1 . GPS has completely transformed how we get around. But other animals have long had their navigation (领航) systems built right in.
“We know their eyes are quite sensitive to polarized (偏振的) light and the sky has a particular pattern of polarized light relative to the position of the sun,” Barbara Webb, a researcher at the University of Edinburgh, says.
You can see polarized light firsthand if you take a pair of polarized sunglasses and spin them against the sky-the light passing through the glasses changes. Webb says the insects have polarization like that built into their many eyes. “You can think of it as having lots of sunglasses pointing in different directions.”
But Webb was curious whether there’s really enough information in the sky to give insects an accurate sense of direction. So her team built a sensor (传感器) modeled after a desert ant eye and put it under artificial light meant to simulate the sky. They then put that sensor into a model meant to model the brains of desert ants and other insects. And they found that with the insects’ sensing and processing equipment, they can likely sense direction down to just a couple degrees of error.
A system based on that of insects could someday be a cheap, low-energy choice to GPS. Insects have very tiny brains. A brain the size of a pinhead that’s using hardly any energy. And yet they’re still able to navigate better than we can with GPS, which is surprising. Webb is now working on building a robot that can use light to get its directions.
1. What can we learn from the text?| A．GPS is not accurate enough. |
| B．Insects have better eyes than humans. |
| C．Light changes passing through polarized sunglasses. |
| D．Insects have tiny brains that use no energy. |
| A．Pretend. | B．Cover. |
| C．Block. | D．See. |
| A．Insects can’t find their ways during nights. |
| B．Insects can find directions with little mistakes. |
| C．Insects always make mistakes finding directions. |
| D．Insects have sensing and processing equipment in their eyes. |
| A．Disappointing. | B．Interesting. |
| C．Amazing. | D．Confusing. |
2 . Creativity is the ability to generate novel,useful ideas and innovation is the successful application of those ideas.With this in mind,it is easy to think that technology has made us more creative:the digital revolution(改革）has clearly produced a large number of innovative products and services.
However,it would be naive(幼稚的）to imply that these activities are truly indicative of creativity,even if quantity does eventually lead to quality.For instance,the probability of taking a great photograph does increase when there are millions of Instagram pictures taken every day,and when 500 million tweets are generated(严生）daily,it is highly probable that one or two will be funny.
Yet,much of the content people generate is unimportant and unoriginal.Before the Internet it would have stayed in the minds of their authors,but our thoughts can now be broadcasted to the. world as if they were worthy creations.The only thing that appears to have increased,rather greatly,is people's self-perceived(自认为的）creativity.From the use of emoji(表情符号）instead of words,to the use of pre-determined functions to express our views-liking,sharing and disliking,these new forms human interaction promote efficient-but lazy-behaviors so that we can devote more time to consuming more content.
Although user-generated content has been growing rapidly in the past decade,much of it is noise and the result is that valuable and trustworthy information is now harder to find.In an age of information glut(过剩），everything is freely available but knowledge is hard to gain.This paradox highlights the importance of the"less is more"philosophy of life.
Curiosity evolved to make sense of the world and help us master our environments.Our ancestors must have benefited from taking on as much information from their surroundings as they could paying attention to everything and turning into the learning machine.Yet in an age of information glut,the curious mind is forced to ignore as much of the available data as it can,in order to consume only what is valuable.
1. Why are the examples of great pictures and funny tweets mentioned in Paragraph 2?| A．To show quantity will lead to quality. |
| B．To explain creativity is something impressive. |
| C．To show technology hasn't made us more creative. |
| D．To explain innovative products come from creativity. |
| A．They are worthy creations. |
| B．They kill people's creativity actually. |
| C．They prevent effective communication. |
| D．They help people consume more useful content. |
| A．There' re more resources for knowledge but few people are willing to use them. |
| B．Too much information has generated material wealth but not spiritual wealth. |
| C．We live in an age of information explosion but we find it difficult to get knowledge. |
| D．Many people stick to the"less is more"philosophy with large amounts of information at hand. |
| A．Much of it is original information about the real world: |
| B．It is the fruit of our ancestors' mastering our environments.. |
| C．It gives the public quick and easy access to the required information. |
| D．It presents us with the challenge of telling valuable information from worthless content. |
3 . 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. |
4 . When you were trying to figure out what to buy for the environmentalist on your holiday list, fur probably didn’t cross your mind. But some ecologists and fashion (时装)enthusiasts are trying to bring back the market for fur made from nutria(海狸鼠).
Unusual fashion shows in New Orleans and Brooklyn have showcased nutria fur made into clothes in different styles. “It sounds crazy to talk about guilt-free fur-unless you understand that the nutria are destroying vast wetlands every year”, says Cree McCree, project director of Righteous Fur.
Scientists in Louisiana were so concerned that they decided to pay hunters $5 a tail. Some of the fur ends up in the fashion shows like the one in Brooklyn last month.
Nutria were brought there from Argentina by fur farmers and let go into the wild. “The ecosystem down there can’t handle this non-native species(物种).It’s destroying the environment. It’s them or us.” says Michael Massimi, an expert in this field.
The fur trade kept nutria in check for decades，but when the market for nutria collapsed in the late 1980s，the cat-sized animals multiplied like crazy.
Biologist Edmond Mouton runs the nutria control program for Louisiana. He says it’s not easy to convince people that nutria fur is green, but he has no doubt about it. Hunters bring in more than 300,000 nutria tails a year, so part of Mouton’s job these days is trying to promote fur.
Then there’s Righteous Fur and its unusual fashion. Model Paige Morgan says，”To give people a guilt-free option that they can wear without someone throwing paint on them-I think that’s going to be a massive thing, at least here in New York.” Designer Jennifer Anderson admits it took her a while to come around to the opinion that using nutria fur for her creations is morally acceptable. She is trying to come up with a label to attach to nutria fashions to show it is eco-friendly.
1. What is the purpose of the fashion shows in New Orleans and Brooklyn?| A．To promote guilt-free fur. |
| B．To expand the fashion market. |
| C．To introduce a new brand. |
| D．To celebrate a winter holiday. |
| A．Nutria damage the ecosystem seriously. |
| B．Nutria are an endangered species. |
| C．Nutria hurt local cat-sized animals. |
| D．Nutria are illegally hunted. |
| A．Boomed. | B．Became mature. | C．Remained stable. | D．Crashed. |
| A．It’s formal. | B．It’s risky. | C．It’s harmful. | D．It’s traditional. |
5 . Sometimes, you just can’t say no to another spoonful of ice cream and maybe one more after that. Why not? You deserve it.
There’s no need to beat yourself up about it later. The truth is that you were probably bound to do that from the very first spoonful. That’s because there is a switch in your brain, and for whatever reason, it can get stuck in the “on” position.
According to a new study, this impulse (冲动) control may come down to a very specific circuit (回答) in the brain which occasionally produces melanin-concentrating hormone, or MCH—a chemical linked with our desire for food or drugs. And that circuit always says yes.
By manipulating this circuit, it is possible that we might be able to develop cures for overeating that help people stick to a diet without reducing normal appetite or making delicious foods like donuts less delicious.
For their research, the scientists treated rats to a self-serve buffet. Bur the treats were on a timed delivery system, making tasty food every 20 seconds, and only when a rat pressed a lever (杠杆). Hit that lever too early—as impatient test subjects occasionally did—and the counter would start from scratch. Lever-happy rats would have to wait another cycle before the food became available again.
A second experiment offered the rats two dining options. Push Lever A and get an immediate small reward. Pushing Lever B meants waiting for around40 seconds, but the food reward would be much bigger. Guess which lever those impatient rats were most food of? That’s right. They picked the now-now-now switch.
Their impulsiveness, however, rose sharply when scientists gave the rats MCH. These animals become more impulsive. MCH, it seemed, could talk rats into loosening its inhibitions (拘束). The result? More please.
Researchers can now see where that conversation between the brain’s reward system and its impulse control center takes place. The next step will be to map it—and potentially influence the discussion. It may eventually be possible to control a food-eating impulse.
1. Which of the following can best replace the underlined word “manipulating” in paragraph 4?| A．Strengthening. | B．Controlling. |
| C．Classifying. | D．Creating. |
| A．A bigger food reward would appear. |
| B．Tasty food would be delivered much sooner. |
| C．Longer time would be needed for food to appear. |
| D．The lever would be stopped form delivering food. |
| A．To find out the effect of MCH on animals. |
| B．To prove rats are also greedy for more food. |
| C．To study how levers influence rats’ impulse. |
| D．To show rats and humans have similar impulse for food. |
| A．What Is the Effect of Your Impulse? |
| B．What Can You Do to Resist More Food? |
| C．Why Can’t You Say “No” to Your Impulse? |
| D．Why Do You Always Give in to One More Mouthful? |
6 . You can’t see it with your own eyes，but your smart-phone is likely to be covered with bacteria- perhaps even more so than your toilet seat. That's a lot of dangerous microbes（微生物）floating around, and yes, it is terribly dirty.
In this age of global travel and trade, it’s more important than ever to cut down on possible routes of infection and to stop bacteria and viruses spreading from person to person. Part of that means making sure your phone isn’t sending anything more than data.
And besides the potential health risks of a dirty phone, there's also the simple annoyance of looking at a screen that’s covered in fingerprints and other oily spots that are part of life with a smart-phone.
In short, you’ve got plenty of reasons to regularly give your phone a thorough clean. Not just during a pandemic（大流行病），either-we should be thinking about keeping our phones bacteria free all the time, says microbiologist Paul Turner, a professor at Yale University.
After all, we touch our phones all the time and many of us are relatively careless about cleaning them. “It sets the stage for kind of concern,” Turner says. “People could be handling phones and picking up any bacteria or virus that can attach to a surface and survive for a period of time.”
Take SARS-CoV-2, the corona- virus（冠状病毒）that causes the COVID-19, for example. Scientists are still trying to get solid evidence, but early research suggests that it can survive on plastic or stainless steel（不锈钢）surfaces for two or three days. That means you could be washing your hands perfectly well, but immediately picking the virus up again as soon as you reach for your phone.
You could be doing everything right（like washing your hands and staying away from people），but
if there’s a contaminated surface in your home or your pocket, you could expose yourself to the virus anyway, Turner says.
1. Why does the author mention the toilet seat?
| A．To draw a vivid picture of a dirty phone. |
| B．To show how dirty a toilet seat is. |
| C．To add some background information. |
| D．To introduce a topic for discussion. |
| A．Simply washing our hands is not enough. |
| B．Scientists have got solid evidence of the COVID-19. |
| C．The corona-virus can survive on smooth surfaces for 2 or 3 weeks. |
| D．The author suggests washing our hands before using our phones. |
| A．A stainless steel. | B．A deadly virus. |
| C．A clean phone. | D．An infectious phone. |
| A．You may get infected with your dirty phone. |
| B．You are supposed to wash your hands. |
| C．You’d better clean your dirty phone. |
| D．You’d better throw away your dirty phone. |
7 . It is believed that around half the US adult population will be obese (肥胖的) by 2030, while one in four will fall into the severely obese category. This is according to a new study led by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, which found that levels of obesity are increasing in every state. Indeed the predictions show that levels of severe obesity could be higher than 25 percent in half of states.
“Especially striking was our finding that among adults with very low income (less than $20,000 per year), severe obesity is predicted to be the most common in 44 states—almost everywhere in the US,” a researcher said.
The research was carried out to inform state policymakers—and perhaps help change the tendency. The study authors say the best form of attack is prevention. Limiting intake of sugar is stressed as one of the most effective and cost-effective methods for reducing obesity levels, and a tax likely to save more money than it costs.
Sugar (and the sugar industry) has come under fire for its role in promoting obesity. Indeed, one recent study published in September 2019 puts responsibility for today’s obesity epidemic (流行病) firmly on the shoulders of sugar, concluding high-sugar diets during childhood in the seventies and eighties could be behind the rise.
“We knew from previous work that obesity is increasing in the US, and that some states and demographic groups (人群) are at higher risk, but we were surprised that even the states with the lowest obesity will be above 35 percent in 2030—a level currently considered high, a researcher told Newsweek. What is clear is that we will not be able to treat our way out of this epidemic—achieving and keeping weight loss is difficult—so prevention efforts will be key to making progress in this area.”
1. What’s the most surprising finding in the study?| A．Over 25% of people will be seriously obese. |
| B．Levels of obesity are increasing in every state. |
| C．poor adults are more likely to be severely obese. |
| D．Half of the US adults will be overweight by 2030. |
| A．To reduce the tax. | B．To limit intake of sugar. |
| C．To reduce obesity level. | D．To inform policymakers. |
| A．Blame from researchers. | B．Rapid chemical change. |
| C．Current obesity epidemic. | D．High-sugar diets. |
| A．Obesity is increasing everywhere in the US. |
| B．All states in America are at the same level of obesity. |
| C．Maintaining weight loss is a good way to deal with obesity. |
| D．Diets with less sugar are vital to preventing the problem of obesity. |
8 . Pang Hui placed a few more pairs of chopsticks on the table for a family dinner, though she did not expect her big family of seven would use them as serving chopsticks.
Surprisingly, her 75-year-old father, who used to shrug off the idea of serving chopsticks, became a firm supporter this time, said Pang, 40, from Beihai, a coastal city of South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
Chinese people often share dishes, and diners use their own chopsticks to serve themselves food from the shared dishes, a tradition now being challenged by the outbreak of COVID-19.
"We feel a sense of crisis as well as the urge to desert our old habits when we see reports of family infections, " Pang said, pointing to the reports of the virus spreading via droplets and close contact.
Local governments are helping to encourage a shift, too. On Feb. 13, 2020, local authorities of Beihai started a campaign promoting serving chopsticks and spoons, which will avoid cross infection caused by the use of personal chopsticks.
Similar measures were also adopted in other cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou. Taizhou city in East China's Jiangsu Province even standardized the colours of serving chopsticks and spoons to help diners differentiate (区分) them from personal ones.
The practice of eating wild animals has been targeted by the government, which remains present in certain areas.
China stopped the illegal trading and transportation of wild animals shortly after the outbreak. The move became a permanent ban on Feb. 24, 2020, when the country made a decision on thoroughly prohibiting (禁止) the illegal trading of wildlife and the consumption of wild animals.
Li Bo, with the Hainan International Center for wildlife Protection, said wild animal consumption could lead to the faster extinction of particular species, damage the ecological balance and harm people's health.
" The epidemic(流行病) could become a turning point to eliminate the bad habit, " Li said.
1. What can we learn about Pang Hui's family from the text?| A．There are usually more than seven people dining together. |
| B．They have started to use serving chopsticks at table. |
| C．Pang Hui's father opposes using serving chopsticks. |
| D．They don't know how to avoid being infected by the virus. |
| A．Sharing dishes has been abandoned. |
| B．Cross-infection has been prevented. |
| C．Eating wild animals has been forbidden. |
| D．Standard personal chopsticks have been adopted. |
| A．Explain. | B．Discover. |
| C．Form. | D．Remove. |
| A．Serving Chopsticks Promoted. | B．Ways to Help People Stay Healthy. |
| C．The Outbreak of COVID-19 Leads to Change | D．China Bans Trading of Wildlife |
9 . As part of doing business globally and operating across culture, we often want to predict how others are going to behave. Our typical heuristic(启发式教育法) is culture. We learn about how Germans or Chinese or Italians are different from us---how they think or act or even express emotions in a different way — and we feel like we’ve done our homework. We feel prepared.
But we’re surprised to discover that the person in question acts in a completely different way from how we expected. Instead of being silent, our colleague from Asia is actually quite loud and confrontational( 对抗的). Instead of behaving aggressively, our Israeli supplier is mild-mannered. We wonder where we went wrong.
The problem comes from the questions we ask ourselves. The obvious one is “What culture does this person come from?” This question is not important. National cultural differences do matter. But culture isn’t everything. It turns out that if we ask ourselves a better, more focused set of questions, we’ll be far more successful at predicting how people will act.
Question 1: What do you know about the region? Just as it is useful to learn something about culture norms(标准) when diagnosing(诊断、判断) your situation, it is good practice to learn something about region norms. For example, if you were doing business in the America and assumed that people from the Northeast would be similar to people from the Midwest, you might be surprised.
Question 2: What do you know about the company or industry? Like countries and regions, companies and industries also have distinctive cultures. How you would interact with a boss at Google is quite different from how you would interact with a boss at Microsoft or Intel.
Finding the answers to these questions before you cross cultures can be tricky, but it is possible. One of the best ways to anticipate what you’ll encounter is by talking with expats: people similar to you who have studied, lived, or worked in the country in question. These individuals will often give you some insight into these nuances.
1. Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?| A．When trading globally, we can predict cultural differences successfully. |
| B．Israeli supplier should be mild-mannered instead of being ill-tempered. |
| C．People don’t care about what culture this person comes from? |
| D．It is not necessarily reasonable to stress national cultural differences only. |
| A．learning culture norms is more important than learning region norms |
| B．Asian people are actually quite loud and confrontational (对抗的) |
| C．Trying to know about the region is as necessary as knowing about cultural norms. |
| D．Doing business across cultures differs from doing business in the local region. |
| A．Employees | B．Immigrants |
| C．Experts | D．Employers |
| A．How to diagnose cultural differences. |
| B．How to get along with a person from different cultures. |
| C．How to manage cross- cultural corporation. |
| D．How to learn about a distinctive culture. |
10 . You can remember the face, but can't put a name to it. Many of us have been caught in this embarrassing situation. But researchers say it is often easier to remember someone's name than what they look like.
Twenty-four volunteers were shown 40 pictures of strangers, paired with random(随机的) names. They were given time to memorize the faces and names before being tested on which they thought they had seen before.
The participants could remember up to 85 percent of the names but only 73 percent of the faces. When they were shown a different picture of the same person, the participants could recall only 64 percent of faces, according to the study, led by the University of York.
That may be because faces are only recognized visually(视觉地), while names can be both spoken and written down so appear in our visual and audio memory. When people were shown famous people, they also remembered their names more accurately than their photographs. Co-author Dr Rob Jenkins, from the university’s psychology department, said, ''Our study suggests that, while many people may be bad at remembering names, they are likely to be even worse at remembering faces. This will surprise many people as it is against our initial understanding. Our life experiences with names and faces have misled us about how our minds work. '' Remembering names gets harder with age, leading to many uncomfortable moments for middle-aged people when they run into people they know.
But to study whether names are harder to recall than faces, the researchers, whose findings are published in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, used a ''fair test'' where the participants were presented with strangers' names and faces.
1. What can we know according to the research in Paragraph 3?| A．It is certain that names are harder to recall than faces. |
| B．Remembering names is more easily than remembering faces. |
| C．Most participants can remember the face not the name to it. |
| D．The participants can recall 73% faces of the same person. |
| A．Age will weaken the ability to remember names. |
| B．Unlike faces, names are only recognized visually. |
| C．Faces can appear in our visual and audio memory. |
| D．Rob Jenkins has proved people can remember faces better. |
| A．Clear. | B．first. |
| C．Unusual. | D．Creative. |
| A．People can't remember strangers’ names and faces. |
| B．Recalling names is more difficult than remembering faces. |
| C．The researcher uses the same method to study another problem. |
| D．Whether names are harder to recall than faces is further proved. |
