1 . Motion sickness is an uncomfortable feeling. The sickness it causes can strike people on an airplane, playing video games, or, commonly, when riding in a car. In a future where people may find themselves running around streets in self-driving vehicles, the problems could get worse.
We typically sense our physical position and movement in the world by relying on our eyes, the feeling we get in our body, and our inner ear. Motion sickness may develop when there's disagreement between what your eyes see and what your inner ear senses. If you're looking at your phone in a moving vehicle, your eyes see a stationary screen but your inner ear feels that you're moving. The result of that dissonance can cause sickness. The common-sense solution is to just stop looking at your phone, but some of the appeal of self-driving cars is that you could use the time to be productive or entertained by what's on a screen.
Researchers of a car-making company and a video game company have been studying ways to address these issues. And their solution uses an interesting medium: sound. The research had two goals: to explore if sound could help relieve motion sickness, and to help people trust self-driving cars more. They experimented with two different categories of sound: tips that tell passengers what's about to happen, and noises that alert passengers when the device has noticed something, like a pedestrian.
The most convincing experiment took place on a closed airport runway in Sweden, near Gothenburg, in August of last year. On that track, brave participants had to ride in the backseat of a car driven by a human and read from a tablet while the car navigated the course. With just 20 people, the study was small, but according to researchers, the presence of sound tips made people report that they felt less ill. Participants said the sounds helped prepare them physically, or adjust their bodies for what was about to happen.
1. When does motion sickness usually happen?| A．Sleeping during travels. | B．Closing eyes on vehicles. |
| C．Driving vehicles speedily. | D．Riding in moving vehicles. |
| A．Confusion. | B．Potentiality. | C．Randomness. | D．Disagreement. |
| A．Uncertain. | B．Optimistic. | C．Concerned. | D．Dissatisfaction. |
| A．A study of motion sickness. | B．Self-driving vehicles. |
| C．A convincing experiment. | D．The cause and handling of motion sickness. |
2 . Free school meals are back in the news. Footballer Marcus Rashford’s petition(请愿书) to extend free school meals provision(供给) into the school holidays has collected 1.1 million signatures, causing the government to reverse policy. It has restarted the debate over free school meals, fuelled, most recently, by figures forecasting that if the government ends as planned the current £20 top-up(附加款), another 200,000 children will slip into poverty. This is in addition to the 550,000 children already living in poverty previous to Covid-19.
The roots of the current school meals system lie in the mid-19th century. In Manchester, independent charities as well as official bodies started to provide free meals for undernourished children in the 1870s. When education became compulsory in the following decades, the extent of the issue became apparent. Proponents of feeding starving children pointed out that it was due to government order that children were in school, not working and contributing to the family food budget, so the government should pay.
Reception was mixed. Then, as now, children rejected foods they weren’t used to. Diaries of the time talk of “little bags of mystery” (sausages). Some children were put off brassicas(芥菜类) for life. Finding the balance between cheap and good proved hard. The chief medical officer talked about the lack in calorie value and elements of a well-balanced diet which a needy child does not get at home, such as milk, cheese, eggs, green vegetables, fruit and meat”. In 1980, the Tory government, desperate to cut costs, made provision largely optional and abolished nutritional standards. Over the next 15 years convenience and cost became the most important.
Today, school meals provision is linked to benefits: in England around 17 per cent of children are entitled to free school meals. Provision is outsourced(外包), leading to huge variation. In the last year, we’ve seen all of the age-old debates repeated once more. How do we decide who is entitled? How do we guarantee quality? Who decides what children eat? Who pays? Undernutrition does not just have physical effects, but also affects behavior and ability to learn. It has a lifelong impact. The arguments around free school meals seem never to end. But they are hugely important and, until poverty is ended, they will not and should not go away.
1. Why did Marcus Rashford start the petition?| A．To feed an increasing number of children in poverty. |
| B．To restart the debate over free school meals. |
| C．To raise fund for hunger relief for children. |
| D．To lift children out of poverty. |
| A．Officials. | B．Charities. |
| C．Advocates. | D．Critics. |
| A．Some children liked brassicas provided in the school. |
| B．School meals were both tasty and cheap. |
| C．School meals failed to meet children’s nutritional needs. |
| D．The Tory government chose nutrition over cost. |
| A．Never-ending. | B．Meaningless. |
| C．Influential. | D．Necessary. |
3 . Plastic baby bottles shed microplastics when heated. Should you be worried about its side-effects? We still don’t have enough evidence of health risks posed by microplastic consumptions by infants or adults.
“The last thing we want to do is unduly alarm parents,” said John Boland, a professor at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland and one of the authors of the Nature Food study. While the health effects of microplastics are still unknown, parents can significantly reduce their infants’ exposure by adding some steps to their bottle preparation routine, Boland said. He recommends letting plastic bottles cool completely after sterilization(消毒) in hot water, then washing them out at least three times with water that’s been allowed to cool to room temperature after being sterilized by boiling. Researchers here also found that plastic tea kettles, plastic instant noodle cups and plastic food storage containers all released similarly high levels of microplastics when subjected to heat.
As for what those microplastics may be doing in our bodies, the evidence so far is quite limited and unclear, Schwabl said that points to a need for more research into microplastics released from plastic food storage containers, especially when they are subjected to higher temperatures. He noted some research has found microplastics can cause inflammation(发炎) in the organs, while other studies “show they do not harm.” “The threshold at which they cause problems has not been determined for humans,” Schwabl said. For now, Schwabl agrees we shouldn’t panic. He’s avoiding plastic containers in his daily life – “not so much that I am afraid of the ingestion, but I think thereby I may be contributing to reducing the amount of plastic waste” that makes its way into the environment.
At the moment, there is no need to be afraid, but it is an open question and definitely an unmet need.
1. What does the underlined word “unduly” mean in paragraph 2?| A．Properly. | B．Extremely. | C．Obviously. | D．Specially. |
| A．Temperature. | B．Products. | C．Time. | D．Containers. |
| A．Panic. | B．Caring. | C．Indifference. | D．Critical. |
| A．By providing the examples. | B．By reasoning the readers. |
| C．By analyzing the figures. | D．By comparing the findings. |
4 . Part of the importance of the practice of capacity building is that too many of us think our intellectual capabilities and focus are fixed. However, Benjamin Hardy, a psychologist and author, recently presented groundbreaking research that suggests that we can often change by changing our environment.
“Because people's lives become routine, you begin to see very predictable behaviors and attitudes,” Hardy says. This is why personality is viewed as stable and predictable over time. Hardy's book, Personality isn't Permanent, digs into this concept.
We regard our childhood, teenage years and 20s as our foundational learning periods. It can be common to think we can't learn as effectively as we grow older. But Hardy argues that we really stop learning because we stop trying new things.
In our young lives, we experience a number of “firsts”, ranging from social experiences to leaning opportunities. Absorbing new experiences is crucial to ensuring we keep expanding our minds and changing our personalities.
Learning new things is a great starting point to changing your personality for the better. Also consider making substantial changes to your professional environment. This can manifest in several ways. If you're a successful leader maybe you'd like to share your knowledge with others by coaching, writing or speaking. Anything that pushes you outside the limits of your normal work life can ensure you keep growing and changing.
In Personality Isn't Permanent, Hardy discusses a study from Harvard psychologist Dr. Ellen Langer. In 1981, Langer and her graduate students selected a group of men in their 70s and placed them in an environment modeled to look like the 1950s. It featured a black-and-white television, mid-century furniture and magazines from the era. As Hardy explains, “The goal was to trigger their minds and bodies to exhibit the energy and biological responses of a much younger person.” It actually worked.
1. Why do people think personality is fixed?| A．Because life becomes regular and foreseeable. | B．Because people refuse to read new books |
| C．Because the brain becomes less effective. | D．Because people's intelligence turns stable. |
| A．Reread a fantastic book. | B．Devote fully to daily work. |
| C．Learn a new kind of sport. | D．Talk with an old friend. |
| A．Construct | B．Distinguish. | C．Predict. | D．Appear. |
| A．The facilities in Harvard need improving | B．Younger persons accept new things better |
| C．Langer's study consumed a lot of energy. | D．The participants' performance improved. |
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 . Garbage often has negative associations with germs (细菌)，dirt and useless junk. However, a recent art exhibition proved that “useless” things can have practical significance.
Dear Pretty Rubbish, an art event organized by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWFN) and digital media art company Blackbow, was held in Beijing. It looked at wasteful consumption (消耗) and asked questions about the relationship between our lifestyles and our garbage.
“We hope that everyone who visited the show can think about how ‘useless things’ are produced, why they are tossed out (扔走), and whether ‘useless things’ are really useless,” said Cao Yujia, the design director of Blackbow.
The organizers said that all the raw materials for the exhibition were collected from community garbage cans.
Artists Zhou Yuxuan and Liu Yifan collected nylon cable ties (尼龙扎带), LED lights and beverage bottles from designers’ workshops to create a work where plastics, in the shape of cells, “grow” in a corner. There, the lights blink (闪烁) regularly to imitate (模仿) “breathing”. When people walk near it, the work responds by forming light patterns, as if communicating with the visitors.
Speaking about the work, Zhou said: “It’s like some kind of communication between humans and plastics.”
Plastic has a life longer than almost any creature, taking centuries to decompose. Though people blame plastics for damage to the environment, they are a big part of our daily lives.
“So we want to ask the question: Although the damage continues, whether there is a way for humans to reconcile (调和) with plastics,” said Zhou.
Liu said that plastic waste can be used to make clothes and ornaments (装饰品). “Re-use of plastics will be a future trend,” he said.
Cable ties are a useful and common material for fastening. Many people will buy a large bundle of them but only use a few pieces. The rest of cable ties could be re-used as a decoration in handicrafts.
“This exhibition calls for everyone to re-think their wasteful lifestyle full of single-use plastics and make changes,” said Cao.
1. What was the purpose of Dear Pretty Rubbish?| A．To call on people to reduce waste. |
| B．To remind people to live healthily. |
| C．To encourage people to use more plastic. |
| D．To teach people how to recycle different kinds of garbage. |
| A．dry up | B．break down |
| C．be discovered | D．be broken |
| A．Communication is important for everyone. |
| B．A community’s garbage is full of hidden treasures. |
| C．Creativity can change your life. |
| D．Plastics could be reused to reduce pollution. |
| A．An art exhibition held in Beijing. |
| B．The rise of a new lifestyle. |
| C．The many uses of plastics. |
| D．An introduction of two artists and their works. |
7 . Have you ever wondered why certain pop songs just make you feel so good? Researchers studying the question found that uncertainty and surprise give listeners the most pleasure. The study included 80,000 chords（和弦）in 745 pop songs between 1958 and 1991.
Each song was stripped of its melody（旋律）and lyrics（歌词）so that only chords were left and the results couldn’t be misunderstood by other imaginations of the songs that listeners might have had.
They found two things. Listeners got great pleasure from unexpected chords when they knew what would happen. However, they still found it pleasant to hear familiar chords when they did not know what would follow.
Vincent Cheung, the lead researcher, said, "Pleasant songs are likely those which keep a good balance（平衡）between knowing what is going to happen next and surprising us with something we did not expect. Understanding how music starts our pleasure system in the brain could explain why listening to music might help us feel better when we are feeling blue.”
Cheung told CNN that pleasure in music is connected to expectation. The study before had looked into the effects of surprise on pleasure, but his team's study also paid attention to the uncertainty of listeners' expectations.
1. What does the underlined word in Paragraph 2 mean?| A．Removed. | B．Added. |
| C．Played. | D．Recorded. |
| A．They listened to lots of pop songs. |
| B．They focus on the chords in popular songs. |
| C．They imagined the songs that can make people pleased. |
| D．They found lots of songs and then compared each other. |
| A．Pleasant music can explain human nature. |
| B．Listening to music might make people feel blue. |
| C．Music can improve the pleasure system of people. |
| D．Pleasant music comes from the balance of expectation and surprise. |
| A．His study only paid attention to chords in songs. |
| B．His study focused on the effects of surprise on pleasure. |
| C．His study took time to how music starts the pleasure system. |
| D．His study paid attention to the uncertainty of listeners' expectations. |
8 . Before she could even talk, Ellie Heath spent hours drawing pictures. When she grew older, the 15-year-old discovered the joy of sewing (缝纫). She says she finds it calming. She started out making small things, like jewelry and soft toys. Over time, she began making clothing. Her love of the creative work led her to open a business. Three Blue Bunnies is the name of her company, which makes what he calls “wearable art.”
“My definition of wearable art is something that makes you feel unique. It’s one of a kind, often handmade,” she explains. She sells her creations in farmers markets and at sales for local churches.
All the pieces Ellie creates are made of used or donated fabrics(捐赠的布料). She works a lot with jean jackets, renewing them with artistic additions. The process starts with finding cloth material that looks good with the jackets. “Then, I find out the design that works on it through trial and error (反复尝试) or the design comes to me,” she explains.
Ellie sharpened her creative skills at school. Cheryl Crow was one of her teachers early on. Crow call Ellie “a dream student.” She says Ellie worked hard and made progress. “She was always very creative, but also very kind, helpful to the other students.”
Ellie has many dreams. She wants to be a teacher and spread the joy of creativity among children. She also dreams her business will grow and become a model for other young people who have a dream they want to come true.
1. What does “wearable art” mean according to Ellie Heath?| A．Something that can be worn. |
| B．Something that is valuable. |
| C．Something that cannot be found anywhere else. |
| D．Something that makes you different from others. |
| A．Responsible and clever. | B．Energetic and outgoing. |
| C．Creative and warm-hearted. | D．brave and capable. |
| A．All of the cloth comes from donation. |
| B．Ellie got a lot of pleasure from her design. |
| C．It is a piece of cake for Ellie to create a wearable art. |
| D．The process of artistic design is usually not easy. |
| A．Improved. | B．Performed. | C．Changed. | D．Applied. |
9 . This may be the 21st century but when it comes to information communication technology (ICT), the gender divide between boys and girls, shows no sign of closing.
This is bad news for the ICT industry where men outnumber women by over five to one. The industry needs at least an extra million recruits(新成员) over the next five years. Obviously, women as well as men are going to have to fill these recruitment gaps. The ICT companies are worried about the shortage of men and women to fill their vacancies(空缺) in the future.
It is believed that women are very well suited to working in ICT. They enjoy working in teams and like looking for creative connections. Many women have the kind of personal skills which are considered essential in developing “new technology”. Professionals who work in Information Technology are constantly creating the world around us, and this can’t be done if you don’t know how people work and how they play. To come up with ideas that will actually make a difference to modern life, you have to understand how people live and work.
In spite of the fact that ICT jobs are well paid and women tend to do well in them, research shows that girls’ opinions of the industry are uniformly negative. Only 5% would consider entering the ICT industry compared to 14% for law and 26% for medicine. Up to the age of 11 girls see ICT as entertaining and interesting but after that age negativity sets in. By the age of 13 this negative view of ICT is confirmed.
After school activities encourage some girls to use Information Technology, and getting ICT staff and other teachers together helps to develop imaginative use of ICT. Imaginative use of ICT especially in music, art, drama, geography and media studies, all helps to open girls’ eyes to the fact that careers in computing can cut across so many different areas.
There is a significant difference in the learning styles between boys and girls. The ICT class in schools is often an exercise where every student completes the same class assignment largely by rote(死记硬背). Although girls follow successfully, they will achieve enjoyment and excellence if allowed to diversify and be creative. For girls, just pressing buttons is not enough.
Another initiative is setting up computer clubs aimed at younger girls aged 8 to 14. This is known to inspire girls to develop their ICT skills and to show them that ICT can be both creative and interesting.
We can’t afford to have girls missing out.
1. Why are girls fit for the job in information communication technology?| A．Because they prefer independent and fresh working style. |
| B．Because they want to succeed and enjoy working with creative teammates. |
| C．Because they like cooperating with teammates and exploring new things. |
| D．Because they are interested in music, art, geography and media studies. |
| A．positive. | B．uninterested. |
| C．serious. | D．disappointed. |
| A．method | B．skill |
| C．behavior | D．situation. |
| A．We find more men in ICT industry mainly because of their interest. |
| B．Now people can’t find difference between boys and girls in ICT industry. |
| C．Girls aren’t willing to choose ICT as a career for they can’t get high salary. |
| D．It is time for us to take measures to make more girls come into ICT fields. |
10 . A simple gesture can be formed into a child’s memory so quickly that it will cause the child to give a false answer to a question accompanied by that gesture. A new finding suggests that parents, social workers, psychologists and lawyers should be careful with their hands as well as their words.
While memories of both adults and children are easy to react to suggestion, those of children are known to be particularly influenced, said lead researcher Sara Broaders of Northwestern University. Kids are used to looking to adults to tell events for them and can be misled even if not intentionally.
Previous research, for example, has shown that detail-loaded questions often cause false answers; when asked, say “Did you drink juice at the picnic?” the child is likely to say “yes” even if no juice had been available. It is not that the child is consciously lying, but rather the detail is quickly formed into his or her memory.
To avoid this problem, social workers have long been advised to ask children only open- ended questions, such as “What did you have at the picnic?” But an open-ended question paired with a gesture, briefly meaning a juice box, is treated like a detailed question. That is，children become likely to answer falsely.
And it isn’t just a few kids: 77% of children gave at least one piece of false information when a detail was suggested by an ordinary gesture. Gestures may also become more popular when talking with non-fluent language users, such as little kids, Broaders said as hand movements can impart meaning of unfamiliar words and phrases. “It certainly seems reasonable that adults would gesture more with children. ’’
In general, Broaders advises parents and other adults to “try to be aware of your hands when questioning a child about an event. Otherwise, you might be getting answers that don’t reflect what actually happened. ’’
1. What can we know about gestures from the text?| A．They are rarely used by people. | B．They have certain effect on children. |
| C．They have not any function at all. | D．They are often used by social workers. |
| A．Children are easy to tell lies. | B．These gestures are very attractive. |
| C．Their memories are affected easily. | D．These gestures are used frequently. |
| A．Where are you going Lucy? |
| B．What will you have for lunch? |
| C．Did you see anything else last night? |
| D．Did you cheat in the last English examination? |
| A．Pass on. | B．Tell apart. |
| C．Confuse. | D．Separate. |
