1 . When you hear the beginning of your favorite song from the radio, suddenly your neck is covered in goose bumps.
It's such a thing that a group of scientists call “skin excitement”—a feeling of cold caused not by a drop in temperature or sudden scare, but by the sense of beauty. “Skin excitement” can come from a song, a painting, a moving movie scene, or even a beloved memory-pretty much anything that causes the giving out of pleasure-soaked dopamine in your brain. But it does not come for all of us.
Your favorite music uncovers a lot about your personality，and so does how you respond to that music. Studies suppose that as few as 55 percent of people experience “skin excitement” when listening to music. And if you count yourself among this group, the goose bumps on your skin aren't the only giveaway—scientists can read it in your brain, too. In a new study published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Harvard researchers performed brain scans on 10 students who said they reliably got cold when listening to music, and 10 students who didn't. They found that the cold-prone brains may really be excited by stronger emotions.
Cold-prone brains are generally more likely to show stronger emotional intelligence than no-cold brains. Cold-prone minds tend to have unusual active imagination, reflect more deeply on their emotions, and appreciate nature and the beauty of music and art to a stronger degree than no-cold brains.
So, what type of music causes the chills? It seems that the type is not so important; participants in the new study reported getting cold from songs of every kind. And any song connected with a strong emotional memory of the listener can produce the most reliable results. For me, that's the song Sailing to Philadelphia by Mark Knopfler, which I listened to as a kid in the car with my dad, on the way to the summer camp.
1. What can we learn about “skin excitement” in the text?| A．It helps to produce doparmine. | B．It is caused by the pain in the skin. |
| C．It can be experienced by every music listener. | D．It is the human body's reaction to something nice. |
| A．The percentage of music lovers in students. |
| B．The solutions to the goose bumps on one's skin. |
| C．The differences between cold-prone and no-cold brains. |
| D．The relationship between one's music preference and personality. |
| A．Beautiful and intelligent. | B．Emotional and dishonest. |
| C．Imaginative and sensitive. | D．Brave and strong-minded. |
| A．Responses to Music Vary among People | B．A Feeling of Cold Is Caused by Horrible Music |
| C．Your Favorite Music Reveals Your Personality | D．Favorite Music May Bring Forth Goose Bumps |
2 . An 85-year-old primary school constructed in 1935 in Shanghai has been lifted off the ground in its entirety and relocated using new technology called the “walking machine.” The project marks the first time this “walking machine” method has been used in Shanghai to relocate a historical building.
Urbanization（都市化）has continued to significantly threaten architectural heritage. In the capital Beijing, for instance, more than 1,000 acres of its historic hutongs and traditional courtyard homes were destroyed between 1990 and 2010.
In the early 2000s, cities including Nanjing and Bejjing-due to the critics’ protest about the loss of old neighborhoods-drew up long-term plans to preserve what was left of their historic sites, with protections introduced to safeguard buildings and restrict developers.
These conservation efforts have taken different forms. In Beijing, a near-ruined temple was transformed into a restaurant and gallery, while in Nanjing, a cinema from the 1930s was restored to its original form, with some additions providing it for modern use. In 2019, Shanghai welcomed Tank Shanghai, an arts center built in renovated（重修的）oil tanks.
“Relocation is not the first choice, but better than destroying,” said Lan, the Shanghai primary school’s project supervisor. “I’d rather not touch the historical buildings at all.” Building relocations he said however, are “a workable option.” “The central government is putting more emphasis on the protection of historical buildings. I’m happy to see that progress in recent years.”
Shanghai has arguably been China’s most progressive city when it comes to heritage preservation. The survival of a number of 1930s buildings and 19th-century “shikumen” （or “stone gate”） house have offered examples of how to give old buildings new life.
“We have to preserve the historical building no matter what, ” Lan said. “The relocation has challenges, but in general, it is cheaper than destroying and then rebuilding something in a new location.”
1. How did cities respond to the loss of historical sites?| A．They criticized the developers. | B．They rebuilt the historic hutongs. |
| C．They ended the significant threat. | D．They proposed the protection project. |
| A．All original form. | B．A new addition. | C．A cinema. | D．A temple. |
| A．Provide strong evidence. | B．Introduce different opinions. |
| C．Summarize previous paragraphs. | D．Add some background information. |
| A．Walking Machine: a New Technology | B．Rebuilding: a New Option for Relics |
| C．Old Building Torn down for Modern Use | D．Historical Site “Walks” to New Life |
3 . It is the stock response to a parent struggling with a crying baby or a bad-tempered teenager: “Treasure every moment because they grow up so fast.” Now researchers have found there may be something in the old saying. Watching children grow up really does seem to make time fly. Scientists have found that parents feel time passing more quickly than non-parents.
The findings could be due to the fact that children change fast. “Over ten years, children go through dramatic changes not only in their physical appearance, but also in their understanding abilities and their status, ” the researchers said. The results could also be a consequence of parents spending a large amount of their time on their children, they said, even though they found no difference in the time pressures recorded by parents compared with non-parents in the study.
For the study, published in the journal Timing & Time Perception (感知), the researchers asked 431 people aged from 20 to 59 to fill in a subjective time questionnaire, a tool used by psychologists to measure time perception. They were asked: “How fast did the last ten years pass for you?” An answer of very slowly gave a score of-2; slowly was-I; neither fast nor slow was 0; fast was I and very fast scored 2. So the higher the score, the faster they felt time had passed. The parents had an average score of I. 22, compared with 0. 76 for the non-parents.
Participants were also asked how quickly the last year, month and week had passed, but there were no differences between the groups for these shorter intervals (间隔). Previous studies have suggested that time also seems to speed up when we get older. Research published in 2019 by Duke University in North Carolina suggests this could be due to physical changes in our bodies, with a slowdown in image processing speeding up our perception of time passing.
Days that seemed to last forever in our youth were “not due to experiences being much deeper or meaningful”, the researcher Adrian Bejan said, “but due to the fact that they were being processed rapidly.”
1. What probably makes parents feel time passing more quickly than non-parents?| A．The pressure of raising children. | B．Devoting much time to children. |
| C．The slowdown in image processing. | D．Noticing children’s daily physical growth. |
| A．Time seems to speed up for the young. |
| B．Parents responded differently to the old saying. |
| C．Non-parents have deeper experiences. |
| D．The older people are, the higher scores they may get. |
| A．Experiences. | B．Researchers. | C．Days. | D．Youths. |
| A．The perception of time passing. |
| B．Teenagers experience dramatic changes. |
| C．Time really flies when you are having children. |
| D．Comparison between parents and non-parents. |
4 . Some termite (白蚁) species have figured out how to enjoy the shelter of the huge complex nests that the insects build without contributing to their construction. They avoid the full anger of their builder hosts by being extremely easy-going.
Animals that live in the nests of another species without affecting them are known as inquilines. Inquiline termites are unique among termites in being unable to make their own nests. Instead, they live in the hallways built by another termite, Constrictotermes cyphergaster. Until now, it has been unclear how the two parties kept peaceful in such tight quarters because termites are typically very aggressive towards outsiders.
Helder Hugo at the University of Konstanz in Germany and his colleagues collected Constrictotermes cyphergaster’s nests in the Brazilian Cerrado and brought them into the laboratory. They then placed host and tenant (房客) termites in either open or narrow areas and used video to track and record the ways in which the two species reacted to each other.
Right from the start, the inquiline’ termites moved around less than their hosts and interacted little with them, even in the much narrower area. “Many times,” says Hugo, “when two unrelated groups are put together in a limited space—such as an experimental area—the outcome is conflict with losses from both sides.” But that didn’t happen here. Despite attacks from host termites, the tenant termites were obedient. Hosts would bite or attack the inquilines with strong chemicals, but their targets never responded in the same way, choosing to flee. Some ignored the hosts completely.
“We did not expect that they would never fight back,” says Hugo, noting that the inquilines are capable of protecting their own place with mouths. “By preventing conflict going worse, inquiline termites may considerably improve their chances of living together with their host termites peacefully.”
“Passiveness does not necessarily lead to defeat, but can be a very useful strategy, saving energy and resources,” she adds. “Nature may not always be red in tooth and claw, and aggression is not any more successful a strategy than ‘cowardice’ (儒弱).”
1. What is the feature of the inquiline termites?| A．They live in another termite species’ nests. |
| B．They are aggressive towards outsiders. |
| C．They like to build their own nests. |
| D．They are communicative tenants. |
| A．The differences between the two species. |
| B．The findings of the observation. |
| C．The living habits of termites. |
| D．The process of the research. |
| A．Aggressive. | B．Unacceptable. | C．Effective. | D．Dangerous. |
| A．The Characteristics of Termites |
| B．Passiveness Doesn’t Necessarily Lead to Defeat |
| C．The Relationship Between Host and Tenant Termites |
| D．Termites Use Cowardice to Avoid Their Hosts’ Anger |
5 . It was an amazing feeling to be acknowledged for the Pride Of Britain award at No 10 Downing Street.
The last thing you expect when doing something as ordinary as picking your son up from a sleepover is to end up saving three people’s lives in a plane crash—but that’s exactly what happened to me in May this year.
I think I was acting unconsciously. I jumped out, leaving Giacomo in the car.
The plane was upside down and flames were coming out of the driver’s seat and I could hear screaming. I think there must have been roughly half a minute between getting the first and last person out. Then another guy—who turned out to be Joel Snarr—arrived on the scene to help at just the right time. I don’t think I’d have been able to get the pilot out—he was a big guy. There is no way he would have survived if Joel hadn’t been there. I could tell straight away Joel had a military background by how he conducted himself. We’d just got all three of them to a safe distance when the aircraft was completely swallowed by the flames.
Giacomo and I stared at each other, almost laughing in relief.
The emergency services arrived pretty quickly, and we were at the scene for a couple of hours while they dealt with the fire and cleared the roads. Afterwards I spoke to the family,and that was the first time the emotion of the whole thing hit me.I kept randomly bursting into tears.
Thankfully, Stuart Moore, the pilot, and his nephew and niece Jack Moore, 19, and Billie Manley, 16, have all since made a full recovery. Jack and Billie were suffering a lot more than I was. Although they were safe, the memory of being inside that burning plane would have been more of an emotional scar.
1. What do we know about the author?| A．He prided himself on being helpful. |
| B．He regretted having saved the family. |
| C．He was overcome by fear and despair then. |
| D．He was well equipped with first-aid knowledge. |
| A．Joel Snarr’s character. | B．The importance of teamwork. |
| C．The rescue process. | D．An investigation of the air crash. |
| A．It was a narrow escape. |
| B．They both appreciated Joel’s help. |
| C．They both survived the crashing plane. |
| D．The emergency services arrived in time. |
| A．An Unforgettable Award. | B．A Crashing Plane. |
| C．A Thrilling Rescue. | D．An Exciting Experience. |
6 . Mr. Peter Johnson, aged twenty-three, battled for half an hour to escape from his trapped car yesterday when it landed upside down in three feet of water. Mr. Johnson took the only escape route—through the boot(行李箱).
Mr. Johnson’s car had finished up in a ditch(沟渠) at Romney Marsin, Kent after skidding on ice and hitting a bank. “Fortunately, the water began to come in only slowly,” Mr. Johnson said. “I couldn’t force the doors because they were jammed against the walls of the ditch and dared not open the windows because I knew water would come flooding in.”
Mr. Johnson, a sweet salesman of Sitting Home, Kent, first tried to attract the attention of other motorists by sounding the horn and hammering on the roof and boot. Then he began his struggle to escape.
Later he said, “It was really a half penny that saved my life. It was the only coin I had in my pocket and I used it to unscrew the back seat to get into the boot. I hammered desperately with a hammer trying to make someone hear, but no help came.”
It took ten minutes to unscrew the seat, and a further five minutes to clear the sweet samples from the boot. Then Mr. Johnson found a wrench and began to work on the boot lock. Fifteen minutes passed by. “It was the only chance I had. Finally it gave, but as soon as I moved the boot lid, the water and mud poured in. I forced the lid down into the mud and scrambled clear as the car filled up.”
His hands and arms cut and bruised(擦伤), Mr. Johnson got to Beckett Farm nearby, where he was looked after by the farmer’s wife, Mrs. Lucy Bates. Huddled in a blanket, he said, “That thirty minutes seemed like hours.” Only the tips of the car wheels were visible, police said last night. The vehicle had sunk into two feet of mud at the bottom of the ditch.
1. What is the best title for this newspaper article?| A．The Story of Mr. Johnson, A Sweet Salesman |
| B．Car Boot Can Serve As The Best Escape Route |
| C．Driver Escapes Through Car Boot |
| D．The Driver Survived A Terrible Car Accident |
| A．The hammer. | B．The coin. | C．The screw. | D．The horn. |
| A．Mr. Johnson’s car stood on its boot as it fell down. |
| B．Mr. Johnson could not escape from the door because it was full of sweet jam. |
| C．Mr. Johnson’s car accident was partly due to the slippery road. |
| D．Mr. Johnson struggled in the pouring mud as he unscrewed the back seat. |
| A．Luckily the door was torn away in the end | B．At last the wrench went broken |
| C．The lock came open after all his efforts | D．The chance was lost at the last minute |
| A．the ditch was along a quiet country road | B．the accident happened on a clear warm day |
| C．the police helped Mr. Johnson get out of the ditch | D．Mr. Johnson had a tender wife and was well attended |
7 . I work at a grocery store in Montreal's Plateau neighbourhood, which gets a lot of regulars. On March 12, the Quebec government announced to close all public places to stop the spread of the pandemic(流行病)of coronavirus.
The next day the store was the busiest I've ever seen. The six cash registers had to be kept open from 10 a. m. until close. It was nuts. I didn't have time to eat lunch, and whenever one of us on cash had to use the bathroom, we’d have to bring in a coworker off the floor to cover for us.
Since then, the atmosphere in the store has been different. Customers are mostly considerate, but whenever someone coughs or sneezes, everyone turns around to make sure that person sneezed into their elbow. I've even seen customers come in wearing some strange get-ups. One guy even came in with a plastic Walmart bag wrapped around his entire head, with a slit cut out for his eyes.
A lot of my coworkers have left to avoid a public-facing job during the pandemic. Grocery store workers across Canada are putting their health at risk every time they come in to work, but a lot of us are still making close to minimum wage. I realized that I feel more exhausted than normal even though I'm working the same hours.
There still have been some moments of kindness in the midst of the chaos. I've overheard people talking on the phone who sounded as though they were organizing grocery deliveries for those stuck at home. And this past weekend a very nice lady thanked us for continuing to work. I know everyone is worried, but it's uneless having the same scary conversations day after day. Instead, tell us a funny anecdote, or about Homething nice. We'll appreciate the distraction, and you'll make our day just a bit brighter.
1. What does the author intend to show by " It was nuts." in paragraph 2?| A．The goods were in short supply. |
| B．The store was having a big sale. |
| C．The cashiers complained about their work. |
| D．The locals rushed to do shopping like crazy. |
| A．They like to shop here in disguise. |
| B．They are panicky about the disease . |
| C．They are more friendly to each other. |
| D．They have taken proper preventive measures. |
| A．Optimistic. | B．Talented. | C．Ambitious. | D．Efficient. |
| A．It is not work but worry that kills |
| B．Helping others is helping ourselves |
| C．Moments of kindness shine in a time of chaos |
| D．Here is what it's like working in the pandemic |
8 . If maths is the language of the universe, bees may have just uttered their first words. New research suggests these busybodies of the insect world are capable of addition and subtraction (减法) — using colors in the place of plus and minus symbols.
In the animal kingdom, the ability to count — or at least distinguish between differing quantities — isn’t unusual: It has been seen in frogs, spiders, and even fish. But solving equations (方程式) using symbols is rare, so far only achieved by famously brainy animals such as chimpanzees and African grey parrots.
Building on previous research that says the social insects can count to four and understand the concept of zero, researchers wanted to test the limits of what their tiny brains can do.
Scientists trained 14 bees to link the colors blue and yellow to addition and subtraction, respectively. They placed the bees at the entrance of a Y-shaped maze (迷宫), where they were shown several shapes in either yellow or blue. If the shapes were blue, bees got a reward if they went to the end of the maze with one more blue shape (the other end had one less blue shape); if the shapes were yellow, they got a reward if they went to the end of the maze with one less yellow shape.
The testing worked the same way: Bees that “subtracted” one shape when they saw yellow, or “added” one shape when they saw blue were considered to have aced the test. The bees got the right answer 63% to 72% of the time, depending on the type of equation and the direction of the right answer — much better than random guesses would allow—the researchers report today in Science Advances.
Though the results came from just 14 bees, researchers say the advance is exciting. If a brain about 20,000 times smaller than ours can perform maths using symbols, it could pave the way to novel approaches in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Just don’t ask the bees to do your homework anytime soon.
1. Why do the scientists conduct the research?| A．To teach them maths. | B．To test the power of tiny brains. |
| C．To explain the meaning of colors. | D．To get access to machine learning. |
| A．Given up. | B．Entered for. |
| C．Got through. | D．Checked over. |
| A．Language acquisition. | B．Arithmetic learning. |
| C．Protection of animals. | D．Development of AI. |
| A．Bees “Like” Counting |
| B．Bees “Tell” Colors Apart |
| C．Bees “Perform” Maths Using Shapes |
| D．Bees “Get” Addition and Subtraction |
9 . Facial expressions carry meaning that is determined by situations and relationships. For example, in American culture (文化) the smile is in general an expression of pleasure. Yet it also has other uses. A woman’s smile at a police officer does not carry the same meaning as the smile she gives to a young child. A smile may show love or politeness. It can also hide true feelings. It often causes confusion (困惑) across cultures. For example, many people in Russia consider smiling at strangers in public to be unusual and even improper. Yet many Americans smile freely at strangers in public places (although this is less common in big cities).Some Russians believe that Americans smile in the wrong places; some Americans believe that Russians don’t smile enough. In Southeast Asian cultures, a smile is frequently used to cover painful feelings. Vietnamese people may tell a sad story but end the story with a smile.
Our faces show emotions (情感), but we should not attempt to "read" people from another culture as we would "read" someone from our own culture. The fact that members of one culture do not express their emotions as openly as do members of another does not mean that they do not experience emotions.
Rather, there are cultural differences in the amount of facial expressions permitted. For example, in public and in formal situations many Japanese do not show their emotions as freely as Americans do. When with friends, Japanese and Americans seem to show their emotions similarly.
It is difficult to generalize about Americans and facial expressiveness because of personal and cultural differences in the United States. People from certain cultural backgrounds in the United States seem to be more facially expressive than others. The key is to try not to judge people whose ways of showing emotion are different. If we judge according to our own cultural habits, we may make the mistake of "reading" the other person incorrectly.
1. What does the smile usually mean in America?| A．Love. | B．Politeness. |
| C．Joy. | D．Thankfulness. |
| A．show friendliness to strangers |
| B．be used to hide true feelings |
| C．be used in the wrong places |
| D．show personal habits |
| A．Learn about their relations with others. |
| B．Understand their cultural backgrounds. |
| C．Find out about their past experience. |
| D．Figure out what they will do next. |
| A．Cultural Differences |
| B．Smiles and Relationship |
| C．Facial Expressiveness |
| D．Habits and Emotions |
