we’re idiots.
The British newspaper The Daily Telegraph ran a humorous piece on unconvincing tech moments from some top movies. Let’s see what they are all about.
The Daily Telegraph writer Tom Chivers’ first example is from the end-of-the-world movie Independence Day, in which a character comes up with a virus which destroys Windows, the computer system the alien spacecraft uses. “It’s a good thing they didn’t have Norton Anti-virus,” jokes Chivers.
It’s just one case of a movie that takes a lot of license with its science. Another one Chivers mentions is from Star Wars, where glowing beams of light traveling through space look very impressive. But the problem is that in space there are no air particles for the light to reflect off. In reality, they’d be invisible, which wouldn’t look so cool on the big screen.
Chivers’ second piece of Star Wars nonsense is the sound the fighters make in the movies:“the bellow (咆哮) of an elephant mixed with a car driving on a wet road”. But sound needs a medium to travel through, like air. In space, there wouldn’t actually be any sound at all.
Few people would deny that the mind-bending Matrix films are made for great viewing, but for Chivers, the science in the movies is a little silly.
And finally, as Chivers points out, DNA is not replaceable. But this bit of elementary genetics passed the makers of the 2002 Bond film Die Another Day by. In the film the bad man has “gene therapy” to change his appearance and his DNA, which is completely impossible in our real world.
1. What does the passage mainly deal with?| A．Plots of some famous movies. |
| B．Characters in space movies. |
| C．Popularity of space movies. |
| D．Mistakes made in some movies. |
| A．The newspapers. |
| B．Unconvincing tech moments. |
| C．Some top movies. |
| D．Heroes in the movies. |
| A．light looks very impressive |
| B．light seems like glowing beams |
| C．glowing beams cannot be seen |
| D．light can’t travel through space |
| A．Most people like Matrix films. |
| B．Most people suspect the truth of Matrix films. |
| C．Few people enjoy viewing Matrix films. |
| D．Chivers thinks science is not acceptable. |
4 . Several years ago, when someone used camera covers to protect against possible monitoring, it was not popular to talk about it. Today, people use various types of tapes to cover the web cameras and microphones.
There are many types of spyware that can dive into our devices and secretly spy on them, recording everything they do. Such programs may infect not only computers but also smartphones. Your data may be used by hackers who will try to request money for not exposing your private information or by companies like NSO Group who created the Pegasus spyware to “provide authorized governments with technology that helps struggle against terror and crime”.
In my opinion, the described protection technique is highly overestimated. Users tape cameras and microphones due to the lack of understanding of how their devices work and how malware(恶意软件)works. Hackers and even secret services do not have enough resources to monitor all victims using cameras or microphones. If they need to yet any information, they get it by sending a targeted malware to your device, which will not be stopped by the tapes. Such a virus will find what to steal -from personal photos and videos to passwords from social networks, browser history, bank accounts and much more.
It is unwise to believe that attackers will not be able to find a way to spy on you, even if the device, discharged to zero, can still deliver data about your location, using the smartphones of the surrounding people as signal repeaters. Let us face it. we live in an era when it is extremely difficult to hide something and a piece of tape is clearly not the most useful tool in the struggle for your privacy.
Again, to be able to spy on you, attackers need to plant malware in your device. To prevent malware from entering your device, do not click suspected links and email attachments. Use strong passwords for email, social media and online banking accounts.
1. What does the underlined word “them” in paragraph 2 refer to?| A．Cameras. |
| B．Types. |
| C．Programs. |
| D．Devices. |
| A．group of hackers. |
| B．A company developing spyware. |
| C．A group of terrorists and criminals. |
| D．A company fighting against crime. |
| A．People know little about their devices. |
| B．Hackers have no access to others. |
| C．It hardly prevents malware from getting privacy. |
| D．It can't cover the cameras completely. |
| A．Protecting privacy on devices. |
| B．Rising trend of using tapes. |
| C．Monitoring devices via cameras. |
| D．Avoiding clicking distrustful links. |
5 . As digital devices （设备）have taken over society, “keyboard activity is now often recommended as a substitute for early handwriting," a new study notes. The idea is that typing may be easier for young children.
“Some schools in Norway have become completely digital," notes Audrey Vander Meer, the new study's leader, who measures brain activity to better understand learning and behaviors. She works at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. The human brain has developed to interact with the world in as many ways as possible, she notes. She believes that young children should learn to write by hand successfully, and, at the same time learn to manage a keyboard.
Using a pen involves more of the brain than using a keyboard, her new findings show. This is because writing and printing involve complex movements that activate more areas of the brain. The increased brain activity, "gives the brain more 'hooks' to hang your memories on," she explains.
Think about it. The same movement is required to type each letter on a keyboard. By comparison, when we write, our brain needs to think about and recover memories of the shape of each letter. We also need to use our eyes to watch what shapes we're writing. And we need to control our hands to press a pen or pencil to shape the different letters. All of this uses and connects more areas of the brain.
Along the way, these processes appear to “open the brain up for learning", says Vander Meer. So learning through only one format — digital — could be harmful, she worries.
Vander Meer also points out that taking notes by hand stimulates （激发）"visual notetaking". Rather than typing blindly, the visual note-taker has to think about what is important to write down. Then, key words can be "interlinked by boxes, and arrows, and supplemented by small drawings".
1. What is the main idea of the text?| A．Digital devices are popular with students. |
| B．Handwriting beats typing in taking notes. |
| C．The process of taking notes changes thinking. |
| D．The new study makes contributions to science. |
| A．Communicate with the world. | B．Rely on keyboard activity. |
| C．Learn to write by hand. | D．Master basic drawing skills. |
| A．By studying how the brain develops. | B．By observing social phenomena. |
| C．By assessing functions of senses. | D．By comparing ways of taking notes. |
| A．Relationship. | B．Fashion. |
| C．Culture. | D．Science. |
6 . This is the moment a cleaner at a British university burst into tears after students raised $ 2,063 to send him to Jamaica on vacation to see family.
Herman Gordon, who has worked at Bristol University for more than a decade, is described as “one of the most loved” members of its cleaning staff. He is so well liked that a group of students raised money to give him a holiday. A video shows a student hands an envelope of cash to the surprised Gordan with tears rolling down his cheeks. He wipes away tears with a cleaning cloth and hugs the student who gave it to him. Gordan said: “I want to thank every one of you and God bless every one of you.”
The group of students started the fundraising because they liked Gordon so much. A post said: “The Jamaican cleaner in the biomedical library is the jolliest man I have ever met; he makes me smile even when I’m in the deepest depths of sorrow, if you want a reason to smile, go talk to him for a minute or two.”
Anyone who has been to the biomedical library knows who Herman the cleaner is. Simply put, Herman is the epitome（典范）of happiness, “All year round, this man works hours on end to provide us with a clean working space in which to study. But most importantly, his everlasting positive attitude has managed to turn many students’ dark days into positive ones filled with joy,” said a student. Whether you’re just feeling generally down or stressed out due to exams, Herman is always there to encourage you.
This legend proves that happiness is not about what you own, what job you have or how much money you’ve got, but about appreciating what you currently have in life even if it’s small.
1. What was Herman Gordon’ reaction when receiving the fundraising?| A．grateful. | B．stressed. | C．delighted. | D．astonished. |
| A．most miserable. | B．most cheerful. | C．most generous. | D．most glorious. |
| A．Building confidence. | B．Developing exam skills. |
| C．Learning self-control. | D．Gaining biomedical knowledge. |
| A．A biomedical library cleaner. . | B．A group of warm-hearted students. |
| C．Money-raising to send a cleaner on vacation. | D．The most loved cleaning staff. |
7 . As heat waves continue to ravage the planet, air conditioners are becoming more and more common. However, these "active" cooling devices are posing problems because the electricity consumption which most people are concerned about and the release of ozone-damaging chemicals worsen the greenhouse gas effect, resulting in the creation of heat islands and further thermal pollution. Therefore, "passive" cooling, which doesn't have such effects, has attracted considerable attention from both scientists and ordinary people in recent years.
In a recent study, a team of researchers from China and US presented an eco-friendly, low-cost smart coating to keep buildings cooler while consuming zero electricity. Infrared radiation-based passive cooling has been investigated since 2014, but challenges, mainly the expensive and unsustainable design, have greatly limited their large-scale and widespread application. Besides, the imbalance in cooling ability of these coatings during the day and night tends to lead to great day-night temperature differences as more heat is lost than gained at night.
The solution therefore requires a "smart" mechanism that can both enhance daytime cooling and minimize nighttime heat loss. To do this, the researchers created a new smart coating comprised of conventional building materials, including titanium dioxide nanoparticles, fluorescent microparticles, and glass microspheres that were engineered to reflect most of the sunlight. Specifically, the titanium dioxide particles effectively reflect sunlight through light scattering（撒播）while the fluorescent particles increase the amount of reflection by changing the absorbed sunlight into fluorescence emissions, which drive more heat away from the building. Meanwhile, the glass microspheres re-send mid-infrared broadband radiation, allowing not only heat loss, but allowing heat exchange to take place between the building and the sky.
The coating was tested on a model concrete building. Through this efficient heat exchange with the sky, daytime cooling was strengthened while nighttime cooling was reduced. The building's inside temperature was always maintained at around 26℃, even when the out-side temperature varied from 24℃ to 37℃ during the day. We believe this new coating will make it to commercialization soon, enabling a sustainable, passive cooling technology that could help to fight climate change and the global energy crisis.
1. What is the virtue of passive cooling?| A．It is simple to design. | B．It uses no chemicals. |
| C．It is smart. | D．It uses no power. |
| A．It was hard to design. |
| B．Its material was hard to produce. |
| C．Its heat loss and cooling are imbalanced. |
| D．It wasn't tested on a model concrete building. |
| A．Metal. | B．System. | C．Platform. | D．Building. |
| A．The principle of air-conditioning. |
| B．The differences between active and passive cooling. |
| C．A new coating to keep buildings cool without electricity. |
| D．A new building to maintain its inside temperature without electricity. |
8 . Looking back is a wonderful thing. It allows you to see what has led you here and, hopefully, how society has changed and improved.
Take, for instance, my career goal. First, I wanted, in 1999, to be a “farmer”, soon archaeologist, then driving instructor and somewhere along the way, footballer.
I had grown up in a football-loving family. I remember the exact moment when I said “I’m sad I can’t be a footballer” while watching the game with Dad as a pre-teen. He asked why not. “Because I’m not a boy.” He immediately responded, “You can, if you want to.” “Yeah, I suppose so,” I sighed, “but no one watches women’s football.”
Looking back, I can see exactly why I felt like that. At school, there was an unwritten rule that sports like hockey and netball were “girl” sports and rugby and football were for the boys. I’d never seen a women’s football match on TV. You see, you can’t be what you can’t see, and lack of representation leads, at best, to misunderstanding, and at worst, fear and negative opinions.
Today, the Lionesses will take on Scotland in the World Cup, and people across the world will tune in — over 950,000 tickets have been sold so far. But, although women’s football is one of FIFA’s best investments — with a pound for pound return, the majority of female players are earning under a fair wage. Some argue that’s because viewing statistics are lower than those of men’s, but the rise in support shows the demand is there. Hopefully, more investment will push female football forward.
Today, I’ll be cheering on the Lionesses, because it’ll mean talented, skillful female footballers being broadcast into millions of homes and maybe, just maybe, a little girl believing that she can also be a Lioness one day.
1. Which of the following best describes the author’s career goals?| A．Realistic. | B．Changeable. |
| C．Consistent. | D．Long-sought. |
| A．She was not talented enough. |
| B．People lost faith in women’s football. |
| C．Girls were forbidden to play football. |
| D．She had no example to follow. |
| A．It’s better paid than men’s. | B．It is increasingly popular. |
| C．It has no market demand. | D．It is not profitable. |
| A．Society advances with time. | B．Women deserve equal rights. |
| C．Each goal is worth pursuing. | D．Hard work always pays off. |
9 . For many of us, good friends are the next closest thing to family. According to a new study, good friends are actually the next closest thing to family from the aspect of genes (基因).
U.S. researchers have found that we are more genetically similar to our friends than to any stranger. The study suggested that genes may affect how we choose our friends, reports the BBC.
The study looked at the gene information of nearly 2,000 people, who were chosen from a small U.S. town as part of a larger heart study. Nearly half a million single-letter markers from the genome (基因组) were studied, showing that friends share about 0.1 percent more DNA, on average, than strangers do. While that might not sound like much, it’s as if they shared a great-great-great-grandparent in common.
Except for providing DNA information, participants (参与者) in the study were also asked who their closest friends were. Because all of the participants were chosen from such a small community, it made this group particularly suitable for such studies.
However, the fact that all of the study was based on such a small community has also led to argument. Friendships in small communities might be more likely to be genetically related, because such communities have fewer types of genes in general.
“I wonder whether the methods used in the study can fully explain the causes known to drive friendships,” said Oxford’s Dr. Rory Bowden.
There was one interesting finding from the study. Some of the genes that friends are most likely to have in common are about smell. “You may really love the smell of coffee. And you’re drawn to a place where other people have been drawn because they love the smell of coffee too,” Fowler explained. “And so that might be the opportunity space for you to make friends. You’re all there together because you love coffee and you make friends because you all love coffee.”
1. What did the participants do in the study?| A．They named their closest friends. |
| B．They made friends from a small community. |
| C．They changed the methods of making friends. |
| D．They provided DNA information of their friends. |
| A．Coffee helps strangers come together. |
| B．Good friends will love the smell of coffee. |
| C．Genes about smell among friends are similar. |
| D．Smell may influence people in making friends. |
| A．A study on the relationship between making friends and genes. |
| B．The methods of carrying out different studies. |
| C．A way to choose participants in a study. |
| D．The similar genes between good friends. |
10 . Chinese scientists have created the world’s first light-based quantum（量子）computer named Jiuzhang. It is a milestone in which a quantum machine can solve a problem no classical supercomputer can tackle within a reasonable amount of time.
Experts recognized the Chinese machine as a “state-of-the-art experiment” Fabio Sciarrino, a quantum physicist at Sapienza University of Rome, told Science News that his first impression of the Chinese quantum computer was, simply, “wow”. Anton Zeilinger, noted quantum physicist and president of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, said that, following this experiment, he predicts there is a very good chance that quantum computers may be used very broadly someday.
Quantum computers stand out at running simulations that are impossible for conventional computers. Quantum machines can take computational shortcuts when simulating extremely complex situations, while conventional computers have to force their way to a solution, taking significantly more time in the process. Moreover, it can perform an extreme calculation, called Gaussian boson sampling（高斯玻色取样）, in 200 seconds. The same task would take the world’s fastest classical supercomputer, Fugaku, around 600 million years.
Pan Jianwei, who is recognized as China’s top quantum scientist and one of the key researchers behind Jiuzhang, said the calculations they carried out can not only showcase the machine’s computing power but also demonstrate potential practical applications in machine learning and quantum chemistry.
“Quantum computing has already become a fierce competition area among the United States, Europe and other developed regions,” Pan said, adding that China’s quantum computational advantage took about 7 to 10 years to achieve, since the team first decided to tackle the problem around 2013.
However, Pan stressed that the quantum computer is a highly specialized machine, and is currently only programmed to do boson sampling. “It is not a general-purpose quantum computer,” he said. In the near future, scientists may increase Jiuzhang’s possible output states—a key indicator of computing power—from 10 to the 30th power to 10 to the 40th power.
1. What is the Anton Zeilinger’s attitude towards quantum computer?| A．Negative. | B．Optimistic. |
| C．Doubtful. | D．Satisfied. |
| A．By making contrasts. | B．By presenting reasons. |
| C．By analyzing figures. | D．By conducting experiments. |
| A．Capacity. | B．Programme. |
| C．Storage. | D．Specialization. |
| A．High recognition of Chinese experts in the world. |
| B．Fierce competition in Boson sampling all over the world. |
| C．Appearance of the world’s first light-based quantum computer. |
| D．Distinctions between quantum computer and conventional computer. |
