1 . “Do not tell anyone”. We often hear these words when someone tells us a secret. But keeping a secret is hard. We’re often tempted（引诱）to “spill the beans”, even if we regret it later.
According to the professor, Asim Shah, keeping a secret may well “become a burden”. This is because people often have an “eager and anxious urge（冲动）to share it with someone”. An earlier study, led by Anita, a scientist at the University of Notre Dame, US, suggested that keeping a secret could cause stress. People entrusted（托付）with secrets can suffer from depression, anxiety, and body aches, reported the Daily Mail.
Secrets are so often getting out. Why do people share them at all? Shah explained that people often feel that it will help them keep a person as a friend. Another reason people share secrets is guilt over keeping it from someone close to them. A sense of distrust can develop when people who are close do not share it with each other. “Keeping or sharing secrets often puts people in a position of either gaining or losing the trust of someone, ”according to Shah.
He added that talkative people could let secrets slip out. But this doesn’t mean that it is a good idea only to share secrets with quiet people. A quiet person may be someone who keeps everything inside. To tell such a person a secret may cause them stress, and make them talk about the secret.
Shah said that to judge whether to tell someone a secret, you’d better put yourself in their position, Think about how you would feel to be told that you mustn’t give the information away. Shah also recommended that if you accidentally give up someone’s secret you should come clean about it. Let the person know that their secret isn’t so secret anymore.
1. Why does the author say keeping a secret may “become a burden”?| A．Because people are born not to be able to keep secrets. |
| B．Because when people have secrets, their bodies ache. |
| C．Because keeping secrets is certain to cause depression. |
| D．Because keeping secrets could probably be harmful to health. |
| A．2. | B．3. | C．4. | D．5. |
| A．To fall by accident. | B．To let out secrets on purpose. |
| C．To spread secrets to everyone around. | D．To give away secrets unintentionally. |
| A．Quiet people are more likely to keep the secrets to themselves. |
| B．Sharing secrets helps establish friendship or get over the, sense of guilt. |
| C．Putting yourself in others’ shoes helps realize the importance of keeping secrets. |
| D．A person who is asked to keep a secret will suffer from psychological problems only. |
2 . That morning, I dropped our eldest at kindergarten and returned home to let our two younger children play while I worked on my medical report. It was a wonderful chance to work from home, but it hit me that my career in hospital wasn't making a difference in anyone's life. I needed something that would stretch my limits and push me to grow. My career enabled me to work from home. I could work from home, and become a foster mother, providing safety for a child who needed it desperately.
On Monday morning. I picked up the phone and dialed the number I had Googled for the nearest Department of Children's Services. The man on the other end was receptive to my questions and explained the next step of training, involving eight weeks of classes designed to prepare and educate foster parents. We continued through all the classes, the home visits, background checks, and seemingly endless steps.
Five long months after we were approved, the phone rang. In the middle of the night, I woke my husband and rushed to East Tennessee Children's Hospital. Our placement was waiting for us in the emergency room, sick and lack of nutrition. It didn't take long for us to realize the full depth of her suffering. Six months later, her half-brother came to us by our request. We now had five children under our care.
On August 12, 2016, our family of seven walked into a small courtroom. The children's lawyer and social worker were there. With just a few words, our adoption was finalized. These two amazing children weren't going home, because they were already home. We are their forever family, and they are our forever children. We may not be able to change the entire world, but we have changed the world entirely for our new children.
1. How did the author feel about her hospital work?| A．Lacking of motivation. | B．Filled with challenge. |
| C．Highly motivating. | D．Unusually Demanding. |
| A．She felt sympathetic for abused children she knew. |
| B．She wanted to make a difference in other people. |
| C．She felt confident about her ability to raise children. |
| D．She experienced training to raise children properly. |
| A．The child to be adopted. | B．The need to get trained. |
| C．The approval of adoption. | D．The official at the hospital. |
| A．To put the adopted kids elsewhere. | B．To receive another adopted child. |
| C．To make the adoption officially legal. | D．To begin the kids' adoption in her home. |
3 . In between all the measures to battle the severe air pollution in Delhi, India, there’s one more option — a bar that has “pure air”.
Founded by Aryavir Kumar, Oxy Pure, Delhi’s first-ever oxygen bar, offers 15 minutes of 80-90 percent pure oxygen, costing Rs 299 ($4.2). Customers are given a lightweight tube for oxygen intake. The device (装置) is placed near the customer’s nostrils (鼻孔) through which they are advised to breathe in the oxygen.
The bar also offers its customers several aromas (气味) to go with oxygen, including lemongrass, cherry and more. According to the aroma people choose, each session promises to improve sleep patterns and digestion, cure headaches, and even claims to work as a treatment for depression.
Bonny Irengbam, a senior sales assistant at the bar, said, “Some people, who try it for the first time, will feel relaxed and fresh. But only people who do this regularly will get real benefits. By regularly, I mean once or twice a month. We don’t encourage back-to-back sessions, as increased levels of oxygen in the body can make a person dizzy.”
Dr. Rajesh Chawla, a senior doctor at the Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, said, “Even if you breathe in the so-called pure oxygen for two hours in a day, you will go back to breathing the polluted air for the rest of the 22 hours. The concept is purely money-driven.”
Recalling the first few months of the bar, Irengbam admitted that people were sceptical. “Many people criticised, saying we were selling air. Others were simply scared to breathe through the tube.”
Irengbam said the bar saw a significant rise in the number of customers two to three days after Diwali, an Indian festival mainly celebrated by fireworks and lights, as the pollution levels were high.
1. What do we know about the oxygen intake?| A．It surely has a promising future. | B．It will always cause side effects. |
| C．It was not well received at first. | D．It can cure people of depression. |
| A．Once-a-month. | B．Once-in-a-while. |
| C．Once-and-for-all. | D．One-after-another. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Favorable. | C．Unconcerned. | D．Unclear. |
| A．To explain how to breathe in the oxygen. |
| B．To introduce the first oxygen bar in India. |
| C．To show people’s responses to the device. |
| D．To advertise for Aryavir Kumar’s business. |
4 . In a grey office building of Helsinki a social worker is meeting six elderly people from around town for lunch- via tablets on heir kitchen table. For the next half-hour she talks to them about their day and reminds them to have something to drink, because dehydration is particularly dangerous for older people.
The virtual lunch group is part of Helsinki's remote-care program for its elderly. While many counties with large elderly populations are building new care homes. Finland is not planning to do so and, instead, is looking after people in their own homes for longer. The guiding principle in Finland is that for anyone, no matter what their age. “home is best”.
In Helsinki's home -care program about 4, 000 old people are equipped with various safety devices. These include wristbands with GPS, a fall detector and a phone line linked to care workers who monitor the wearer' s location on their computer screens. Most of the old people are too weak to walk about much, so they rarely leave their homes. But if they venture out in the middle of the night, care workers are to find them. Local tech companies have developed systems that use a network of motion sensors to gather data on things like how much a person moves about, visits the bathroom or opens the fridge. Not opening the fridge as much, for example, is a sign that memory problems may be getting worse.
Technology sometimes misfires. Wristbands give out the wrong location, setting off false alarms. A sensor may fail because Grandpa covers a towel over it. Some elderly people forget to charge their tablets. Such problems can be fixed. The biggest gain from technology may be that it makes it easier to keep old people fit enough to remain in their own homes for longer. This is much cheaper than an institution, and usually nicer, too.
1. What does the underlined word “dehydration” in paragraph 1 refer to?| A．Talking less. | B．Eating alone. |
| C．Watching their tablets. | D．Losing too much water. |
| A．To build more lunch groups. | B．To make the old stay at home. |
| C．To guide elderly people to care homes. | D．To care for the old in their own homes. |
| A．To find the missing old people. | B．To monitor the wearer’s location. |
| C．To collect the wearers' activity data. | D．To check people's memory problems. |
| A．Grandpa uses a towel. | B．The tablets are out of power. |
| C．Wristbands send out an alarm. | D．The elderly forget their location. |
5 . We’ve known for years that plants can see, hear, smell and communicate with chemicals. Now, reported New Scientist, they have been recorded making sounds when stressed.
In a yet-to-be-published study, Itzhak Khait and his team at Tel Aviv University, in Israel, found that tomato and tobacco (烟草) plants can make ultrasonic (超声的) noises. The plants “cry out” due to lack of water, or when their stems (茎) are cut. It’s just too high-pitched (音调高的) for humans to hear.
Microphones placed 10 centimeters away from the plants picked up sounds in the ultrasonic range of 20 to 100 kilohertz (千赫兹). Human hearing usually ranges from 20 hertz to 20 kilohertz. “These findings can change the way we think about the plant kingdom,” they wrote.
On average, “thirsty” tomato plants made 35 sounds an hour, while tobacco plants made 11. When plant stems were cut, tomato plants made an average of 25 sounds in the following hour, and tobacco plants 15. Unstressed plants produced fewer than one sound per hour, on average.
Perhaps most interestingly, different types of stress led to different sounds. The researchers trained a machine-learning model to separate the plants’ sounds from those of the wind, rain and other noises of the greenhouse. In most cases, it correctly identified (辨识) whether the stress was caused by dryness or a cut, based on a sound’s intensity(强度) and frequency. Water-hungry tobacco appears to make louder sounds than cut tobacco, for example. Although Khait and his colleagues only looked at tomato and tobacco plants, they think other plants also make sounds when stressed.
If farmers could hear these sounds, said the team, they could give water to the plants that need it most. As climate change causes more droughts (旱灾), they said this would be important information for farmers. “The sounds that drought-stressed plants make could be used in precision agriculture (精准农业),” said Anne Visscher at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the UK.
Khait’s report also suggests that insects and mammals (哺乳动物) can hear the sounds up to 5 meters away and respond. For example, a moth (蛾子) may decide not to lay eggs on a water-stressed plant. Edward Farmer, at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, is doubtful. He said that the idea of moths listening to plants is “a little too speculative”.
If plants are screaming for fear of their survival, maybe we should be glad we can’t hear them.
1. What did Khait and his team find from their research?| A．Plants made low-pitched sounds when in danger. |
| B．Plants made ultrasonic noises to communicate with each other. |
| C．Plants picked up a wider range of sounds when stressed. |
| D．Plants were able to produce sounds in response to stresses. |
| A．A plant reacted to different stresses with the same sound. |
| B．Cut tomato plants produced more sounds per hour than water-hungry ones. |
| C．Cut tobacco plants seemed to make weaker sounds than drought-stressed ones. |
| D．Tobacco plants might make louder sounds than tomato plants when short of water. |
| A．Challenges faced by farmers in the future. |
| B．The potential applications of the research. |
| C．Farmers’ contributions to the research. |
| D．What the future agriculture will be like. |
| A．practical | B．unsupported |
| C．surprising | D．complicated |
6 . When you are sitting in the car, do you ever notice the drivers looking over their shoulders or side to side in the car? Well, they are doing this to check their blind spots! Blind spots take driving extremely difficult and increase the potential for car accidents.
Fourteen-year-old Alaina Gassler from Pennsylvania noticed her mother struggling with blind spots while driving their family car. So she came up with an ingenious solution that won the first place and $25,000 in the Broadcom Masters Competition.
Blind spots are the areas around the car that cannot be directly observed by the driver. There are two kinds of blind spots---on the back of the car that cannot be seen with mirrors, and blind spots at the front of the car as well.
When a driver is changing lanes, he has to look over his shoulder through the side windows to make sure that there is no vehicle in the blind spot. This invisible area is big enough to hide a car!
The other blind spot is created in the front by the A-pillar（柱子）---the material on either side on the windshield（挡风玻璃）that holds the glass and forms the frame of the car. In some cars, this pillar can be quite thick. Usually, people or cyclists can be hidden by this pillar.
Alaina's design was to get rid of the blind spot created by the front A-pillar of the car, the one that helps hold up the windshield.
She put a camera on the outside passenger side of the car which then sent the photos to a projector above the drivers' head. Then, she covered the inside of the pillar in reflective fabric onto which the image was projected. Basically, her device made the pillar "see through" and removed the blind spot on that side of the car.
Alnina's solution is very creative and could be improved by using LCD displays that will make it easier to see during day time as well.
1. What can be learned about blind spots during driving?| A．They call for careful driving. | B．They make driving thrilling. |
| C．They are many in kinds. | D．They can't be get rid of. |
| A．interesting | B．creative |
| C．inspiring | D．invisible |
| A．By improving the A-pillar. | B．By using a mirror on the outside of the A-pillar. |
| C．By relying on LCD displays. | D．By using a camera to capture images. |
| A．An Introduction to Blind Spots | B．A Warning About the Road Safety |
| C．A Teen's Creative Solution to Blind Spots | D．Scientific Research on Blind Spots |
7 . Roger Rolls was the first black governor in the history of New York State, USA. He was born in one of New York’s dishonorable slums (贫民窟). The children born here rarely did good work after they grew up. However, Roger Rolls was an exception, for he was not only admitted to the university, but also he became a governor.
At one of the press conferences, a reporter asked him, “What made you become the governor?” Faced with more than 300 journalists, Rolls did not mention his struggle but only spoke of his primary school schoolmaster---Pierre Paul.
In 1961, Pierre Paul was engaged as the director and principle of Nobita Primary School. When he entered this school, he found the children here didn’t cooperate with the teachers. Pierre thought up many ways to guide them, but none was effective. Later, he found these children were very superstitious(迷信的), so when he gave lectures, he added a program of palm reading as a means of fortune-telling, with which he encouraged the students.
When Rolls jumped to the platform with his small hands stretched out, Pierre Paul said, “As soon as I see your slim little fingers, I know you will be the governor of New York State in future.” At that moment, Rolls was shocked because only his grandmother inspired him once, saying that he could become captain of a five-ton ship. This time, Pierre Paul said he could become governor of New York State, so he remembered that remark and believed him.
From that day on, the “New York State Governor” was like a banner (旗帜) that constantly inspired him to study energetically and make progress. Rolls no longer stained his clothes with mud, nor did he speak in foul language. He began to straighten his back when he was walking. In the next more than 40 years, he demanded himself according to the identity of a governor. At the age of 51, he finally became the governor of New York State.
Put up a banner of faith for yourself and you will have the drive to struggle and the dynamism of life!
1. Pierre Paul read palms for the kids to __________.| A．practice his fortune-telling skills | B．find a governor for the future. |
| C．get them to cooperate with him. | D．inspire them with clever tricks |
| A．He put up a banner in one of the slums. |
| B．He had more faith in his grandmother. |
| C．He became captain of a five-ton ship. |
| D．He started to pay attention to his own image. |
| A．encouragement and faith make for success. |
| B．education plays an important role in life. |
| C．superstitious people are easy to persuade. |
| D．it is not necessary to get an acceptable job. |
| A．foreign | B．professional |
| C．unpleasant | D．local |
8 . We all need inspiration. Dealing with neck to neck competition in the modern era, sometimes we get tired of trying and want to give up. But movies make us look inside ourselves and, often, can be used as inspiration themselves. So, without further ado(废话), here are our Top 3 Motivational Movies for students:
Dead Poets Society (1989)
Robin Williams is on top form as the iconoclastic(打破旧习的) John Keating, the unconventional English teacher who uses his love of poetry and classic literature to break down barriers at the oppressive Welton Academy. Keating inspires his students to “seize the day” rather than just wasting hours, challenge the school’s strict rules, and truly be themselves.
The film is packed with emotionally-charged, touching scenes; but the one that won’t fail to make the hairs on your arm stand up is this one where Keating’s students demonstrate what he means to them – “Oh Captain, My Captain…”
Forrest Gump (1994)
This classic movie starring Tom Hanks is very motivating. It’s about a man who has low IQ but manages to be part of many important moments in modern history, able to achieve a lot, and even given a Medal of Honor for his bravery. Gump inspires a popular dance for Elvis Presley and even plays ping pong in China. No student should miss out on this movie. Nothing is impossible if you have the will to do it…and a box of chocolates.
The Pursuit of Happiness (2006)
The Pursuit of Happiness is the amazing real-life tale of Chris Gardner who, with the power of hard work and perseverance, takes himself from sleeping on the subway all the way to the millionaire founder of his own brokerage house.
Never missing an opportunity and studying hard, after a few years, Chris works his way up the career ladder from medical equipment salesman to financial hotshot. If there’s one story that demonstrates that you should never give up, no matter how bad things get, it’s Chris’.
1. Which of the following best explains “seize” underlined in paragraph 2?| A．make sure of | B．make up for |
| C．make the most of | D．make a mess of |
| A．It tells a story about a man who plays ping pong in China and becomes famous. |
| B．It tells a story in which the main character with a low intelligence achieves a lot unexpectedly. |
| C．It is a classic motivational movie teaching how to gain a Medal of Honor. |
| D．It shows the evidence and arguments for the importance of high IQ. |
| A．Tom Hanks | B．John Keating |
| C．Robin Williams | D．Chris Gardner |
9 . Despite the negative international headlines that have hit Huawei over the past few months, its consumer business continues to thrive. The Chinese technology giant replaced Apple as the secondlargest smartphone player by global market share last year. It's firmly the biggest vendor(销售商) in China.
Chinese consumers say they've been attracted to Huawei's newest features, the price points and the fact that it's a domestic brand.“Using Huawei's mobile phones is supporting domestic brands. We hope our brands can go international，” Vikey, a Guangzhoubased Huawei user, told CNBC. She added that Huawei phones are “costeffective” and have good features while iPhones are “more of a trend”. One of the key features that Huawei introduced was a triplelens camera on its P20 Pro, which was launched last year.
For the next 12 months, the iPhone lacks one of the most appealing features of current winners in the Chinese smartphone market, the triplelens camera. The Huawei P20 Pro led the march.
Retailers (零销售) are slashing (大幅消减) iPhone prices across China as consumers say the phones aren't worth the cost. Apple's latest iPhone models are facing huge discounts in China as retailers try to sell the struggling devices. That comes as the topoftheline Apple smartphones have posted poor China sales on what experts say are toohigh prices for the world's largest smartphone market and a lack of innovative features compared to local competitors like Huawei. The technology giant itself acknowledged earlier this month that unexpectedly low sales in the Chinese market would likely lead to worse than anticipated first quarter profits.
One of the most recent iPhone cost cuts in the country came from Suning, a large Chinese retailer, which changed the price of the 128GB version of the iPhone XR from 6,999 yuan to 5,799 yuan — a 1,200 yuan discount.
Other retailers in China are also putting their iPhones on sale. Sunion, an Apple reseller, was advertising 700 yuan off for both the 128GB and 256GB versions of the iPhone XR. Ecommerce site Pinduoduo, which allows thirdparties to sell products, also had hefty(很大的) discounts across all of the latest iPhone models.
1. What does the underlined word “thrive” probably mean in the first paragraph?| A．Reduce. | B．Remain. |
| C．Threaten. | D．Increase. |
| A．More of a trend. | B．Costeffective. |
| C．Toohigh prices. | D．A lack of innovative features. |
| A．Suning. | B．Sunion. |
| C．CNBC. | D．Pinduoduo. |
| A．Updating of technology counts. |
| B．Advertising of the products matters. |
| C．The sale strategy is invisible. |
| D．The iPhone still leads the trend in China. |
10 . If you’ve ever been on a fishing boat, you’ve probably seen crowds of birds following it, hoping to catch a snack. Now scientists use those birds’ behavior to track illegal fishing boats.
Researchers attached data loggers to the backs of 169 albatrosses (信天翁) in Indian oceans. Weighing only 42 grams, the devices included a GPS, which enabled them to detect the presence and intensity of radar signals emitting from boats. That information was then sent by satellite, so the researchers could track the location of the birds—and thus the radar-emitting boats—in real time.
The scientists then cross-checked that data against the known locations of boats, collected from a system boats use to declare themselves, called the Automatic Identification System (AIS). And noticeable differences appeared frequently.
More than a third of the times the birds “loggers” detected radar signals, and therefore a boat, but no such boat appeared in the official log—meaning that the vehicles had likely switched off their AIS—something that probably happens in illegal fishing operations.
The work suggests birds could be an effective boat-monitoring tool as long as illegal fishing operations don’t target the birds.
Fortunately, such a task would be difficult. Around fishing boats, you can find hundreds of birds at any one time that are flying around. And the birds with loggers are not marked in any way. So it’s not really possible for fishermen to pick out a specific bird.
But what concerns researchers is that albatrosses often get caught by some fishing boats. Though regulations have been established to protect against that happening—with success—illegal boats don’t necessarily obey. So scientists might be underestimating the risk posed to albatross populations.
1. What characteristic of albatrosses do scientists take advantage of in their research?| A．Their feeding patterns. |
| B．Their sense of direction. |
| C．Their greedy behaviors. |
| D．Their habit of following fishing boats. |
| A．To seek more fishes. |
| B．To have it mistaken for another. |
| C．To avoid being detected. |
| D．To save the trouble of declaring itself. |
| A．Identifying birds with loggers. |
| B．Monitoring illegal boats. |
| C．Tracking radar signals automatically. |
| D．Fishing illegally. |
| A．AIS: an Effective System to Locate Boats |
| B．Humans Are Good at Discovering Birds’ Nature |
| C．Data Loggers Help Fishermen Get a Good Harvest |
| D．Scientists Use Birds to Track Illegal Fishing Operations |
