1 . Nothing succeeds like success, as every parent of a straight-A student knows, but trying to stress academic excellence by telling your child, “You’re so smart!” may be counterproductive. Why? According to a 2017 study, children who think their intelligence is fixed are less likely to pay attention to and bounce back（重新振作）from mistakes than children who think intelligence can grow and change.
In the study, researchers looked at 123 children. The team assessed the children to determine whether they had a “growth mindset”(believing that you can work harder to get smarter), or a “fixed mindset” (believing that your intelligence is unable to change). They then asked the children to complete a fast-paced computer accuracy task while their brain activity was recorded. During the recording, researchers noted that brain activity stopped within a half-second after making a mistake, as children became aware of their mistake and paid closer attention to what went wrong. The larger the brain response was, the more the child focused on the mistake. Based on the data, they concluded that children with a “growth mindset” were much more likely to have a larger brain response after making a mistake. While children with a “fixed mindset” were able to “bounce back”, only if they gave their full attention to the mistake.
For parents, the lessons are clear. Don’t pay your children compliments that suggest that intelligence is fixed. If your child hands you an A+ score, don’t say, “You’re so smart!” Instead, say, “Wow, that studying really paid off!” or “You clearly mastered this material-way to go!” Note the effort, not the intelligence.
Besides, many parent shy away from addressing a child’s mistakes, telling them “It’s OK. ”You’ll get it next time. ” without offering them the chances to figure out what goes wrong. Instead, it’s better to reassure your children that mistakes happen, and work to figure out where and how they make the mistake.
1. Which of the following best explains “counterproductive” underlined in paragraph 1?| A．Opposite | B．Competitive |
| C．Successful | D．Unknown |
| A．They made fewer mistakes. | B．They tried to avoid mistakes |
| C．They had smaller brain response | D．They focused more on the mistake. |
| A．You are so careless |
| B．Paying compliments to children |
| C．You’ll get it the next time |
| D．Let’s find out how you made it. |
| A．Overstressing the intelligence. |
| B．Pay compliment to children. |
| C．Addressing children’s mistakes. |
| D．Offering chances to find mistakes. |
2 . “When people talk, listen completely.” Those words of Ernest Hemingway might be a pretty good guiding principle for many people.
Some firms use a technique known as a “listening circle” in which participants are encouraged to talk openly and honestly about the issues they face (such as problems with colleagues). In such a circle, only one person can talk at a time and there is no interruption. A study cited in the Harvard Business Review found that employees who had taken part in a listening circle suffered less social anxiety and had fewer worries about work-related matters than those who did not afterwards.
Listening has been critical to the career of Richard Mullender, who was a British police officer for 30 years. Eventually he became a negotiator. When he left the force, he realised that his skills might be applicable in the business world. So he set up a firm called the Listening Institute. Mr Mullender defines listening as “the identification, selection and interpretation of the key words that turn information into intelligence". It is crucial to all effective communication.
Plenty of people think that good listening is about nodding your head or keeping eye contact. But that is not really listening, Mr Mullender argues. A good listener is always looking for facts, emotions and indications of the speaker's values.
Another important point to bear in mind is that, when you talk, you are not listening. “Every time you share an opinion, you give out information about yourself," Mr Mullender says.
The lockdown has increased the need for managers to listen to workers, since the opportunities for casual conversation have dwindled. Mr Mullender thinks that many people have become depressed in their isolation (隔离),which can lead to stress and anger. He thinks there may be a business opportunity in helping managers listen more efficiently, so they can enhance employee well-being. After a year of isolation, many workers would probably love the chance to be heard.
1. What is the value of attending a “listening circle"?| A．Employees can relieve stress. | B．Managers give comfort to colleagues. |
| C．Employees may become more honest. | D．Managers can solve technology problems. |
| A．talking with speakers | B．keeping eyes communication |
| C．giving out your information | D．focusing on the analysis of speakers |
| A．Increased. | B．Promoted. | C．Shrank. | D．Disappeared. |
| A．The Definition of Listening | B．The Secret of Successful Listening |
| C．The Importance of Listening Circle | D．The Listening Principle for Managers |
3 . Think of Japan in the spring and the image that comes to mind is likely the country’s famous cherry blossoms, also known as “Sakura” — white and pink flowers, blooming across cities and mountains.
The flowers, which experience a “peak bloom” that only lasts a few days, have been loved in Japan for more than a thousand years. Crowds celebrate with viewing parties, flocking to the most popular locations to take photos and have picnics underneath the branches.
But this year, cherry blossom season has come and gone in the blink of an eye, in one of the earliest blooms on record. Scientists warn it’s a symptom of the larger climate crisis threatening ecosystems everywhere.
Yasuyuki Aono, a researcher at Osaka Prefecture University, has gathered records from Kyoto back to 812 AD from historical documents and diaries. In the central city of Kyoto, cherry blossoms peaked on March 26, the earliest in more than 1,200 years, Aono said. And in the capital Tokyo, cherry blossoms reached full bloom on March 22, the second-earliest date on record.
The peak bloom dates shift every year, depending on numerous factors including weather and rainfall, but have shown a general trend of moving earlier and earlier. In Kyoto, the peak date stayed around mid-April for centuries, but began moving into early April during the 1800s. The date has only dipped into late March a handful of times in recorded history.
“Sakura blooms are very temperature sensitive,” said Aono. “Flowering and full bloom could be earlier or later depending on the temperature alone,” he said. “The temperature was low in the 1820s, but it has risen by about 3.5 degrees Celsius to this day.”
This year’s seasons in particular influenced the blossom dates, he added. The winter was very cold, but the spring came fast and unusually warm.
1. What is the best title of the passage?| A．Cherry blossom celebrations. |
| B．Warning of a climate crisis. |
| C．A strong love for cherry blossom. |
| D．Cherry blossom season coming earlier. |
| A．Blocking. | B．Flooding. | C．Running. | D．Following. |
| A．The peak blossom dates fall on a fixed date. |
| B．The cherry blossom rarely peaks in March. |
| C．The peak bloom dates mainly depend on weather and rainfall. |
| D．Cherry blossom peaks around mid-April in Tokyo. |
| A．To inform people the date of cherry blossom. |
| B．To show a study on cherry blossom dates. |
| C．To present a Japanese tradition of cherry blossom celebration. |
| D．To make people aware of the influence of climate change on cherry blossom. |
4 . The idea of billions of people going through a few masks a week during this pandemic definitely rings alarm bells, but a team of researchers in Melbourne may have the solution.
They’ve discovered that adding millions of discarded face masks to road-paving (铺路) mixtures would actually lower the cost of the road, while preventing billions of them from landfills. Just one kilometer of road would need three million masks, and the polypropylene (聚丙烯) plastic used to make single-use surgical face masks also increased the flexibility and durability of the road.
The new material is a mixture of about 2% torn masks, with recycled concrete aggregate (RCA)—a material obtained from waste concrete and other minerals from destroyed buildings. This recycled material was found in the study to be ideal for two of the four layers generally required to create roadways. Paving a kilometer of two-way road with the RCA and three million face masks would result in a change of 93 tons of waste from landfills.
The final product then is more resistant to wear than asphalt (沥青), as well as being cheaper too, provided there was a method for collecting masks. The research team did a cost-analysis and found that, at $26 per ton, the RCA was about half the cost of mining raw materials, and as much as a third of the cost of shipping the used masks to a landfill.
The widespread application would be ideal for large infrastructure (基础设施) projects. For example, Washington has the 11th worst roads in terms of unaddressed repairs in the U.S. If the damaged roads in Washington state were repaired with the RCA/mask mixture, it would reuse nearly 10 billion masks, sparing American landfills hundreds of millions of tons of trash.
It’s said that the team is looking for private industry partners or governments willing to give their plastic mask road an opportunity for a large-scale test.
1. What does the underlined word “discarded” mean in paragraph 2?| A．Recycled. | B．Produced. |
| C．Mixed. | D．Abandoned. |
| A．2% torn masks, concrete and tons of trash. |
| B．Polypropylene plastic and building materials. |
| C．Single-use surgical masks and recycled concrete aggregate. |
| D．Waste concrete and other minerals from destroyed buildings. |
| A．To tell us what the team has found. |
| B．To prove this material is cost-effective in paving roads. |
| C．To explain repairing roads costs a lot of materials. |
| D．To praise the hard work the team has done. |
| A．The material used to pave roads is made of masks. |
| B．Generally speaking, it requires two layers to create roadways. |
| C．It remains to be tested whether the solution is practical. |
| D．The damaged roads in Washington were repaired with the RCA. |
5 . It might seem strange to be making predictions about 2021, but one thing is clear: technology has been affected just as much as every other part of our lives. Another clear thing is that today’s most important technology trends will play a big part in helping us deal with and adapt to the many challenges facing us. From the shift to working from home to new rules about how we meet and interact in public spaces, technology trends will be the driving force in managing the change.
One of the major technology trends that are likely to play out this year is 5G and enhanced connectivity. Each successive advance in mobile connectivity from 3G onwards has unlocked new use cases for the Internet. 3G made web browsing and data-driven services useful on mobile devices, 4G led to the growth of streaming video and music platforms as bandwidths (宽带) increased, and 5G, similarly, will open more doors in terms of what is possible.
5G means that services relying on advanced technologies such as augmented (增强的) reality and virtual reality, as well as cloud-based gaming platforms like Google’s Stadia, become a practical thing, anywhere at any time. They also threaten to make cable and fiber-based (光纤) networks redundant, with their need for us to be tied to a particular location.
In short, 5G and other advanced, high-speed networks make other new technologies available anywhere, any time. A great example is Norwegian fishery operator Salmar that uses a 5G network to automate the care and feeding of its fish. Image recognition algorithms (算法) are used to detect which fish are over or under-feeding, and automatically distribute food and medicine needed to keep them healthy. Initiatives like this will become increasingly important during 2021, where businesses look to increase automation across their workforces.
1. Which of the following is highly influenced by 5G technology?| A．Data-driven services. | B．Streaming video. |
| C．Music platforms. | D．Google’s Stadia. |
| A．Useful. | B．Unnecessary. | C．Expensive. | D．Special. |
| A．To show the development of Norwegian fishery. |
| B．To explain how to keep fish healthy. |
| C．To present the application of 5G technology. |
| D．To propose new initiatives for businesses. |
| A．Different predictions of technology trends. |
| B．Successive advances in mobile technology. |
| C．One of the technological highlights of the year. |
| D．The driving force in managing changes. |
6 . A shocking news report has revealed that more than one in five species of maple trees faces extinction, warning that 75% of the threatened species are “geographically restricted” in their native regions.
The trees are experiencing a vast decline in habitat, due to urban development, wood harvesting and agricultural expansion. Time is running out for the world's biodiversity. Every recent survey of plants and animals in the wild points to this. This is happening nearly everywhere rarer maples exist. And because of climate change, the narrow habitats that support species at the edges of dry places and at the tops of mountains are quickly disappearing.
The trees can be found in subtropical and tropical regions, as far south as Indonesia. The only species found in the UK, the field maple is not under threat. Not only are the trees a popular attractive feature in parks and public spaces, but they are a key part of the natural ecosystem in woodlands, as well as being an important wood crop in several countries. Although the sugar maple in North America, which produces maple juice, is not endangered, two of the closest relatives to the species are endangered.
The report notes that conserving at-risk species in their natural habitat is the best conservation tactic. But collections in botanical gardens and seed banks-called "ex situ collections" can act as insurance policies against extinction. There are currently 14 species of maple, including four that are critically endangered, which are absent from these types of collections.
One species in Mexico, the Acer binzayedii, is in “desperate need of conservation"”despite only being discovered in 2017. “It is at risk from climate change in its cloud forest habitat and threatened by logging and forest fires while it is also absent from 'ex situ collections',” the report adds. The report recommends developing conservation plans, monitoring species currently not at risk to ensure populations are maintained, and adding those missing maple species to seed banks.
1. What is paragraph 2 mainly about?| A．Action to protect maple trees. | B．The dangerous situation of maple trees. |
| C．Various maple trees' habitats in the world. | D．The conditions for diversity in maple trees. |
| A．They cannot produce juice. | B．They are found in America. |
| C．They are not at risk of extinction. | D．They have two endangered relatives. |
| A．Topic. | B．Approach. | C．Result. | D．Conclusion. |
| A．To offer a proposal. | B．To recommend a product. |
| C．To introduce maple species. | D．To warn people of disasters. |
7 . Marcus Eriksen was studying Plastic pollution when he met camel expert Ulrich Wernery. They went deep into the desert and spotted a camel skeleton (骨架). Eriksen was not prepared for what he saw in the desert. "I was just appalled," he said, "because inside the dead body of a camel was a mass of plastic bags, which was as big as a medium-sized suitcase."
Wernery is a scientist working in a research lab in Dubai. Since 2008 Wernery's team has examined 30,000 dead camels. They found 300 of those dead camels had a mass of plastic bags in their bodies. As camels wander in the desert, they eat plastic bags and other rubbish that move into trees and pile up along roadsides. "To a camel, if it's not sand, it's food," explains Eriksen.
Tightly packed masses of indigestible (难消化的) things can be built up in the digestive system of people or animals. Scientists call them bezoars (胃石). Normally, these are made of vegetable fibers or hair. Werner and Eriksen call those found in the camels "polybezoars". It points to their origin: plastic polymers.
In a new study, Eriksen and Wernery report data suggesting that each year these polybezoars are killing off around 1 in every 100 camels. Of five camel bezoars analyzed for this study, the plastic content ranged from 3 to 64 kilograms. "If it is confirmed that 1 percent of camels died due to plastic by future and more detailed studies, then plastic pollution will certainly be important concern for camels," says Luca Nizzetto, an environmental scientist. "Such studies are important, because they raise social awareness about this pollution."
Banning plastic bags and single-use plastics is crucial for protecting camels and other wildlife, Eriksen says. "Plastic bags blow out of garbage cans, out of landfills, out of trucks and out of people's hands." What's more, he adds, "They travel for hundreds of miles."
1. What does the underlined word "appalled" in paragraph I mean?| A．Addicted. | B．Delighted. | C．Satisfied. | D．Shocked. |
| A．People have cleaned rubbish in the desert. |
| B．Camels often mistake plastics as food. |
| C．Camels are always walking along the road. |
| D．There are 30,000 camels living in the world. |
| A．It is related with plastic. | B．It helps camels digest food. |
| C．It consists of vegetable fibers. | D．It can also be found in humans' body. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Disappointed. | C．Supportive. | D．Careless. |
8 . Flu season generally dies down in March and April, but will the coronavirus( 冠状病毒) go with it? Whether the coronavirus that's quickly spreading around the world will follow the flu season and fade away with spring's arrival is unsatisfyingly uncertain. And many scientists say it's too soon to know how the dangerous virus will behave in warmer weather.
Dozens of viruses exist in the coronavirus family, but only seven afflict (折磨) humans. Four are known to cause mild colds in people, which are common, while others are more novel, deadly, and thought to be transmitted from animals like bats and camels. Health officials have labeled this new virus SARS-CoV-2 and its disease COVID-19. The prospect that summer could delay a pandemic is tempting. Earlier this year, Donald Trump tweeted about China’s efforts to contain the virus, saying they would be successful, “especially as the weather starts to warm.”
Viruses that cause influenza or milder coronavirus colds do tend to subside in warmer months because these types of viruses have what scientists refer to as “seasonality,” so the president's comments have some scientific backing. But it's highly uncertain that SARS-CoV-2 will behave the same way. Those currently studying the disease say their research is too early to predict how the virus will respond to changing weather.
“I hope it will show seasonality, but it's hard to know,” says Stuart Weston, a researcher at the University of Maryland, where the virus is being actively studied. As of Tuesday morning, more than 800,000 coronavirus cases had been confirmed in 74 different countries, with experts saying the disease is likely to keep spreading.
And relatively recent research suggests that dry, cold air may also help viruses stay unbroken in the air or travel farther as they become airborne.
Scientists assume that low humidity, which often occurs in winter, might weaken the function of the mucus(粘液)in your nose, which your body uses to trap and drive foreign bodies like viruses or bacteria away. Cold, dry air can make that normally thick mucus drier and less efficient at trapping a virus.
1. When does flu season usually die down?| A．Early autumn. | B．Late Summer. | C．Late Spring. | D．Mid Summer. |
| A．Frightening | B．Decent | C．Critical | D．Unfamiliar |
| A．The reason why people easily get viruses in winter. |
| B．If you stay at a warm room, you can't get any viruses. |
| C．Viruses do agree with the dry and cold atmosphere in winter. |
| D．The low temperature in winter is the main reason for viruses to spread. |
| A．A health magazine. | B．A biology research. |
| C．An educational paper. | D．A medical report. |
9 . Standing on the ruins（废墟）after the fire where his house had been, Peter Ruprecht admitted that he was not sure how or when to rebuild. He was still shocked by what Australia's increasingly changeable climate had already delivered: first a drought, then a destructive bush fire, then a foot of rain from a storm.
"It's unstoppable," said Mr. Ruprecht, a former dairy farmer. "We speak about the warmth of Mother Nature, but nature can also be vicious and wild and unforgiving."
Australia's' hellish（地狱的）fire season has eased（缓和）, but its people are facing more than a single disaster. With floods destroying homes not far from where fires recently spread, they are facing a cycle of what scientists call "compound extremes": one climate disaster strengthening the next.
Warmer temperatures do more than just dry out the land. They also heat up the atmosphere, which means clouds hold more moisture（水汽）for longer periods of time. So droughts get worse, giving way to fires, then to heavy rains that the land is too dry to absorb.
Many Australians in disaster zones complain that their government, after ignoring climate change for years, has not yet to draw up recovery plans that are clear and that take future threats into account.
At the same time, the economic costs of a changing climate are rising quickly. Philip Lowe, the governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, warned recently that Australia was already paying a price, and that it would only go up.
1. Why Peter Ruprecht is mentioned in the beginning?| A．To arouse readers' pity. | B．To introduce the topic. |
| C．To stress the problem. | D．To call on readers to help. |
| A．grateful | B．advanced | C．responsible | D．forcible |
| A．Government inaction. | B．Warmer temperature. |
| C．The lack of money. | D．No recovery plans. |
| A．guidebook. | B．A travel journal. | C．A news report. | D．A book review. |
10 . It's easy to understand why early humans domesticated (驯养)dogs as their new best friends, domesticated dogs can guard against fierce animals and provide warmth during cold nights. But those benefits only come following domestication. Despite more than a century of study, scientists have struggled to understand what caused the domestication process in the first place.
A new theory given by Maria Lahtinen, a senior researcher, might be able to explain this puzzle. She made this theory when studying die diet of late Pleistocene hunter-gatherers in Arctic and sub — Arctic. At that time, around 20,000 to 15,000 years ago, the world was buried in the coldest period of the last ice age. In cold environments then, as today, humans tended to gain the majority of their food from animals. Nutritional deficiencies (缺失) came from the absence of fat and carbohydrates (碳水化合物), not necessarily protein. Indeed, if humans cat too much meat, they can develop protein poisoning and even die. "Because we humans are not fully adapted to an all-meat diet, we simply cannot digest protein very well," Lahtinen says.
During the coldest years of the last ice age — and especially in lough Arctic and sub-Arctic winters — reindeer, wild horses and other animals that humans killed for food would have been struggling to live. Using previously published early fossil records, Lahtinen and her colleagues calculated that the game captured by people in the Arctic and sub-Arctic during this time would have provided much more protein than they could have safely consumed.
1. What has been confusing scientists in the past century?| A．How domesticated dogs benefited humans. |
| B．When humans began to domesticate dogs. |
| C．What led to dog domestication originally. |
| D．Why early humans made friends with clogs. |
| A．It can be fatal in a short period of time. |
| B．He will probably digest it very well. |
| C．He can develop carbohydrates poisoning. |
| D．He will survive the cold environment. |
| A．The fierce contests. | B．The hunting activities. |
| C．Wild animals or birds. | D．Some tricks or schemes. |
| A．They struggled with wild horses. |
| B．They shared extra meat with dogs. |
| C．They struggled to live a good life. |
| D．They had trouble adapting to the cold environment. |
