1 . School uniforms are becoming more and more popular across the U.S.A. That's no surprise, because they offer many benefits. They immediately remove the powerful social labels from clothing. If all students are dressed in the same way, they will not pay too much attention to their clothing, and some of them will not be laughed at for wearing the "wrong" clothes.
Some people are against the strict rule of school uniforms, but they do not realize that students already accept a kind of rule — wanting to look just like their friends.
As in other places, uniforms remind the wearers of their purposes and duties. For example, when a man or woman puts on a police uniform, he or she becomes the symbol of law and order. The uniform means his or her special duties to the wearer and sends the same message to everyone the wearer meets. People with different jobs wear different uniforms. For students, the school uniform reminds them that their task for the six or seven hours in school is to get education.
Some parents are unhappy about uniforms, saying that school uniforms will affect their children's "creativity." First, as noted above, the clothes students choose to wear do not necessarily express their individuality (个性). They just copy their classmates. Second,while students are in school, their job is to master reading, writing and maths. Mastery of those skills will be good for the students to build up their creativity in every way.
1. In Paragraph 1, the word "benefits" probably means______________.| A．tasks | B．messages | C．differences | D．advantages |
| A．prevent the wearers from being laughed at |
| B．help the wearers keep their duties in mind |
| C．are seen as a symbol of power |
| D．help to develop students’ creativity |
| A．they fail to realize that students have accepted the uniforms |
| B．they believe that uniforms will make students less creative |
| C．they don't agree that uniforms can remove social labels |
| D．they think that school uniforms are too popular |
| A．it makes no difference whether to wear school uniforms or not |
| B．students’ individuality may not come from school education |
| C．students’ creativity is related to the clothes they choose |
| D．school uniforms help to create equality among students |
2 . Time and how we experience it have always puzzled us. Physicists have created fascinating theories, but their time is measured by a pendulum (钟摆) and is not psychological time, which leaps with little regard to the clock or calendar. As someone who understood the distinction observed, ''When you sit with a nice girl for two hours it seems like a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove, a minute seems like two hours. ''
Psychologists have long noticed that larger units of time, such as months and years, fly on swifter wings as we age. They also note that the more time is structured with schedules and appointments, the more rapidly it seems to pass. For example, a day at the office flies compared with a day at the beach.
Expectation and familiarity also make time seem to flow more rapidly. Almost all of us have had the experience of driving somewhere we've never been before. Surrounded by unfamiliar scenery, with no real idea of when we’ll arrive, we experience the trip as lasing a long time. But the return trip, although exactly as long, seems to take far less time. The novelty of the outward journey has become routine.
When days become as identical as beads (小珠子)on a string, they mix together, and even months become a single day. To counter this, try to find ways to interrupt the structure of your day-- to stop time, so to speak.
Learning something new is one of the ways to slow the passage of time. One of the reasons the days of our youth seems to be full and long is that these are the days of learning and discovery. For many of us, learning ends when we leave school, but this doesn't have to be.
1. What is the underlined sentence in paragraph 1 used to show?| A．Psychological time is quite puzzling. |
| B．Time should not be measured by a pendulum. |
| C．Physical time is different from psychological time |
| D．Physical theory has nothing to do with the true sense of time |
| A．Our sense of time changes. |
| B．We spend less time at the beach |
| C．More time is structured and scheduled |
| D．Time is structured with too many appointments. |
| A．excitement | B．unfamiliarity | C．imagination | D．amusement |
| A．To give various explanations about time |
| B．To describe how we experience time physically |
| C．To show the differences of two kinds of time |
| D．To explain why time flies and how to slow it down |
3 . A business school in Paris will soon begin using artificial intelligence and facial analysis to determine whether students are paying attention in class. The software, called Nestr, is used in two online classes at the ESG business school beginning in September.
The idea, according to LCA founder Marcel Saucet, is to use the data that Nestor collects to improve the performance both students and professors. The software uses students' webcams(网络摄像头)to analyze eye movements and facial expressions and determine whether students are paying attention to a video lecture. Professors would also be able to identify moments when students' attention declined, which could help to improve their teaching.
Advocates for AI in education say the technology could be used as a digital tutor that would adapt to a student's individual needs, and help develop more effective studying habits. Such software could also help teachers by providing quantitative(定量的)feedback on the effectiveness of their teaching.
But AI programs rely on massive information of personal data. and there are concerns over how such data would be treated. Saucet says Nestor won't store any of the video footage(片段)it captures and that his company has no plans to sell any other data the software collects. In addition, some are concerned that AI may one day replace teachers.
Rose Luckin, a professor at the University College London Knowledge Lab, says AI could unlock the "black box of learning" by providing information on how and when learning happens. But she cautions(告诫)against adopting new technologies that, while alluring, may not actually respond to critical needs. She thinks a program like Nestor could be useful for students who take classes remotely, since "there isn’t a human there watching them". So Luckin sees the technology more as an assistant, rather than a replacement.
Sauce agrees. "Human contact is not going to go away, " he says. "There will always be professors."
1. How does Nestor work to tell whether students are paying attention?| A．By controlling the thoughts of students |
| B．By analyzing eye movements and facial expressions |
| C．By collecting all the data of students' performance in class |
| D．By reminding professors to pay more attention to students |
| A．Attractive |
| B．Controversial |
| C．Limited |
| D．Alarming |
| A．It will teach courses in place of teachers. |
| B．Nestor won't store any information it collects. |
| C．It can prevent students from more effective studying habits. |
| D．It can't benefit the company by selling students' data it collects. |
| A．Favorable |
| B．Doubtful |
| C．Objective |
| D．Disapproving |
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 . 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 |
6 . Life expectancy in the United States has been in decline for the first time in decades, and public health officials have identified a series of potential causes, including inaccessible health care, rising drug addiction and rates of mental health disorders, and socio-economic factors. Now, a study led by the Yale School of Medicine has attempted to find out the relative impact of two factors most often linked to life expectancy – race and education – by looking at data about 5,114 black and white participants in four U.S. cities.
The lives and deaths among this group of people – who took part in the study approximately 30 years ago when they were in their early 20s – show that the level of education, and not race, is the best predictor of who will live the longest.
Among the 5,114 people followed in the study, 395 had died. These deaths were occurring in working-age people, often with children, before the age of 60. The rates of death among participants in this group did clearly show racial differences, with approximately 9% of blacks dying at an early age compared to 6% of whites. There were also differences in causes of death by race. For instance, black men were significantly more likely to die of murder and white men from AIDS. The most common causes of death across all groups over time were cardiovascular disease and cancer.
But there were also obvious differences in rates of death by education level. Approximately 13% of participants with a high school degree or less education died compared with only approximately 5% of college graduates.
Strikingly, when looking at race and education at the same time, the researchers found that differences related to race almost disappeared: 13.5% of black subjects and 13.2% of white subjects with a high school degree or less died during the course of the study. By contrast, 5.9% of black subjects and 4.3% of whites with college degrees had died.
Therefore, improving overall quality of education is something tangible that can help reverse (扭转)this troubling trend in reduction of life expectancy among middle-aged adults.
1. What can we learn about the participants in the study?| A．The whites are more aggressive. |
| B．The whites got higher education. |
| C．More blacks than whites died young. |
| D．More whites than blacks died of cancer. |
| A．significant | B．unnoticeable |
| C．growing | D．long-lasting |
| A．Realistic. | B．Creative. |
| C．Challenging. | D．Temporary. |
| A．People can get smart through learning. |
| B．One should not discriminate other races. |
| C．People don’t enjoy equal rights for education. |
| D．One can live longer by getting more education. |
7 . In 2009, Dan Black was hit by a car in his hometown of Chepstow, Wales, as he was biking to his job at a grocery store. The accident left him unable to move from the chest down. During his recovery, he suffered a stroke that made his right arm useless. Once a promising guitarist, Dan, now 25, lives with his parents and requires around-the-clock care that costs nearly $ 300,000 a year. After the accident, a friend of his started the Help Dan Black Fund to cover some of Dan’s medical expenses. Dan learned about an experimental stem cell(干细胞) treatment in China that could enable him to walk again. After four years, donations to help Dan Black totaled nearly $ 30,000.
One day, in 2013, a news story caught the eye of Dan’s mother, Michacla, who then shared the story with her son. The story featured a five-year-old boy named Brecon Vaughan. He had a rare form of disease and never walked by himself. The boy’s family had created a website with which to raise nearly $ 100,000 needed for a trip to the St. Louis Children’s Hospital, where treatment was offered that could help Brecon walk. Only half the amount had been raised, said the report.
Dan deliberated. Then, after considering that his own dream of walking could be years away, he donated his $30,000 to Brecon’s cause. “I know how it feels to walk. Brecon doesn’t. He needs it much more than I do.” Dan told a newspaper.
Dan’s generosity received a great deal of attention, and contributions started pouring in to the Vaughan website. The family soon exceeded their fund-raising goal. They’ve promised to give the extra funds, about $17,000, to the Tree of Hope charity, which helps sick children in the United Kingdom find specialized medical help. In October, Brecon and his family travelled to St. Louis to begin treatment. “What Dan did is great.” Brecon’s mother said, “It is an extraordinary gift.”
1. What do we know about Dan Black?| A．He promised to be a guitarist. |
| B．He donated his money from his need. |
| C．He created a website to collect money. |
| D．He lost his right arm in an accident. |
| A．Achieved. | B．Brought up. |
| C．Went beyond. | D．Set. |
| A．Dan Black’s example. | B．Brecon’s story |
| C．Michaela’s suggestion. | D．The Vaughans’promise |
| A．Support Dan Black’s treatment. | B．Fund Brecon’s trip to St. Louis. |
| C．Help sick children in the UK. | D．Give away to the Tree of Hope charity. |
8 . Eating too much fatty food, exercising too little and smoking can raise your future risk of heart disease. But there is another factor that can cause your heart problems more immediately：the air you breathe.
Previous studies have linked high exposure (暴露) to environmental pollution to an increased risk of heart problems，but two analyses now show that poor air quality can lead to heart attack or stroke (中风) within as little as a few hours after exposure. In one review of the research, scientists found that people exposed to high levels of pollutants (污染物) were up to 5% more likely to suffer a heart attack within days of exposure than those with lower exposure. A separate study of stroke patients showed that even air that the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)considers to be of “moderate” (良好) quality and relatively safe for our health can raise the risk of stroke as much as 34% within 12 to 14 hours of exposure.
The authors of both studies stress that these risks are relatively small for healthy people and certainly modest compared with other risk factors such as smoking and high blood pressure. However, it is important to be aware of these dangers because everyone is exposed to air pollution regardless of lifestyle choices. So stricter regulation by the EPA of pollutants may not only improve environmental air quality but could also become necessary to protect public health.
1. The text mainly discusses the relationship between ________.| A．heart problems and air quality |
| B．heart problems and exercising |
| C．heart problems and smoking |
| D．heart problems and fatty food |
| A．relatively high | B．extremely low |
| C．relatively low | D．extremely high |
| A．Eating fatty food has immediate effects on your heart. |
| B．The EPA conducted many studies on air quality. |
| C．Moderate air quality is more harmful than smoking. |
| D．Stricter regulations on pollutants should be made. |
| A．inform | B．persuade |
| C．describe | D．entertain |
Proudly reading my words, I glanced around the room, only to find my classmates bearing big smiles on their faces and tears in their eyes. Confused, I glanced toward my stone-faced teacher. Having no choice, I slowly raised the report I had slaved over, hoping to hide myself. “What could be causing everyone to act this way?”
Quickly, I flashed back to the day Miss Lancelot gave me the task. This was the first real task I received in my new school. It seemed simple: go on the Internet and find information about a man named George Washington. Since my idea of history came from an ancient teacher in my home country, I had never heard of that name before. As I searched the name of this fellow, it became evident that there were two people bearing the same name who looked completely different! One invented hundreds of uses for peanuts, while the other led some sort of army across America. I stared at the screen, wondering which one my teacher meant. I called my grandfather for a golden piece of advice; flip (掷) a coin. Heads—the commander, and tails—the peanuts guy. Ah! Tails, my report would be about the great man who invented peanut butter, George Washington Carver.
Weeks later, standing before this unfriendly mass, I was totally lost. Oh well, I lowered the paper and sat down at my desk, burning to find out what I had done wrong. As a classmate began his report, it all became clear, “My report is on George Washington, the man who started the American Revolution.” The whole world became quite! How could I know that she meant that George Washington?
Obviously, my grade was awful. Heartbroken but fearless, I decided to turn this around. I talked to Miss Lancelot, but she insisted: No re-dos; no new grade. I felt that the punishment was not justified, and I believed I deserved a second chance. Consequently, I threw myself heartily into my work for the rest of the school year. Ten months later, that chance unfolded as I found myself sitting in the headmaster’s office with my grandfather, now having an entirely different conversation. I smiled and flashed back to the embarrassing moment at the beginning of the year as the headmaster informed me of my option to skip the sixth grade. Justice is sweet!
1. What did the author’s classmates think about his report?
| A．Controversial. | B．Ridiculous. |
| C．Boring. | D．Puzzling. |
| A．He was unfamiliar with American history. |
| B．He followed the advice and flipped a coin. |
| C．He forgot his teacher’s instruction. |
| D．He was new at the school. |
| A．annoyed | B．ashamed |
| C．ready | D．eager |
| A．by redoing his task |
| B．through his own efforts |
| C．with the help of his grandfather |
| D．under the guidance of his headmaster |
There are various kinds of apples, but a very few make up the majority of those grown for sale. The three most common kinds grown in the United States are Delicious, golden Delicious, and McIntosh.
Apples are different in colour, size, and taste. The colour of the skin may be red, green, or yellow. They have various sizes, with Delicious apples being among the largest. The taste may be sweet or tart (酸的). Generally, sweet apples are eaten fresh while tart apples are used to make applesauce (苹果酱).
Apple trees may grow as tall as twelve metres. They do best in areas that have very cold winters. Although no fruit is yielded during the winter, this cold period is good for the tree.
1. It can be learned from the text that Delicious apples are _______________
| A．grown in France. | B．sold everywhere. | C．very big. | D．quite sweet. |
| A．the growth of apple trees. | B．producing large apples. |
| C．improving the taste of apples. | D．the increase of water in apples. |
| A．be large producers of apples. |
| B．be large producers of applesauce. |
| C．have the longest history in apple production. |
| D．have the coldest winter among apple producing countries. |
| A．improved. | B．increased. | C．produced. | D．sold. |
