1 . A sleepover (过夜) program, which is designed to make kids believe that their favorite toys enjoy reading, can help encourage children to pick up more books, a new study suggests.
Toys sleepover programs are designed to get children interested in books. Children take their toys to a library for the night. At this point, workers and volunteers take photos of the toys which explore the library and read books. The next day, the children collect their toys and the photos of what the toys did during the night. They are given the books their toys chose to read.
It was found that before the sleepover the children did not spend time looking at the books in their play area at preschool. Immediately after the sleepover, the number of children who read to the toys was higher than the number who did not, but after three days the effect decreased gradually.
The researchers also tested a method for sustaining the effect. They reminded the children of the sleepover a month later, by hiding the toys and showing them the photos again the next day. This simple method brought an increase in the number of children reading to their toys.
The study proves for the first time that children who take part in sleepover programs read picture books to their toys more. “We wanted to know if there really was an effect, and if so, how long it lasts. Surprisingly, not only did the children show interest in the books, but they also began to read to their toys. This means that a new behavior pattern appeared that the children hadn’t had before. We did not expect anything like this,” said one of the researchers.
Reading is important for the development of children’s language skills and imagination. When parents read to their children, it is a passive way of reading for the child. However, when children read to their toys, it is a more active, self-directed way of reading, helping them develop into more active readers, researchers said.
1. What is the purpose of the sleepover program?| A．To develop children’s language skills. |
| B．To help children to sleep well. |
| C．To encourage children to read more. |
| D．To guide children to form a good sleeping habit. |
| A．Go around the library with their toys. |
| B．Sleep with their toys. |
| C．Read together with their toys. |
| D．Take their toys to the library. |
| A．keeping | B．testing | C．surveying | D．showing |
| A．Children showed no interest in the books. |
| B．The effect of the sleepover program could last long. |
| C．Children began to read to their toys on their own. |
| D．Whether the sleepover program had an effect remained unknown. |
2 . The time that cars could go completely driverless is coming “very soon”, according to Jianxiong Xiao, CEO and founder of AutoX, a Shenzhen-based start-up developing autonomous driving technology.
Now, most regulations across various cities in China still require the presence of a safety driver in vehicles, but the company foresees that as more data gets captured over time, that requirement would be reduced, Xiao told CNBC's “Street Signs Asia" on Wednesday.
The autonomous driving tech firm chose to partner with Alibaba's AMAP — a Chinese mapping service provider --- to roll out its RoboTaxi ride hailing service in Shanghai on Monday. AMAP is a "super mobility app" with almost 500 million active monthly users, according to Xiao.
AutoX had received support from Shanghai authorities to roll out a fleet of 100 autonomous ride-hailing cars in Shanghai's Jiading district in September last year.
Earlier this month, AutoX announced that it had set up an 80,000 square feet RoboTaxi operations center in Shanghai to help facilitate (使容易)operations of its driverless fleet, as well as act as a center to collect data from daily operations.
Backed by investors such as Alibaba, Shanghai Motor and Dongfeng Motor, AutoX is one of the players in the trillion U.S. dollar Chinese autonomous driving vehicles market alongside others like DiDi Chuxing.
Xiao said they were working with the technology to ensure the vehicles were "very, very safe" and are carrying out a lot of testing.
Over a hundred vehicles have been arranged on roads daily to obtain enough data needed to validate the software and system, according to Xiao.
He added that the company was also running a hundred times more simulations (模拟)in the car every day, and the “huge amount of data" would help to prove that the vehicles could be used in "full safety".
“Our goal is not to just make (it) as safe as human beings, but going one step forward to really make...a superhuman safety standard; (cars) that (can) drive much safer than any human being ever,“ Xiao said.
1. What will be most required to go driverless according to CEO of AutoX?| A．Traffic regulations. | B．Driving technology. |
| C．Enough data. | D．Mapping service. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Optimistic. | C．Disappointed. | D．Uncertain. |
| A．test | B．invent | C．develop. | D．design |
| A．Driving Technology |
| B．Science Achievement |
| C．No Driver in the Future |
| D．The Development of Driverless |
3 . Most sea turtles, whales and fish may have plastic in their bodies. To determine the various forms and colors of this material in marine animals, Marga Rivas at the University of Almeria in Spain and her team analyzed data from 112 studies published in the past decade. These looked for microplastics and larger macro plastics in marine species globally.
Of the studies, 80 examined the gastrointestinal tracts (胃肠道)of animals to see what they had taken in. The others also looked at wider animal tissues to identify plastics that end up in other parts of the body. After examining all of the data, Rivas and her team concluded that 66 per cent of sea turtles have white-colored macro and microplastics in their systems, while 55 percent have a distinct class of plastic called microfibers, which are shed by some fabrics (织物). The high amount of white plastic in turtles was unsurprising, says Rivas, given that plastic of this color, particularly larger pieces, may resemble jellyfish, a large part of the animals' diets.
Microfibers were also present in 80 percent of whales and dolphins - and white macro and microplastics in 38 percent of them. The researchers also concluded that clear fiber microplastics are probably the most common form of this waste that is taken in by large marine animals globally. Rivas and her colleagues also discovered that the animals with the highest rates of plastic were those in the Mediterranean and the northeast Indian Ocean.
“The Mediterranean is the most contaminated sea in the world, so we expected to find these results,” says Rivas. Marine plastic pollution has increased roughly 10-fbld since 1980, and Rivas says the problem is worsened by inadequate water treatment systems. In parts of India and the southeast Mediterranean, waste water isn’t adequately treated or recycled, she says. This means that microfibers shed by fabrics in washing machines, and larger pieces of rubbish, enter the sea. “It’s possible to introduce management strategies to control these huge threats,” says Rivas.
1. How did Rivas and her team conduct the study?| A．By doing comparative experiments. |
| B．By analyzing data from previous studies. |
| C．By determining the forms and colors of plastics. |
| D．By looking for plastics in global marine animals. |
| A．White plastic looks like the food sea turtles consume. |
| B．More while plastic was in the sea than that of other colors. |
| C．White plastic is the most common form of the plastic waste. |
| D．White microfibers from fabrics were abundant in the oceans. |
| A．Researched | B．Conserved | C．Examined | D．Polluted |
| A．Health. | B．Lifestyle. | C．Science. | D．Education. |
4 . When homework and tests keep you up late at night, you may plan to make up for your lost sleep during the weekends. But is it useful?
A study published in the journal Current Biology shows that the habit of sleeping in on weekends doesn’t fix the damage that has been done by a lack of sleep during the week. Even worse, it may damage your health.
In the study, which was conducted over 10 days, 36 healthy young men and women with different sleep requirements were divided into three groups. The first group were asked to sleep nine hours a night and the second group five hours a night. The members of the third group slept for five hours on weekdays but rested as long as they wanted on the weekend.
The researchers found that people who lacked sleep ate more snacks and gained weight quickly. However, this wasn’t the case for the first group.
That could be partially due to the shifting of the biological clock and changes to certain body hormones, especially hunger hormones. In order to catch up on their sleep during weekends, people in the third group would eat later as a habit. So their biological clocks shifted, which also changed the production of hunger hormones.
“The hormone leptin(瘦素) decreases appetite(胃口), while the hormone ghrelin(饿素) increases appetite,” explained US researcher Vsevolod Polotsky. “Sleep shortage causes leptin to drop and ghrelin to rise, so you’re hungry and eat more.”
And even if they tried to sleep for as long as they wanted to during weekends, according to researchers, it was still not enough because they found it difficult to fall asleep.
Moreover, short and insufficient sleep schedules will lead to an inability to change blood sugar and increase the risk of metabolic(新陈代谢) disease in the long term.
1. Which of the following is true about the study?| A．Participants were divided into two groups. |
| B．Researchers studied 36 children and adults. |
| C．It lasted for more than two weeks. |
| D．Each group follow different sleep requirements. |
| A．increasing | B．lacking | C．changing | D．shortening |
| A．They need to create more energy. |
| B．There is less leptin in their bodies. |
| C．They have a lower blood sugar. |
| D．Their bodies produce less hormones. |
| A．Appetite Affects our Sleep Quality |
| B．Sleeping in Causes Weight Loss |
| C．Catching up on Sleep Harms Our Body |
| D．Men and Women Sleep Differently |
5 . It may sound a bit “Dr. Doolittle,” but it turns out kangaroos can communicate with humans. Researchers found that kangaroos communicated with humans “on purpose”--a behavior that was thought to only belong to domesticated(驯养的)animals, like dogs, horses or goats.
Experts from London's University of Roehampton and the University of Sydney set up a task. This task was known as “the unsolvable problem task”・ During the task, they presented kangaroos with food trapped inside a plastic container.
After trying, and failing, to open the boxes, the kangaroos turned their gaze(注视)on a nearby human - and sometimes even pushed or scratched(抓) them to ask for help, researchers said.
“Their gaze was pretty powerful, co-author Alexandra Green said. "We've previously thought only domesticated animals try to ask for help with a problem. But kangaroos do it too. If they can't open the box, they look at the human and back to the container. Some of them use their nose to push the human and some get close to the human and start scratching at him asking for assistance.,,
Based on these new findings, the team believe kangaroos - considered social animals, like dogs and goats --may be able to change their behavior to interact with humans.
“Through this study, we are able to see that communication between animals can be learnt and that the behaviour of gazing at humans to get food is not related to domestication lead author Alan McElligott said.
“Indeed, kangaroos showed a very similar pattern of behaviour we have seen in dogs, horses and even goats when put to the same test,“ McElligott added.
1. What have the researchers found about kangaroos?| A．Kangaroos can become domestic animals. |
| B．Kangaroos can communicate with humans. |
| C．Kangaroos can learn from domestic animals. |
| D．Kangaroos have the same habits as domestic animals. |
| A．Removed. | B．Hidden. | C．Kept. | D．Saved. |
| A．Observations. | B．Previous data. |
| C．Making comparison. | D．Making a survey. |
| A．Travel. | B．Education. | C．Technology. | D．Science. |
6 . When Mike Coots was 18, he lost his leg to a shark bite. It was near his home on the island of Kauai - a typical fall morning with friends. The waves were really good. Suddenly a large shark came right up under Mike and sank his teeth into Mike's lower leg and Mike felt no pain.
As he struggled(挣扎), the shark bit down harder. He beat the shark in the face again and again until the shark let him go. As Mike swam back into shore he realized the shark had bit his lower right leg off. Mike's friends rushed to his aid. The doctors later told Mike that's probably what kept him alive during the drive to the hospital.
As soon as Mike was given the OK by his doctors, he started riding the waves again. In fact, his first time back was near the site o£ his attack. Mike was unshaken. He was curious -why was he attacked?
His curiosity led him to research sharks, and while he never figured out why he became a target, Mike did learn something that would change his life: Humans are far more dangerous to sharks than the other way around. "I watched a documentary, and I learned about the fact that 70 million sharks a year are killed for their fins(鳍)alone.
He began working with the Hawaii state government to help pass a ban on shark-derived products. He also likes using his photos to spread the message about what's happening to sharks and why it matters. ^Sharks are here on earth for a very important reason, holding together the web of biodiversity, and without them, our seas cannot survive.,,
1. In the doctors, opinion, what helped Mike Coots survive?| A．His good swimming skill. |
| B．His struggle with the shark. |
| C．Timely treatment by doctors. |
| D．The first aid offered by his friends. |
| A．Nervous. | B．Strong-minded. | C．Excited. | D．Afraid. |
| A．He worked hard to protect sharks. |
| B．He was curious about many things. |
| C．He found out why he was attacked. |
| D．He made documentaries on sharks. |
| A．Curious and humorous. | B．Honest and confident. |
| C．Brave and caring. | D．Patient and adventurous. |
7 . Nowadays more and more people like to travel, especially when vacations come. A great number of people rush out of their homes or companies to travelling spots. They either drive or take a bus, a train, a ship and so on. Some even ride bikes.
However, there is another way of travelling — poorism. People have a tour in the poorest areas of the world. Some people may take a one-day poor tour, and some even pay to stay in very poor neighborhoods to experience the lowest living standards in the world. Poorism tours take place around the world, and not just in the third world countries. You can, for instance, tour New York neighborhoods in the Bronx, in the Bund of Shanghai. Such tours can take people into the heart of poor areas within some large and rich cities. These tours may awaken people to pay more attention to long-standing poverty, or the effects of war.
Some suggest that tours in the poor areas can raise social care. And the money from the tour can be donated to help the people there.
1. What's the meaning of the underlined word “poorism” in the second paragraph?| A．贫困 | B．穷人 | C．穷游 | D．可怜的人 |
| A．to show how rich they are |
| B．to experience the poor life |
| C．to enjoy the beautiful scenes |
| D．to see poor people |
| A．care for the poverty more |
| B．know about the countryside |
| C．go to big cities |
| D．go into the heart of rich cities |
8 . If there is one person who has left a deep impression on me，it’s my teacher，Mrs Pathak，who was my class teacher for three years. In my childhood，how I wished I had a mother or a sister like her. One moment she could be tough (严厉的) and strict，another moment caring and compassionate (富有同情心的)．
She always encouraged us to tell the truth. For instance，if one had not done the homework，he need not lie. She allowed us to make mistakes，saying we couldn’t be perfect all the time，but we should try.
Another thing she taught me early on was punctuality. She set a good example with her own behavior. She was always on time，so we students tried our best to be on time.
She surprised us with her sense of humour. Her classroom teaching was always humorous. After class，she talked to us and told us jokes.
We really felt free to ask questions and Mrs Pathak would give the answers. If she did not know—there had been some occasions (场合)—she would say so. We all then tried to find out the answers. Whoever came up with the answer was appreciated and given the due credit (应有的称赞)．Now I sometimes wonder whether Mrs Pathak was pretending just to encourage us to explore and find answers by ourselves.
1. According to the passage，which of the following is NOT suitable for describing Mrs Pathak?| A．Tough. | B．Humorous. | C．Compassionate. | D．Careful. |
| A．being on time | B．being honest | C．being patient | D．being clean |
| A．Because she didn’t like answering the questions. |
| B．Because she didn’t know the answers to the questions. |
| C．Because she wanted the students to find them out by themselves. |
| D．Because she thought the students knew the answers already. |
9 . Living with your parents comes with its perks – meals ready, laundry done, pills and hot water at your bedside when you’re feeling unwell. But your parents can still drive you crazy – talking about your habits without a stop and trying to get involved in your relationships.
This partly explains why the idea of “living alone” is spreading rapidly across the world with more young adults preferring to go solo.
According to statistics gathered by the market research firm Euro-monitor International, the number of people living alone globally has almost doubled in the last decade and a half.
This rush to solitude (独居) is not only limited to the US and Europe, where social security is well developed. In fact, over recent years, it has grown most quickly in countries with booming economies, like China for example.
Census (人口普查) data released by the National Health and Family Planning Commission of China in May showed that today over 58 million Chinese people live alone. That’s a number bigger than that of US, UK and France combined”, the Economist reported.
In the past, adulthood in China used to mean getting married and having children. Not following this route was seen as a taboo (禁忌). This is still the mainstream standard, but things are starting to change. Living alone is shifting from being a transitional stage after graduation and before marriage to a long-time state for many.
The marriage age in China is rising, especially in urban areas. In Beijing, the average age of men getting married is 27.8, while that of women is 26.2, according to iFeng News.
Better employment opportunities allow women to have greater equality with men. That might make women more inclined to stay single and free from the burden of starting a new family.
1. What does the underlined word “perks” in para 1 mean?| A．advantages | B．disadvantages | C．preference | D．tradition |
| A．the number of people living alone has almost doubled in China |
| B．people are more likely to live alone in developed countries |
| C．many Chinese think it unacceptable for young people to live alone |
| D．the average age of men getting married is 27.8 while that of women is 26.2 |
| A．they want to be independent of their parents |
| B．the marriage age in China is rising. |
| C．they have the same chance to earn their living as men |
| D．they dislike their parents being involved in their relationships |
| A．China’s youth break free | B．Living with your parents or living alone |
| C．A new life style | D．China’s new youth |
10 . In the past 50 years, the amount of water in the open ocean with zero oxygen has increased more than four times. In coastal water bodies, including the river mouth and seas, low-oxygen sites have increased more than 10 times since 1950. Scientists expect oxygen to continue dropping even outside these zones as the Earth warms. To stop the decline, the world needs to control in both climate change and nutrient pollution.
Oxygen is a must to life in the oceans. The drop in ocean oxygen is among the most serious effects of human activities on the Earth’s environment.
This is the first time for the scientists to take such a deep look at the causes, consequences and solutions to low oxygen worldwide, in both the open ocean and in coastal waters. About half of the oxygen on the Earth comes from the ocean. However, combined effects of nutrient loading and climate change are greatly increasing the number and size of “dead zones”in the open ocean and coastal waters, where oxygen is too low to support most sea life.
In areas traditionally called “dead zones”, like those in Chesapeake Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, oxygen drops to levels so low that many animals have trouble in breathing and die. As fish run away from these zones, their living areas become smaller and smaller. But the problem goes far beyond “dead zones”. Even smaller oxygen drops can hold up the growth in animals, reproduction and lead to disease or even death. Low oxygen also can cause the release of dangerous chemicals. While some animals can thrive in dead zones, overall biodiversity falls.
1. What does the underlined word “decline” mean ?| A．Increase. | B．Drop. | C．Keep. | D．Double. |
| A．10%. | B．25%. | C．40%. | D．50%. |
| A．The oxygen in these areas is too low for the animals to live. |
| B．Ships are easy to break down and sink in these areas. |
| C．There are no animals living in these areas. |
| D．Many people died in these areas. |
| A．All animals living in the sea need oxygen. |
| B．Climate change can help cut down the dead zone. |
| C．Fish grow faster and better in low oxygen area. |
| D．Human activities have many bad effects on environment. |
| A．Dead zone in water is becoming larger. |
| B．Oxygen in water is necessary for sea animals. |
| C．The drop in ocean oxygen causes bad effects. |
| D．Low oxygen can cause the release of dangerous gas. |
