1 . Albert Einstein’s 1915 masterpiece “The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity” is the first and still the best introduction to the subject, and I recommend it as such to students. But it probably wouldn’t be publishable in a scientific journal today.
Why not? After all, it would pass with flying colours the tests of correctness and significance. And while popular belief holds that the paper was incomprehensible to its first readers, in fact many papers in theoretical physics are much more difficult.
As the physicist Richard Feynman wrote, “There was a time when the newspapers said that only 12 men understood the theory of relativity. I do believe there might have been a time when only one man did, because he was the only guy who caught on, before he wrote his paper. But after people read the paper a lot understood the theory of relativity in some way or other, certainly more than 12.”
No, the problem is its style. It starts with a leisurely philosophical discussion of space and time and then continues with an exposition of known mathematics. Those two sections, which would be considered extraneous today, take up half the paper. Worse, there are zero citations of previous scientists’ work, nor are there any graphics. Those features might make a paper not even get past the first editors.
A similar process of professionalization has transformed other parts of the scientific landscape. Requests for research time at major observatories or national laboratories are more rigidly structured. And anything involving work with human subjects, or putting instruments in space, involves piles of paperwork.
We see it also in the Regeneron Science Talent Search, the Nobel Prize of high school science competitions. In the early decades of its 78-year history, the winning projects were usually the sort of clever but naive, amateurish efforts one might expect of talented beginners working on their own. Today, polished work coming out of internships(实习) at established laboratories is the norm.
These professionalizing tendencies are a natural consequence of the explosive growth of modern science. Standardization and system make it easier to manage the rapid flow of papers, applications and people. But there are serious downsides. A lot of unproductive effort goes into jumping through bureaucratic hoops(繁文缛节), and outsiders face entry barriers at every turn.
Of course, Einstein would have found his way to meeting modern standards and publishing his results. Its scientific core wouldn’t have changed, but the paper might not be the same taste to read.
1. According to Richard Feynman, Einstein’s 1915 paper ________.| A．was a classic in theoretical physics |
| B．turned out to be comprehensible |
| C．needed further improvement |
| D．attracted few professionals |
| A．Unrealistic. | B．Irrelevant. |
| C．Unattractive. | D．Imprecise. |
| A．The application of research findings. |
| B．The principle of scientific research. |
| C．The selection of young talents. |
| D．The evaluation of laboratories. |
| A．What makes Einstein great? |
| B．Will science be professionalized? |
| C．Could Einstein get published today? |
| D．How will modern science make advances? |
2 . Every year more people recognize that it is wrong to kill wildlife for “sport”. Progress in this direction is slow because shooting is not a sport for watching, and only those few who take par realize the cruelty and destruction.
The number of gunners, however, grows rapidly. Children too young to develop proper judgments through independent thought are led a long way away by their gunning parents. They are subjected to advertisements of gun producers who describe shooting as good for their health and gun-carrying as a way of putting redder blood in the veins（血管）. They are persuaded by gunner magazines with stories honoring the chase and the kill. In school they view motion pictures which are supposedly meant to teach them how to deal with arms safely but which are actually designed to stimulate（刺激）a desire to own a gun.
Wildlife is disappearing because of shooting and because of the loss of wildland habitat Habitatloss will continue with our increasing population, but can we slow the loss of wildlife caused by shooting? There doesn't seem to be any chance if the serious condition of our birds is not improved. Wildlife belongs to everyone and not to the gunners alone. Although most people do not shoot, they seem to forgive shooting for sport because they know little or nothing about it. The only answer, then, is to bring the truth about sport shooting to the great majority of people.
Now, it is time to realize that animals have the same right to life as we do and that there is nothing fair or right about a person with a gun shooting the harmless and beautiful creatures. The gunners like to describe what they do as character-building, but we know that to wound an animal and watch it go through the agony of mortality can make nobody happy. If, as they would have you believe, gun-carrying and killing improve human character, then perhaps we should encourage war.
1. According to the text, most people do not seem to be against hunting because .| A．they have little knowledge of it. |
| B．it helps to build human character. |
| C．it is too costly to stop killing wildlife. |
| D．they want to keep wildlife under control. |
| A．difficulty. | B．tress. | C．pain. | D．sadness. |
| A．teach them how to deal with guns safely. |
| B．praise hunting as character building. |
| C．describe hunting as a physical exercise. |
| D．encourage them to have guns of their own. |
| A．Hunting to build human character makes no sense. |
| B．War in the best way to improve human character. |
| C．We are on the edge of war against gunners. |
| D．Protecting wildlife from gunners is extremely difficult. |
3 . If your in-box is currently reporting unread messages in the hundreds or thousands, you might have a hard time believing the news: e-mail is on the decline.
At first thought, that might seem to be the case. The incoming generation, after all, doesn’t do e-mail. Oh, they might have an account. They use it only as we would use a fax machine: as a means to communicate with old-school folks like their parents or to fulfill the sign-up requirements of Web sites. They rarely check it, though.
Today’s instant electronic memos — such as texting and Facebook and Twitter messages — are more direct, more concentrated, more efficient. They go without the salutation (称呼语) and the signoff (签收); we already know the “to” and “from.” Many corporations are moving to messaging networks for exactly that reason: more signal, less noise and less time. This trend is further evidence that store-and-forward systems such as e-mail and voicemail are outdated. Instead of my leaving you a lengthy message that you pick up later, I can now send you an easily-read message that you can read — and respond to — on the go.
The coming of the mobile era is responsible for the decline of e-mail. Instant written messages bring great convince to people. They can deal with them at about any time: before a movie, in a taxi, waiting for lunch. And because these messages are very brief, they’re suitable for smart phone typing.
Does this mean e-mail is on its way to the dustbin of digital history? Not necessarily. E-mail still has certain advantages. On the other hand, tweets and texts feel ephemeral — you read them, then they’re gone, into an endless string, e-mail still feels like something you have and that you can file, search and return to later. It’s easy to imagine that it will continue to feel more appropriate for formal communications: agreements, important news, longer explanations.
So, e-mail won’t go away completely. Remember, we’ve been through a transition (过度) like this not so long ago: when e-mail was on the rise, people said that postal mail was dead. That’s not how it works. Postal mail found its smaller market, and so will e-mail. New technology rarely replaces old one completely; it just adds new alternatives.
1. What would the incoming generation like to do with their e-mail accounts?| A．Check bank accounts. | B．Send long messages. |
| C．Fill in some forms. | D．Communicate with their colleagues. |
| A．The possible reasons behind the decline of e-mail |
| B．The likes and dislikes of the young generation |
| C．The rapid development of e-communication channels |
| D．Evidence about the uncertain future of easily-consumed messages |
| A．Automatically-sending. | B．Randomly-written. |
| C．Hardly- recognized. | D．Shortly-appearing. |
| A．It’s too early to determine the decline of e-mail. |
| B．E-mail has reasons to exist with its own advantages. |
| C．E-mail, just like postal mail has come to its end. |
| D．We should feel sorry for the decline of e-mail. |
4 . Washington State's growing population of gray wolves is exposing deep divides among residents and testing its decision makers. And managing the animals is about to get more complicated, as the state begins drawing up a management plan and weighing whether to start a hunting season.
The wolves, nearly non-existent in the Northwestern state for almost a century, have grown in numbers about 28% each year since 2008, about a decade after they were introduced to Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. By late last year, Washington had at least 126 wolves and 27 packs.
The wolves' return has brought cheers from conservationists, who view them as symbolic creatures that can improve the state's ecosystems, and criticism from farmers and livestock（家畜）owners, who see them as killers threatening livelihoods. With wolves expected to reach targeted recovery levels in a few years, the debate over how to manage them is getting fierce. Officials recently canceled three public meetings about wolves after threats of violence and Interruption.
Wolves were largely eradicated across the Western U.S. in the 20th century, targeted by government agencies and hunted by farmers and other private citizens. In 1995, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service relocated some wolves to the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, leading to their return in the West.
Tensions in Washington have risen after decisions from the state Department of Fish and Wildlife to kill a number of wolves responsible for the deaths or injury of cattle and livestock. The conflict is centered in Ferry County in the northeastern part of the state. Fish and Wildlife staff this year killed nine wolves in Ferry County-including the last of a pack that killed or injured 29 livestock in the county.
Washington governor Jay Inslee has asked the state Fish and Wildlife agency to reduce the need to kill wolves as a result of their killing livestock, and instead increase the use of deterrent（威慑物）which can include electric fencing or range riders to monitor cattle and other livestock. Officials have said killing wolves is a last choice.
Meanwhile, researchers are racing to understand the wolves’ effect on the ecosystem to better inform how to manage the population.
1. What is puzzling the state?| A．Why gray wolves can reproduce so quickly. |
| B．When a management plan should be drawn up. |
| C．Whether wolves should be hunted seasonally. |
| D．How they can persuade residents to live in harmony with gray wolves. |
| A．They have reached the targeted recovery levels. |
| B．They have a positive effect on the local ecosystem. |
| C．They are responsible for threatening the lives of farmers and livestock. |
| D．They are a good example to get nearly non-existent animals back to nature. |
| A．Removed. | B．Introduced. | C．Released. | D．Reproduced. |
| A．Wolves facing possible hunt in Washington. |
| B．Wolves involved in a war against. |
| C．Wolves in danger of being wiped out. |
| D．Wolves on the way to growing rapidly in Washington. |
5 . Copper surfaces kill microbes (微生物)that come into contact with them in a matter of hours. A new technique makes the familiar metal even deadlier.
Bacteria “are becoming more aggressive and resistant to medicines; it's the same thing for viruses/' says Ravi Rahimi, a materials engineer. "There is a lot of interest in how to create surfaces that actually, on contact with the bacterium or the virus, immediately lull the pathogen (病原体)" because this "thwarts” the spread of that pathogen into the environment."
Copper is a good candidate, for such surfaces: humans have been taking advantage of its bacteria-killing properties for at least 8,000 years. People in some Bronze Age civilizations let their drinking water rest in copper vessels to avoid disease, says Michael Schmidt, a microbiologist, who was not involved in the new research. Copper's germ-destroying power, he explains, comes from its ability to conduct electricity. When a microbe touches a metal surface, the substance carries electrons always from the microbe's cellular membrane (细胞膜).This reaction sets off a chemical process that finally forces open the organism's pores (毛孔)and destroys it. .
To enhance the process, Rahimi's team hit a copper sample with laser light for a milliseconds, thereby creating nanoscale pores in the fiat metal and increasing its surface area. Schmidt says the added vertical structures “increased the amount of 'square fbotage5 available to kill microbes? The rough surface also made the copper cling (附着于)more strongly to water - and thus to any bacteria within it.
The researchers tested this newly rough surface by placing several bacterial species on both flat and laser-treated pieces of copper. As soon as the cells hit the metal, their membranes began to suffer damage; that surface completely destroyed the bacteria, in some cases much more quickly than the untreated one. The surface killed some viruses immediately on contact and took from 40 minutes to two hours to wipe out a full colony, depending on the species and concentration.
The laser treatment could also work with other metals, including titanium, which is often used for surgical implants, Rahimi says. He points out that all types of metals display some antimicrobial properties, although titanium, which has little conductivity, kills germs much more slowly than highly conductive ones such as copper.
1. What does the underlined word “thwarts” in Paragraph 2 most probably mean?| A．Predicts. | B．Tracks. | C．Reveals. | D．Contains. |
| A．The measures to use copper. |
| B．How microbes are destroyed. |
| C．Why electrons are carries away. |
| D．The undiscovered power of copper. |
| A．The speed of laser light. |
| B．Bacteria's reaction to water. |
| C．Making the metal surface unsmooth. |
| D．Reshaping the function of cellular membrane. |
| A．To present the application of laser-treated copper. |
| B．To seek a cure for infectious diseases. |
| C．To show which metals are more bacteria-resistrant. |
| D．To introduce a new metal for surgical implants. |
6 . To Rehan Staton, his childhood was a life of privilege — loving parents, a supportive big brother and a pleasant, private school education. Everything changed when his mother left the country and his father lost his job.
He had to sleep with a heavy jacket on when it was cold. He was always hungry. He said he couldn't concentrate at school and would sleep during class. He went from straight. As to near the bottom of his class. A teacher told him he needed special education, which made him hate school.
Staton spent his high school years as an excellent athlete, raining to become a professional boxer. He had won a lot of martial arts competitions. But a tragedy struck him in his senior year when Staton suffered serious tendonitis (肌腱炎), in both shoulders. He couldn’t lift either arm for months. His dream of becoming a professional player failed. He struggled to apply to colleges but was refused by all of them.
Staton’s body slowly recovered from martial arts and he got a job as a rubbish collector. Many co-workers couldn't help but ask him a simple question, “What are you doing here? You’re smart. You are too young to be here. Go to college.” It was the first time someone outside his family had spoken highly of his intelligence. It was the co-workers that emboldened him to return to school.
Several co-workers put Staton in touch with a professor at Bowie State University. The professor was impressed with their conversation and persuaded the admissions board to change its former decision.
Going to college forced Staton’s older brother, Reggie, to drop out. They both knew someone had to be working full time along with their dad. It was a decision Reggie made on his own.
After receiving a 4.0, Staton succeeded in becoming a student at the University of Maryland. But he still had a long way to go to attend Harvard Law eventually...
1. What finally changed Rehan Staton’s happy childhood?| A．His brother’s losing the job. |
| B．His serious health problem. |
| C．His father’s sudden death. |
| D．His mother’s leaving the country. |
| A．Force. | B．Direct. | C．Encourage. | D．Accompany. |
| A．He wanted his brother to study further. |
| B．His father asked him to leave school. |
| C．He had lost interest in most lessons. |
| D．He had to go out to find his mother. |
| A．What Rehan Staton planned to do after entering Harvard. |
| B．How Rehan Staton managed to be admitted to Harvard. |
| C．Why Rehan Staton decided to choose to go to Harvard. |
| D．When Rehan Staton would be successful in Harvard Law. |
7 . Hot Science
Tea Jokes
Why was the teacher angry with the Teapot?
Because he was “naughtea”.
What did the teapot wear to bed?
A “nightea”.
Tea Facts
Here are some truly amazing tea facts.
■Tea comes from the leaves of a tree called camellia sinensis. The tree can grow over 10 meters tall. However, it is cut short so that the leaves can be taken easily.
■Tea is grown in India, Sri Lanka, China, Indonesia, Argentina, Kenya, Japan, Bangladesh, Uganda, Malawi, Turkey, Iran, Brazil and Tanzania. India is the world’s largest tea producer.
■Eighty percent of the caffeine in tea can be removed by pouring hot water over the leaves.
The Benefits
Experts have found that there are clear health benefits of drinking tea. Research has led to the discovery that chemicals found in tea can help prevent cell damage. And there is clear evidence that drinking three to four cups of tea a day will reduce the chances of heart attacks and certain cancers. Other health benefits include bone strengthening and protection against bad teeth. “Drinking tea is actually better for you than drinking water,” said one doctor.
Re-hydration
There was also some interesting information on the qualities of tea. The research dispels the fear that tea is dehydrating (脱水). “Everyone assumes that caffeine-containing drinks such as tea dehydrate,” a leading expert explained. “But even if you had a really strong cup of tea, you would still have a gain of fluid (液体). In terms of fluid intake, we recommend 1.5 to 2 liters per day, and that can include tea. Tea is not dehydrating. It’s a healthy drink.”
The Negative Side
There was only one bit of bad news about tea. Research suggests that tea can affect the body’s ability to absorb iron from food. This means that people at risk of anaemia (贫血) should avoid drinking tea around mealtimes.
1. Tea is unable to help prevent _______.| A．iron shortage. | B．heart attacks. | C．weak bones. | D．bad teeth. |
| A．confirm. | B．remove. | C．convey. | D．raise. |
| A．Tea is used to cure different diseases. |
| B．Tea jokes only work for the tea lovers. |
| C．Tea bushes are cut short for easy harvest. |
| D．Strong tea cannot relieve human thirst. |
8 . If you were to throw, say, a banana peel out of your car while driving along the motorway, that would be a completely harmless action, due to the fact that it’s part of a fruit — right? Actually, no. A banana peel can take up to two years to be naturally processed, and with a third of motorists admitting to littering while driving, that’s a whole lot of discarded banana peels. An orange peel and a cigarette butt has a similar biodegrading (生物降解) term to that of a banana peel, but tin cans last up to 100 years; and plastic bottles last forever, as do glass bottles.
Despite the fact that longer-lasting materials will serve to damage the environment and its animals for longer, we can’t merely measure the severity of a certain type of rubbish by its lifetime. For example, despite having a fairly short length of biodegrading time, more than 120 tons of cigarette-related litter is discarded in the UK every day.
It’s not a cheap habit either: to keep our streets clean annually costs UK taxpayers £500 million, and when you include our green spaces, that goes up to £1 billion. So, it’s not surprising that if caught fly-tipping you could face a £20,000 fine or even jail time and, if you disposed of something dangerous, the court could give you five years to serve. Regardless of how severe these punishments might seem, however, among the reported cases only 2,000 were found guilty out of 825,000, so we still have some way to go in making sure people obey the rules.
1. What does the underlined word “discarded” in para1 mean?| A．Harmless. | B．Processed. | C．Thrown. | D．Long-lasting. |
| A．Glass bottles. | B．Tin cans. | C．Cigarette butts. | D．Banana peels. |
| A．The severity of rubbish can be measured by its lifetime. |
| B．Quite a few people were found guilty of illegally littering. |
| C．Every year UK taxpayers spend £500 million keeping streets free of dirt. |
| D．Cigarette-related litter and peels can be ignored for their fairly short lifetime. |
| A．To inform readers of different biodegrading terms. |
| B．To call for people not to litter illegally. |
| C．To encourage people to use fewer plastic bags. |
| D．To stress the importance of good behavior. |
9 . Great Barrier Reef Choking on Pollutants
Attempts to protect the Great Barrier Reef are failing. A report released Monday by the government in Australia says water quality in the Great Barrier Reef is far below what it should be. It showed that pollution have decreased, but not enough to reach environmental targets.
Sediment (沉淀物) and chemicals can weaken coral, hurting its ability to feed and grow. Coral are live animals that take root in the ocean floor, but they are not plants. Reefs are the hard skeletons (骨架) left at the bottom of the sea by small marine creatures called polyps (珊瑚虫). The polyps then form the larger structure of a reef. Corals also are some of the most diverse ecosystems on the entire planet. They can make a home for invertebrates, crustaceans, fish, and sea snakes.
Steve Miles is Queensland’s environment minister. He says the research shows the Reef needs more protection. “Over that five-year period, we did see some progress towards our targets. Sediment is down 12 percent and pesticides (杀虫剂) loads are down 30 percent. But what is most disturbing is that these results are far from our targets. Progress towards these targets flat-lined in the period 2013-2014. If one of my kids came home with a report card like this, I would be a bit disappointed. There is more bad news here than good news. ” said Steve Miles.
The report also found that fewer than one-third of Queensland’s sugar plantations used techniques to reduce the use of pesticides. Only 28 percent of land managers managed their land properly. They had reduced harmful water run off to protect the health of the Reef. The official target is a 90 percent reduction in pesticide use within three years.
Scientists at the University of Queensland and the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences published their findings Wednesday, July 18 in the journal Science Advances. It found between 1992 and 2010, the recovery rate dropped by an average of 84 percent. But there is hope. The study also found some corals can recover quickly if “acute and chronic stressors” are lessened.
Meanwhile, the Australian government released its updated reef protection plan Friday. It clearly states global temperatures must be stopped from rising in order to save the world’s largest living structure.
1. What does the underlined word “They” in Paragraph 2 refer to?| A．Diverse ecosystems. | B．Sediment and chemicals. |
| C．Reefs and corals. | D．Small sea creatures. |
| A．He is satisfied with the protection of the Reef. |
| B．He thinks that the Reef needs more protection. |
| C．He feels angry with what his children did. |
| D．He is very happy about the Reef progress protection. |
| A．Not increase significantly. | B．Disappear. |
| C．Speed up. | D．Miss the chance. |
| A．were tough to deal with | B．failed to manage their land properly |
| C．reduced the amount of harmful water | D．were eager to quit pesticide soon |
| A．A news report. | B．A science fiction. |
| C．A book review. | D．A guide book. |
10 . Most of us marry creativity to our concept of self either we're "creative" or we aren't much of a middle ground. "I'm just not a creative person!” a frustrated student might say in art class, while another might blame her talent at painting for her difficulties in math, giving a comment such as, “I’m very right-brained."
Dr. Pillay, a tech entrepreneur and an assistant professor at Harvard University, has been challenging these ideas. He believes that the key to unlocking your creative potential is to ignore the traditional advice that urges you to “believe in yourself.” In fact, you should do the opposite: Believe you are someone else.
Dr. Pillay points to a 2016 study demonstrating the impact of stereotypes on one's behavior. The authors, educational psychologists Denis Dumas and Kevin Dunbar, divided their college student subjects into three groups, instructing the members of one to think of themselves as "romantic poets" and the members of another to imagine they were "serious librarians" (the third group was the control). The researchers then presented all the participants with ten ordinary objects, including a fork, a carrot, and a pair of pants, and asked them to come up with as many different uses as possible for each one. Those who were asked to imagine themselves as romantic poets came up with the widest range of ideas, whereas those in the serious-librarian group had the fewest. Meanwhile, the researchers found only small differences in students' creativity levels across academic majors.
These results suggest that creativity is not a fixed individual characteristic but a malleable product of context and perspective, as long as he or she feels like a creative person. Dr. Pillay argues that, besides identifying yourself as creative, taking the bold, creative step of imagining you are somebody else is even more powerful. So, wish you were more creative? Just pretend!
1. Who is more likely to unlock his creative potential?| A．A physics major who imagines himself a writer. |
| B．A math major who always believes in himself. |
| C．An art major who has trouble in math. |
| D．A history major who always dismisses conventional advice. |
| A．To test the creativity of the college students. |
| B．To show the stereotypes of the college students. |
| C．To prove the influence of stereotypes on one's behavior |
| D．To prove difference of creativity between students. |
| A．Stable | B．Changeable | C．Predicable | D．Sustainable |
| A．If we think of ourself as creative, then we might be really creative |
| B．A student who doesn’t do well in art class is not creative. |
| C．Right brain determines whether a person is creative or not. |
| D．There is no doubt that we are either creative or not. |
