1 . In a large survey of people's first memories, nearly 40% of participants reported a first memory that is likely to be fictional, according to findings published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
Current research indicates that people's earliest memories date from around 3 to 3. 5 years of age. However, the study from researchers at City, University of London, the University of Bradford, and Nottingham Trent University found that 38.6% of 6, 641 participants claimed to have memories from age 2 or younger, with 893 people claiming memories from age 1 or younger. This was particularly prevalent among middle-aged and older adults.
As many of these memories dated before the age of 2 and younger, the authors suggest that these fictional memories are based on remembered fragments(碎片) of early experience—such as a pram(婴儿车)，family relationships and feeling sad—and some facts or knowledge about their own infancy or childhood which may have been derived from photographs or family conversations.
“Further details may be unconsciously inferred or added, e. g. that one was wearing nappy when standing in the cot(幼儿床)," added Shazia Akhatr, first author on the study and Senior Research Associate at the University of Bradford.
“When we looked through the responses from participants we found that a lot of these first 'memories' were frequently related to infancy, and a typical example would be a memory based around a pram," explained Martin Conway, Director at the Centre for Memory and Law at City, University of London and coauthor of the paper.
“For this person, this type of memory could have resulted from someone saying something like 'mother and a large green pram'. The person then imagines what it would have looked like. Over time these fragments then become a memory and often the person will start to add things in such as a string of toys along the top," he added.
"Crucially, the person remembering them doesn't know this is fictional," Conway noted. "In fact when people are told that their memories are false they often don't believe it. This partly due to the fact that the systems that allow us to remember things are very complex, and it's not until we're 5 or 6 that we form adult-like memories due to the way that the brain develops and due to our maturing understanding of the world.
1. What does the underlined word "prevalent" in Paragraph 2 probably mean?| A．Unique. | B．Crazy. | C．Common. | D．Doubtful. |
| A．Some people have clear knowledge about their own infancy. |
| B．Added details are an important clue to recall the childhood. |
| C．Most people claimed to have memories from age 2 or younger. |
| D．Talks between family members influence the earliest memories. |
| A．By making comparison. | B．By setting examples. |
| C．By analyzing data. | D．By referring to documents. |
| A．Many people's earliest memories may be fictional. |
| B．People's earliest memories can date back to 2 or younger. |
| C．The middle-aged and adults specialize in detailing their first memory. |
| D．Memories develop due to our maturing understanding of the world. |
2 . Fou Ts'ong, a Chinese-born pianist known for his sensitive interpretations of Chopin, Debussy and Mozart.died on Monday at a hospital in London, where he had lived for many years. He was 86.
A lover of classical music from a young age, Mr. Fou began taking piano lessons when he was 7. Mr. Fou made his first stage appearance in 1952. The concert caught the attention of officials in Beijing, who selected him to compete and tour in Eastern Europe. Mr. Fou soon moved to Poland, where he studied at the Warsaw Conservatory(音乐学校)on a scholarship. To prepare for the fifth Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 1955.he practiced so diligently that he hurt his fingers and was nearly cut from the first round of the competition.
Mr. Fou was one of the first Chinese pianists to achieve global prominence when he took the third place in the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1955. He also won a special prize for his performance of Chopin's mazurkas(马祖卜舞曲). Almost overnight, he became a national hero. To China, Mr. Fou's recognition in a well-known international competition was proof that the country could stand on its own artistically in the West. Chinese reporters flocked to interview Mr. Fou, while many others sought out his father, Fu Lei, for advice on child-rearing.
In 1981, a volume of letters written by his father, primarily to Mr. Fou, was published in China. Full of advice, encouragement, life teachings and strict paternal love, the book Fu Lei's Family, Letters became a best-seller in China. Besides influencing a generation of Chinese, Mr. Fu's words resonated(共鸣)long after his death with the person for whom they were intended.
"My father had a saying that 'First you must be a person, then an artist, and then a musician, and only then can you be a pianist.'" Mr. Fou once recalled in an interview. "Even now, I believe in this order-that it should be this way and that I am this way."
1. What can be learned from Paragraph 2?| A．Fou Ts'ong competed and toured in Beijing. |
| B．Fou Ts'ong first performed on the stage at 7. |
| C．Fou Ts'ong made great efforts for competitions. |
| D．Fou Ts'ong started learning music in Eastern Europe. |
| A．It earns Chinese art a place in the West. |
| B．It promotes the spread of Chinese culture. |
| C．It proves Chinese people's talent for music. |
| D．It enables Chinese art education to be recognized. |
| A．Mr. Fu's words. | B．Young Chinese. |
| C．Fou Ts'ong and his family. | D．Readers of Fu Lei's Family Letters. |
| A．Pursuing art is a long and painful process. |
| B．It requires various qualities to be a pianist. |
| C．Everyone should develop an interest in art. |
| D．Talent is of the greatest importance for a pianist. |
3 . Liu Jingyang, a 28-year-old bank clerk living in Beijing, loves watching food shows on live-streaming platform after a long day at work. She feels that viewing the vloggers (视频博主）eating is very relaxing at bedtime. “It’s a very healing process to just think about nothing while watching people eat all that colorful and inviting food and seeing their overreactions as they enjoy it,” Liu told Beijing Review. She said she is also curious about how people can eat more than 10 times what she can.
However, some of these big eaters have recently been caught “fake eating,” vomiting (呕吐）after pretending to have eaten, leading to much food waste. They immediately came under fire from the public. The anger was fueled because many critics are aware that approximately one in nine people in the world are starving, based on statistics from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
In addition, food-wasting food shows are misleading because they go against the virtue of thriftiness, Cheng Shengkui, a researcher at the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV).
Before gaining popularity in China in about 2014, food shows were already big hits in countries such as the Republic of Korea and Japan. The mouth-watering treats and large meals are the main reasons for attracting viewers, according to a paper published in 2018 in Today’s Massmedia, a Chinese academic journal.
The big eaters’ income mainly comes from advertisements, donations or tips by viewers, or sales of products. But as the market became more profitable, some people who can’t really eat a huge amount of food, but still wanted to grab the money from audiences and advertisers, began to resort to fake eating.
With more media reports exposing dishonest acts and food waste, the industry has had to undergo reform. Several live-streaming platforms have announced that they will strengthen inspection of food shows, while some live-streamers voiced opposition to food waste and advocated thriftiness.
1. Why does the author mention Liu Jingyang in the first paragraph?| A．To introduce the topic of food waste. |
| B．To show why food-eating programs are popular. |
| C．To begin a discussion on ways to reduce food waste. |
| D．To show vloggers from an ordinary person’s perspective. |
| A．Eating smartly. | B．Living healthily. |
| C．Valuing life. | D．Being economical. |
| A．To get relaxation. | B．To make more money. |
| C．To attract more viewers. | D．To become famous. |
| A．They will be cancelled. | B．They will be expanded in time. |
| C．They will be carefully monitored. | D．They will experience ups and downs. |
4 . A sleepover (过夜) program, which is designed to make kids believe that their favorite toys enjoy reading, can help encourage children to pick up more books, a new study suggests.
Toys sleepover programs are designed to get children interested in books. Children take their toys to a library for the night. At this point, workers and volunteers take photos of the toys which explore the library and read books. The next day, the children collect their toys and the photos of what the toys did during the night. They are given the books their toys chose to read.
It was found that before the sleepover the children did not spend time looking at the books in their play area at preschool. Immediately after the sleepover, the number of children who read to the toys was higher than the number who did not, but after three days the effect decreased gradually.
The researchers also tested a method for sustaining the effect. They reminded the children of the sleepover a month later, by hiding the toys and showing them the photos again the next day. This simple method brought an increase in the number of children reading to their toys.
The study proves for the first time that children who take part in sleepover programs read picture books to their toys more. “We wanted to know if there really was an effect, and if so, how long it lasts. Surprisingly, not only did the children show interest in the books, but they also began to read to their toys. This means that a new behavior pattern appeared that the children hadn’t had before. We did not expect anything like this,” said one of the researchers.
Reading is important for the development of children’s language skills and imagination. When parents read to their children, it is a passive way of reading for the child. However, when children read to their toys, it is a more active, self-directed way of reading, helping them develop into more active readers, researchers said.
1. What is the purpose of the sleepover program?| A．To develop children’s language skills. |
| B．To help children to sleep well. |
| C．To encourage children to read more. |
| D．To guide children to form a good sleeping habit. |
| A．Go around the library with their toys. |
| B．Sleep with their toys. |
| C．Read together with their toys. |
| D．Take their toys to the library. |
| A．keeping | B．testing | C．surveying | D．showing |
| A．Children showed no interest in the books. |
| B．The effect of the sleepover program could last long. |
| C．Children began to read to their toys on their own. |
| D．Whether the sleepover program had an effect remained unknown. |
5 . As the effects of climate change become more disastrous, well-known research institutions and government agencies are focusing new money and attention on an idea: artificially cooling the planet, in the hopes of buying humanity more time to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
That strategy, called solar climate intervention (干预) or solar geoengineering, involves reflecting more of the sun’s energy back into space — abruptly reducing global temperatures in a way that imitates the effects of ash clouds flowing out from the volcanic eruptions. The idea has been considered as a dangerous and fancied solution, one that would encourage people to keep burning fossil fuels while exposing the planet to unexpected and potentially threatening side effects, producing more destructive hurricanes, wildfires floods and other disasters.
But. as global warming continues, producing more destructive hurricanes, wildfires floods and other disasters, some researchers and policy experts say that concerns about geoengineering should be outweighed by the imperative to better understand it, in case the consequence of climate change become so terrible that the world can’t wait for better solutions.
One way to cool the earth is by injecting aerosols (气溶胶) into the upper layer of the atmosphere. where those particles reflect sunlight away from the earth. That process works, according to Douglas MacMartin, a researcher at Cornell University.
“We know with 100% certainty that we can cool the planet,” he said in an interview. What’s still unclear, he added, is what happens next. Temperature, MacMartin said, is an indicator for a lot of climate effects. “What does it do to the strength of hurricanes?” he asked, “What does it do to agriculture production? What does it do to the risk of forest fires?”
Another institution funded by the National Science Foundation will analyze hundreds of simulations of aerosol injection, testing the effects on weather extremes around the world. One goal of the research is to look for a sweet spot: the amount of artificial cooling that can reduce extreme weather events without causing broader changes in regional rainfall patterns or similar impacts.
1. Why do researchers and government agencies work on cooling the earth?| A．To prevent natural disasters. | B．To win more time to reduce gas emissions. |
| C．To imitate volcanic eruptions. | D．To encourage more people to bur fossil fuels. |
| A．More volcanoes will throw out. |
| B．More solar energy will go into space. |
| C．More disasters will endanger the future of the world. |
| D．People will keep burning fossil fuels to keep warm. |
| A．He thinks more research remains to be done. |
| B．He is optimistic about the effect of cooling the earth. |
| C．He is concerned about the reduction in agriculture production. |
| D．He disapproves of the practice of solar climate intervention. |
| A．The rainfall pattern of a region. |
| B．The modest drop in temperature. |
| C．The number of extreme weather events. |
| D．The injection amount of aerosol. |
6 . A vertical smart farm was established in a Seoul subway station. Opened on September 23, it's Korean's first urban, underground smart farm.
Sterilized(无菌的) outerwear is put on before entering the vertical farm. Vegetables are being cultivated(培育) under LED lighting, in trays of hydroponic(溶液栽培) that take the place of soil, “We are not pulling in dirty air from outside or from the subway. Thanks to this sealed sterile environment, the vertical farm has no need for pesticides( 杀虫剂 ) . Moreover, the vegetables grown possess slightly higher amounts of vitamins and minerals than regular vegetables, "said Kim Sung-un, a senior manager at a commercial smart farm company.
Still, Kim admits that smart farms are not suited to every kind of vegetable. “We can produce potatoes or tomatoes, but they are not cost effective,” Kim said. However, they are appropriate for lettuce-widely used in Korean cuisine as wraps for barbecued meat and fish-and herbs-widely used in Korean cuisine and medicine. Unlike traditional farming work, with its requirement for hard work and heavy machinery, smart farming labor is light. With all processes, —except for seeding and harvesting—fully automated or using robots, the main job is monitoring(监控), and disabled people were hired for the job. “The good thing about smart farming is that we can include those who are socially excluded,” Kim said. “And these systems are something woman can work on, there is no hard labor.” The farms are also applicable in environments where traditional farming is not feasible---such as deserts and arctic climate zones.
1. What do we know about vegetables grown in smart farms?| A．Potatoes and tomatoes cannot be planted. |
| B．Lettuce and herbs are cost effective to produce. |
| C．Vegetables are planted under LED lighting in soil. |
| D．Vegetables grown there are the same as regular vegetables. |
| A．All farming processes are fully automated. |
| B．Smart farms are equipped with heavy machinery. |
| C．The only job to do in a smart farm is monitoring |
| D．The disabled can be involved in the farming work |
| A．Practicable | B．Impossible |
| C．Popular | D．Acceptable. |
| A．Development of smart farms | B．Great changes in smart farm |
| C．An introduction to smart farms | D．Vegetables grown in smart farms |
7 . No matter where he parks his VW bus coated in chalkboard paint, Jonathan Sherman comes back to find great new art adorning the sides.
Once a week, he washes it and creates a new canvas for the amateur artists of American Fork who are inspired to fill its sides.
The story behind what has become known as the “Chalkbus” even inspired a mini documentary by college students, the Daily Herald reports.
The idea to make it a rolling chalkboard came to Sherman when the bus was due for a new paint job and he painted it black matte primer and then gazed over at his daughter drawing chalk on the sidewalk. He invited her to try and the van, and the plan was formed.
“People were like, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t do that, people are going to draw all kinds of horrible things on there,’ you know, ‘You’ re asking for trouble,’” Sherman said. “People really haven’t drawn anything bad on there, they always draw cool things.”
He started driving it several years ago, and frequently found drawings when he parked it in at the movie theater or grocery store. When he found someone drawing on the bus, he left them alone to finish before talking with them.” It’s always a positive conversation,” he said. Sherman, a licensed marriage and family therapist, said the bus seemed to provide something people were missing. He took it each year to the Out of Darkness Suicide Prevention Walk in Salt Lake City and let people draw on it there.
“A lot of people are really disconnected in society. And a lot of people suffer in silence,” he said. “Anywhere I can find a little small connection, I think it just alleviates a little bit of a burden somewhere for somebody to know that, you’ re seen and you matter.”
“I’ve just noticed how many meaningful connections have come as a result of or have come because of the existence of the Chalkbus,” McKinnon said. “Because the Chalkbus exists, I’ve made friends that I wouldn’t have made. I want people to have peace, love and happiness.”
1. How did Sherman react when seeing someone painting on his bus?| A．He watched him/ her in a cold manner. |
| B．He stayed angry but kept silent. |
| C．He fought with the person. |
| D．He watched him/ her and then talked with the person. |
| A．Relieves. | B．Bears. | C．Accepts. | D．Improves. |
| A．Immoral behaviors happening in public. |
| B．“Chalkbus” inspires drawing and connectivity. |
| C．“Chalkbus” promotes young artists born in colleges. |
| D．Newly-born style of art—Chalkbus drawing. |
| A．A guidebook. | B．A scientific fiction. | C．A fashion magazine. | D．A news report. |
8 . How much do consumers care about the carbon footprint of the products they buy? Would they care more if the goods were labeled with emissions（排放物） data? Does it matter at which stage in the lifecycle of a product the carbon is emitted? Research published in the International Journal of Environmental Policy and Decision Making offers a way to find out．
Study participants view a carbon footprint label as similar to labels that have appeared on some existing products．The label shows the carbon dioxide emissions connected with their production, transportation, usage and disposal（清理）, thus showing the buyer the likely effect on climate change of buying a particular product．
In the first group of studies, the research team proved that carbon emissions and a carbon emissions label would indeed play a role in consumer product decisions, although not as great a role as price．In a second set of studies, the team found that emissions connected with usage were most important to consumers followed by the transportation and disposal stages．The carbon footprint of the producing process was considered less important to consumers than the other stages in the product's lifecycle because it is outside the consumer's control．That is, the participants felt they were less responsible for carbon emitted during producing process．Consumers value recycling a product, but the researchers found that, overall, the consumers would prefer producers to offset（补偿） carbon emissions rather than having to address the problem directly themselves．
Consumers are increasingly concerned with climate change problems, and already carbon labeling is appearing on some products．"We find that participants not only take the carbon label into account when making product decisions, but they want detailed information on the label," the researchers explain．They suggest that companies should prepare for how carbon emissions labels might affect future consumer choice．
1. Which of the following most affects consumer's choice?| A．Labels． | B．Price． |
| C．Packaging． | D．Carbon footprint． |
| A．Usage stage． | B．Transportation stage． |
| C．Disposal stage． | D．Producing stage． |
| A．Look into． | B．Point out． |
| C．Deal with． | D．Run into． |
| A．Companies should take carbon emissions more seriously． |
| B．All products have been labeled with carbon emissions data． |
| C．Producers will attach less importance to carbon emissions labels． |
| D．Products labeled with carbon emissions data will have poor sales． |
9 . 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. |
10 . Could it be time to say goodbye to Earth? According to NASA, a giant asteroid is heading for Earth next month. Well, when we say heading for Earth, we actually mean its heading for Earth’s vicinity（周边）, passing within 3,908,791 miles of our planet.
Officially classified as 52768 (1998 OR2), the near-miss has been predicted to occur on April 29. According to NASA, the asteroid is traveling toward us at 19,461 miles per hour and is about half the size of Mount Qomolangma.
The space agency first discovered the object in 1998 and said it would be “large enough to cause global effects” if it were to hit Earth. But despite being classed as “potentially hazardous （有危险的）”, scientists said it is not on the list of potential future Earth impact events.
Currently, the agency has identified 20,000 Near-Earth Objects. Of these, only a few are considered potential impactors, which NASA tracks via their automated Sentry System.
The near-miss 1998 OR2 might not pose a threat, but many scientists agree it’s only a matter of time before a huge asteroid collides with Earth.
Cardiff University scientist Ian McDonald told BBC Today, “Doomsday asteroid hits aren’t confined to the past. There are always rocks flying through space. One of these will hit us and it will have pretty dramatic effects.”
The last Earth impact was in 2013, and terrifyingly nobody saw it coming. Dubbed（被称为）the Chelyabinsk meteor, it exploded just 30 kilometers from Earth’s surface, shattering windows and rocking buildings for over 500 square kilometers, according to the BBC.
This impact injured around 950 people in Russia, but it just goes to show how precarious life on Earth is and how it could be devastated（毁坏的）by larger future impacts.
1. What can we learn about 1998 OR2?| A．It is as large as Mount Qomolangma. |
| B．It is heading for Earth at 3,908,791 mph. |
| C．It is likely to occur at the end of March. |
| D．It is estimated not to be a threat to Earth. |
| A．There is little chance that the doomsday asteroid hits Earth. |
| B．A mega asteroid could unavoidably threaten Earth one day. |
| C．Potential impactors could be tracked and destroyed. |
| D．Mega asteroids could collide with Earth more often in the future. |
| A．compare it with the upcoming 1998 OR2 |
| B．present the dramatic effects of Earth impacts |
| C．show how frequent Earth impacts are |
| D．prove that little can be done in the face of an Earth impact |
| A．uncertain | B．unprepared |
| C．precious | D．diverse |
