1 . The world can be a scary place when you' re young. It can be even scarier when you' re a young little blue penguin(企鹅) , the tiniest of the penguin species. Luckily, there are some humans willing to help. They stepped in to protect Billy, a blue penguin that appeared on a beach in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Spotted on November 29 at the slipway at Moncks Bay, near Sumner，in Christchurch，the little penguin immediately attracted a small crowd. Jeff Mein Smith saw the crowd while he was bicycling that afternoon, and he biked home to get his camera. When he returned to the scene，he found that the penguin had received a little sign, one that read “Hi, I'm waiting for my mum to come back. DOC(Department of Conservation) knows I'm here. Please leave me alone. Keep your dog away. Thanks, Billy the baby blue penguin.”
Billy didn't move away from the sign. The DOC arrived later that afternoon to pick up Billy, though they were surprised to see it on the beach. “It's unusual for a blue penguin to be out in the open on the beach during the day, ”Anita Spencer, a DOC senior ranger, told Stuff.
Billy was taken to the Christchurch Penguin Rehabilitation Center after being retrieved from the beach. Volunteers believe the bird may actually be a female penguin, and is around 2 months old. The chick weighs a mere 550 grams, less than a standard basketball. A blue penguin should weigh around 900 grams at this age. Most little penguins grow up to weigh 1 kilogram.
The center will help the little penguin gain some weight by feeding it fish juice, before it's set free into the ocean.
1. Why can the world be frightening to a young penguin?| A．It is a rare species. |
| B．It faces potential danger. |
| C．It is surrounded by the crowd. |
| D．It is threatened by dogs. |
| A．is a male penguin |
| B．has expressed its thanks |
| C．weighs less for its age |
| D．prefers living on the beach |
| A．Ignored. | B．Cured. |
| C．Given away. | D．Brought back. |
| A．It will be reported to Stuff. |
| B．It will be visited by the locals. |
| C．It will be taken good care of. |
| D．It will be fed with fruit juice. |
2 . Apple revealed new ways to discover and organize apps, confirmed a significant change and announced a new feature that will let users unlock their cars with their smartphones.
The updates, announced at Apple (AAPL)’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday, highlight the company’s continued effort to involve itself into seemingly every corner of our lives, from our cars and living rooms to our personal health, while also facing the potential for app tiredness more than a decade after the App Store launched.
The company kicked off the event by focusing on iOS 14, the upcoming operating system for the iPhone. As part of its presentation, Apple unveiled a new feature called App Library, which automatically organizes the apps on your homescreen so you don’t have to scroll (滚屏) through several pages.
Apple also developed a more perfect way to discover and access new apps. The feature, called App Clips, offers a small part of an app for use at the moment it’s needed, whether it’s for ordering a scooter on demand or food from a restaurant. These apps are small in size and connect with Apple Pay. Users can then decide to download the full version of the app from the App Store.
At the same time, Apple attempted to demonstrate the still undeveloped potential of the iPhone, which remains its chief moneymaker. Having already turned the iPhone into a digital credit card, Apple now has plans to make it a digital car key. A new feature, called Carkey, will initially be available with the new 2021 BMW 5 series.
1. How many new features are mentioned in the text?| A．Two. | B．Three. | C．Four. | D．Five. |
| A．Produced. | B．Developed. | C．Issued. | D．Downloaded. |
| A．App Library. | B．App Clips. | C．Carkey. | D．Apple Watch. |
| A．Users can start their cars with Carkey. |
| B．Apples has already used iOS 14 for the iPhone. |
| C．Users still need to scroll the screen with an App Library. |
| D．Apple makes profit mainly from its undeveloped potential of the iPhone. |
3 . The next time a giant Big Mac or Coke flashes into your mind when you’re walking home from the pub, you may not simply have the snacks.
A British hi-tech company has created a new advertising system that uses lasers (激光) to project images up to 200 metres tall from the sides of tall buildings, enabling advertisers to reach people from virtual billboards in the sky. Passers-by will see each image for only between one tenth and quarter of a second, as their eyes catch the light from certain angles.
Advertising agencies and big businesses have already signalled their interest, but Skyline campaigners have branded the technology “greedy” and said that it could fill our skies with showy and tasteless brands.
The Echo system uses a high laser projector to bounce light off a narrow reflective strip fixed to the side of a building, visible up to 1km away. This creates large-scale images that are captured briefly in the viewer’s eye as a result of the “persistence of vision” effect: the same effect that leaves an imprint (印记) of a light source on your vision after you’ve turned away.
Daniel Siden, the technology’s inventor, explained: People often think this could be subversive, but it’s actually less invasive and more fun than traditional advertising. Mr.Siden said that the system was safe because of the distance between the projector and passers-by. And images would be above the line of sight of drivers and cyclists and below the field of vision of airline pilot. The images have been tested and shown not to cause epileptic seizures (癫痫发作).
Because it uses only one strip of reflected light, the system needs a small amount of the power, about one-twentieth of a standard 96-sheet digital outdoor display for an image of the same height.
Still, some Skyline campaigners dislike the technology and believe it delivers subliminal advertising (隐形广告). Barbara Weiss of the Skyline Campaign, said: “It’s actually offensive. London’s latest tall buildings are not particularly well-built or well designed, but unfortunately people are forced to look at them. Adding stupid advertising that’s invasive in its nature will only make it worse.”
1. Why does the writer use the example of Big Mac, Coke in paragraph 1?| A．Because he attempts to promote these products to potential consumers. |
| B．Because he wants to introduce a new advertising technology to readers. |
| C．Because he studies the association between products and images in advertising. |
| D．Because he tries to illustrate the effectiveness of flashing images of advertised goods. |
| A．Pedestrians can see the flashing images from specific angles. |
| B．It’s a new system developed by an advertising agency. |
| C．The image will no longer exist in vision after you’ve turned away. |
| D．The system consists of a laser projector, a reflective strip and a physical billboard. |
| A．subconscious | B．damaging | C．harmless | D．imaginative |
| A．Environmentalists worried about energy consumption. |
| B．Drivers, cyclists and pilots whose sight might be affected. |
| C．The Skyline Campaign regarding the technology as flashy. |
| D．The patients who suffer from epileptic seizures. |
4 . “Do not tell anyone”. We often hear these words when someone tells us a secret. But keeping a secret is hard. We’re often tempted（引诱）to “spill the beans”, even if we regret it later.
According to the professor, Asim Shah, keeping a secret may well “become a burden”. This is because people often have an “eager and anxious urge（冲动）to share it with someone”. An earlier study, led by Anita, a scientist at the University of Notre Dame, US, suggested that keeping a secret could cause stress. People entrusted（托付）with secrets can suffer from depression, anxiety, and body aches, reported the Daily Mail.
Secrets are so often getting out. Why do people share them at all? Shah explained that people often feel that it will help them keep a person as a friend. Another reason people share secrets is guilt over keeping it from someone close to them. A sense of distrust can develop when people who are close do not share it with each other. “Keeping or sharing secrets often puts people in a position of either gaining or losing the trust of someone, ”according to Shah.
He added that talkative people could let secrets slip out. But this doesn’t mean that it is a good idea only to share secrets with quiet people. A quiet person may be someone who keeps everything inside. To tell such a person a secret may cause them stress, and make them talk about the secret.
Shah said that to judge whether to tell someone a secret, you’d better put yourself in their position, Think about how you would feel to be told that you mustn’t give the information away. Shah also recommended that if you accidentally give up someone’s secret you should come clean about it. Let the person know that their secret isn’t so secret anymore.
1. Why does the author say keeping a secret may “become a burden”?| A．Because people are born not to be able to keep secrets. |
| B．Because when people have secrets, their bodies ache. |
| C．Because keeping secrets is certain to cause depression. |
| D．Because keeping secrets could probably be harmful to health. |
| A．2. | B．3. | C．4. | D．5. |
| A．To fall by accident. | B．To let out secrets on purpose. |
| C．To spread secrets to everyone around. | D．To give away secrets unintentionally. |
| A．Quiet people are more likely to keep the secrets to themselves. |
| B．Sharing secrets helps establish friendship or get over the, sense of guilt. |
| C．Putting yourself in others’ shoes helps realize the importance of keeping secrets. |
| D．A person who is asked to keep a secret will suffer from psychological problems only. |
5 . In life，once on a path，we tend to follow it，for better or worse. What's sad is that even if it's the later，we often accept it anyway because we are so used to the way things are that we don't even recognize that they could be different.
This is what psychologists call functional fixedness.
The inability to think in new ways affects people in every comer of society. The political theorist Hannah Arendt coined the phrase frozen thoughts to describe deeply held ideas that we no longer question but should. In Arendt's eyes，the complacent（自满的）reliance on such accepted “truths”also made people blind to ideas that didn't fit their worldview，even when there was ample evidence for them. Frozen thinking has nothing to do with intelligence，she said. “It can be found in highly intelligent people.
Ardent considered critical thinking to be a moral imperative-in its absence，a society could go the way of Nazi Germany.
Another context in which frozen thinking can turn truly dangerous is medieine. If you land in the hospital，it's natural to want to be treated by the most experienced physicians. But according to a 2014 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association（JAMA），you'd be better off being treated by the relative novices. The authors of the study explained that most errors made by doctors are connected to a tendency to form opinions quickly，based on experience. In cases that are not routine，the expert doctors may miss important aspects of the problem that are not consistent with their initial analysis. As a result，although junior doctors may be slower and less confident in treating run-of the mill cases，they can be more open-minded with unusual cases.
Fortunately，psychologists have found that anyone can unfreeze his or her thinking. One of the most effective ways is to introduce a little discord to one's intellectual interactions. Experiments have shown that it can not only sway（使动摇）us with regard to the issue at hand；it can also thaw frozen thinking in general，even in contexts unrelated to the original discussion.
1. Which of the following will Ardent agree with?| A．Many deeply held ideas are worth questioning. |
| B．Intelligent people tend to be more open-minded. |
| C．Critical thinking can save us from a world of conflict. |
| D．Believing in so-called truths can blind our judgement. |
| A．Inadequate preparation. | B．A lack of proper training. |
| C．Over-reliance on experience. | D．Wrong approaches in initial analysis. |
| A．rare. | B．complicated. |
| C．novel. | D．regular. |
| A．Unfreeze Your Brain | B．Follow It Or Break It |
| C．Critical Thinking Matters | D．What Shapes Your Thinking |
6 . By the end of the century, if not sooner, the world’s oceans will be bluer and greener thanks to a warming climate, according to a new study.
At the heart of the phenomenon lie tiny marine microorganisms (海洋微生物) called phytoplankton. Because of the way light reflects off the organisms, these phytoplankton create colourful patterns at the ocean surface. Ocean colour varies from green to blue, depending on the type and concentration of phytoplankton. Climate change will fuel the growth of phytoplankton in some areas, while reducing it in other spots, leading to changes in the ocean’s appearance.
Phytoplankton live at the ocean surface, where they pull carbon dioxide (二氧化碳) into the ocean while giving off oxygen. When these organisms die, they bury carbon in the deep ocean, an important process that helps to regulate the global climate. But phytoplankton are vulnerable to the ocean’s warming trend. Warming changes key characteristics of the ocean and can affect phytoplankton growth, since they need not only sunlight and carbon dioxide to grow, but also nutrients.
Stephanie Dutkiewicz, a scientist in MIT’s Center for Global Change Science, built a climate model thatprojectschanges to the oceans throughout the century. In a world that warms up by 39C, it found that multiple changes to the colour of the oceans would occur. The model projects that currently blue areas with little phytoplankton could become even bluer. But in some waters, such as those of the Arctic, a warming will make conditions riper for phytoplankton, and these areas will turn greener.” Not only are the quantities of phytoplankton in the ocean changing,” she said, “but the type of phytoplankton is changing.”
And why does that matter? Phytoplankton are the base of the food web. If certain kinds begin to disappear from the ocean, Dutkiewicz said, “it will change the type of fish that will be able to survive.” Those kinds of changes could affect the food chain.
Whatever colour changes the ocean experiences in the coming decades will probably be too gradual and unnoticeable, but they could mean significant changes. “It’ll be a while before we can statistically show that the changes are happening because of climate change,” Dutkiewicz said, “ but the change in the colour of the ocean will be one of the early warning signals that we really have changed our planet.”
1. What directly makes the change of the ocean’s appearance?| A．The increase of phytoplankton. |
| B．The way light reflects off the organisms. |
| C．The type and concentration of phytoplankton. |
| D．The decline of phytoplankton. |
| A．Control. | B．Use. |
| C．Predict. | D．Discover. |
| A．Phytoplankton are sensitive to the ocean’s warming trend. |
| B．Phytoplankton absorb carbon dioxide at the bottom of the ocean. |
| C．Oceans with more phytoplankton may appear bluer |
| D．Data have been found to show the change in the colour of the ocean |
| A．To introduce a new method to study phytoplankton. |
| B．To explain the effect of climate change on oceans. |
| C．To analyze the consequences of ocean colour changes. |
| D．To analyze the composition of the ocean food chain. |
7 . Salty water just below the surface of Mars could hold enough oxygen to support the kind of microbial （微生物的） life that existed and developed quickly on Earth billions of years ago， researchers reported on Monday.
In some locations， the amount of oxygen available could even keep alive a primitive， multicellular （多细胞的） animal such as a sponge （海绵动物）， they reported in the journal Nature Geosciences. "We discovered that brines-water with high concentrations of salt - on Mars can contain enough oxygen for microbes to breathe，" said lead author Vlada Stamenkovic， a theoretical physicist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. "This fully revolutionizes our understanding of the potential for life on Mars， today and in the past. "
Up to now， it had been assumed that the trace （微量） amounts of oxygen on the Red Planet were insufficient to sustain even microbial life. "We never thought that oxygen could play a role for life on Mars due to its rarity in the atmosphere， about 0.14 percent，" Stamenkovic said. By comparison， the life-giving gas makes up 21 percent of the air we breathe.
On Earth， aerobic-that is， oxygen breathing -life-forms evolved （净化） together with photosynthesis （光合作用）， which converts CO2 into O2. The gas played a critical role in the existence of complex life， known after the so-called Great Oxygenation Event some 2.35 billion years ago.
But our planet also holds microbes -at the bottom of the ocean， in boiling hot springs -that live in environments lack of oxygen. "That's why -whenever we thought of life on Mars -we studied the potential for anaerobic （无氧的）life，" Stamenkovic said.
1. The underlined word "insufficient" in Para. 3 means " ______ ".| A．enough | B．not enough |
| C．wrong | D．right |
| A．this research changes people's understanding of the potential for life on Mars |
| B．the life-giving gas makes up 31 percent of the air people breathe on earth |
| C．Great Oxygenation Event happened some 2.35 million years ago |
| D．earth holds microbial life at the bottom of the desert |
| A．Mars is fit for living |
| B．multicellular animals are living on Mars |
| C．oxygen plays a role for life on earth |
| D．Mars is likely to have enough oxygen to support life |
8 . Commuters of the future could get some relief from congested roads especially the peak-hour traffic if Uber’s plans for flying taxis work out.
The battery-powered aircraft looks like a cross between a small plane and a helicopter, with fixed wings and rotors (旋转器). It was presented at an international technology conference in Lisbon, Portugal.
Catering for the need of shorter city travel time, the vehicle is intended to soar over traffic congestion. Uber hopes it will eventually become a form of convenient mass transport and cost commuters aboard less than using their own car, though initially it will be more expensive than that, Uber’s Chief Product Officer Jeff Holden said.
The scheme still faces plenty of challenges, including certification of the new vehicle by authorities, pilot training and constructing urban air traffic management systems that prevent collisions.
Holden declared that Uber is joining NASA’s project to expand air traffic systems, which scores of other companies already belong to.
He told The Associated Press in an interview that he has no dollar figure for the total investment. He said Uber is putting some of its own money into the project, developing software, while other investors are also involved, such as aircraft manufacturers that are developing the vehicle and real estate companies that are providing so-called “skyports” where people will catch their airborne taxi.
Uber is making a bid to reform and polish up its image which has been damaged by certain negative news. Holden said those episodes did not slow development of the flying taxi project of the great company that is in transition.
1. What result is Uber’s flying taxis aimed to achieve?| A．Shorter city travel time. | B．Smooth flow of traffic. |
| C．Higher economic efficiency. | D．Convenience of people’s life. |
| A．Flying taxis are more cost-effective than driving private cars. |
| B．Uber has to cooperate with NASA to reach it’s goal. |
| C．The success of this project, if possible, will polish up Uber’s image. |
| D．The final achievement of Uber’s goal relies not only on the company itself. |
| A．trouble | B．exchange |
| C．incident | D．process |
| A．Uber is committed to developing the flying taxi project. |
| B．Uber is to accomplish it’s transition period in the near future. |
| C．Uber’s reputation used to be ruined by rumors. |
| D．Uber has recovered from it’s damaged image. |
9 . Computer scientists have hoped to give robots technical skills to help them recognize, process and react to humor. But these attempts have mostly failed. AI (人工智能) experts say that in many cases, attempts to make robots understand humor end up producing funny results, but not in the way they were supposed to.
Tristan Miller studied more than 10,000 puns (双关语) in one research project. The pun is a kind of joke that uses a word with two meanings. For example, you could say, “Balloons do not like pop music.” The word “pop” can be a way of saying popular music; or can mean the sound a balloon makes when it explodes. But a robot might not get the joke. Tristan Miller says that is because humor is a kind of creative language that is extremely difficult for computer intelligence to understand.
Allison Bishop is a computer scientist and she also performs stand-up comedy. She explained that machines are trained to look for patterns. Comedy, on the other hand, relies on things that stay dose to a pattern, kit not completely within it. To be funny, humor should also not be predictable, Bishop said. This sets a great obstacle for a machine to recognize and understand what is funny.
Bishop says since robots have great difficulty understanding humor, she feels like it gives her better job security as a comedy performer. It even made her parents happy when her brother decided to become a full-time comedy writer because it meant he wouldn’t be replaced by a machine, she added.
Despite the difficulties, Darmstadt University’s Miller says there are good reasons to keep trying to teach humor to robots. It could make machines more relatable, especially if they can learn to understand sarcasm (讽刺), he noted. Humans use sarcasm to say one thing but mean another. But Kiki Hempelmann thinks differently. “Teaching AI systems humor may make them find it where it isn’t, and they may use it where it’s inappropriate,” he said. “Maybe bad AI will start killing people because it thinks something is funny,” he added.
1. What does the author most probably want to show in Paragraph 1?| A．Robots’ influence on the scientific development. |
| B．Robots’ challenges of making sense of humor. |
| C．Computer scientists’ devotion to technical skills. |
| D．Computer scientists’ concern about AI’s development. |
| A．prove robots do poorly in funny work |
| B．explain robots aren’t as intelligent as humans |
| C．describe language is complex and changeable |
| D．show language can’t be taught in a set pattern |
| A．Barrier. | B．Record. |
| C．Message. | D．Possibility. |
| A．It will end up in vain. |
| B．It may be a double-edged sword. |
| C．It may help improve humans’ humor. |
| D．It will attract more computer scientists. |
10 . The noble tree house—all natural materials, strong construction, aloof from the troubles of the world. In a more dangerous time in human history, their position above the ground would protect the inhabitant against environmental difficulties and possible predators. As modern construction has improved, these arboreal places have become less of a practical housing and more of a children’s fun—a secret place erected in many a back garden. But now, these fun shelters are appealing to adults too and many are booking themselves in for a few nights among the treetops.
These tree house hotels can be found From Europe to Australia. Best of all, they come in a variety of interesting designs! From the traditional four walls and a roof habitation, such as at TreeHouse Point, in Washington, North America, to the more artistic Nothofagus Hotel in Chilean Patagonia, whose twelve-sided walls make it look like a beehive. If that doesn’t appeal, how about a tree container? The Free Spirit Spheres resort on Vancouver Island in Canada allows guests to stay in one of three yellow spheres (圆球), which are suspended from trees. The company was founded in 1998 by Tom Chudleigh, who hand built the container from cedar wood and fibre glass, and then added fixtures and fittings. Not only are they as safe as houses, they’re popular! Visitor numbers have probably doubled in the past five years, Mr. Chudleigh tells the BBC.
And how about an office? Microsoft, hoping to give its employees thinking space, has commissioned (委托) a three-building structure from Pete Nelson, designer and builder of tree houses. “Studies show people can work better in nature. They are more productive,” says Mr. Nelson. If you’ve no head for heights, then maybe a tree house getaway isn’t going to be your home away from home. But the sense of adventure, the freshness of the setting and the opportunity to return to nature has given an increasing number of tree house-staying adults something to write home about.
1. The underlined word “arboreal” in paragraph one means “ ”.| A．relating to history | B．of or relating to trees |
| C．of danger | D．of secret |
| A．the company has profited a lot from tree houses |
| B．tree houses come from interesting places |
| C．Tom Chudleigh has an eye for safety |
| D．tree houses are becoming fashionable |
| A．Because people are more productive working in nature. |
| B．Because the sense of adventure make people work harder. |
| C．Because the freshness of the setting make people cooperate well. |
| D．Because people need the opportunity to return to nature. |
| A．how a tree house is built | B．the trend for tree houses |
| C．peoples’ opinions about tree houses | D．the history of tree houses |
