1 . Imagine a world where you move around in front of a personal computer in your own sound space. You listen to your favorite songs, play loud computer games or watch a movie—all without other people hearing the sound. That is the possibility presented by “sound beaming,” a new technology from Noveto Systems, an Israeli company.

On Friday, the company presented a desktop device that sends sound directly to a listener without the need for headphones or a special receiver. Noveto Systems gave The Associated Press (AP) a chance to test its Sound Beamer 1.0 before its debut. The AP’s Louise Dixon writes that listening to the device is like something from a science fiction movie. The sound seems so close it feels like it is inside your ears while also in front, above and behind them.

Noveto expects the device will have many uses. Office workers could listen to music or conference calls without others hearing. People could play a game, a movie or music without waking up others in the same room. Because the device does not use headphones, it is possible to hear other sounds in the room clearly.

The device uses a 3-D technology that finds and follows the ear position of the listener. It sends ultrasonic waves to create sound pockets by the user’s ears. Sound can be heard in stereo or 3-D. The 3-D method creates sound on all sides of the listener The demo version of the device included nature videos of birds on a lake, bees flying and a quiet waterway. By changing a setting, the sound can follow a listener around when they move their head. It also is possible to move out sound beam’s path and hear nothing at all.

While the idea of sound beaming is not new, Noveto was the first to launch the technology. Its chief executive officer Christophe Ramstein said a smaller version of the device will be ready for release to consumers next year.

1. What do we know about Sound Beamer?

A．It’s a device appearing in the science fiction movie.

B．Listeners got its sound through a receiver.

C．It can prevent other sound being heard.

D．The smaller one will be on market next year.

2. What does the underlined word “debut” in paragraph 2 mean?

A．New version.

B．First appearance.

C．Another failure.

D．Some doubt.

3. What does the fourth paragraph tell us?

A．How the device works.	B．How to use the device.
C．The device’s advantage.	D．Why the device is invented.

4. What is the text mainly about?

A．The introduction of a new device — sound beamer.	B．The usage of 3D technology.
C．The influence brought by sound beamer.	D．3D technology and listening experience.

3 . Perhaps thousands of people have searched for a bronze chest full of gold and jewels hidden in the Rocky Mountains between Santa Fe and the Canadian border hidden by a millionaire adventurer. At least four people died in their search for the treasure.

But it's all over now. Fenn's Treasure has been found. The 89-year-old adventurer named Forrest Fenn, who created the treasure hunt, announced the news via his website. “I don't know the person who found it, but the poem in my book led him to the precise spot,” Fenn wrote. “The treasure was confirmed by a photograph the lucky finder sent me.”

Forrest Fenn, the man who started the hunt, lives in Santa Fe. He was a pilot in the Vietnam War and later accumulated his wealth as a dealer in art and antiques. Fenn was diagnosed(诊断) with cancer in 1988 and had planned to die peacefully in the woods with his treasure. But when his cancer became less serious, he changed his plan, eventually writing the poem that described his dream resting place, which is where he hid                           the treasure. The poem appeared in a memoir called The Thrill of the Chase. Fenn said that the chest wouldn't be found by accident; only a treasure hunter who correctly interpreted the clues(线索) would find it.

Several treasure hunters went missing while attempting to find the chest, including hunter Jeff Murphy and Mike Petersen, both of whom went missing in Yellowstone National Park in 2017. Fenn said that he had never been to the Yellowstone National Park, and that the treasure was not in a dangerous place. "It was in the thick forest of the Rocky Mountains and had not been moved from the spot where I hid it more than 10 years ago," Fenn wrote on his website. It is illegal to remove anything from a national park, which would cause trouble in legally claiming the treasure if it was found there.

1. What contributed to the finding of the treasure?

A．Fenn's announcement.	B．A poem in Fenn's book.
C．Fenn’s vivid description.	D．A photo on Fenn's website.

2. What is the third paragraph mainly about?

A．Who Forrest Fenn was.	B．Where Fenn hid the treasure.
C．How the treasure hunt began.	D．What Fenn did to find the treasure.

3. What can we learn about "Fenn's Treasure”?

A．It was in Yellowstone National Park.

B．It was found by someone by chance.

C．It was moved from one place to another.

D．It was in Fenn's chosen resting place.

4. What does the underlined word “claiming” in the last paragraph probably mean?

A．Taking.

B．Burying.

C．Protecting.

D．Acknowledging.

4 . Ever wonder how your brain works when making decisions bigger than medium versus spicy salsa, like buying a car or accepting a job offer? Researchers from the University of Dundee in Scotland conducted a study that clarifies why you may want to have a small bite before making that big decision.

Benjamin Vincent from the University of Dundee’s Psychology department and his co-author Jordan Skyrnka tested 50 people two times: once when they followed their normal eating patterns and once when they did not eat anything during the day. Using three different types of rewards (food, money, and song downloads), the team discovered when presented with the choice of receiving the reward now versus double the award at some point in the future, participants would usually volunteer to wait for 35 days to earn a larger bounty, but when they were hungry, they said they would only wait three days.

“We wanted to know whether being in a state of hunger had a specific effect on how you make decisions only relating to food or if it had broader effects, and this research suggests decision-making gets more present-focused when people are hungry,” Vincent said in a story about the study on the university’s website. “You would predict that hunger would impact people’s preferences relating to food, but it is not yet clear why people get more present-focused for completely unrelated rewards. Hunger is so common that it is important to understand the non-obvious ways in which our preferences and decisions may be affected by it,” he said.

In an earlier study of the subject by a team at Cambridge University in England, the researchers noted that serotonin plays a major role in the decision-making process. “Since the raw material for making serotonin—an amino acid called tryptophan — only comes from diet, levels of the chemical decline between meals,” reports a piece in the Telegraph about the study. “This can lead to aggressiveness and impulsiveness,” say the team.

1. How did Benjamin Vincent and Jordan Skyrnka carry out their research?

A．By analyzing reasons.	B．By making comparison.
C．By giving examples.	D．By filling questionnaires.

2. The underlined word “bounty” in paragraph 2 can be best replaced by ________.

A．bonus.

B．quantity.

C．income.

D．fortune.

3. What conclusion can we draw from Vincent’ study?

A．It’s common to make a wrong decision if you are hungry.

B．Make sure you are not hungry before making a big decision.

C．The more hungry you are, the quicker you will make a decision.

D．Being hungry drives you to make a decision connected with food.

4. What is the last paragraph mainly about?

A．What should be eaten to make a wise man.

B．How can we get enough serotonin from our diet.

C．What other factors will influence one’s decision-making.

D．How does a chemical function in the course of making a decision.

5 . 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.

2. What led the author to decide to adopt children?

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.

3. What does the underlined word "placement" in Para 3 refer to?

A．The child to be adopted.	B．The need to get trained.
C．The approval of adoption.	D．The official at the hospital.

4. Why did the author appear at the courtroom?

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.

6 . No matter where he parks his VW bus coated in chalkboard paint, Jonathan Sherman comes back to find great new art adorning the sides.

Once a week, he washes it and creates a new canvas for the amateur artists of American Fork who are inspired to fill its sides.

The story behind what has become known as the “Chalkbus” even inspired a mini documentary by college students, the Daily Herald reports.

The idea to make it a rolling chalkboard came to Sherman when the bus was due for a new paint job and he painted it black matte primer and then gazed over at his daughter drawing chalk on the sidewalk. He invited her to try and the van, and the plan was formed.

“People were like, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t do that, people are going to draw all kinds of horrible things on there,’ you know, ‘You’ re asking for trouble,’” Sherman said. “People really haven’t drawn anything bad on there, they always draw cool things.”

He started driving it several years ago, and frequently found drawings when he parked it in at the movie theater or grocery store. When he found someone drawing on the bus, he left them alone to finish before talking with them.” It’s always a positive conversation,” he said. Sherman, a licensed marriage and family therapist, said the bus seemed to provide something people were missing. He took it each year to the Out of Darkness Suicide Prevention Walk in Salt Lake City and let people draw on it there.

“A lot of people are really disconnected in society. And a lot of people suffer in silence,” he said. “Anywhere I can find a little small connection, I think it just alleviates a little bit of a burden somewhere for somebody to know that, you’ re seen and you matter.”

“I’ve just noticed how many meaningful connections have come as a result of or have come because of the existence of the Chalkbus,” McKinnon said. “Because the Chalkbus exists, I’ve made friends that I wouldn’t have made. I want people to have peace, love and happiness.”

1. How did Sherman react when seeing someone painting on his bus?

A．He watched him/ her in a cold manner.

B．He stayed angry but kept silent.

C．He fought with the person.

D．He watched him/ her and then talked with the person.

2. What’s the meaning of the underlined word “alleviates” in para 7?

A．Relieves.

B．Bears.

C．Accepts.

D．Improves.

3. What’ s the best title of the passage?

A．Immoral behaviors happening in public.

B．“Chalkbus” inspires drawing and connectivity.

C．“Chalkbus” promotes young artists born in colleges.

D．Newly-born style of art—Chalkbus drawing.

4. Where is the passage probably taken from?

A．A guidebook.

B．A scientific fiction.

C．A fashion magazine.

D．A news report.

7 . Slowly but surely, we’re moving closer and closer to 5G world. From smart-home security to self-driving cars, all the internet-connected devices in our life will be able to talk to each other at lightning-fast speeds with reduced delay. Objectively speaking, the fastest 4G download speeds in the US top out at an average of 19.42Mbps. But by comparison 5G promises gigabit (千兆) speeds.

“5G is one of those heralds (使者),along with artificial intelligence, of this coming data age.” said Steve Koenig, senior director of market research for the Consumer Technology Association. The self-driving vehicle is a great emblem of this data age, and that is to say, it is a sign of time, because with one single task, driving, you have massive amounts of data coming from the vehicle itself, and a variety of sensors are collecting a lot of information to model its environment as it moves. It’s pulling in data from other vehicles about road conditions down the lane. It could be weather information, and also connected infrastructure (基础设施) construction. There’s lots of data behind that task, which is why we need the high speed.

And virtual reality glasses and headsets haven’t yet broken the mainstream, but tech companies are joyfully betting that these devices will eventually replace our smartphones. With 5G, that could actually happen. This is notable because companies such as Apple are reportedly developing AR glasses to assist — or even replace — smartphones.

Ericsson stated at February's Mobile World Congress how smart glasses could become faster and lighter with a 5G connection, because instead of being weighed down with components, the glasses could rely on hardware for processing power.

But don’t get too excited. There’s still a lot of work to be done in the meantime, including various trials to make sure the radios play nicely with hardware and infrastructure construction so 5G isn’t concentrated only in big cities.

1. What is the first paragraph mainly about?

A．The security of 5G.	B．The present world of 5G.
C．The future of 5G.	D．The super speed of 5G.

2. Which of the following can replace the underlined word “emblem” in Paragraph 2?

A．exhibition

B．symbol

C．sponsor

D．explanation

3. What do some tech companies expect of virtual reality glasses?

A．They will be heavier than present ones.	B．They will process power on their own.
C．They will bring a big fortune to tech companies.	D．They will take the place of smartphones.

4. What will the author tell us in the next paragraph?

A．How to fully expand 5G coverage.	B．How to effectively reduce 5G trials.
C．How to nicely operate 5G hardware.	D．How to widely construct 5G big cities.

8 . I've loved my mother's desk since I was just tall enough to see above the top of it as mother sat doing letters. Standing by her chair, looking at the ink bottle, pens and white paper, I decided that the act of writing must be the most wonderful thing in the world.

Years later, during her final illness, Mother kept different things for my sister and brother. "But the desk,” she said again, “is for Elizabeth."

I never saw her angry, never saw her cry. I knew she loved me; she showed it in action. But as a young girl, I wanted heart-to-heart talks between mother and daughter.

They never happened. And a gulf opened between us, I was "too emotional". But she lived "on the surface".

As years passed, I had my own family. I loved my mother and thanked her for our happy family, I wrote to her in careful words and asked her to let me know in any way she chose that she did forgive me.

I posted the letter and waited for her answer; none came.

My hope turned to disappointment, then little interest and, finally, peace. It seemed that nothing happened. I couldn't be sure that the letter had even got to Mother. I only knew that I had written it, and I could stop trying to make her into someone she was not.

Now the present of Her desk told me, as she'd never been able to, that she was pleased that writing was my chosen work. I cleaned the desk carefully and found some papers inside — a photo of my father and a one — page letter, folded and refolded many times.

Give me an answer, my letter asks, in any way you choose. Mother, you always chose the act that speaks louder than words.

1. The passage shows that___________.

A．Mother was cold on the surface but kind in her heart to the author

B．Mother was too serious about everything the author had done

C．Mother cared much about the author in words

D．Mother wrote to the author in careful words

2. The underlined word "gulf "in the passage means_________.

A．deep understanding	B．difference between ideas
C．free talks	D．part of the sea

3. What did Mother do with her daughter's letter asking for forgiveness?

A．She had never received the letter.

B．For years, she often talked about the letter.

C．She didn't forgive her daughter at all in all her life.

D．She read the letter again and again till she died.

4. What's the best title of the passage?

A．My letter to Mother	B．Mother and Children
C．My Mother's Desk	D．Talks between Mother and me.

9 . Reducing plastic waste isn't easy because the cheap material is found in almost every household item. Now, a delicious and nutritious solution has come up to help reduce our dependence on this environmental hazard.

David Christian, the co-founder of Evoware, says the idea of creating the biodegradable (生物降解的) products came from concern at the country’s high pollution rate. Indonesia is home to four of the world's worst polluted rivers. Since single-use packaging is a large contributor to the problem, Evoware decided to deal with that first.

After investigating various materials, the company settled on seaweed. Unlike corn, commonly used for biodegradable containers, seaweed does not require resources like water or large amounts of space. Since Indonesian farmers already harvest more seaweed than they can sell, it's easy for the company to find the material.

Though they will not reveal their production process, Evoware says the seaweed packaging contains no chemicals and is safe to consume. The company has also invented single-use cups, which can break down 30 days after they're thrown away.

While replacing plastic with the seaweed products may seem appealing to most of us, it is a hard-sell in Indonesia. According to Christian, ''The awareness to reduce single-use plastic is still very low. This makes our bioplastic unnecessary.” Also a factor is the cost, which is higher than using plastic. Hopefully, Evoware will succeed in convincing Indonesians and people worldwide that switching to their products will be helpful to protecting our beautiful planet.

1. What problem did Evoware decide to deal with first?

A．Ways to clean the four worst polluted rivers.

B．What nutritious materials for people to use.

C．How to deal with single-use packaging.

D．Means to contribute to the country's economy.

2. Why did Evoware choose seaweed?

A．It didn't require much space and was easy to get.

B．It could be found everywhere in his country.

C．It was most commonly used for packaging.

D．It grew thickly in most of the polluted rivers.

3. What can we infer from Christian's words?

A．Their seaweed products have won government support.

B．Sometimes it's hard to get people to reduce the use of plastics.

C．Their new products have received worldwide popularity.

D．The cost of making seaweed products will be lowered soon.

4. What does the underlined word ''hard-sell'' in Paragraph 5 refer to?

A．Something lasting long.	B．Something hard to accept.
C．Something easy to get.	D．Something commonly seen.

10 . Called the 4th industrial revolution, 5G will likely bring huge changes to our daily lives. Most importantly, it seems set to revolutionize healthcare.

One of the most exciting and publicized uses of 5G is telesurgery (远程手术). This is when a doctor remotely performs surgery on a patient. They may not be in the same room, nor even the same country! In January 2019, the world’s first remote surgery was performed in Fujian province. A doctor controlled robotic arms through a 5G network to remove the liver of a laboratory test animal. Two months later, China completed its first 5G-based human brain surgery between a doctor and a patient located more than 4,000 kilometers away.

Team leader Tian Wei told Xinhua News Agency, “The combination of 5G technology with surgical robots is a huge technological advance that will help us share our skills with more patients in distant regions.”

“People across society can now have access to top medical resources. In the future, using robots and 5G will be common. The medical community will be smarter,” he added.

These advances were only possible with 5G. The high speed of the network means there is no meaningful latency between a doctor’s movements in one place and a robot’s in the other. This allows doctors far more precision than on a 4G network. It’s the same as playing a computer game online. Slow connections mean trembling shaking and unpredictable movements.

5G will also bring everyday benefits to healthcare. Before treatment, 5G will support a high number of high-definition (高清晰度的) video calls with doctors and provide immediate advice to those who can’t visit hospital. After being treated, wearable devices will send data in real-time to doctors, allowing hospitals to monitor recovering patients from their homes.

5G technology aims to ensure everyone has access to good healthcare. But as 5G is rolled out, we may realize world where robot operations and home healthcare become common.

1. Which of the following best describes 5G technology from Tian Wei’s words?

A．5G will make good healthcare available to more patients.

B．It is hard to say whether 5G will be widely used in the future.

C．5G has great potential in various fields including community.

D．It remains doubtful about using robots and 5G for surgeries.

2. What does the underlined word “latency” in Paragraph 5 mean?

A．Rush.

B．Delay.

C．Speed.

D．Mistake.

3. Which is the benefit of telehealth according to the text?

A．Its precision allows patients to recover more quickly.

B．It provides doctors with more personalized treatments.

C．It is more convenient both for patients and doctors.

D．It will save a lot of energy to go to the hospital in advance.

4. What’s the passage mainly about?

A．How to use 5G technology to perform an operation.

B．The importance of using 5G technology.

C．The significance of using 5G in telehealth.

D．How different countries apply 5G in healthcare.