1 . Simply put, cloud computing is the delivery of computing services over the Internet (“the cloud”＇） to offer faster innovation, flexible materials, and economies of scale.You typically pay only for cloud services you use, helping lower your operating costs,run your infrastructure more efficiently and scale(改变大小）as your business needs change.
Cloud computing is a big shift from the traditional way businesses think about IT resources.Here are some common reasons organizations are turning to cloud computing services:
Cloud computing eliminates the costs of buying hardware and software and setting up and running on-site data centers.
Most cloud computing services are provided self service and on demand, so even vast amounts of computing resources can be provided in minutes, typically with just a few mouse clicks,giving businesses a lot of flexibility and taking the pressure off capacity planning
Cloud computing removes the need for many of these tasks like hardware setup, software patching, and other time-consuming IT management chores,so IT teams can spend time on achieving more important business goals.
The biggest cloud computing services run on a worldwide network of secure datacenters, which are regularly upgraded to the latest generation of fast and efficient computing hardware.
Cloud computing makes data backup, disaster recovery and business continuity easier and less expensive.
Many cloud providers offer a broad set of policies,technologies and controls that strengthen your security posture overall, helping protect your data, apps and infrastructure from potential threats.
1. What can be inferred from the article about cloud computing?| A．It works in the traditional way businesses think about it. |
| B．It can bring about flexibility via its convenience and speed. |
| C．It requires a lot of hardware setup,software patching and IT management chores. |
| D．It costs customers more to finish tasks such as data backup and disaster recovery. |
| A．changes | B．increases | C．covers | D．removes |
| A．introduce a new computing service |
| B．explain the benefits of cloud computing |
| C．compare different types of cloud computing |
| D．describe various uses of cloud computing |
| A．neutral | B．negative | C．positive | D．indifferent |
2 . Amid a global pandemic, another disaster was unfolding early this year beneath the ocean waters off the coast of Australia. Thanks to climate change, surface water temperatures across the Great Barrier Reef had hit record highs. By April, the damage was clear: the reef (礁) had experienced the most widespread bleaching event ever recorded and ended up disappearing, as corals expelled what serves as their food source and give them their color.
With a quarter of all ocean fish depending on reefs during their life cycles, scientists say we urgently need to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions to preserve the essential habitats. “Unfortunately we aren’t acting quick enough on climate change, and that leaves a real problem for coral reefs,” says Emma Camp, 33, a marine biogeochemist at the University of Technology Sydney. She’s investigating special corals that survive in forest lagoons (环礁湖) where water is warmer and more acidic compared with that surrounding most reefs, and which may be resistant to the conditions ruining the Great Barrier Reef.
Camp wants to learn if these creatures-named “supercorals” after she and a team discovered them during research for her Ph.D. in 2014-can be transplanted to other reefs to aid restoration.
She’s also investigating the biochemical characteristics that allow certain corals to survive in extreme environments. None of her efforts, she says, is a substitute for action to stop climate change. “My research is really about buying time.”
For Camp, it’s also essential to include a new generation of scientists to study the planet’s ecological systems. She talks about science with students around the world and speaks at local and international women-in-science events. “Our research tells more than itself. It is clear that if we lose 50% of the intellectual input because we’re filtering out women from that career path, we’re really going to struggle to solve those problems,” she says.
1. What’s the main concern according to the first paragraph?| A．The reef died out in great number. | B．The reef began to change color. |
| C．Climate change went beyond expectation. | D．Corals had no source of food. |
| A．Influenced. | B．Accepted. | C．Dismissed. | D．Adopted. |
| A．They suffer due to our slow response to the climate change. |
| B．They stand out by providing a good condition for reefs. |
| C．Their water has a big influence on the reef’s growth. |
| D．Their warmer and acidic water is the curse of the climate change. |
| A．It has served its purpose of restoring other reefs. |
| B．Her efforts will encourage people to deal with climate change. |
| C．Her efforts only put off the consequence of warm surface water. |
| D．More younger women should be included in the research. |
3 . I'm Jeff Logan, president of Logan Luxury Theaters Corporation. I'm very sorry to tell you many cinemas are at the risk of closing permanently. That's something we would hate to see happen.
Watching the newest box office movie and eating a big bucket of popcorn is an experience that many of us have enjoyed for a very long time. We all have fond memories of going to a theater of our first dates or the first movie we saw with our children. A movie theater is so important to the fabric of the local community. It's a place where we all gather, no matter what our interests, and no matter what ages, young and old, rich and poor.
But how much longer will classic theaters remain open? Just like other industries, movie theaters have been hit hard by the pandemic and are going dark. The entire industry is being impacted by the pandemic, because the studios don't want to release their new movies until all the theaters can be open. As we all know, the theaters can't do well and can't get back to full 7-day a week at full speed operation without new movies to play.
Recently, the Logan Luxury 5 Cinema in Mitchell reopened for the weekends. However, like many theaters, it is only operating at about 10 percent capacity. Since opening, several new safety measures have been put in place. Block off every other row. People are asked to leave three seats between them and the next group. Staff spray the theater with disinfectant (消毒剂) after every show. And sanitizer stations can be found throughout the theater.
Even so, some people still aren't comfortable going to a movie theater yet. I fully understand that. Anyhow, I just hope we must do something else to help out our local theaters, like taking part in a new national proposal called "Save Your Cinema."
1. What does the underlined word "fabric" in paragraph 2 refer to?| A．Typical feature. | B．Basic structure. | C．Public support. | D．Common vision. |
| A．Cinemas don't operate normally. | B．New movies aren't welcomed. |
| C．People don't like going to cinema. | D．Many cinemas go out of business. |
| A．It makes a lot of money. | B．It does well in disease prevention. |
| C．It receives a large audience every day. | D．It offers more enjoyable experience. |
| A．To share the good and glorious old days. |
| B．To explain a social problem and its negative effects. |
| C．To appeal to the public to save the industry. |
| D．To ask for people's solutions to the problem. |
4 . Amazon is reportedly working on a free, ad-supported music offering as another option to its paid Amazon Music Unlimited and Prime Music services to better compete with Apple Music, Google Music and Spotify. According to Billboard, the free plan could go live as soon as possible. At this time, the service is only available in the US for users who request music by a trial version (HIA), but a full-fledged version of the free ad- based music service is expected to be launched sometime in the future.
Billboard reports that Amazon is now in talks to make an ad-based free level available for its music service. The company is expected to advertise the plan with its Echo speakers. By now, Amazon Music Unlimited runs $ 10 per month standalone (单机), the same as Apple Music and Sportify. Meanwhile Prime Music offers Amazon Prime members a more limited selection of content for no extra charge. A new ad supported free level would make Amazon the third music offering.
Billboard notes that it's not clear how many paying users Amazon currently has, though it may have been around 20 million last year for all of its services. In contrast, Apple Music reportedly hit 28 million paying users in the US alone, beaten by Spotify.
Amazon hasn't disclosed how many paying music users it has, but some reports last year estimated it counts over 20 million users across its offerings and expect it to gain steadily thanks to integration with its market-leading smart speakers.
But Spotify is still the market leader for global users when it comes to music services with close to 100 million users. Amazon’s move could attract more and more users.
1. What does the underlined word "full-fledged" in paragraph 1mean?| A．Modern. | B．Junior. | C．Powerful. | D．Perfect. |
| A．It wants support from users. |
| B．It has too many advertisements. |
| C．It would be the third biggest Music offering. |
| D．It will lose more free users. |
| A．Spotify. | B．Amazon. | C．Google Music. | D．Apple Music. |
| A．Amazon has the most piece of music. |
| B．Amazon will release a free music service. |
| C．Amazon will defeat Apple Music and Spotify. |
| D．Amazon has defeated Apple Music and Spotify. |
5 . To learn to think is to learn to question. Those who don't question never truly think for themselves. These are simple rules that have governed the advancement of science and human thought since the beginning of time. Advancements are made when thinkers question theories and introduce new ones. Unfortunately, it is often the great and respected thinkers who end up slowing the progress of human thought. Aristotle was a brilliant philosopher whose theories explained much of the natural world, often incorrectly. He was so esteemed by the scientific community that even 1，200 years after his death, scientists were still trying to build upon his mistakes rather than correct them!
Brilliant minds can intimidate upandcoming thinkers who are not confident of their abilities. They often believe they are inferior to the minds of giants such as Aristotle, leading many to accept current paradigms instead of questioning them.
I, like many thinkers of the past, once believed in my mental inferiority. I was certain that my parents, my teachers-adults in general-were always right. They were like a textbook to me; I didn't question what was written on those pages. I respected them, and accepted whatever they told me. But that attitude soon changed. My mind's independence was first stimulated in the classroom.
A stern, 65yearold elementaryschool science teacher once told me that light is a type of wave. I confidently went through years of school believing that light is a wave. One day，however I heard the German exchange student mention that light could be made up of particles. As the others laughed at his statement, I started to question my beliefs.
Maybe the teachers and textbooks hadn't given me the whole story. I went to the library, did some research and learned of the lightasawave versus lightasaparticle debate. I read about Einstein's discovery of the dual nature of light and learned the facts of a paradox(悖论) that puzzles the world's greatest thinkers to this day. Light behaves as both a particle and a wave, it is both at once. I realized I had gone through life accepting only half of the story as the whole truth.
Each new year brought more new facts, and I formulated even more questions. I found myself in the library after school, trying to find my own answers to gain a more complete understanding of what I thought I already knew. I discovered that my parents and teachers are incredible tools in my quest for knowledge, but they are never the final word. Even textbooks can be challenged. I learned to question my sources, I learned to be a thinker. I once believed that everything I learned at home and at school was certain, but I have now discovered to reexamine when necessary.
Questions are said to be the path to knowledge and truth, and I plan to continue questioning. How many things do we know for sure today that we will question in the future? At this moment, I know that our sun will burn for another five billion years, and I know nothing can escape the gravity of a black hole. This knowledge, however, may change in the next 20 years-maybe even in the next two. The one thing we can control now is our openness to discovery. Questions are the tools of open minds, and open minds are the key to intellectual advancement.
1. In the first paragraph, Aristotle is taken as an example to show that ______.| A．he is the greatest and respected philosopher of all time |
| B．huge influence of great thinkers may block human thought |
| C．advancements are made when thinkers question theories |
| D．great thinkers often make mistakes and then correct them |
| A．Frighten. | B．Encourage. | C．Strength. | D．Persuade. |
| A．what he learned from textbooks before turned out to be wrong |
| B．he was inspired by the different ideas from an exchange student |
| C．he was laughed at by other students for his unacceptable statement |
| D．he was not satisfied with his life and desperate to achieve success |
| A．looks down upon great thinkers all the time |
| B．never doubts what he has learned in the textbook |
| C．always throws himself into the laboratory |
| D．determines to be a thinker and questioner |
| A．the author is not quite sure about his future |
| B．we human beings don't dare to predict future |
| C．theory of black holes will change in two years |
| D．questioning is necessary to promote advancement |
| A．Following rules. | B．Challenging yourself. |
| C．Questioning giants. | D．Predicting future. |
6 . Your next Saturday night takeaway could be brought to you by a robot after a major food delivery company announced plans to use automated vehicles to transport meals. Europe's biggest online takeaway food company Just Eat has partnered with Starship Technologies to deliver food with robots on the streets of London later this month. "Nobody has ever done deliveries with land-based robots," said Allan Martinson, the chief operating officer of Starship.
The robot courier can travel up to 4 miles per hour for about 10 miles. It uses a GPS signal and nine cameras to navigate (确定方向). Instead of a person arriving at their door, customers could find themselves receiving a notification on their phone that says a robot is on its way and a code to unlock the automated courier. "Put the code in, the robot opens up, and there's your food，" said David Buttress, chief manager of Just Eat.
The robot, which has so far been tested in Greenwich, Milton Keynes and Glastonbury, costs ￡1 to transport within 3 miles, compared with the ￡3 to ￡6 it costs for a human courier. To date 30 robots have driven nearly 5,000 miles without getting into an accident or finding themselves picked on by passers-by. They have driven in more than 40 cities around the world, including London and Tallinn, Estonia.
An initial worry was how the public would react to robots. But Martinson said the public has been calm when passing the delivery machine on the streets. "The most surprising reaction has been the lack of reaction," said Martinson.
Another significant fear was that people would disrupt (扰乱) the robots, or try to steal them and their contents. To prevent this, the robot is fitted with nine cameras, two way audio, and movement sensors that send a warning if it is lifted off the ground. And it opens only with a passcode provided to the customer via a notification. "It's much easier to shoplift than it is to steal a robot," said Martinson.
1. Which of the following can replace the underlined word "courier" in Paragraph 2?| A．Deliverer. | B．Collector. | C．Provider. | D．Guide. |
| A．Safety of the robot delivery. |
| B．Accuracy of the robot delivery. |
| C．People's indifference to the robots. |
| D．People's concern about public traffic. |
| A．Great Improvement of Just Eat |
| B．Global Trend of Food Companies |
| C．New Robots to Move on the Road |
| D．Delivery Robots to Replace Takeaway Drivers |
7 . Not long ago, “blind box economy” suddenly became popular, winning the heart of large numbers of faithful fans. People simply get interested in it. A couple spent 200 thousand yuan on them. Another sixty-year-old guy spent over 700 thousand yuan in buying blind boxes. Statistics showed that last year 300 thousand hobbyists made deals through a second-hand shopping platform.
The blind boxes usually contain peripheral (周边的) dolls of comics and animation, or film and television, or specially designed ones. A single blind box usually costs about thirty to fifty yuan. But there is no mark on the box, and only after opening it can the buyer see what he has bought. This is rather like buying lottery tickets, for the buyer has to bet on his luck.
However, addiction to blind box is much like that to gambling (赌博). It is highly nontransparent compared with lottery ticket. Nobody knows whether sellers of blind boxes exaggerated (夸大) the winning rate so as to attract people to buy them, thus digging a consumption trap. Besides, it is also unknown whether the objects in the blind boxes are genuine or not. The blind box economy promoted its second-hand trade. The price of some classic dolls or dolls of limited edition have skyrocketed in second-hand trade platforms, and some may reach thirty to forty times. But it is difficult for buyers to judge whether it is the result of real supply and demand, or the consequence of businessmen’s tricks.
The basis of the “blind box economy” is the cultural trend of collection. Many of the target consumers are young people who have scanty experience of life. They are thus attracted by deliberately exaggerated probability of “winning a prize” and constantly throw money to buy blind boxes in order to gain dolls that they desire. Or they may buy at second-hand trade platform high-priced blind box dolls, thinking they can keep value preservation and appreciation, thus falling into the fixed pattern of trap carefully designed by businessmen.
Therefore, it is necessary to remind young people to control their consumption in case they become addicted.
1. A couple and a sixty-year-old guy are mentioned in Para.1 to ________.| A．stress the importance of “blind box economy” to people |
| B．tell how much money people spend on “blind box economy” |
| C．show the popularity of “blind box economy” among people |
| D．prove older people can afford more to buy “blind box economy” |
| A．The fondness of gambling to bet on their luck. |
| B．The high winning rate exaggerated by sellers. |
| C．The blind faith in the cultural trend of collection |
| D．The possibility of making a fortune in second-hand trade. |
| A．previous | B．inadequate | C．personal | D．unforgettable |
| A．To inform readers of the “blind box economy”. |
| B．To promote the products of “blind box economy”. |
| C．To list the reasons behind the popularity of “blind box economy”. |
| D．To warn the consumers to think twice before buying blind boxes. |
8 . A new paper published in Environmental Research Letters has some warning news for people living in the lower 48 states: You may be at risk from river flooding and not even know it until the water starts to rise.
In fact, the study, estimates of present and future flood risk in the United States, found that 41 million U. S. residents are at risk from flooding along rivers. That’s three times more than current estimates based on the flood maps produced by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) , which primarily maps the areas at risk for 1-in-100-year floods in populous (人口众多的) river basins.
Why does the big difference come into being? As always, it’s all about the data. Generally, FEMA prioritizes risk-assessment areas based on their population; reserving expensive field-work methodologies (研究方法) for the more populous river basins, but many other rivers have not yet been mapped at all.
The size of the USA means that flood maps made in this way are incomplete. It would be too expensive and time-consuming to survey every river basin in America. The national-scale flood maps produced by FEMA leave the flood risk of many parts of the country unaccounted for.
For this research, scientists from The Nature Conservancy adopted a pioneering methodology that avoids the defects of the FEMA approach, where individual catchments (流域) are studied by making use of big data. The study used a new high-resolution model, produced by the flood-mapping organization Fathom, which copies floods on all rivers across the entire continental United States.
“We were all surprised by how many people are actually exposed to freshwater flooding in the USA,” said Oliver Wing, lead researcher on the study and a PhD student at the University of Bristol. “It’s particularly worrisome considering that most of these people aren’t even aware of the risk they face. This study helps fill that critical information gap.”
1. What did the new paper intend to tell readers?| A．The mistakes made by FEMA. |
| B．The serious situation of the flood. |
| C．The populous river basins of the USA. |
| D．The unseen risk of the flood in the USA. |
| A．It’s dangerous to research all the rivers. |
| B．The size of the USA is too big. |
| C．It ignores less populous rivers. |
| D．The efficiency of making it is low. |
| A．Shortcomings. | B．Potential. |
| C．Consumption. | D．Contributions. |
| A．Critical. | B．Supportive. |
| C．Cautious. | D．Uncaring. |
9 . You’ve got the butter, the eggs, the organic salad greens and the laundry soap. And so you make your way to the front of the grocery store, which is where you’ll face your moment of truth:
Will you step in behind the mom with a wiggly baby and a full cart? Or take your chances with the young couple you spotted arguing over the best milk in Aisle 3B?
Better make up your mind, quick. Because, faster than the guy with “just one item” who’s about to cut in line, this whole scene is going to disappear.
Amazon recently opened its own convenience store, Amazon Go, in Seattle. It’s the first of its kind: a truly cashless grocery experience in which shoppers enter through gates that look like subway turnstiles (闸机), take what they want from the shelves and exit the way they came. No carts, no lines, no waiting. The store accurately lists what you take and charges your Amazon account, efficiently delivering an electronic receipt after you’ve left. Like most things that Amazon does, this smells like inevitability. We know, as surely as we knew the day that first Amazon box showed up on the doorstep, that the future of shopping has arrived.
Like all progress, it comes at a cost. “Based on data”, says Manoj Thomas, a professor of marketing at Cornell University, “we know that when people use any abstract form of payment, they spend more. And the type of products they choose changes too.”
Decades of psychological research has reinforced the knowledge that the further we are removed from “the pain of paying,” the less we understand how much were really spending. “If you are paying by credit card,” says Thomas, “you might pause at the checkout and suddenly think,” Should I be buying this? “Or if you are paying cash, that reflection happens at the very beginning. Both will be gone with the Amazon store.” Unhealthy impulse purchases and overspending will result from it, he says. “Both are completely related because they are influenced by our impulse urges.”
Win Is Thomas advocating that we all make a run for the atm and attempt to turn back time by using old hard currency? “No, no, no,” he says.
He envisions a world in which you’ll be able to set budget or calorie limits on an app that will recognize when you pick up unhealthy or budget-busting items and will warn you that they fall outside your goals. He expresses confidence that there is some tech hero out there right now, figuring out this exact solution to keep us all on the straight and narrow.
1. What does the underlined phrase “this whole scene” in Paragraph 2 refer to?| A．Customers arguing over the best item. | B．Customers lining up at the checkout. |
| C．Customers cutting in line for the bargains. | D．Customers doing shopping with their babies. |
| A．Less “pain of paying” at the checkout counter. |
| B．Convenient entering through subway turnstiles. |
| C．Overspending on more than you actually need. |
| D．Quicker delivering of goods to your car. |
| A．abstract payment contributes to market prosperity |
| B．impulse consumption may be regulated with the new app |
| C．extra spending will surely not happen with the warning of the app |
| D．it is better for people to use cash or credit cards to avoid overspending |
10 . This activity will melt away the pounds, build your body and leave you on an emotional high. Yet the form of exercise, the fitness trend of the year, does not require gym membership or a personal trainer. All you need to do is walk.
"Walking is a refreshing alternative to complicated aerobic （氧）routines and overpriced gym membership," says personal trainer Lucy Knight, author of a new book on the exercise. “It is free, enjoyable and already a part of everyday life. All you need to do is correct your technique, walk faster and for longer and you will lose weight?"
There is much evidence of the benefits of walking. Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh recently discovered that overweight people who walked briskly （快）for 30 to 60 minutes a day lost weight even if they didn't change any other lifestyle habits. Another American study found that people who walked for at least four hours a week gained less weight than couch potatoes as they got older. Researchers at the University of Massachusetts medical school found that people who walked every day had 25 percent fewer colds than those who sat a lot. Best of all, walking makes you feel good about yourself "For people suffering from depression, walking three to four times a week for 30 minutes has been shown to lift their mood,” says Knight.
But how to walk your way to weight loss and wellness? Health experts recommend that we should walk 10,000 steps a day to stay healthy. Actually, you would probably need to walk at least 16,000 steps a day to lose weight. "Your workout plans depend on your level of fitness. You should aim to progress by increasing your walking time by five minutes every two weeks, and walk a bit faster. In just three months, the results should speak for themselves," says Knight.
1. What is the latest fitness trend according to the passage?| A．Brisk walking. | B．Losing weight. |
| C．Working out in a gym. | D．Exercising with a personal trainer. |
| A．expensive | B．worthy |
| C．prepaid | D．discountable |
| A．is gaining increasing popularity | B．benefits people in different aspects |
| C．is an enjoyable way to lose weight | D．involves different groups of people |
| A．1600 steps a day is needed for weight losses |
| B．the effect of walking is noticeable over time |
| C．your fitness level depends on your health experts |
| D．changing the walking time every day is necessary |
