1 . Great Barrier Reef Choking on Pollutants
Attempts to protect the Great Barrier Reef are failing. A report released Monday by the government in Australia says water quality in the Great Barrier Reef is far below what it should be. It showed that pollution have decreased, but not enough to reach environmental targets.
Sediment (沉淀物) and chemicals can weaken coral, hurting its ability to feed and grow. Coral are live animals that take root in the ocean floor, but they are not plants. Reefs are the hard skeletons (骨架) left at the bottom of the sea by small marine creatures called polyps (珊瑚虫). The polyps then form the larger structure of a reef. Corals also are some of the most diverse ecosystems on the entire planet. They can make a home for invertebrates, crustaceans, fish, and sea snakes.
Steve Miles is Queensland’s environment minister. He says the research shows the Reef needs more protection. “Over that five-year period, we did see some progress towards our targets. Sediment is down 12 percent and pesticides (杀虫剂) loads are down 30 percent. But what is most disturbing is that these results are far from our targets. Progress towards these targets flat-lined in the period 2013-2014. If one of my kids came home with a report card like this, I would be a bit disappointed. There is more bad news here than good news. ” said Steve Miles.
The report also found that fewer than one-third of Queensland’s sugar plantations used techniques to reduce the use of pesticides. Only 28 percent of land managers managed their land properly. They had reduced harmful water run off to protect the health of the Reef. The official target is a 90 percent reduction in pesticide use within three years.
Scientists at the University of Queensland and the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences published their findings Wednesday, July 18 in the journal Science Advances. It found between 1992 and 2010, the recovery rate dropped by an average of 84 percent. But there is hope. The study also found some corals can recover quickly if “acute and chronic stressors” are lessened.
Meanwhile, the Australian government released its updated reef protection plan Friday. It clearly states global temperatures must be stopped from rising in order to save the world’s largest living structure.
1. What does the underlined word “They” in Paragraph 2 refer to?| A．Diverse ecosystems. | B．Sediment and chemicals. |
| C．Reefs and corals. | D．Small sea creatures. |
| A．He is satisfied with the protection of the Reef. |
| B．He thinks that the Reef needs more protection. |
| C．He feels angry with what his children did. |
| D．He is very happy about the Reef progress protection. |
| A．Not increase significantly. | B．Disappear. |
| C．Speed up. | D．Miss the chance. |
| A．were tough to deal with | B．failed to manage their land properly |
| C．reduced the amount of harmful water | D．were eager to quit pesticide soon |
| A．A news report. | B．A science fiction. |
| C．A book review. | D．A guide book. |
2 . Many parents worry that showing negative emotions in front of their children will cause them to suffer. For example, children may end up thinking it's their fault or simply "catch" the emotion. Indeed, this worry has a sound basis — the phenomenon of “emotional contagion"（情绪感染）is real, and one recent study found that parents can transfer their fear of going to the dentist, for example, to their children.
On the other hand, there is the natural idea that we should “be real" with our children, and that they will benefit from watching a parent who struggles and eventually deals with their negative emotions like any other human being.
There are three concepts to consider when it comes to emotional display in front of children: suppression （压抑），"uncontained" expression, and talking about emotions. Suppression of emotion is when you hide the outward signs of an emotion. Unfortunately, it doesn't work very well — the act of suppressing your emotion actually increases your blood pressure. Observers can pick up on your distress despite your efforts to hide it, making them feel stressed. The recent research has also found that when parents feel negative emotions and keep them from their children, they experience lower relationship quality and decreased responsiveness to their child's needs.
On the other hand, “uncontained" expression of anger and sadness by the parent is also not salutary for the child. Uncontained means high intensity emotion, with no attempts to regulate or take ownership of it. Shouting, smashing （摔）things and blaming someone else for "making you angry" are all example of this .
So, what is the middle ground? That would be talking about emotion taking ownership of them and showing your child that you are trying to deal with them. Classic research found that six-year-old kids had better emotional understanding and perspective-taking skills if their mothers had talked to them about their emotions at the age of three. In fact, the more the mothers had talked, the better the outcome would be.
So next time you feel sad, angry or frustrated and your child is watching you expressing emotion, do explain what's going on in terms they can understand.
1. The author uses the example of going to the dentist mainly to _______.| A．explain parents' common fear |
| B．introduce the topic of negative emotions |
| C．show children may catch parents' emotions |
| D．present the consequences of transferring negative emotions |
| A．she will not make her kids feel stressed |
| B．she can hide her emotions from her kids |
| C．she will often shout at her kids for no reasons |
| D．she can't respond effectively to her kids' needs |
| A．Enough. | B．Beneficial. |
| C．Necessary. | D．Reliable. |
| A．To encourage parents to "be real" with our children. |
| B．To call on parents to develop a positive attitude to life. |
| C．To inform parents of the consequences of negative emotions. |
| D．To recommend parents to talk about negative emotions with children. |
A． | B． |
C． | D． |
3 . News anchors(主播) must have been reluctant to read out the following news: Xin Xiaomeng began working as the world’s first female artificial(人工的) intelligence news anchor at Xinhua News Agency on Sunday, three months after a male robot joined the profession.
Unlike previous news robots though, Xin does not read news like a cold machine; she reads it almost like a human being. The muscles on her face stretch and relax — and her reactions change as she continues reading. That’s why many news anchors were worried: Will AI replace us in the near future?
To find the answer, we have to analyze the technologies that support Xin at her job. Three key technologies are used to support Xin. First, samples of human voices are collected and synthesized (合成). This is followed by the collection and synthesis of human muscle movement samples. And third the voices and movements are married in a way that when the AI news anchor reads, the micro- electric motors behind her face move to make her expressions seem more human.
Yet we need a thorough knowledge of deep learning technology to make a robot imitate a person’s voice. The developer needs to collect tens of thousands of pieces of pronunciations, input them into the machine and match them with the text for the AI to learn and read. The process for imitating facial movements is similar. The developer has to analyze the movements of the 53 muscles in the human face, make a model set from the collected data for the AI news anchor to learn, and imitate the movements of facial muscles via programs
Both the technologies used to make Xin’s performance impressive are mature. The real difficulty lies in the third — the technology to match the pronunciations with facial movements so that Xin’s expressions vary according to the content of the news report. In fact, Xin’s expressions don’t always change according to the content. As a result, her expressions look anything but human. Actually, AI is still no match for human qualities.
1. What does the underlined word “reluctant” in the first paragraph mean?| A．Delighted | B．Unwilling |
| C．Confused | D．Optimistic |
| A．They read news without expressions. | B．They looked like a human being. |
| C．They could interview sports stars. | D．They could interact with audience. |
| A．human news anchors should learn from AI anchors to save their jobs |
| B．Al anchors perform much better than human news anchors at present |
| C．Al news anchors won’t replace human news anchors in the near future |
| D．Xin Xiaomeng’s expressions vary so naturally that they are true to life |
4 . When you were at school, the last thing you probably wanted to do was to spend your weekends going to work. There was homework to do, sport to play and fun to have. But our parents probably persuaded us to find a job to earn some money and get some life experience. When I was a teenager I had a paper round: delivering newspapers to people’s homes.
Today in the UK you are allowed to work from the age of 13, and many children do take up part-time jobs. It’s one of those things that are seen almost as a rite of passage (成人仪式). It’s a taste of independence and sometimes a useful thing to put on your CV（简历). Teenagers agree that it teaches valuable lessons about working with adults and also about managing their own money.
Some research has shown that not taking up a Saturday or holiday job could be deleterious to a person later on. A 2015 study by the UK Commission on Employment and Skills found that not participating in part-time work at school age had been blamed by employers’ organizations for young adults being ill-prepared for full-time employment, but despite this, recent statistics have shown that the number of schoolchildren in the UK with a part-time job has fallen by a fifth in the past five years.
So does this mean that British teenagers are now afraid of hard work? Probably not. Some experts feel that young people feel going out to work will affect their performance at school and they are under some pressure now to study hard and get good exam result and a good job in the long term. However, Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, told BBC News that “Properly regulated part-time work is a good way of helping young people learn skills that they will need in their working lives.” In reality, it’s all about getting the right balance between doing part-time work and having enough time to study and rest.
Many young people actually want to work because it gives them a sense of freedom. One 13-year-old girl called Rachel, who has a Saturday job in a shop, told the BBC that “I enjoy my job because I’m earning money and it helps me socialize with people I work with.” That seems like something worth getting up for a Saturday morning. Did you do a part-time job when you were at school?
1. What conclusion can we draw from Para2?| A．Children over 13 in the UK must take up part-time jobs. |
| B．Taking up part-time jobs is good for students in many ways. |
| C．Students taking up part-time jobs are more independent. |
| D．Taking up part-time jobs can help students save money. |
| A．Threatening. | B．Important. |
| C．Beneficial. | D．Harmful. |
| A．Because they are not ready to go out to work. |
| B．Because they cannot endure hardships. |
| C．Because they want to study hard and get good academic performance. |
| D．Because they lack confidence and skills needed to work. |
| A．Students should put all their energies into their studies. |
| B．It is good for students to do part-time jobs as long as they are proper. |
| C．Students with good grades and no study pressure can do part-time jobs. |
| D．The more part-time jobs they do, the more beneficial it is for students. |
| A．Should schoolchildren have part-time jobs? |
| B．What kind of part-time job should schoolchildren do? |
| C．What benefits can part-time jobs bring to schoolchildren? |
| D．Why do British schoolchildren show less interest in part-time jobs? |
5 . Imagine your body is like the house you live in. Every day, your family creates rubbish. The rubbish builds up until it is put out for the weekly garbage collection.
Now, say you put three bags of garbage out, but because one of the collectors was away sick, only two bags are collected. You take the leftover bag inside to be put out again next week. The following week you put out another three bags, plus the leftover bag from last week. But again, only two bags are collected. Imagine this cycle is repeated over the following weeks.
This is a simple description of what happens to your body when your kidneys (肾) don’t work efficiently. Your body is not thoroughly emptied of waste products. Other areas of the body such as blood pressure and red blood cell production are affected and the insidious process that may lead to kidney failure begins.
It’s not uncommon for people to lose up to 90 percent of their kidney function before developing any symptoms. There may be no warning signs. This makes early detection(诊察) difficult.
Kidney’s main job is to remove toxins (毒素) and unwanted water from our blood. Every day our kidneys clean an average of 200 litres of blood. Kidney failure may be a gradual and silent process, going unnoticed because there is no apparent pain.
Research shows that more than 25 percent of patients found to require dialysis (透析) do not see a kidney specialist until less than 90 days before dialysis starts. Some risk factors for kidney disease such as age and genetic make-up are out of our control; however, some changes in lifestyle may help prevent kidney damage. Two major risk factors for kidney disease, diabetes and high blood pressure, have been on the rise over the last few decades. Both conditions are chiefly affected by being overweight and not getting enough exercise, which are the potential factors for the disease.
1. The author gives the example of the house we live in to indicate that ________.| A．it’s safe and harmless for our body to keep some waste |
| B．it doesn’t matter much if the waste in our body is not emptied in time |
| C．it’s important for our body to empty the waste in time every day |
| D．our body will not produce any waste if our kidneys work efficiently |
| A．gradual and unnoticed | B．apparent and fast |
| C．smooth and safe | D．painful and long |
| A．the kidney failure begins |
| B．the kidneys may have been seriously damaged |
| C．we have lost about 10 percent of kidney function |
| D．the kidneys can still work properly |
| A．Three. | B．Four. | C．Five. | D．Six. |
| A．Go to see a kidney specialist shortly before dialysis starts. |
| B．Go to see a kidney specialist whenever you find any warning sign. |
| C．Try to keep low blood pressure and a stable lifestyle. |
| D．Take enough exercise and make early detection of kidney disease. |
6 . Nobel prize-winners, legendary (传奇的) authors, and famous scientists — you might think all these people were born to be creative. However, that's not always the case.
While well-known figures like Pablo Picasso and Albert Einstein did their most significant (重要的) work in their youth, famous American poet Robert Frost and English-born natural scientist Charles Darwin were known as "late bloomers" – people whose talents were not noticeable until later in life.
This idea of "peaking" at different times inspired new research from the United States. "Many people believe that creativity is exclusively (独有地) associated (有联系的) with youth, but it really depends on what kind of creativity you're talking about," said Bruce Weinburg, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago and co-author of the study.
According to the study, published earlier this month in the journal De Economist, there are two types of people: conceptual (概念的) and experimental thinkers.
To reach this conclusion, researchers took the 31 previous winners of the Nobel Prize in economics and arranged them according to when they did their most significant work, to identify (识别) their creative peaks.
Some peaked from ages 25-29. Classified as conceptual thinkers, these people think outside of the box, coming up with new ideas before they become used to the conventional way of doing things.
The second creative peak came with economists in their 50s. These are experimental thinkers who have been in their field for a long time. This allows them to learn from errors and experiment with different processes, before eventually finding new solutions.
"Whether you hit your creative peak early or late in your career depends on whether you have a conceptual or experimental approach," said Weinburg. He added that their study isn't limited to economics, saying it can apply to other creative disciplines (知识领域). So if you're struggling to come up with new ideas, don't panic. Your creative peak may be yet to arrive.
1. What did the study from the US find?| A．Young people are not necessary more creative than the old people. |
| B．Most people take a conceptual approach when thinking. |
| C．One's creative peak is related to their job type. |
| D．Conceptual and experimental thinkers hit their peaks at different times. |
| A．Easy. | B．Unusual. |
| C．Traditional. | D．Appropriate. |
| A．Their talents usually bloom in their 20s. |
| B．They are good at doing experiments. |
| C．They work out new methods based on experience. |
| D．They are more successful than conceptual thinkers. |
| A．It's difficult to find one's talent in later years. |
| B．More research needs to be done about creative peaks. |
| C．Conceptual thinkers could be more successful in the art field. |
| D．Experimental thinkers from other fields may be most successful in their 50s. |
