1 . The Broomstick (扫帚) Challenge, which appeared on social media on Monday, is based on incorrect science, according to NASA.
The challenge originated from a viral twitter, which claimed that NASA said Monday is the only day a broomstick could stand on its own because of the earth’s gravity (引力）.The twitter was accompanied by a video of a woman propping a broom up. As the woman watched the broom stand up on its own, she yelled, “No strings, nothing.”
Though there was no evidence that NASA ever suggested that gravity would be different on Monday, the twitter, which received more than 260,000 likes and was shared more than 60,000 times, gained hundreds of responses from people who wanted to participate in the “novelty”of watching a broom stand up by itself.
Yet NASA astronaut Alvin Drew and scientist Sarah Noble, who responded to the Broomstick Challenge on Twitter, say that the challenge can actually be conducted on any given day. The pair posted their own video of them standing up a broom on Tuesday, to show that even though the window for the challenge had passed, it was still actionable.
“Did you do the Broomstick Challenge yesterday?”Noble asked in the video.“Well, turns out you can do it again today.”
“It’s just physics,” Drew added.
The NASA Earth twitter account also weighed in saying “There’s no special gravity that only affects brooms, but the Moon’s gravity creates tides on Earth.”
The myth, which is partly based on an old wives’ tale that claims that every year on the
Vernal and autumnal equinoxes, eggs are able to balance on their ends, appears to have surfaced annually since at least 2012.
1. What can we infer from the text ?| A．The special gravity only has impact on brooms. |
| B．A broomstick could stand on its own on Monday. |
| C．The twitter received more than 260,000 responses. |
| D．The Broomstick Challenge gained much popularity. |
| A．Being surprising but dangerous. | B．Being new and interesting. |
| C．Being challenging and frightening. | D．Being clear and obvious. |
| A．Eggs can also stand on their ends. |
| B．Tides are created by the Moon’s gravity. |
| C．Physics can help us explain the phenomenon. |
| D．A broomstick could stand on its own on a specific day. |
| A．To appeal to more people to learn physics. |
| B．To introduce the process of Broomstick Challenge. |
| C．To persuade people to try broom standing experiment. |
| D．To explain the broom’s standing up on its own is not magic. |
2 . It’s often said that creative people see the world differently from the rest of us and a Harvard study is providing one explanation.Scientists studied brain scans of people after asking them to come up with creative uses for everyday objects.And they found a specific pattern of connectivity that correlated with the most creative responses.
“What this shows is that the creative brain works differently,”said Roger Beaty,the first author of the study.Beaty and colleagues examined brain data from previous studies and found that,by simply measuring the strength of connections in these people’s brain networks,they could estimate the originality of these people’s ideas.
While the data showed that regions across the brain were involved in creative thought,Beaty said the evidence pointed to three subnetworks.And they were the default mode(默认状态)network,the salience(突出)network and the executive(管理的)control network.They appear to play key roles in creative thought.The default mode network, he said,is involved in memory and mental acting,so the theory is that it plays an important role in processes like mind-wandering,imagination,and natural thinking.The salience network notices important information.When it comes to creativity,it may be responsible for arranging the ideas that come from the default mode network.Lastly,the executive control network works to help people keep their focus on useful ideas while getting rid of those that aren’t working.Beaty said,“People who think more flexibly and come up with more creative ideas are better able to use these networks that don’t typically work together and bring these systems online.”
Based on the results of that study,Beaty and colleagues developed a predictive model and tested against brain scan data collected for earlier studies on creativity.“We used already-published data...we found that based on how strong the connections are in these networks,we could guess pretty accurately how creative you’re going to be on a task,”Beaty said.He added,“It’s also not clear whether this can be modified with some kind of training.Creativity is complex,and we’re only working on the surface here.”
1. What were the participants asked to do in the study?| A．To tell scientists their different ways of seeing the world. |
| B．To show their special ways to connect with others. |
| C．To talk about their most exciting experiences. |
| D．To think of new uses of ordinary objects. |
| A．Improve. | B．Judge. | C．Spread. | D．Praise. |
| A．giving up useless ideas | B．organizing thoughts |
| C．making decisions | D．brainstorming |
| A．The study is very helpful in determining one’s creativity levels. |
| B．We can become more creative with the help of some training. |
| C．Enough work has been done to better understand creativity. |
| D．Some people can be born with higher levels of creativity. |
3 . The bad health effects of sleep loss during the week can’t be repaid by longer weekend sleep, according to a new study.
Researchers have long known that sleep deprivation (剥夺) can cause weight gain and increase other health risks. But for those who force themselves out of bed every weekday after too few hours of shut eye, they hope turning off the alarm on Saturday and Sunday will repay the weekly sleep debt and remove any ill effects.
The research, published in Current Biology, crushes those hopes. Despite complete freedom to sleep during a weekend recovery period, people in a sleep lab who were limited to five hours of sleep on weekdays gained nearly three pounds over two weeks and experienced disorders that would increase their risk for diabetes over the long term. While weekend recovery sleep had some benefits after a single week of sleep loss, those gains were wiped out when people fell right back into their same sleep deprived schedule the next Monday.
''If there are benefits of catch-up sleep, they're gone when you go back to your daily schedule. It's very short lived'', said Kenneth Wright, director of the sleep and chronobiology lab at the University of Colorado at Boulder. ''These health effects are long term. It's kind of like smoking once was-people would smoke and wouldn't see an immediate effect on their health, but people will say now that smoking is not a healthy lifestyle choice. I think sleep is in the early stage of where smoking used to be.''
Wright said that the study suggests people should put sleep in the first place cutting out the ''sleep stealers'' such as watching television shows or spending time on their phones. Even when people don't have a choice about losing sleep because of child-care responsibilities or job schedules, they should think about getting sleep in the same way they would get a healthy diet or exercise.
1. What does the underlined word ''rushes'' mean?| A．Ruins. | B．Guarantees. |
| C．Deepens. | D．Arouses. |
| A．Smoking is more harmful than sleep loss. |
| B．Weekend recovery sleep has many benefits. |
| C．Smoking and sleep loss have the same bad effects. |
| D．It takes long for people to see the effects of sleep loss. |
| A．Take regular exercise every day. |
| B．Reduce the screen time before sleep. |
| C．Watch some TV shows before bedtime. |
| D．Sleep as long as possible during weekdays. |
| A．To share some unhappy experiences. | B．To show some unknown facts. |
| C．To promote a healthy lifestyle. | D．To introduce a new study. |
4 . A first-year undergraduate student in Chengdu, recently complained online that her mother refused to raise her monthly allowance to 4,500 yuan ( $ 633) even when she said her current allowance 2, 000 yuan was not enough to cover her expenses, sparking a debate on how much money a college student needs per month. One expert shares his views on the issue with China Daily: Students should pursue education, not comfort.
Even for a college student studying in a first-tier city in China, 2,000 yuan is enough to cover all his or her monthly expenses. In fact, for a college student in Chengdu a monthly allowance of 2,000 yuan is more than enough. According to a survey conducted by a bookkeeping platform, the average monthly expense for an undergraduate in cities other than Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou was less than 2,000 yuan in 2019； for Chengdu, it was 1,900 yuan.
Claiming that she can hardly afford new clothing and cosmetics with her 2,000 yuan monthly allowance, the undergraduate student in Chengdu criticized her mother for refusing to raise her pocket money. Her "meager" allowance, she said, prevented her from buying branded goods that her hostel-mates enjoyed.
By the time a person enters a college, she or he should have developed a healthy consumption habit. And a youth should adjust her or his consumption according to her or his family income. On a deeper level, the money they spend in college should depend on how much they value their parents' hard work. Besides, some college students could take UP part-time jobs to meet their monetary needs if they feel their parents don't or can't send them enough money. In this way they can also learn to meet the requirements of life in the future and develop healthy consumption habits. More importantly, they should always bear in mind that education is their top priority in college
1. What's the expert's attitude to the issue about the undergraduate student?| A．He was critical. |
| B．He was neutral. |
| C．He was supportive. |
| D．He was unconcerned. |
| A．more than 2,000 | B．633 dollars |
| C．less than 2,000 yuan | D．1,900 yuan |
| A．Empty. | B．Pitiful. |
| C．Mean. | D．Fruitful. |
| A．College students should keep their expenses in line with their family conditions. |
| B．College students consumption level is determined by their parents. |
| C．College students should take up a part-time job to cover their expenses . |
| D．College students should deal with their living expenses problems reasonably. |
5 . Both of my parents worked fulltime when I was a little girl，so my grandmother would stay at our house during the day. We would watch game shows in the living room. Our favorite was The Price Is Right. We would call out our answers along with the contestants.
When I got older and started going to school，we couldn’t watch our game shows regularly. That was okay with me，though，because the one thing I liked better than watching game shows with my grandmother was helping her bake cakes. Watching her in the kitchen was amazing：she never seemed to need the recipes（食谱）but everything she made tasted delicious.
At first I would just sit in the kitchen and watch，even though I didn’t understand what she was doing. As I got older，she let me help with the easy parts，such as measuring the sugar. The day she let me separate the eggs，I felt like I had found complete pleasure.
At last，my parents decided that I could take care of myself，and my grandmother stopped coming over every day. The love of baking，however，stayed with me. I started baking by myself，and even if the cookies ended up burnt sometimes，more often they turned out pretty well. I tried out new recipes，and whenever I got to a thorny part，I would call my grandmother for advice. Sometimes I would call her just to talk too. I felt like I could talk to her about anything.
My grandmother passed away ten years ago，but I still think of her every day. Last week，I found a recipe book she made for me. It included her recipes for brownies，cookies，and my favorite，lemon pie. As I looked through the pages，I thought I could hear her voice. She was the one who taught me not just about baking，but about life.
1. The passage is mainly developed by .| A．analyzing causes | B．making comparisons |
| C．following the time order | D．examining differences |
| A．found it interesting | B．turned out to be a troublemaker |
| C．hoped to make a living by baking | D．regretted missing the game shows |
| A．Basic. | B．Common. |
| C．Special. | D．Difficult. |
| A．To describe her childhood memories. | B．To show her good baking skills. |
| C．To remember her grandmother. | D．To talk about her happy family life. |
6 . When it comes to the most famous 20th century painters of the United States, Grandma Moses should be mentioned, although she did not start painting until she was in her late seventies. As she once said to herself , “I would never sit back in a rocking chair, waiting for someone to help me”. No one could have had a more active old age．
She was born on a farm in New York State, one of five boys and five girls. At 12 she left home and was in domestic service until at 27 she married Thomas Moses, the hired hand of one of her employers. They farmed most of their lives, first in Virginia and then in New York State, at Eagle Bridge. She had ten children, of whom five survived; her husband died in 1927．
Grandma Moses painted a little as a child and made embroidery (刺绣) pictures as a hobby, but only changed to oils in old age because her hands became too stiff (僵硬的) to sew and she still wanted to keep busy and pass the time. Her pictures were first sold at the local drugstore and at a market and were soon noticed by a businessman who bought all that she painted. Three of the pictures were exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art, and in 1940 she had her first exhibition in New York. Between the 1930’s and her death, she produced some 2,000 pictures: careful and lively portrayals of the country life she had known for so long, with a wonderful sense of color and form. “I think really hard till I think of something really pretty, and then I paint it” she said．
1. What can we learn about Moses?| A．She stopped painting in her late seventies. |
| B．She still led an active life when she was old. |
| C．Her marriage life was not happy. |
| D．She painted oils as a child. |
| A．Embroidering. | B．Farming. |
| C．Nursing. | D．Painting. |
| A．Directions. | B．Stages. |
| C．Surveys. | D．Descriptions. |
| A．Grandma Moses: the Best Woman Painter |
| B．Grandma Moses and Her Farm Life |
| C．Grandma Moses and Her Exhibition |
| D．Grandma Moses : A Famous Woman Painter of 20th Century |
7 . Life affects (影响) friendships. As we grow, marry, fight in wars, move across the country or change jobs, old friendships fall away and new ones form. As long as we live, the things around us change, and as long as things change, friendships are affected.
When we were children, we had best friends. No matter what happened we were still friends. We live our lives, however, and do what life calls for us to do, and as we got older, memories fade, faces blur, and even friend’s names from childhood are forgotten.
Do you have a question about friendship? Do you wonder what to do with a friend who is no longer friendly? Perhaps you will see that you can’t control others. If someone wants to be your friend, it is their choice. All you can do is treat them well and do the best for them when you are with them. Then you wish them well when they leave.
You can talk to old timers (老前辈) and they will tell you that life is full of joy and sorrow, and that what bothers you today will one day becomes a memory and the pain will be gone. Seniors might tell you that you will learn more as you get older. They will tell you that friendships come and friendships go. Sometimes when they go, it will hurt, but you will be okay with it. It’s the way life works, after all.
1. What doe the text tell us about friendship?| A．It may change with time. |
| B．It affects our life deeply. |
| C．It is easy to build a friendship. |
| D．It is wrong to forget a friend. |
| A．Get recognized more easily. |
| B．Become less clear. |
| C．Turn less attractive. |
| D．Grow more beautiful. |
| A．Make good choices about friends. |
| B．Stop old friends from leaving. |
| C．Learn to accept new friends. |
| D．Take good care of friends. |
| A．They have a positive attitude to life. |
| B．They believe friends hurt each other. |
| C．They regard friendship as a treasure. |
| D．They stress the importance of memory. |
8 . Any foreigner who has tried to learn Chinese can tell how hard it is to master the tones required to speak and understand. And anyone who has tried to learn to play the violin or other instruments can report similar challenges.
Now researchers have found that people with musical training have an easier time learning Chinese. Writing in the online edition of Nature Neuroscience，researchers from Northwestern University say that both skills draw on the same parts of the brain that help people discover changes in pitch(音调).
One of the study's authors，Nina Kraus，said the findings suggested that studying music “actually tunes our sensory system”.This means that schools that want children to do well in languages should hesitate before cutting music programs，Dr. Kraus said. She said music training might also help children with language problems.
Mandarin(普通话)speakers have been shown to have a more complex encoding(编码) of pitch patterns in their brains than English speakers do. This is because in Mandarin and other Asian languages，pitch plays a central role. A singlesyllable word can have several meanings depending on how it is intoned.
For this study，the researchers looked at 20 nonChinese speaking volunteers，half with no musical background and half who have studied an instrument for at least six years.
As they were shown a movie，the volunteers also heard an audio tape of the Mandarin word “mi” in three of its meanings:squint，bewilder and rice. The researchers recorded activities in their brain stems to see how well they were processing the sounds. Those with a music background showed much more brain activities in response to the Chinese sounds.
The lead author of the study，Patrick C.M.Wong，said it might work both ways. It appears that native speakers of tonal languages may do better at learning instruments.
1. When learning Chinese，a foreigner will find ________.| A．he has a difficult time learning music at the same time |
| B．he has an easier time learning music at the same time |
| C．it is hard to master the tones required to speak and understand |
| D．it is easy to use the brain to help him discover changes in pitch |
| A．Because there is the same difficulty in learning Chinese and music. |
| B．Because skills to learn the two make use of the same parts of the brain. |
| C．Because music training might help people with language study. |
| D．Because people who do well in Chinese study do well in music. |
| A．created | B．spelled | C．seemed | D．pronounced |
| A．Mandarin Speakers Are Smarter than English Speakers |
| B．Skilled Ear for Music May Help Language Study |
| C．Pitch Plays a Central Role in Chinese Learning |
| D．Schools Need to Develop Music Programs |
I know lots of women who skip（跳过）breakfast , and they have a ton of different excuses for doing it . Some say they don’t have time.Others think they’re “saving” calories （卡路里）, still others just don’t like breakfast food .
But the bottom line is that eating in the morning is very important when you’re trying to lose weight.
“Eating just about anything from 300 to 400 calories would be better than nothing at all,” says Katherine Brooking , R , D , who developed the super-easy eating plan for this year’s “SELF CHALLENGE”. And even pizza can be healthy if it’s loaded with vegetables, and you stick to one small piece.
Breakfast is one meal I never miss, and the same goes for most weight loss success stories. Research shows that eating breakfast keeps you from overeating later in the day. Researchers at the University of Southern California found that breakfast skippers have a bigger chance of gaining weight than those who regularly have a morning meal.
So eat something in the morning, anything. I know plenty of friends who end up having no breakfast altogether, and have just coffee or orange juice. I say, try heating up last night’s leftovers-it may sound crazy, but if it works for you, do it! I find if I tell myself, “You can always eat it tomorrow,” I put away the leftovers instead of eating more that night. Try it…you may save yourself some pre-bedtime calories. And watch your body gain the fat-burning effects.
1. The word “leftovers” in Paragraph 1 probably means__________.
| A．food remaining after a meal | B．things left undone |
| C．meals made of vegetables | D．pizza topped with fruit |
| A．Working women usually have breakfast in a hurry. |
| B．Many people have wrong ideas about breakfast. |
| C．There are some easy ways of cooking a meal. |
| D．Eating vegetables helps save energy. |
| A．eat something for breakfast | B．be careful about what you eat |
| C．heat up food before eating it | D．eat calorie-controlled food |
| A．who go to work early | B．who want to lose weight |
| C．who stay up late | D．who eat before sleep |
10 . My 17-year-old daughter went off to college and having her away from home brought back memories of watching Peter Pan when she was little. In the classic TV production, one scene in particular impressed me: when Mrs. Darling puts her children into bed. As she turns off the last of the night light, she takes one last look at the bedroom and says, “Dear night lights protect my sleeping children.” As a mother, I know how much she loves her children.
It has been several weeks since we took our daughter to college and she seems to be adjusting well after a short period of homesickness. For us, though, it’s another story. Like most parents, I love checking in on my children at night. But now she’s gone, and I find night times the hardest. I miss her most at night.
In my neighborhood, most of the parents whose kids are off to college are dealing with similar melancholy. My husband is filled with anxiety. One friend talked about getting this sick feeling in her stomach as she prepared for the college drop-off. We complained that many of us were too busy to truly enjoy being with our children while we had them.
For us moms, seeing Toy Story 3 only made the sadness worse as we watched the character Andy, who is the same age as our kids, say goodbye to his childhood as he prepares to leave for college. And it’s not just “first-time” parents like me. Two moms who have kids already well into college said the separation didn’t get any easier. “You feel like something has been taken away from inside you，” said one of them.
I imagine things will get easier with time, especially as I see my daughter adjust to college life. Meanwhile, as I keep my cell phone close to me in bed and text my daughter goodnight and sweet dreams every night, I like to think at messages serve as a night light that keeps her safe.
1. The writer was deeply impressed by the scene in Peter Pan because ________.| A．she watched the scene with her daughter |
| B．the scene was very exciting and interesting |
| C．the scene taught her and her daughter a good lesson |
| D．as a mother, she understood how much a mother loved her children |
| A．didn’t get used to the change for a long time |
| B．often cried as she missed her daughter so much |
| C．realized she hadn’t done enough for her daughter |
| D．failed to have a good sleep every night |
| A．Happiness. | B．Anger. |
| C．Sadness. | D．Excitement. |
| A．To call her daughter any time. | B．To wait for her daughter’s calls. |
| C．To say good night to her daughter. | D．To wait for her daughter’s messages. |
