1 . Samuel L. Clemens, also known as Mark Twain, started off his writing career (事业) in 1865 with his big hit story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County — a story-within- a-story told to a listener by an old California miner. From that day on, the works of the great humorist always had different animals.
Some members of Twain’s literary (文学的) animals were based on real animals, such as the Clemens family’s named pet cats. Some were imaginary, like that celebrated jumping frog.
As a boy in Missouri, he got pleasure from knowing the animals of the woods; in old age, he felt a deep relationship with the animals large and small that he met in his travels. His cats, family dog, horses, donkeys, and calf also won his three daughters’ love at their Hartford home. On March 22, 2018, to mark this part of Twain’s personal life, The Mark Twain House & Museum opened a new exhibition (展览), Tails of Twain: How Animals Shaped the Man & His Work. The exhibition was rich with exhibits from the museum’s collections.
The king of the animals in Twain’s world was the cat, “the only creature in heaven or earth or anywhere that don’t have to obey (听从) somebody or other, including the angels.” He was known to be the proud pet parent of 19 cats during his childhood. As an adult, the Clemens home always had a named cat. Even on vacation, the Clemens family borrowed cats from locals to live with them. Dogs were considered second-class pets, but Twain liked them. Twain once wrote an ode (颂诗) to his dead dog Burns: “She lived a quiet harmless life in Hartford ...”
In true Twainism, humans were not as loved as the “Higher Animals”. Even the most low- down animal, however, was superior in Twain’s eyes to “the human race.” After all, he did write once “Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel.”
1. What can we learn about The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County?| A．It tells a story of Twain’s family pet. |
| B．It was written for Twain’s three daughters. |
| C．It made Twain pay attention to animals. |
| D．It was Twain’s first great success as a writer. |
| A．To introduce how Twain spent his childhood. |
| B．To exhibit some of Twain’s best-sellers. |
| C．To show Twain’s different hobbies. |
| D．To show Twain’s love for animals. |
| A．richer | B．better |
| C．quieter | D．stronger |
2 . After bikes and umbrellas are made sharable across China, some companies started eyeing the fitness market, so shared gym rooms have hit the streets in Beijing.
Unlike regular gyms that provide large, open spaces for many members to share at the same time, the newly built shared gym rooms are small, stand-alone rooms for a person to use, often set up near living communities.
Every four-square-meter room is equipped with a treadmill (跑步机), an air cleaner, a mirror, a television and an air conditioner, and users can let down the curtains for privacy. When exercising, users can listen to music, watch movies and check emails by connecting to the Internet by the screen fixed on the treadmill. There’s no shower or washbasin.
Similar to using a shared bike, users can locate a shared gym room by smartphone application, book a room in advance and then need to scan (扫描) a QR code for use. A refundable deposit (保证金) of 99 yuan is required, and users are charged 0.2 yuan per minute.
The shared gym rooms are created by Misspao, a Beijing-based technology company founded in July. Within two weeks since it was founded, the company has already got two rounds of funding valued over 100 million yuan, Yicai Global reports. The idea of the shared fitness experience is not entirely nascent. Last December, the Shanghai-based technology company VRUN set up shared treadmills in office and apartment buildings.
The sharing economy is still becoming popular in China. According to Yicai Global, confident investors are pouring millions into sharing start-ups. In March, the State Information Center published a report which predicts that the total value of China’s sharing economy will see a yearly growth of 40% in the coming years, and it is expected to contribute around 10% to the country’s GDP by 2020.
1. What makes the shared gym room different from the regular one?| A．Offering open spaces. | B．Standing in the living zone. |
| C．Holding one person at a time. | D．Having some advanced equipment. |
| A．Users can have a shower in it after exercise. |
| B．Users who want to use it need a smartphone. |
| C．Users who use it first need to pay for 99.2 yuan. |
| D．Users’ privacy can’t be protected while they are exercising. |
| A．Simple. | B．Popular. | C．Satisfying. | D．New. |
| A．To introduce shared gym rooms. |
| B．To advertise a technology company. |
| C．To predict the future of the sharing economy. |
| D．To persuade people to support the sharing economy. |
3 . Wearing a hearing aid can slow the progress of dementia (痴呆) by up to 75 percent, according to a new study. Scientists believe that keeping older people active by adopting the devices can significantly reduce age-related cognitive (认知的) decline.
They followed the progress of 2,040 people between 1996 and 2014, asking them to complete word memory tests at various stages and monitoring the rate of decline before and after getting a hearing aid. The research team found that while the aids did not halt cognitive decline, they slowed it down by three-quarters. Meanwhile, in a separate group of 2,068 who underwent cataract surgery (白内障手术), decline slowed by around half.
The team at the University of Manchester said the strength of the connection between hearing aids, cataract surgery and mental decline meant policy makers should consider hearing and sight loss screening for all older adults. Dr. Piers Dawes said, “These studies underline just how important it is to overcome the barriers which stop people from accessing hearing and visual aids. It’s not really certain why hearing and visual problems have an effect on cognitive decline, but I’d guess that separation, shame and the resultant lack of physical activity that are linked to hearing and vision problems might have something to do with it.” “And there are barriers to overcome —people might not want to wear hearing aids because of embarrassment attached to wearing them, or they feel the amplification (放大) is not good enough or they’re not comfortable.”
The number of people in Britain suffering hearing problems will rise by 40 percent by 2035, a charity has forecast. The charity Action on Hearing Loss believes the number of people suffering such difficulties will rise from one in six to one in five, so it calls for more investment in treatment and research into hearing loss.
1. How does wearing hearing aids benefit old people?| A．It improves their cognitive ability. |
| B．It slows down their cognitive decline. |
| C．It enables them to make more friends. |
| D．It helps them overcome life barriers easily. |
| A．The result of the research. |
| B．The principle of the research. |
| C．The importance of the research. |
| D．The participants of the research. |
| A．Increase. | B．Stop. |
| C．Change. | D．Help. |
| A．Provide hearing aids for people freely. |
| B．Spend more on research into hearing loss. |
| C．Screen all old people for hearing and sight loss. |
| D．Encourage factories to produce good hearing aids. |
4 . According to a recent study in the Journal of Consumer Research, both the size and consumption habits of our eating companions can influence our food intake. And contrary to existing research that says you should avoid eating with heavier people who order large portions(份), it's the beanpoles with big appetites you really need to avoid.
To test the effect of social influence on eating habits, the researchers conducted two experiments. In the first, 95 undergraduate women were individually invited into a lab to ostensibly(表面上)participate in a study about movie viewership. Before the film began, each woman was asked to help herself to a snack. An actor hired by the researchers grabbed her food first. In her natural state, the actor weighed 105 pounds. But in half the cases she wore a specially designed fat suit which increased her weight to 180 pounds.
Both the fat and thin versions of the actor took a large amount of food. The participants followed suit, taking more food than they normally would have. However, they took significantly more when the actor was thin.
For the second test, in one case the thin actor took two pieces of candy from the snack bowls. In the other case, she took 30 pieces. The results were similar to the first test: the participants followed suit but took significantly more candy when the thin actor took 30 pieces.
The tests show that the social environment is extremely influential when we're making decisions. If this fellow participant is going to eat more, so will I. Call it the “I’ll have what she's having” effect. However, we'll adjust the influence. If an overweight person is having a large portion, I'll hold back a bit because I see the results of his eating habits. But if a thin person eats a lot, I'll follow suit. If he can eat much and keep slim, why can't I?
1. What is the recent study mainly about?| A．Food safety. | B．Movie viewership. |
| C．Consumer demand. | D．Eating behavior. |
| A．Big eaters. | B．Overweight persons. |
| C．Picky eaters. | D．Tall thin persons. |
| A．To see how she would affect the participants. |
| B．To test if the participants could recognize her. |
| C．To find out what she would do in the two tests. |
| D．To study why she could keep her weight down. |
| A．How hungry we are. | B．How slim we want to be. |
| C．How we perceive others. | D．How we feel about the food. |
5 . I became a magician by accident. When I was nine years old, I learned how to make a coin disappear. I’d read The Lord of the Rings and ventured into the adult section of the library to search for a book of spells—nine being that curious age at which you’re old enough to work through more than 1,200 pages of fantasy literature but young enough to still hold out hope that you might find a book of real, actual magic in the library. The book I found instead taught basic sleight-of-hand technique, and I dedicated the next months to practice.
At first the magic wasn’t any good. At first it wasn’t even magic; it was just a trick—a bad trick. I spent hours each day in the bathroom running through the secret moves in front of the mirror. I dropped the coin over and over, a thousand times in a day, and after two weeks of this my mom got a carpet from the hardware store and placed it under the mirror to muffle the sound of the coin falling again and again.
I had heard my dad work through passages of new music on the piano, so I knew how to practice—slowly, deliberately, going for precision rather than speed. One day I tried the illusion in the mirror and the coin vanished. It did not look like a magic trick. It looked like a miracle.
One of the lessons you learn very early on as a magician is that the most amazing part of a trick has nothing to do with the secret. The secret is simple and often dull: a hidden piece of tape, a small mirror, a duplicate playing card, diversion of the audience’s attention. In this case, the secret was a series of covert ( 暗 中 的 ) technique to hide the coin behind my hand in the act of opening it, a dance of the fingers that I learned so completely I didn’t even have to think. I would close my hand, then open it, and the coin would vanish not by skill but by real magic.
1. What book did the author intend to find in the library when he was nine years old?| A．A book teaching people how to make a coin disappear. |
| B．The second book of The Lord of the Rings. |
| C．A book on how to become a magician. |
| D．A book of real magic. |
| A．clean | B．punish |
| C．lower | D．kill |
| A．Without music, life is of no value. | B．Practice makes perfect. |
| C．Great liars are also great magicians. | D．No pains, no gains. |
| A．Carrying out skillful hand moves. |
| B．Using real magic to create miracles. |
| C．Hiding some stage tools inside the coat. |
| D．Guiding the audience to focus on something unimportant. |
6 . Have you ever seen a car without a driver? It sounds crazy, but these computer-driven cars may soon be filling roads near you. Companies like Google and Tesla have been designing and testing such cars. They just need to run final tests to make sure whether they can run alongside human-driven cars on the road.
The cars have sensors (传感器) all around which can detect other cars and blocks in the road. Sensors on the wheels help when parking, so the car knows how far it is from the edge of the road or other parked cars. Road signs are read by cameras, and satellite navigation systems (卫星导航系统) are used so the car knows how to get to your destination. All you have to doistypein the address! Finally, a central computer system takes in all the information it receives from the sensors and cameras and uses this to work out when to stop and speed up.
Sounds like your idea of heaven? Sitting back, looking out of the windows and watching a film while driving would be possible with this new technology. Computers would drive more safely than people — they don’t get disturbed by phones or talking, they would obey the speed limit and have quicker reaction in case of an emergency.
However, driverless cars have many disadvantages. Computers would have difficulties making some decisions: if a child ran into the road, would the computer choose to hit the child or turn quickly to hurt the car’s passengers? And should children, or drunk people, be allowed in a driverless car by themselves? Besides these questions, many people may lose their jobs. For example, bus, taxi, train and tram drivers, as well as driving instructors.
I don’t really want a driverless car — butitis only a matter oftime before ordinary people will be able to afford them on our roads.
1. What does paragraph 2 mainly talk about?| A．How a driverless car works. |
| B．What we need to drive a driverless car. |
| C．The tests a driverless car needs to pass. |
| D．The advantages of a driverless car. |
| A．attract. | B．help. |
| C．discover. | D．disturb. |
| A．can run faster than a traditional one |
| B．is suitable for a child to sitin it alone |
| C．has been used in many areas in the world |
| D．has many problems not yet solved |
| A．Positive. | B．Negative. |
| C．Objective. | D．Doubtful. |
7 . A new Japanese research has suggested that regularly eating mushrooms could help lower the risk of cancer. The researchers found that the men who consumed mushrooms once or twice a week had an 8 percent lower risk of developing cancer, regardless of how much fruit and vegetables, or meat and dairy products they ate—compared to those who ate mushrooms less than once per week. Eating mushrooms more often appeared to bring even bigger benefits, with those who consumed mushrooms three or more times per week showing a 17 percent lower risk than those who ate mushrooms less than once a week.
Eating mushrooms also appeared to be particularly beneficial among those who ate a large amount of meat and dairy products, little fruit and few vegetables. The findings, published in the International Journal of Cancer, are the first to suggest that there may be an association between eating mushrooms and a lower risk of cancer.
“Test-tube studies and studies conducted on living organisms have shown that mushrooms have the potential to prevent cancer” said lead researcher Shu Zhang. “To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study indicating the cancer-preventive potential of mushrooms at a population level.” Zhang added that, “mushrooms are a good source of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, especially L-ergothioneine,” which is believed to help fight against stress, and that is cell imbalance caused by lifestyle choices such as poor diets and exposure to environmental poisons. This imbalance can lead to chronic inflammation, resulting in chronic diseases such as cancer.
“Considering the average American consumes less than 5 grams of mushrooms per day, which is lower than that consumed by the participants in this study (7.6 g/day), one would expect that even a small increase in mushroom consumption can offer potential health benefits,” said Zhang. However, Zhang added that, “Although our study suggests regular consumption of mushrooms may reduce the risk of cancer, we also want to emphasize that eating a healthy and balanced diet is much more important than filling your shopping basket with mushrooms.”
1. What is the new Japanese research about?| A．Healthy lifestyle reduces the risk of cancer. |
| B．Often eating mushrooms reduces the risk of cancer. |
| C．Drinking dairy products is good for our health. |
| D．Eating fruit and vegetables makes us healthier. |
| A．People who are over fat and having a poor diet. |
| B．People who are feeling over stressed. |
| C．People who consume much meat but few vegetables and little fruit. |
| D．People who consume many dairy products and suffer cancer. |
| A．It avoids the stress from a disease. |
| B．It reduces environmental poisons. |
| C．It hell helps reduce weight. |
| D．It has a source of cancer-preventive. |
| A．A state of being physically healthy. |
| B．A state of keeping body balance. |
| C．A physical condition that someone needs to be on a diet. |
| D．A condition that a part of the body becomes red, sore and swollen. |
8 . About 10 years ago,I sat in my office,struggling to write an annual progress report for my leader. I enjoy writing scientific papers that engage my creativity and further my research. But report writing doesn’t come with any reward apart from the momentary satisfaction of finishing something. Like other routine paperwork,I find it hard to get through. So that day,I offered myself a reward : When I finished the report,I'd give myself 2 hours to examine slides (载玻片)under the microscope — a task I've always loved but never had much time for as a staff member. It ’ s a strategy I call " just for fun"，.
The strategy was born out of challenges I experienced in graduate school. I usually delayed putting together reports for university administrators until threatening letters arrived. I never felt that paperwork was advancing my science, but rather sapping my energy and time for research. One of my committee members recognized and understood my difficulties. Then he told me about his strategy of rewarding himself with a fun project when he completed a task that he didn’t particularly enjoy. He advised me to think about doing something similar. I immediately liked the idea.
Over the course of my career，this strategy helped me complete and move past the parts of my job that I didn’t particularly enjoy. The rewards I gave myself provided a way to relax and reminded me why I love being a scientist.
As for that annual report,I spent an ordinary morning on it but got it done. Then I hurried over to the microscope ， eager to inspect a series of slides that my collaborators (合作者) had sent a couple of weeks earlier. To others， it may have looked like work. But to me,it was just for fun.
1. Why does the author dislike report writing?| A．He receives too little from it. |
| B．It is extremely easy to finish. |
| C．It needs too much creativity. |
| D．He doesn’t major in writing. |
| A．Acquiring. | B．Consuming. |
| C．Lacking . | D．Providing. |
| A．Through the inspiration of his report writing. |
| B．Through the reward of his collaborators. |
| C．Through the instructions of university administrators. |
| D．Through a committee member’s suggestion. |
| A．Choose a career you really like. |
| B．Seek fun when doing science research. |
| C．Motivate yourself to finish boring tasks. |
| D．Reward yourself with a new strategy. |
9 . Imagine you are floating in space on a huge NASA spacecraft. A satellite is on a collision course with your spaceship. You have just been told by your commanders on Earth to evacuate. You and your teammates have to make rapid decisions for your escape and survival.
Engaging children in a NASA mission (任务) is a lesson that 23 pre-service teachers (职前教师)were taught to carry out at a recent Pre-Service Teacher Institute (PSTI) summer workshop (讲习班)at NASA’s Ames Research Center.
At this two-week workshop, these college students were given hands-on activities designed to increase their skills in teaching STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) . They were shown how to include NASA missions and research into their lesson plans. They met with NASA engineers and were given tours of NASA facilities (设施)by the latter to help them develop and teach a problem-based lesson to children.
“NASA is pleased to support college students who want to teach STEM to young children,” said Lewis Braxton, director of the research center. “It was exciting to see PSII students fully engaged in developing new skills in STEM to meet the challenges of a space-related teaching task,” said Steve Price, the principal investigator of PSTI at California State University, Fresno.
“PSTI has provided me with the necessary tools and techniques to fully develop my skills as a teacher. I’ll use what I’ve learned to help my students succeed in their studies,” said Elijah Carnillo, one of the pre-service teachers.
1. What does the underlined word “evacuate” in Paragraph 1 mean?| A．Withdraw. |
| B．Wait. |
| C．Follow. |
| D．Resist. |
| A．To invite students to engage in NASA missions. |
| B．To encourage graduates to work at NASA. |
| C．To introduce the latest space technology. |
| D．To help with space-related STEM teaching. |
| A．They graded their homework. |
| B．They adjusted their work schedules. |
| C．They built them a spacecraft model. |
| D．They showed them some space equipment. |
| A．PSTI: Getting You Ready for Your Class |
| B．STEM: The Key to a Successful Career |
| C．Space: The Final Homework Frontier |
| D．NASA: The Home of Astronauts |
10 . I feel ashamed to admit this, but in much of my past life, I pretended I knew what was going on when I didn’t, for fear of being “caught out”. In the school cafeteria, when people talked about TV shows, which I didn’t have the channels for, or on MSN Messenger, when I read unfamiliar song lyrics my friends had shared, I felt upset and I’d pretend to be calm and recognize what they were talking about, like everyone else.
I did this, as I didn’t want to be seen not to understand some things that people, I respected were good at. I thought that if I didn’t know what was going on, it betrayed a moral failing and exposed me as a boy who was deeply uncool and actually, a bit stupid.
And so I nodded along silently. I prayed I wouldn’t be found out what I really was, or I would feel embarrassed. I would follow up each incident with some diligent homework on the subject, trying to disguise myself. Unsurprisingly, it all became far too much and recently I’ve found myself overwhelmed by the number of things I didn’t know about. From politics to pop culture—even Micro Electro Mechanical Systems. I just felt exhausted by it all.
And so I made a decision. I decided to stop nodding frequently at the pub while crazily searching the relative information under the table. Instead, now I’m embracing saying what is really true when I don’t know what the other person is talking about. Instead of hurrying to make up some funny opinion about a show I’ve never seen, I’ll say something like: “I’ve heard of that show but I haven’t watched it yet” Saying “I don’t know” is such a simple thing. I’m sorry that it took me so long to start saying that. I’ve changed my attitude towards something I don’t know in life. I’ll never get caught in an embarrassing lie again.
1. What does the author tell us in paragraph 1?| A．His fear of making mistakes. | B．The ways to make friends in the past. |
| C．School activities he and his friends loved. | D．His sense of shame about lying in the past. |
| A．Confused. | B．Anxious and awkward. |
| C．Unconcerned. | D．Calm and relaxed |
| A．Hide. | B．Beat. |
| C．Expose. | D．Fool. |
| A．To show disadvantages of being ignored. |
| B．To show some embarrassing learning experiences. |
| C．To tell us what to do with the case of being “caught out”. |
| D．To tell us how saying “I don’t know” changed his life attitude. |
