1 . Returning to a book you’ve read many times can feel like drinks with an old friend. There’s a welcome familiarity - but also sometimes a slight suspicion that time has changed you both, and thus the relationship. But books don’t change, people do. And that’s what makes the act of rereading so rich and transformative.

The beauty of rereading lies in the idea that our bond with the work is based on our present mental register. It’s true, the older I get, the more I feel time has wings. But with reading, it’s all about the present. It’s about the now and what one contributes to the now, because reading is a give and take between author and reader. Each has to pull their own weight.

There are three books I reread annually .The first, which I take to reading every spring is Emest Hemningway’s A Moveable Feast. Published in 1964, it’s his classic memoir of 1920s Paris. The language is almost intoxicating (令人陶醉的)，an aging writer looking back on an ambitious yet simpler time. Another is Annie Dillard’s Holy the Firm, her poetic 1975 ramble (随笔) about everything and nothing. The third book is Julio Cortazar’s Save Twilight: Selected Poems, because poetry. And because Cortazar.

While I tend to buy a lot of books, these three were given to me as gifs, which might add to the meaning I attach to them. But I imagine that, while money is indeed wonderful and necessary, rereading an author’s work is the highest currency a reader can pay them. The best books are the ones that open further as time passes. But remember, it’s you that has to grow and read and reread in order to better understand your friends.

1. Why does the author like rereading?

A．It evaluates the writer-reader relationship.

B．It’s a window to a whole new world.

C．It’s a substitute for drinking with a friend.

D．It extends the understanding of oneself.

2. What do we know about the book A Moveable Feast?

A．It’s a brief account of a trip.

B．It’s about Hemingway’s life as a young man.

C．It’s a record of a historic event.

D．It’s about Hemingway’s friends in Paris.

3. What does the underlined word ＂currency＂ in paragraph 4 refer to?

A．Debt

B．Reward.

C．Allowance.

D．Face value.

4. What can we infer about the author from the text?

A．He loves poetry.

B．He’s an editor.

C．He’s very ambitious.

D．He teaches reading.

2 . 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.

2. What does the underlined word “beanpoles” in paragraph 1 refer to?

A．Big eaters.	B．Overweight persons.
C．Picky eaters.	D．Tall thin persons.

3. Why did the researchers hire the actor?

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.

4. On what basis do we “adjust the influence” according to the last paragraph?

A．How hungry we are.	B．How slim we want to be.
C．How we perceive others.	D．How we feel about the food.

3 . When you were trying to figure out what to buy for the environmentalist on your holiday list, fur probably didn’t cross your mind. But some ecologists and fashion (时装)enthusiasts are trying to bring back the market for fur made from nutria(海狸鼠).

Unusual fashion shows in New Orleans and Brooklyn have showcased nutria fur made into clothes in different styles. “It sounds crazy to talk about guilt-free fur-unless you understand that the nutria are destroying vast wetlands every year”, says Cree McCree, project director of Righteous Fur.

Scientists in Louisiana were so concerned that they decided to pay hunters $5 a tail. Some of the fur ends up in the fashion shows like the one in Brooklyn last month.

Nutria were brought there from Argentina by fur farmers and let go into the wild. “The ecosystem down there can’t handle this non-native species(物种).It’s destroying the environment. It’s them or us.” says Michael Massimi, an expert in this field.

The fur trade kept nutria in check for decades，but when the market for nutria collapsed in the late 1980s，the cat-sized animals multiplied like crazy.

Biologist Edmond Mouton runs the nutria control program for Louisiana. He says it’s not easy to convince people that nutria fur is green, but he has no doubt about it. Hunters bring in more than 300,000 nutria tails a year, so part of Mouton’s job these days is trying to promote fur.

Then there’s Righteous Fur and its unusual fashion. Model Paige Morgan says，”To give people a guilt-free option that they can wear without someone throwing paint on them-I think that’s going to be a massive thing, at least here in New York.” Designer Jennifer Anderson admits it took her a while to come around to the opinion that using nutria fur for her creations is morally acceptable. She is trying to come up with a label to attach to nutria fashions to show it is eco-friendly.

1. What is the purpose of the fashion shows in New Orleans and Brooklyn?

A．To promote guilt-free fur.

B．To expand the fashion market.

C．To introduce a new brand.

D．To celebrate a winter holiday.

2. Why are scientists concerned about nutria?

A．Nutria damage the ecosystem seriously.

B．Nutria are an endangered species.

C．Nutria hurt local cat-sized animals.

D．Nutria are illegally hunted.

3. What does the underlined word “collapsed” in paragraph 5 probably mean?

A．Boomed.

B．Became mature.

C．Remained stable.

D．Crashed.

4. What can we infer about wearing fur in New York according to Morgan?

A．It’s formal.

B．It’s risky.

C．It’s harmful.

D．It’s traditional.

4 . For those who can stomach it, working out before breakfast may be more beneficial for health than eating first, according to a study of meal timing and physical activity.

Athletes and scientists have long known that meal timing affects performance. However, far less has been known about how meal timing and exercise might affect general health.

To find out, British scientists conducted a study. They first found 10 overweight and inactive but otherwise healthy young men, whose lifestyles are, for better and worse, representative of those of most of us. They tested the men’s fitness and resting metabolic (新陈代谢的) rates and took samples (样品) of their blood and fat tissue.

Then, on two separate morning visits to the scientists’ lab, each man walked for an hour at an average speed that, in theory, should allow his body to rely mainly on fat for fuel. Before one of these workouts, the men skipped breakfast, meaning that they exercised on a completely empty stomach after a long overnight fast (禁食). On the other occasion, they ate a rich morning meal about two hours before they started walking.

Just before and an hour after each workout, the scientists took additional samples of the men’s blood and fat tissue.

Then they compared the samples. There were considerable differences. Most obviously, the men displayed lower blood sugar levels at the start of their workouts when they had skipped breakfast than when they had eaten. As a result, they burned more fat during walks on an empty stomach than when they had eaten first. On the other hand, they burned slightly more calories (卡路里), on average, during the workout after breakfast than after fasting.

But it was the effects deep within the fat cells that may have been the most significant, the researchers found. Multiple genes behaved differently, depending on whether someone had eaten or not before walking. Many of these genes produce proteins (蛋白质) that can improve blood sugar regulation and insulin (胰岛素) levels throughout the body and so are associated with improved metabolic health. These genes were much more active when the men had fasted before exercise than when they had breakfasted.

The implication of these results is that to gain the greatest health benefits from exercise, it may be wise to skip eating first.

1. The underlined expression “stomach it” in Paragraph 1 most probably means “______”.

A．digest the meal easily	B．manage without breakfast
C．decide wisely what to eat	D．eat whatever is offered

2. Why were the 10 people chosen for the experiment?

A．Their lifestyles were typical of ordinary people.

B．Their lack of exercise led to overweight.

C．They could walk at an average speed.

D．They had slow metabolic rates.

3. What happened to those who ate breakfast before exercise?

A．They successfully lost weight.	B．They consumed a bit more calories.
C．They burned more fat on average.	D．They displayed higher insulin levels.

4. What could be learned from the research?

A．A workout after breakfast improves gene performances.

B．Too much workout often slows metabolic rates.

C．Lifestyle is not as important as morning exercise.

D．Physical exercise before breakfast is better for health.

5 . The end of the school year was in sight and spirits were high. I was back teaching after an absence of 15 years, dealing with the various kinds of "forbidden fruit" that come out of book bags. Now was the spring of the water pistol.

I decided to think up a method of dealing with forbidden fruit.

"Please bring that pistol to me," I said. "I'm going to put it in my Grandma's Box."

"What's that?" they asked.

"It's a large wooden chest full of toys for my grandchildren," I replied,

"You don't have grandchildren," someone said.

"I don't now." I replied. "But someday I will. When I do, my box will be full of wonderful things for them."

My imaginary Grandma's Box worked like magic that spring, and later. Sometimes. students would ask me to describe all the things I had in it. Then I would try to remember the different possessions I supposedly had taken away—since I seldom actually kept them. Usually the offender would appear at the end of the day, and I would return the belonging.

The-years went by, and my first grandchild Gordon was born. I shared my joy with that year's class. Then someone said, "Now you can use your Grandma's Box." From then on instead of coming to ask their possessions back, the students would say, "That's okay. Put it in your Grandma's Box for Gordon."

I loved talking about the imaginary box, not only with my students but also with my own children. They enjoyed hearing about all the forbidden fruit I had collected. Then one Christmas I received a surprise gift—a large, beautifully made wooden chest. My son Bruce had made my Grandma's Box a reality.

1. What was the author's purpose in having the conversation with the students?

A．To collect the water pistol.	B．To talk about her grandchildren.
C．To recommend some toys.	D．To explain her teaching method.

2. What do the underlined words "the offender" in paragraph 8 refer to?

A．The student's parent.	B．The maker of the Grandma's Box.
C．The author's grandchild.	D．The owner of the forbidden fruit.

3. What did the students do after they learned about the birth of Gordon?

A．They went to play with the baby.	B．They asked to see the Grandma's Box.
C．They made a present for Gordon.	D．They stopped asking their toys back.

4. What can we infer about the author?

A．She enjoys telling jokes.	B．She is a strict and smart teacher.
C．She loves doing woodwork.	D．She is a responsible grandmother

7 . To learn to think is to learn to question. Those who don't question never truly think for themselves. These are simple rules that have governed the advancement of science and human thought since the beginning of time. Advancements are made when thinkers question theories and introduce new ones. Unfortunately, it is often the great and respected thinkers who end up slowing the progress of human thought. Aristotle was a brilliant philosopher whose theories explained much of the natural world, often incorrectly. He was so esteemed by the scientific community that even 1，200 years after his death, scientists were still trying to build upon his mistakes rather than correct them!

Brilliant minds can intimidate up­and­coming thinkers who are not confident of their abilities. They often believe they are inferior to the minds of giants such as Aristotle, leading many to accept current paradigms instead of questioning them.

I, like many thinkers of the past, once believed in my mental inferiority. I was certain that my parents, my teachers-adults in general-were always right. They were like a textbook to me; I didn't question what was written on those pages. I respected them, and accepted whatever they told me. But that attitude soon changed. My mind's independence was first stimulated in the classroom.

A stern, 65­year­old elementary­school science teacher once told me that light is a type of wave. I confidently went through years of school believing that light is a wave. One day，however I heard the German exchange student mention that light could be made up of particles. As the others laughed at his statement, I started to question my beliefs.

Maybe the teachers and textbooks hadn't given me the whole story. I went to the library, did some research and learned of the light­as­a­wave versus light­as­a­particle debate. I read about Einstein's discovery of the dual nature of light and learned the facts of a paradox(悖论) that puzzles the world's greatest thinkers to this day. Light behaves as both a particle and a wave, it is both at once. I realized I had gone through life accepting only half of the story as the whole truth.

Each new year brought more new facts, and I formulated even more questions. I found myself in the library after school, trying to find my own answers to gain a more complete understanding of what I thought I already knew. I discovered that my parents and teachers are incredible tools in my quest for knowledge, but they are never the final word. Even textbooks can be challenged. I learned to question my sources, I learned to be a thinker. I once believed that everything I learned at home and at school was certain, but I have now discovered to re­examine when necessary.

Questions are said to be the path to knowledge and truth, and I plan to continue questioning. How many things do we know for sure today that we will question in the future? At this moment, I know that our sun will burn for another five billion years, and I know nothing can escape the gravity of a black hole. This knowledge, however, may change in the next 20 years-maybe even in the next two. The one thing we can control now is our openness to discovery. Questions are the tools of open minds, and open minds are the key to intellectual advancement.

1. In the first paragraph, Aristotle is taken as an example to show that ______.

A．he is the greatest and respected philosopher of all time

B．huge influence of great thinkers may block human thought

C．advancements are made when thinkers question theories

D．great thinkers often make mistakes and then correct them

2. What does the underlined word “intimidate” in Paragraph 2 mean?

A．Frighten.

B．Encourage.

C．Strength.

D．Persuade.

3. The author began to question his previous beliefs because ______.

A．what he learned from textbooks before turned out to be wrong

B．he was inspired by the different ideas from an exchange student

C．he was laughed at by other students for his unacceptable statement

D．he was not satisfied with his life and desperate to achieve success

4. According to the passage, the author ______.

A．looks down upon great thinkers all the time

B．never doubts what he has learned in the textbook

C．always throws himself into the laboratory

D．determines to be a thinker and questioner

5. We can conclude from the last paragraph that ______.

A．the author is not quite sure about his future

B．we human beings don't dare to predict future

C．theory of black holes will change in two years

D．questioning is necessary to promote advancement

6. What does the passage mainly talk about?

A．Following rules.	B．Challenging yourself.
C．Questioning giants.	D．Predicting future.

8 . According to a new study， teens focus on rewards and have a hard time learning to avoid punishment or consider the consequences of alternative actions.

University College London researchers compared how teens and adults learn to make choices based on the available information. They tracked the way in which 18 volunteers aged 12-17 and 20 volunteers aged 18-32 completed tasks in which they had to choose between abstract symbols.

Each symbol was consistently associated with a fixed chance of a reward, punishment, or no outcome. As the trial progressed ， participants learned which symbols were likely to lead to each outcome and adjusted their choices accordingly. Teens and adults were equally good at learning to choose symbols associated with reward， but teens were less good at avoiding symbols associated with punishment. Adults also performed significantly better when they were told what would have happened if they had chosen the other symbol after each choice， while teens did not appear to take this information into account.

“From this experimental lab study we can draw conclusions about learning during the teen years. We find that teens and adults learn in different ways， something that might be relevant to education," said lead author Dr. Stefano Palminteri. " Unlike adults, teens are not so good at learning to adjust their choices to avoid punishment. This suggests that incentive systems based on reward rather than punishment may be more effective for this age group. Additionally, we found that teens did not learn from being shown what would have happened if they made alternative choices."

To interpret the results, the researchers developed computational models of learning and ran simulations （模拟）applying them to the results of the study. The first was a simple model, one that learned from rewards, and the second model added to this by also learning from the option that was not chosen. The third model was the most complete and took the full context into account, with equal weight given to punishment avoidance and reward seeking. For example, obtaining no outcome rather than losing a point is weighted equally to gaining a point rather than having no outcome.

Comparing the experimental data to the models, the team found that teens" behavior followed the simple reward-based model while adults" behavior matched the complete, contextual model. “Our study suggests that teens are more receptive to rewards than they are to punishments of equal value, ” said senior author Dr. Sarah-Jayne Blakemore. “As a result, it may be useful for parents and teachers to frame things in more positive terms.”

1. It can be learned from the study that .

A．adults made choices faster than teens

B．adults understood rewards better than teens

C．teens reacted better to reward than punishment

D．teens were aware of the outcome of each choice

2. What do we know about the three computational models?

A．They reflected people’s strong desire for punishment avoidance.

B．They gave circumstances different degrees of consideration.

C．They paid equal attention to reward and punishment.

D．They shaped the behavior of people at different ages.

3. The underlined word “receptive" in the last paragraph probably means .

A．accustomed	B．opposed
C．sympathetic	D．responsive

4. According to the writer, which of the following statements works best for teens?

A．“If you insist on doing things in this way， you will lose ten points. "

B．“If we had talked about this earlier， you wouldn’t have made the mistake. "

C．“ If you hand in your assignment ahead of time， you will get an extra bonus."

D．“If you want to approach a problem differently ， you can talk to your parents. "

9 . 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.

2. What are researchers worried about in terms of global warming?

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.

3. What can be inferred from Douglas’ words in an interview?

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.

4. What does the underlined words “sweet spot” in the last paragraph mean?

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.

10 . We recognize our friends’ faces. And we’re not alone. Many social animals can identify individuals of their own species by features of their faces. That's important, because they need to be able to change their behavior depending on who they meet. And a recent research has shown that some species of monkeys, birds, and domesticated (家养的) animals can even tell different faces apart by looking at photographs alone.

Ethologist Léa Lansade of the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment did an experiment to find out how well horses can recognize individual people in photographs.

She and her team first taught the horses how to “choose” between two side-by-side pictures by touching their noses to a computer screen. The horses were then shown photos of their present keeper alongside faces of unfamiliar humans. They had never seen photos of any of the people before. The horses correctly identified their current keeper and ignored (忽视) the stranger’s face about 75%of the time. In fact, even though the horses didn't get it right every single time, they were at least as correct in picking out their earlier keeper as they were at identifying their present one.

The results suggest that not only can horses differentiate between familiar and unfamiliar human faces, they also naturally understand that photographs are two dimensional representations (二维呈现) of real life, without any other intimations such as smell or sound. And they’re even better at this than our oldest animal parter, the domestic dog.

In addition, horses seem to have a strong long-term memory for human faces, like their long lifespan and history of domestication. In future experiments, the researchers would like to test whether looking at photos of people that they have had bad experiences with in the past might cause horses to act anxious or even avoidance. So maybe think twice before doing anything that might give a horse a long face.

1. Why did researchers show the horses both the keeper’s photos and the strangers’?

A．To find out what horses would do in the experiment.

B．To see why horses could recognize the keeper in the pictures.

C．To test whether horses could recognize the strangers in pictures.

D．To study to what degree horses can make out different people in pictures.

2. What does the underlined word “intimations” in paragraph 4 refer to?

A．Clues.	B．Differences.
C．Photographs.	D．Senses.

3. What are researchers still uncertain about?

A．Whether horses can live longer than other animals.

B．Whether horses can remember human's faces for a long time.

C．Whether horses can show their emotions at the sight of photos.

D．Whether horses are better at recognizing photos than other animals.

4. What is the purpose of the text?

A．To talk about animals’ species.

B．To explain animals’ facial features.

C．To show animals’ behaviour for adaptation.

D．To introduce animals’ ability to identifying faces.