1 . Harvard University, which is facing claims of racial discrimination against Asian-Americans in its admission process, has announced that its early acceptance rate for Asian Americans for the Class of 2022 has hit 24.2 percent, up from 21.7 percent a year earlier. The figures were released on Dec 12, 2017 by the school on its official website, the Harvard Gazette.
The early enrollments for the Class of 2022 also reflect an overall increase in other nonwhite students from previous years, the famous university said. African-Americans make up 13.9 percent of students admitted early, compared with 12.6 percent last year. At the same time, Latinos account for 9.8 percent, up 1 percentage point last year, and Native Americans and Native Hawaiians account for 1.8 percent, up from 1.1 percent.
“From small towns, suburbs, and cities — from throughout the United States and around the world — the Class of 2022 promises to be among the best classes in Harvard’s long history,” said William R. Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial aid at Harvard University.
Harvard is facing scrutiny from the Department of Justice and a separate lawsuit accusing the college of discriminating against Asian-Americans in its undergraduate admission process.
In November, 2017 the Justice Department cited a 2015 lawsuit that charges Harvard’s affirmative action policies discriminating against Asian-American applicants, in a letter setting a Dec 1 deadline for Harvard to hand over documents on its admission policies. Responding to that deadline, Harvard offered a compromise position in which the government’s lawyers would be able to examine all the records, including an electronic database, in the offices of Harvard’s lawyers, with some personal information redacted, according to The New York Times.
Harvard University reported that 16.6 percent of a total 29,652 students are Asian, according to college factual.com. Over the past five years, the total international population of students on campus has grown at an average rate of 6.8 percent. China is the largest contributor to this growth, with about 1,263 students.
1. Why is Harvard University charged?| A．Because sometimes it doesn’t treat all students at school equally. |
| B．Because some people are unsatisfied with its admission policies. |
| C．Because it does not provide enough financial aid for poor students. |
| D．Because its total international population of students is decreasing. |
| A．Latinos. | B．Asian-Americans. |
| C．Native Americans and Native Hawaiians. | D．African-Americans. |
| A．careful and thorough examination | B．a plan or desire to do something |
| C．the feeling of being annoyed, upset, or impatient | D．the level that is considered to be acceptable |
| A．Class of 2022 is among the best classes in Harvard’s long history |
| B．Nonwhite students at Harvard University |
| C．Harvard announces its future admission policies |
| D．Harvard admits more Asian-Americans |
2 . If you were to throw, say, a banana skin 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 skin can take up to two years to be naturally processed, and a third of drivers confess they litter while driving, that’s a lot of thrown banana skin. An orange skin and a cigarette butt (烟蒂) have similar biodegrading (生物降解) time to that of a banana skin, 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 measure the danger 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 thrown 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 throwing rubbish, you could face a £20,000 fine or even prison time and, if you threw something dangerous, the court could give you five years to serve. Regardless of how serious 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 “confess” in Paragraph1 mean?| A．Defend. | B．Admit. |
| C．Determine. | D．Assume. |
| A．Glass bottles. | B．Tin cans. |
| C．Plastic bottles. | D．Banana skins. |
| A．The punishment for throwing rubbish illegally is rather light. |
| B．The harm of rubbish can be measured by its lifetime. |
| C．Cigarette-related litter and fruit skins can be ignored for their fairly short lifetime. |
| D．A small number of people felt guilty of illegally littering. |
| A．To call for people not to litter illegally. |
| B．To inform readers of different biodegrading terms. |
| C．To encourage people to use fewer plastic bags. |
| D．To attach significance to good behavior. |
3 . 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. |
4 . Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua have made medical history as the first cloned primates (灵长目动物),with the efforts of a team of Chinese scientists.
According to the journal Cell , it is a milestone for biomedical research. It could potentially lead to the development of new treatments for human disease. But it also makes ethicists (伦理学者) about where this all might lead. Do Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua suggest the coming of human cloning?
Born in 1996, Dolly the sheep was the first cloned mammal, and was followed by many more, including dogs, rabbits and pigs. But researchers were unable to clone primates because the genes involved didn’t react well to the procedure. Over the years, a handful of research institutions have tried and failed to birth a live monkey clone.
The successful team, at Shanghai’s Chinese Academy of Sciences, used the same basic method that created Dolly but had failed in subsequent(随后的) primate cloning attempts. It’s called somatic（躯体）cell nuclear transfer and involves transferring DNA from adult cells into eggs that have had their own DNA removed. Without the addition of sperm(精子), the eggs are stimulated （刺激）chemically to develop into an embryo that’s a clone of the DNA donor(提供者). The embryo is then placed into a substitue(替代) for gestation（妊娠）.
The researchers modified the approach in two important ways, however. Rather than use adult cells in the DNA transfer, they used fetal (胎儿)cells, which react better to chemical stimuli（刺激）for embryo development, says Mu-ming Poo, director of the academy’s Institute of Neuroscience and a co-autho of the paper. They also fine-tuned the cell transfer process to minimize damage to the eggs
As for creating human clones, Poo says the research shows it can be done, but he and his team have no interest. “Besides many technical dificulties that remain to be overcome, we see no justifiable reason to do human cloning,” says Poo, “nor would the societies around the world permit such an attempt.”
While human cells may be cloned experimentally, for example to research tissue regeneration, the cloning of an entire human is illegal in more than 70 countries, according to the Center for Genetics and Society. U.S. law does not ban it, but over a dozen states do. (Discover 2019J&F,P60.)
1. About somatic cell nuclear transfer, which of the following statements is true?| A．It needs the combination of sperm and eggs. |
| B．The eggs keep their own DNA in the process. |
| C．The embryo has the DNA of the adult donor. |
| D．The embryo gestates in the eggs donor’s body. |
| A．acceptable. | B．incredible. | C．valuable. | D．reliable. |
| A．The right donor cells. | B．The fine-tuned transfer process. |
| C．The united team. | D．The reduced damage to the eggs. |
| A．Nature Exploration | B．Science Magazine |
| C．Medicine World | D．World Wonders |
5 . As the effects of climate change become more disastrous, well-known research institutions and government agencies are focusing new money and attention on an idea: artificially cooling the planet, in the hopes of buying humanity more time to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
That strategy, called solar climate intervention (干预) or solar geoengineering, involves reflecting more of the sun’s energy back into space — abruptly reducing global temperatures in a way that imitates the effects of ash clouds flowing out from the volcanic eruptions. The idea has been considered as a dangerous and fancied solution, one that would encourage people to keep burning fossil fuels while exposing the planet to unexpected and potentially threatening side effects, producing more destructive hurricanes, wildfires floods and other disasters.
But. as global warming continues, producing more destructive hurricanes, wildfires floods and other disasters, some researchers and policy experts say that concerns about geoengineering should be outweighed by the imperative to better understand it, in case the consequence of climate change become so terrible that the world can’t wait for better solutions.
One way to cool the earth is by injecting aerosols (气溶胶) into the upper layer of the atmosphere. where those particles reflect sunlight away from the earth. That process works, according to Douglas MacMartin, a researcher at Cornell University.
“We know with 100% certainty that we can cool the planet,” he said in an interview. What’s still unclear, he added, is what happens next. Temperature, MacMartin said, is an indicator for a lot of climate effects. “What does it do to the strength of hurricanes?” he asked, “What does it do to agriculture production? What does it do to the risk of forest fires?”
Another institution funded by the National Science Foundation will analyze hundreds of simulations of aerosol injection, testing the effects on weather extremes around the world. One goal of the research is to look for a sweet spot: the amount of artificial cooling that can reduce extreme weather events without causing broader changes in regional rainfall patterns or similar impacts.
1. Why do researchers and government agencies work on cooling the earth?| A．To prevent natural disasters. | B．To win more time to reduce gas emissions. |
| C．To imitate volcanic eruptions. | D．To encourage more people to bur fossil fuels. |
| A．More volcanoes will throw out. |
| B．More solar energy will go into space. |
| C．More disasters will endanger the future of the world. |
| D．People will keep burning fossil fuels to keep warm. |
| A．He thinks more research remains to be done. |
| B．He is optimistic about the effect of cooling the earth. |
| C．He is concerned about the reduction in agriculture production. |
| D．He disapproves of the practice of solar climate intervention. |
| A．The rainfall pattern of a region. |
| B．The modest drop in temperature. |
| C．The number of extreme weather events. |
| D．The injection amount of aerosol. |
6 . Many college students turn to ADHD（注意缺陷障碍）medicine during the exam week, which is regarded as “smart drugs” that will help their academic（学术的）performance. The thinking is that if the drugs help students with ADHD improve their focus, they should provide the same benefit for people who don’t have the disorder.
But a new study shows that drugs can actually damage brain function of healthy students who take the drug hoping to boost their intelligence. “It’s not a smart drug which will suddenly improve their ability to understand information they read,” said Lisa Weyandt, a professor at the University of Rhode Island.
To test whether this effect is real or not, researchers organized 13 students to take part in two five-hour study sessions（一段时间）in the lab. The students took the standard 30mg ADHD drugs before one session, and a sugar pill before the other. Students on ADHD drugs did experience an increase in their blood pressure and heart rates. “The medicine was having an effect on their brain,” Weyandt said. The students also showed an improvement in their ability to focus, the researchers found.
However, students on ADHD drugs experienced no improvement in reading comprehension, reading fluency or knowledge reviews, compared to when they’d taken a sugar pill. “We read aloud stories to them and asked them to recall information from the stories, ”she said. “That didn’t improve.”
Worse, the ADHD drug actually harms students’ memory. It’s often misused because people pull all-nighters and they’re tired, and they think it’s going to keep them awake. Maybe it does, but it’s certainly not going to help their academic work. The brain is still developing until the mid to late 20s. It’s important to keep it healthy. There’s also a chance that ADHD drugs could endanger a student’s heart health.
1. Why do some college students take ADHD drugs?| A．To improve their sleeping. | B．To get higher marks. |
| C．To make them feel relaxed. | D．To treat brain disorder. |
| A．Analyze. | B．Affect. |
| C．Improve. | D．Understand. |
| A．They became more focused. |
| B．Their blood pressure was reduced. |
| C．Their reading fluency was greatly raised. |
| D．They could remember better and more quickly. |
| A．In a drug instruction. | B．In a biology textbook. |
| C．In a travel magazine. | D．In a news report. |
7 . Although Bertha Young was thirty she still had moments like this when she wanted to run instead of walk, to take dancing steps on and off the pavement, to throw something up in the air and catch it again, or to stand still and laugh at —nothing — at nothing, simply.
What can you do if you are thirty and, turning the corner of your own street, you suddenly feel happy — absolutely happy.
Oh, is there no way you can express it without being “drunk and disorderly"? How stupid civilization is! Why should you be given a body if you have to keep it shut up in a case like a rare, rare fiddle (小提琴)?
"No, that about the fiddle is not quite what I mean," she thought, running up the steps and feeling in her bag for the key—she'd forgotten it, as usual—and rattling the letter-box. "It's not what I mean, because—Thank you, Mary"— she went into the hall. “Is nurse back?”
“Yes, M’m."
"I'll go upstairs." And she ran upstairs to the nursery.
Nurse sat at a low table giving Little B her supper after her bath. The baby looked up when she saw her mother and began to jump.
“Now, my lovey, eat it up like a good girl," said nurse, setting her lips in a way that Bertha knew, and that meant she had come into the nursery at another wrong moment.
“Has she been good, Nanny?”
“She's been a little sweet all the afternoon," whispered Nanny. "We went to the park and I sat down on a chair and took her out of the pram(婴儿车) and a big dog came along and she pulled its ear. Oh, you should have seen her."
Bertha wanted to ask if it wasn't rather dangerous to let her pull a strange dog's ear. But she did not dare to. She stood watching them, her hands by her side. like the poor little girl in front of the rich girl with the doll.
The baby looked up at her again, stared, and then smiled so charmingly that Bertha couldn't help crying.
“Oh, Nanny, do let me finish giving her supper while you put the bath things away.
“Well, M’m, she oughtn't to be changed hands while she's eating,” said Nanny, still whispering. “It unsettles her, it's very likely to upset her.”
How absurd it was. Why have a baby if it has to be kept—not in a case like a rare, rare fiddle—but in another woman's arms?”
“Oh, I must!” said she.
Very offended, Nanny handed her over.
Now, don't excite her after her supper. You know you do, M'm. And I have such a time with her after!"
Thank heaven! Nanny went out of the room with the bath towels.
"Now I've got you to myself, my little precious," said Bertha, as the baby learned against her.
She ate delightfully, holding up her lips for the spoon and then waving her hands. Sometimes she wouldn't let the spoon go; and sometimes just as Bertha had filled it, she waved it away to the four winds.
When the soup was finished Bertha turned round to the fire. "You're nice—you're very nice!" said she, kissing her warm baby. "I'm fond of you. I like you."
And indeed, she loved Little B so much—her neck as she bent forward, her pretty toes as they shone transparent in the firelight that all her feeling of happiness came back again, and again she didn't know how to express it—what to do with it.
“You’re wanted on the telephone," said Nanny, coming back in victory and seizing her Little B.
1. In paragraph 3 and 15, a “rare, rare fiddle" is used to show that ______| A．Bertha is frustrated by not feeling free to express her musical talents |
| B．wealthy mothers are not allowed to look after their children |
| C．Bertha considers her baby girl an extraordinary child |
| D．people of a certain age are expected to follow a certain code of behavior |
| A．a vain attempt to hide her joy at seeing Bertha |
| B．fear of dismissal from her job for untidy nursery |
| C．dislike for Bertha's ill-timed visits to the nursery |
| D．a relief as she can at last eat her supper |
| A．Bertha wishes to have care-giving time with her baby. |
| B．Bertha lacks emotional and psychological strength. |
| C．Bertha desires a closer relationship with Nanny. |
| D．Bertha suffers from an unrealistic hope of having more babies. |
| A．Bertha feels that Nanny is a competent nurse and will do anything liberate her from chores. |
| B．Nanny considers herself the baby's primary caregiver and Bertha just an occasional visitor. |
| C．Bertha prefers to leave the child in Nanny's care so that she can fulfill her inappropriate fantasies. |
| D．Nanny is tired of working hard for Bertha and would like to find other pleasant employment. |
| A．She is a kind employer but a strict mother. |
| B．She is a thoughtless person and inexperienced mother. |
| C．She is excited and is always lost in her overactive imagination. |
| D．She is forgetful and has no sense of class distinctions in society. |
8 . Binge-watching is when a person watches more than one episode of a show in quick succession(一连串，连续）". With developments in the speed and connectivity of the internet, increases in technology and the rise of on-demand entertainment companies, people can now have their favorite shows streamed directly to their television at their convenience.
This behavior is nothing new. In fact, " binge-watching" has been officially listed in dictionaries since 2015. The entertainment companies recognize this behavior and many take steps to encourage it. Often, instead of releasing each episode on a week-by-week basis, an entire series will become available concurrently. Once the episode finishes many platforms will display pop-ups with “you might like suggestions, or will automatically play the next episode”.
However, recent research suggests that out of the more than half of British adults who watch more than one episode of a show back-to-back, almost a third have admitted missing sleep or becoming tired as a result; and one quarter have neglected their household chores. Next we’ll be missing work!
Bingeing has other connections-binge eating, binge drinking and binge smoking. All of them are often associated with a lack of control and a possible route to addiction. Lindsey Fussell, consumer group director, said: “The days of waiting a week for the next episode are largely gone, with people finding it hard to resist watching multiple episodes around the house or on the move.” If people find binge-watching hard to resist, coupled with the fact that it has shown to lead to negligence in many, are we witnessing the birth of a new type of addiction?
The countless of information and entertainment that television and online media can bring us is, many would say, a good thing. However, when the activity begins to bleed into other areas, causing us to stop functioning then it becomes a problem. So, what's the answer? Moderation! Neither a tiny amount, nor too much. After all, as the old proverb says, “A little of what you fancy does you good.”
1. How did the writer develop the first paragraph?| A．Listing some examples |
| B．Telling a story. |
| C．Giving a definition |
| D．Analyzing the cause and effect |
| A．similarly | B．gradually | C．naturally | D．necessarily |
| A．people have no patience to do work |
| B．people can’t control their movements |
| C．people are delighted to watch television |
| D．people can’t resist the temptation |
| A．To watch episodes in a moderate way. |
| B．To draw life lessons from the episodes. |
| C．To enjoy entertainment as much as possible. |
| D．To keep online media from stopping functioning. |
9 . Starman, the dummy(仿真人) riding a cherry-red Tesla Roadster(特斯拉敞篷车) through space, has made his closest approach ever to Mars. The electric roadster and its passenger were attached to the top of a Falcon Heavy rocket during the SpaceX rocket’s first test launch on 6 February 2018.
Two years later, the Falcon Heavy rocket and the vehicle at its tip are making their second trip around the Sun. Mr. McDowell, a Harvard astrophysicist, found that Starman passed 7.4 million kilometers from Mars at 06:25 GMT 7 October, 2020.
The closest recent approach between the Earth and Mars was 56 million kilometers in 2003, though the planets are often hundreds of millions of miles apart depending on where they are in their orbits. No one can see the Falcon Heavy rocket at its current distance, but orbits over periods of a few years are fairly straightforward to predict, and Mr. McDowell used data about how the rocket was moving when it left the Earth’s gravity behind to locate its recent movements exactly.
Last time Starman circled the Sun, McDowell said, it crossed Mars’ orbit while the Red Planet was quite far away. But this time the crossing lined up with a fairly close approach, though still not close enough to feel a strong tug from Mars.
At this point in time, if you were able to go look at the Roadster, it would probably look pretty different. The strong solar radiation environment between the planets would probably have destroyed all the exposed organic materials.
Without the Earth’s atmospheric and magnetic(磁场的) protection, even the plastics and carbon-fibre materials would start to break up. Over the course of decades or centuries, the car will end up with its aluminium(铝) frame and hard glass parts----that’s assuming that none of them get destroyed in impacts with passing space rocks.
1. What can we infer from the first two paragraphs?| A．Starman is now circling around the Earth in its orbit. |
| B．Starman has set out on its second trip around the Sun. |
| C．Starman has traveled 7.4 million kilometers after launch. |
| D．Starman still has a long way to go before getting to Mars. |
| A．By keeping Starman under visual observation. |
| B．By predicting its future orbit around the earth. |
| C．By seeking professional help from SpaceX. |
| D．By analyzing data about the rocket’s movement. |
| A．pull | B．drive | C．resistance | D．pressure |
| A．It is circling around Mars and will finally crash onto it. |
| B．It will finish its mission and return to SpaceX on earth. |
| C．Starman is likely reduced to at most its frame and glass. |
| D．SpaceX will try to recover it during its next space mission. |
10 . Beijing resident Hou Lixin started eating meal replacement products in February when she wanted to lose weight. She bought various meal replacement products online and ate them for more than a month.
“Most of them don’t taste good, but at least they have low calories and are convenient to buy, store and cook,” she said, adding the product she consumed gave a strong sense of fullness.
Hou is by no means alone. Meal replacement products, or substitutes for regular meals that can fill you up with low-calorie intakes, appear as a potential big market in China, driven by Chinese consumer’ demand for products that can help in weight control and offer convenience, experts said.
The most common meal replacement products include powders, liquids, shakes, porridges and energy bars containing fiber, protein, vitamin, minerals and other nutritious content.
The meal replacement market is at the early stage of competition and there is big room for future development, like in the United States and Japan. Euromonitor International, a market research company, said sales revenue of meal replacement products in China hit 57.17 billion yuan in 2017 and is expected to reach 120 billion yuan by 2022. More fast-moving consumer goods giants are partaking in the market action. PepsiCo’s oat brand Quaker released a new shake product in June. A major Chinese snack brand Bestore released 27 meal replacement products in August.
Jia Jianbin, secretary general at Chinese Cereals and Oils Association, told CCTV reporter that despite its possible effectiveness that many people believe, this way of weight loss may bring greater harm as it breaks the balance of nutrition and food. As a result, it can only be a temporary move, not a long-term use.
“Cereal meal replacement powder, for example, is mainly composed of carbohydrates (碳水化合物), which have enough calories，but the vitamins and minerals are not enough. Instead, it is better to soak oatmeal (燕麦片) in milk, which may be more nutritious and more economical,” said Gu Zhongyi, a dietitian of the Beijing Dietetic Association. “Meal replacements can be an alternative for busy workers, but they are no substitute for a balanced diet, and try not to eat more than one meal a day.”
1. The author quotes the example of Hou Lixin to _________.| A．show an efficient way to lose weight |
| B．promote the meal replacement products |
| C．introduce the topic of meal replacement products |
| D．arouse readers’ interest in the meal replacement products |
| A．Because they are highly recommended by health experts. |
| B．Because they are helpful to control weight and bring convenience. |
| C．Because they have a large market share in the food market. |
| D．Because they provide various forms and flavors for the consumers. |
| A．Participating. | B．Advertising. |
| C．Experimenting. | D．Cooperating. |
| A．Cautious. | B．Favorable. |
| C．Disapproving. | D．Confused. |
