1 . Honeybees can’t swim, and when their wings are wet, they can’t fly, either. But Chris Roh and other researchers at the California Institute of Technology found that when bees drop into bodies of water, they can use their wings to produce little waves and slide toward land-like surfers who create and then ride their own waves.
As with many scientific advances-Isaac Newton’s apple or Benjamin Franklin’s lightning bolt-Dr. Roh’s experiment began with a walk. Passing Caltech’s Millikan Pond in 2016, he observed a bee on the water’s surface producing waves. He wondered how an insect known for flight could push itself through water.
Dr. Roh and his co-worker, Morteza Gharib, used butterfly nets to collect local Pasadena honeybees and observed their surf-like movements. The researchers used a wire to restrict each bee’s bodily movement, allowing close examination of their wings. They found that the bee bends its wings at a 30-degree angle, pulling up water and producing a forward force. Bees get trapped on the surface because water is roughly three times heavier than air. But that weight helps to push the bee forward when its wings move quickly up and down. It’s a tough exercise for the bees, which the researchers guess could handle about 10 minutes of the activity.
The researchers said the surf-like movement hasn’t been documented in other insects and most semiaquatic insects use their legs for propulsion, which is known as water-walking. It may have evolved in bees, they-predicted.
Dr. Roh and Dr. Gharib have imagined many practical applications for bees’ surfing. One plan is to use their observations to design robots able to travel across sky and sea. “This could be useful for search and rescues, or for getting samples of the surface of the ocean, if you can’t send a boat or helicopter,” Dr. Gharib said.
1. What does the author intend to show by mentioning Newton and Franklin?| A．Roh’s admiration for them. | B．Roh’s chance discovery about bees. |
| C．Their outstanding talent for science. | D．Their similar achievements in discovery. |
| A．The air weight. | B．Its leg extension. |
| C．The water movement. | D．Its continuous wingbeat. |
| A．Fast flight | B．Driving force. | C．Pulling speed. | D．Explosive power. |
| A．Honeybees can surf to safety. | B．Bees help scientists make inventions. |
| C．Insects can adapt to the environment. | D．Nature is a helpful guide for discovery. |
2 . For most people, graduation is an exciting day the celebration of years of hard work. My graduation day... was not.
I remember that weekend two years ago. Family and friends had flown in from across the country to watch our class walk across that stage. But like everyone else in my graduating class, I had watched the economy turn from bad to worse. What I thought would take a week dragged into two. and then four, and 100 job applications later, I found myself in the exact same spot as 1 was before. And the due date to begin paying back my student loans was creeping ever closer.
You know that feeling when you wake up and you are just consumed with fear? Fear about something you can't control—that sense of approaching failure that remains over you as you hope that everything that happened to you thus far was just a bad dream? That feeling became a constant in my life. And the most frustrating part was no matter how much 1 tried, 1 just couldn't seem to make any progress.
So what did I do to maintain my sanity（理智）？ I wrote. Something about putting words on a page made everything seem a little clearer—a little brighter. Something about writing gave me hope. And if you want something badly enough... sometimes a little hope is all you need! So I channeled my frustration into a children's book. And then one day, without any sort of writing degree or contacts in the writing world — just a lol of hard work and perseverance—I was offered a publishing contract for my first book! After that, things slowly began to fall into place. 1 was offered a second book deal. Then, a few months later, I got an interview with The Walt Disney Company and was hired shortly after.
The moral of this story is... don't give up. Even if things look bleak now, don't give up. Things change If you work hard, give it time, and don't give up, things will always get better Oftentimes all we need is the courage to push beyond the river.
1. From Paragraph 2, we can learn that the author probably.| A．was having an exciting graduation |
| B．was getting into financial difficulties |
| C．missed the life in the university |
| D．had just applied for the student loans |
| A．By sending applications. | B．By offering contracts. |
| C．By keeping writing. | D．By publishing books. |
| A．unattractive | B．hopeless |
| C．thrilling | D．promising |
| A．Success belongs to the persevering. |
| B．A contented mind is a perpetual（长久的）feast. |
| C．A smooth sea never makes a skillful mariner. |
| D．Misfortunes tell us what fortune is. |
3 . Social distancing is not a new concept in the natural world, where infectious diseases are commonplace. Through specialized senses animals can detect certain diseases and change their behavior to avoid getting ill.
In 1966, while studying chimps (猩猩) in a Tanzanian national park, zoologist Jane Goodall observed a chimp named McGregor who had caught a highly infectious virus. His fellow chimps attacked him and threw him out of the troop. In one instance, McGregor approached chimps in a tree. He reached out a hand in greeting, but the others moved away without a backward glance.
“For a full two minutes, old McGregor sat motionless, staring after them,” Goodall notes in her 1971 book In the Shadow of Man. “It’s really not that different to how some societies react today to such a tragedy.”
Not all animals are so aggressive toward their ailing neighbors. Sometimes it’s as simple as avoiding those who may infect you.
When Kiesecker, a lead scientist in America, studied American bullfrog in the late 1990s, he found that bullfrogs could not only detect a deadly smell of infection in other bullfrogs, but healthy members actively avoided those that were sick. Bullfrogs rely on chemicals signals to determine who is sick or not.
Caribbean lobsters also shun diseased members of their community, well before they become infectious. It takes about eight weeks for lobsters infected with the deadly virus Panulirus argus mininuceovirus to become dangerous to others. Normally social animals, lobsters begin keeping away from the diseased as early as four weeks after infection – once the lobsters can smell certain chemicals released by sick individuals.
Overall, it’s important to note that, unlike us, animals don’t realize if they stay home, they might actually reduce the infection rate,” Kiesecker explains. “As humans, we have that ability. It’s a big difference.”
1. What can we learn about the chimps from Goodall’s observation?| A．They kept a distance from one another. |
| B．They became aggressive when infected. |
| C．The infected avoided contact with others. |
| D．The infected were forced to leave the group. |
| A．Avoid. | B．Cure. | C．Get rid of. | D．Get along with. |
| A．Humans are more sensitive to virus. |
| B．Humans are less likely to get infected. |
| C．Humans treat infectious diseases in a wiser way. |
| D．Humans can detect chemical signals more quickly. |
| A．Help Me Out |
| B．Leave Me Alone |
| C．Stay Away From Us |
| D．Stay Home Stay Healthy |
4 . Could it be time to say goodbye to Earth? According to NASA, a giant asteroid is heading for Earth next month. Well, when we say heading for Earth, we actually mean its heading for Earth’s vicinity（周边）, passing within 3,908,791 miles of our planet.
Officially classified as 52768 (1998 OR2), the near-miss has been predicted to occur on April 29. According to NASA, the asteroid is traveling toward us at 19,461 miles per hour and is about half the size of Mount Qomolangma.
The space agency first discovered the object in 1998 and said it would be “large enough to cause global effects” if it were to hit Earth. But despite being classed as “potentially hazardous （有危险的）”, scientists said it is not on the list of potential future Earth impact events.
Currently, the agency has identified 20,000 Near-Earth Objects. Of these, only a few are considered potential impactors, which NASA tracks via their automated Sentry System.
The near-miss 1998 OR2 might not pose a threat, but many scientists agree it’s only a matter of time before a huge asteroid collides with Earth.
Cardiff University scientist Ian McDonald told BBC Today, “Doomsday asteroid hits aren’t confined to the past. There are always rocks flying through space. One of these will hit us and it will have pretty dramatic effects.”
The last Earth impact was in 2013, and terrifyingly nobody saw it coming. Dubbed（被称为）the Chelyabinsk meteor, it exploded just 30 kilometers from Earth’s surface, shattering windows and rocking buildings for over 500 square kilometers, according to the BBC.
This impact injured around 950 people in Russia, but it just goes to show how precarious life on Earth is and how it could be devastated（毁坏的）by larger future impacts.
1. What can we learn about 1998 OR2?| A．It is as large as Mount Qomolangma. |
| B．It is heading for Earth at 3,908,791 mph. |
| C．It is likely to occur at the end of March. |
| D．It is estimated not to be a threat to Earth. |
| A．There is little chance that the doomsday asteroid hits Earth. |
| B．A mega asteroid could unavoidably threaten Earth one day. |
| C．Potential impactors could be tracked and destroyed. |
| D．Mega asteroids could collide with Earth more often in the future. |
| A．compare it with the upcoming 1998 OR2 |
| B．present the dramatic effects of Earth impacts |
| C．show how frequent Earth impacts are |
| D．prove that little can be done in the face of an Earth impact |
| A．uncertain | B．unprepared |
| C．precious | D．diverse |
5 . It's hard for doctors to do a thorough eye exam on small children. But a new smartphone app takes advantage of parents' fondness for taking pictures of their children to look for signs that a child might be developing an eye disease.
The app is the result of a father's five-year quest to find a way to catch the earliest signs of eye diseases, and prevent loss of vision. Five years ago, doctors diagnosed (诊断）Noah Shaw's retinoblastoma—a rare type of eye cancer—when he was 4 months old. To make the diagnosis, the doctors shined a light into Noah's eye, and got a pale reflection from the back of the eyeball, an indication that there was something wrong there. Noah's father Bryan, a scientist, wondered if he could see that same pale reflection in pictures of his baby son. Sure enough, he saw the reflection, which doctors call "white eye", in a picture taken right after Noah was born.
Then Bryan decided to create an app that could scan photos for signs of this reflection. Now, that app exists, called CRADLE. To test the app, Bryan and his colleagues analyzed more than 50, 000 pictures taken of 40 children. Half had no eye disease and half had. "On average, the app detected 'white eye' in pictures collected 1. 3 years before diagnosis," says Bryan.
The app isn't perfect. It sometimes misses "white eye" when it's there, and sometimes says it's there when it's not. That latter condition is a problem. Even though the so-called false positive occurs less than 1% of the time, that's not good enough. There are about 4 million children born in the U. S. each year. A 1% false positive rate would mean tens of thousands of children showing up at the doctor unnecessarily.
Still, Bryan is upbeat about the promise of the app. "This is exciting new technology, and this is how I think we're going to go about screening for a number of diseases in the future," he says.
1. What inspired Bryan to create CRADLE?| A．His son's diagnosis. |
| B．His family photos. |
| C．His hobby of taking pictures. |
| D．His working experience as a scientist. |
| A．lt is a sign of some eye diseases. |
| B．It hardly causes serious loss of vision. |
| C．It refers to the white part of an eyeball. |
| D．It occurs when no light is reflected from the eye. |
| A．It may delay the treatment of a patient. |
| B．It may badly affect the future of the app. |
| C．It may raise serious doubts about doctors. |
| D．It may cause a waste of medical resources. |
| A．Curious. | B．Cautious. |
| C．Optimistic. | D．Worried. |
6 . Drivers who drive a little too close to cyclists on the road could soon be caught on the spot. A new technology adopted by legal departments in Ottawa could help carry out legal distance between bikers and cars on the road.
The device, which is fixed on a bicycle’s handlebars like a bike bell, uses sonar(声呐) technology to measure the distance between the bike and passing cars. The device will make a loud noise if the car is within one meter of the bike, the legal limit in the city of Ottawa, allowing the police rider to radio ahead to his colleagues so that the driver can be pulled over. “The safety of all road users is extremely vital, including cyclists. These cycling changes are directed at encouraging cycling, promoting road safety, and sharing the road,” said Rob Wilkinson, coordinator of the Safer Roads Ottawa Program.
The authorities started the program last week with a single sonar device. One police officer rode the bike bearing the device around the city on Tuesday to prove the effectiveness(有效性) of the technology. Within a few minutes of riding, the device was beeping, registering that two drivers had violated the one-meter distance requirement. The drivers were pulled over and given brochures informing them that they had broken the safe distance law.
Wilkinson noted that the device is not currently being used to issue fines, which can go up to $110, and that there are no plans to use it for enforcement(执法)in the future. At this point, its main use is to spread awareness about the safe distance law, which was passed last September in an effort to encourage rider safety and reduce deadly crashes.
1. What will happen if the safe distance is beyond the legal limit?| A．The cyclist will soon be caught on the spot. |
| B．The police will make the driver stop by the road. |
| C．The driver will be arrested for driving too fast. |
| D．The device will at once call the police of itself. |
| A．To make the bicycle attractive. | B．To encourage people to walk. |
| C．To guarantee road safety. | D．To warn drivers of danger. |
| A．Making a loud noise. | B．Receiving an urgent message. |
| C．Sending a stop signal. | D．Radioing the police rider. |
| A．It is being developed at present. | B．It still has room for improvement. |
| C．It may be used to fine drivers later. | D．It helps reduce traffic accidents. |
7 . Zhong Lin Wang started playing table tennis only four years ago. But last year, he and other researchers came up with a clever way to up their game: Build a smart table.
Now they’ve just introduced a new sample table to the public. It can measure where a ball lands, how fast the ball’s going and where it’s headed. The table can do that because its innovative wood surface forms the top layer of a novel self-powered sensor. The data it acquires could guide players to perform better, says Wang.
Wang is a materials scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, in Atlanta. He describes the invention as a machine that can learn to “analyze the behavior” of how someone plays. Importantly, the new smart table won’t need a battery to detect the ball. When a ball hits the wood, it sets off a chain of events that can both generate a small electric current and record measurements of the ball’s behavior.
Wang is an expert at inventing devices that provide their own power. In 2012, he invented a triboelectric(摩擦生电的) nano generator. He calls it TENG, for short. Even if you’ve never heard of “triboelectricity,” you know the phenomenon. Most of us call it static electricity(静电). The first TENG that Wang put together in 2012 looked like a sandwich. It had layers of charged materials separated by a small gap. When the sandwich bent or changed shape, its layered materials rubbed against each other. This caused electrons to start building up on one side.
What makes the new game table truly unique is its use of wood as one of the TENG’s layers. As it turns out, Wang explains, “wood is an excellent triboelectric material.” Building a full-size game table would require a large grid(网格) of wood TENGs. Wang says that’s on his drawing board as a project for the future.
1. Why is the new game table really unusual?| A．It can measure the size of the ball. | B．It uses wood as a TENG’s layer. |
| C．It has a table surface made of steel. | D．It needs a charged battery to function. |
| A．Stop. | B．Start. |
| C．Observe. | D．Release. |
| A．A TENG had several charged materials connected tightly. |
| B．A TENG was controlled by rubbing its layered materials. |
| C．A large grid of TENG can build a full-size game table. |
| D．A TENG was a nano generator making static electricity. |
| A．A Unique Smart Game Table | B．A Wise Table Tennis Lover |
| C．Ways to Win in Table Tennis | D．New Rules for Table Tennis |
8 . At your next meeting, wait for a pause (停顿) in conversation and try to measure how long it lasts.
Among English speakers, it is probable that it will be a second or two at most. But while this pattern may be universal, our understanding of silence differs greatly across cultures.
What one culture considers a confusing or embarrassing pause may be seen by others as a valuable moment of thought and respect for what the last speaker has said. Research in Dutch (荷兰语) and also in English found that when a silence in conversation lasts four seconds, people start to feel uneasy. However, another study of business meetings found that Japanese people are happy with silences of 8.2 seconds—nearly twice as long as in Americans’ meetings.
In Japan, it is recognized that the best communication is when you don’t speak at all. It’s already a failure to understand each other by speaking because you’re repairing that failure by using words.
In the US, it may originate from the history of colonial (殖民地的) America as a crossroads of many different races (种族). When you have difference, it’s hard to reach common understanding unless you talk and there’s understandably a kind of anxiety unless people use words to establish a common life. This applies also to some extent to London.
However, when there’s more homogeneity, perhaps it’s easier for some kinds of silence to appear. For example, among your closest friends and family it’s easier to sit in silence than with people you’re less well know.
1. Which of the following people might have the longest silence in conversation?| A．The Dutch |
| B．The American |
| C．The English |
| D．The Japanese |
| A．Speaking more gives the upper hand. |
| B．Speak out what you have in your mind. |
| C．Great minds think alike without words. |
| D．The shorter talking silence, the better. |
| A．A four second silence in conversation is universal. |
| B．It’s hard for American to reach a common agreement. |
| C．English speakers are more talkative than Japanese speakers. |
| D．The closer we and our family are, the easier the silence appears. |
| A．Similarity |
| B．Difference |
| C．Disagreement |
| D．Misunderstanding |
9 . I used to be an average student in Bohunt High school until I took Dr. Whitworth’s class. He was such a life-changer to me that I left that class determined never to underachieve again. He not only taught me to perform better and achieve more success than expected, he, more importantly, taught me to think. He convinced me, as much by example as words that it was my moral obligation to do so and to serve others.
Neither of us could know how our relationship would evolve over the years. When I came back to Bohunt to teach English, I worked for Dr. Whitworth, the department chair. My discussion with him was like graduate seminars in adolescent development, classroom management and school leadership.
After several years, I was named department chair, and our relationship shifted again. I thought that it might be awkward chairing the department, since all of my former English teachers were still there, but Dr. Whitworth supported me throughout. As the former chair, he knew when to give me advice about curriculum, texts and personnel, and when to let me chart my own course.
In 1997, I needed his opinion about leaving Bohunt to become principal at another school. If he had asked me to stay at Bohunt, I might have. Instead, he encouraged me to seize the opportunity.
Five years ago, I became the principal of Bohunt. Once again, Dr. Whitworth was there for me, letting me know that I could count on him. I have learned from him that great teachers have an inexhaustible (用不完的) wealth of lessons to teach.
1. The underlined word in Paragraph 1 could be best replaced by ________.| A．underperform | B．underestimate |
| C．undertake | D．understand |
| A．They became teacher and student again. |
| B．They chaired the department together. |
| C．They were colleagues and Dr. Whitworth worked for him. |
| D．They were colleagues and he worked for Dr. Whitworth. |
| A．in time order | B．in space order |
| C．by giving examples | D．by comparison |
| A．A speech. | B．An autobiography. |
| C．A newspaper. | D．A poster. |
10 . Did you know that if you attach a weighed stick to the back of a chicken, it walks like a dinosaur?
No, you did not know(or care to know) such things, but now you do! Thanks to this year’s winners of the 12 Noel Prize! Now in is 251h year, the lg Nobel is the goofy younger cousin of the honored Nobel Prize. It applauds achievements in the fields of medicine, biology, physics, economies. literature. etc. Every September at Harvard University, awards are presented in 10 categories that change year to year, depending on - according to the organization - what makes the judges “laugh, then think”.
The ceremony officially begins when audience members launch paper airplanes at an assigned human target on the stage, then speakers only have 60 seconds to present their research. In previous year, the one-minute rule was imposed by a young girl - nicknamed Miss Sweetie Poo -who would go up to the platform and repeat the words: “Please stop, I’m bored.” in a sharp tone until the speaker left the stage.
Fortunately for candidates though, the Ig Informal Lectures are held afterwards on Saturday to give presenters more time to explain the crazy things they're working on.
The research can seem more like the brainchildren of teenage boys than of respectable adults. Justin Schmidt won the physiology Ig for creating the “Sting(蛰) Pain Index," which rates the pain people fell after getting stung by insects. Smith pressed bees against 25 different parts of his body until they stung him. Five stings a day for 38 days, Smith concluded that the most painful sting locations were the nose and the upper lip. Ouch.
As silly as they sound, not all of the Ig awards lack scientific applicability, A group of scientists from 12 different counties won in the medicine category for accurately diagnosing patients with appendicitis (阑尾炎) based on an unusual measurement: speed bumps(减速带) . They found that patients are more likely to have appendicitis if they report pain during bumpy car rides.
All these weird experiments have just one thing in common. They’re improbable. It can be tempting to assume that “improbable” implies more than that--implies bad or good, worthless or valuable, trivial or important. Something improbable can be any of those, or none of them, or all of them, in different ways. And what you don't expect can be a powerful force for not only entertaining science, but also for the boundary-pushing science we call innovation.
1. The underlined word “goofy” in Paragraph 2 probably means_______.| A．amusing | B．boring |
| C．serious | D．precious |
| A．Ig Informal Lecture gives presenters 60 seconds. |
| B．The audience throw paper airplanes to end the ceremony. |
| C．Its categories of awards vary each yea. |
| D．It is held at a fixed place every other September. |
| A．offers another opportunity to those who miss the Nobel Prizes |
| B．celebrates the diligent work of researchers |
| C．has no serious purpose except for amusing the audience |
| D．serves as a platform for the creative and practical achievements |
| A．A chemist who invents a type of battery. |
| B．An economist who studies which county's paper money is best at spreading bacteria. |
| C．A biologist who discovers how cell sense and adapt to oxygen availability. |
| D．A novelist who criticizes social injustice. |
