1 . Binge-watching (追剧) your favorite TV series is bad for your brain. Dr. Randall Wright, based in Texas, said the need to watch episode (集) after episode has a similar influence on the brain to gambling (赌博). What’s more, it often leads to social loneliness, snacking on junk food and a shortage of exercise and sleep, which, over time, is bad for the brain.
When you let auto play start the next episode, you can find out what happens next and your brain receives good feedback, Dr. Wright wrote in an article. This right-away satisfaction is similar to gambling where even after a win, you are not satisfied and want to continue playing. With binge-watching, you are not satisfied with stopping after episode five and want to continue watching. This cycle coupled with the snacking and the long time sitting can lead to unhealthy changes in your brain and body over time.
Dr. Wright said, “Binge-watching itself is not bad. It becomes problematic when you are watching a third, fourth or fifth episode instead of doing healthy activities.” But he said it is possible to avoid the bad influence of binge-watching with four tips, including staying away from salty, fatty, calorific foods, exercising before a binge-watching, setting an alarm for sleep and balancing TV viewing with socializing.
If you add these tips to your binge-watching practice, you can create lasting healthy habits and still enjoy the now-and-then binge-watching time without hurting your brain.
1. What might “it” in paragraph 1 refer to?| A．Gambling. | B．Binge-watching. |
| C．TV series. | D．Brain. |
| A．The long time sitting. | B．The changes of feeling. |
| C．The snacking on junk food. | D．The immediate satisfaction. |
| A．The tips on how to develop a healthy lifestyle. |
| B．The reasons why binge-watching is problematic. |
| C．The ways to keep away from binge-watching. |
| D．Do’s and don’ts of binge-watching. |
| A．Ill Health: The Result of Addiction |
| B．Healthy Habits: A Must of A Better Life |
| C．Binge-watching: A Killer of Your Brain |
| D．TV-Viewing: Gradual Harm on Your Health |
2 . Anyone who commutes(通勤)by car knows that traffic jams are an unavoidable part of life. But humans are not alone in facing potential backups.
Ants also commute—between their nest and sources of food. The survival of their habitats depends on doing this efficiently.
When humans commute, there’s a point at which cars become dense(稠密) enough to slow down the flow of traffic, causing jam. Researchers wanted to know if ants on the move could also get stuck. So they regulated traffic density by constructing bridges of various widths between a colony of Argentine ants and a source of food. Then they waited and watched, trying to find out at what point they are going to have a traffic jam.
But it appears that that never happened. They always managed to avoid traffic jam. The flow of ants did increase at the beginning as ants started to fill the bridge and then levelled off at high densities. But it never slowed down or stopped, even when the bridge was nearly filled with ants.
The researchers then took a closer look at how the behaviour of individual ants impacted traffic as a whole. And they found that when ants sense overcrowding, they adjust their speeds and avoid entering high-density areas, which prevents jams. These behaviors may be promoted by pheromones, chemicals that tell other ants where a trail is. The ants also manage to avoid colliding(碰撞) with each other at high densities, which could really slow them down.
Can ants help us solve our own traffic problems? Not likely. That’s because when it comes to getting from point A to point B as fast as possible, human drivers put their own goals first. Individual ants have to be more cooperative in order to feed the colony. But the research could be useful in improving traffic flow for self-driving cars, which can be designed to be less like selfish humans—and more like ants.
1. What does the underlined word “this” in paragraph 2 refer to?| A．Surviving. | B．Commuting. | C．Finding food. | D．Avoiding jams. |
| A．Through closer observation. | B．By regulating their numbers. |
| C．By finding out the dense points. | D．By controlling the widths of their path. |
| A．They follow a special route. |
| B．They level off at high densities. |
| C．They never stop or slow down on the way. |
| D．They depend on their natural chemicals to adjust their speeds. |
| A．Traffic jams | B．Survival of an ant colony |
| C．Unavoidable? Not for ants! | D．Differences between human and ants |
3 . It is often said that Western Europeans speak English. From traveling all through Europe, I know that this is not entirely true. Some regions of Europe have a 90% of English speaking rate, while in other parts, English is generally a tongue which is impossible to understand. The divide, it seems, lies with the Romance languages.
In Scandinavia, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the rest of the Western European nonRomance language speaking regions, English seems to be understood and spoken just like the people's first tongue. In Iceland, I have never experienced English was spoken so well and so widely by a nonnative speaking country. And I have almost never met a Dutch person who did not speak English almost as well as my countrymen.
But when you move to the south of Western Europe a little, something happens. English becomes a less useful language for traveling. You just cross over the Romance language barrier (障碍) and into Spain, Portugal, France, and Italy, where English is spoken at a rate that does not seem to be much higher than in China, Latin America, or Southeast Asia.
Traveling through Europe and working in hotels around the world that are popular with Europeans have given me a deeper view of their usage of foreign languages. The northern Europeans can often speak five or six languages, while the Romance speakers hardly know more than their birth tongue. And if you think that Spanish and Italian are so similar that their speakers can understand each other, I tell you that this is completely wrong. Spaniards and Italians don't even understand each other. It is also not a fact that people from both of these countries can communicate in French; only those who put a large amount of effort into learning English or have lived abroad for years can speak English well.
People often say that French people really understand English but refuse to speak it, but from watching hundreds of French travelers over the years struggle with English abroad as well as friends in France trying in vain to communicate with me, I know that this is not true. English is simply not widely spoken there outside the large cities.
1. What can we learn from the passage?| A．In Iceland, English is not spoken very well. |
| B．A Dutch person can almost speak English as well as the author himself. |
| C．Spanish and Italian are so similar that their speakers can understand each other easily. |
| D．English is as widely spoken as French in France. |
| A．American | B．Dutchman | C．Frenchman | D．Chinese |
| A．Western Europeans speak English. |
| B．French people really understand English but refuse to speak it. |
| C．Hundreds of French travelers struggle with English abroad. |
| D．Friends in France try in vain to communicate with me in English. |
| A．A geography textbook. | B．A fashion magazine. |
| C．A travel journal. | D．A news report. |
4 . The different parts of a health care system have different focuses. A hospital's stroke （中风） unit monitors blood flow in the brain. The cardiac unit is interested in that same flow, but through and from the heart. Each collection of equipment and data is effective in its own field. Thus, like the story of blind men feeling an elephant, modern health care offers many separate pictures of a patient, but rarely a useful united one.
On top of all this, the instruments that doctors use to monitor health are often expensive, as is the training required to use them. That combined cost is too high for the medical system to scan regularly, for early signs of illness, so patients are at risk of heart disease or a stroke.
An unusual research project called AlzEye, run by Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, in cooperation with University College, London (UCL) , may change this. It is attempting to use the eye as a window through which signals about the health of other organs could be discovered. The doctors in charge of it, Siegfried Wagner and Pearse Keane, are studying Moorfields' database of eye scans, which offers a detailed picture of the health of the retina (视网膜).
The project will go a step further：With the information about other aspects of patients' health collected from other hospitals around England, doctors will be able to look for more accurate signs of disease through eye scans.
The Moorfields data set has lots of linked cases to work with--far more than any similar project. For instance, the UK Biobank, one of the world's leading collections of medical data about individual people, contains 631 cases of a "major cardiac adverse event". The Moorfields data contain about 12, 000 such. The Biobank has data on about 1, 500 stroke patients. Moorfields has 11, 900. For the disease on which the Moorfields project will focus to start with dementia, the data set holds 15, 100 cases. The only comparable study has 86.
Wagner and Keane are searching for patterns in the eye that show the emergence of disease elsewhere in the body. If such patterns could be recognized reliably, the potential impact would be huge.
1. Why does the author mention “the story of blind men feeling an elephant” in Paragraph 1?| A．To claim the ineffectiveness of our health care system. |
| B．To tell the similarity in various health care units. |
| C．To explain the limitation of modern health care. |
| D．To show the complexity of patients' pictures. |
| A．The challenge of making advanced medical instruments. |
| B．The high risk of getting a heart disease or a stroke |
| C．The inconvenience of modern health care service. |
| D．The incomplete and expensive health monitoring. |
| A．By thoroughly examining one's body organs. |
| B．By identifying one's state of health through eye scans |
| C．By helping doctors discover one's diseases of the eye |
| D．By comparing the eye-scan data from different hospitals. |
| A．It takes advantage of abundantly available medical data. |
| B．It makes the collection of medical data more convenient. |
| C．It improves the Moorfields' competitiveness in the medical field. |
| D．It strengthens data sharing between the Moorfields and the Biobank. |
5 . If you’re planning on travelling, there are a few simple rules about how to make life easier both before and after your journey.
First of all, always check and doublecheck departure(出发) time. It is amazing how few people really do this carefully. Once I arrived at the airport a few minutes after ten. My secretary had got the ticket for me and I thought she had said that the plane left at 10:50. When I arrived at the airport, the clerk at the departure desk told me that my flight was closed. Therefore, I had to wait three hours for the next one and missed an important meeting.
The second rule is to remember that even in this age of credit cards, it is still important to have at least a little of the local currency with you when you arrive in a country. This can be necessary if you are flying to a place few tourists normally visit. A few years ago I was sent to Tulsa, Oklahoma. I flew there from London via Dallas, with very little time to change planes in between. I arrived there at midnight and the bank at the airport was closed. The only way to get to my hotel was by taxi and because I had no dollars, I offered to pay in pounds instead.
“Listen! I only take real money!” the driver said angrily. Luckily I was able to borrow a few dollars from a clerk at the hotel, but it was very embarrassing.
The third and last rule is to find out as much as you can about the weather at your destination before you leave. I feel sorry for some of my workmates who travel in heavy suits and raincoats in May, when it is still fairly cool in London or Manchester, to places like Athens, Rome or Madrid, where it is already beginning to get quite warm during the day.
1. According to the passage, it’s obvious that ________．| A．the author learns some rules of travelling from his own experience |
| B．the author doesn’t plan his trips or journeys carefully |
| C．Englishmen like to wear heavy suits wherever they travel |
| D．the American taxi driver never travels to England |
| A．Where you will go. | B．When you will leave. |
| C．How you will travel. | D．Whom you will go with. |
| A．London. | B．Manchester. | C．Dallas. | D．Tulsa. |
| A．The author tells people to choose warm places as their travel destinations. |
| B．You should remember to take credit cards when travelling. |
| C．You should know more about the weather of the place you’ll visit. |
| D．You should take enough change when you travel to another country. |
6 . From the moment you open your eyes in the morning, you can feel sweat (汗水)running down your body, even if you’re barely moving at all. That’s what most people in China felt like this summer. In fact, the entire northern hemisphere(半球 )saw high temperatures in July. The Arctic Circle(北极圈) was no exception(例外). Temperatures in the city of Norilsk, which is in the Arctic Circle, reached a record high of 32 ℃, The Atlantic reported. Temperatures there are usually just 10 ℃ at this time of the year.
The heat wave in the Arctic is mainly a long-term result of global warming, according to the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences. In fact, while the whole world is getting warmer, the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet. This is called the polar amplification effect(极地放大效应).
The most direct impact(影响) of Arctic warming is the melting of Arctic ice. According to NASA, Arctic sea ice is now disappearing at a rate of 13. 2 percent every 10 years. NASA said that if this continues, the Arctic will have no ice by the year 2040. This has put some Arctic animals, like polar bears, in danger. The ice that the bears live on has shrunk(缩小), the Toronto Star reported.
Melting ice can also cause sea levels to rise in the long term. Since 1993, sea levels have risen at a rate of 3. 2 cm every 10 years, the Guardian reported. Some countries, such as Tuvalu(图瓦卢) in the South Pacific Ocean and Maldives(马尔代夫) in the Indian Ocean, are at risk of disappearing into the sea.
1. Which of the following is true?| A．Some countries in the ocean will disappear in 10 years. |
| B．China is the hottest in the northern hemisphere this summer. |
| C．The temperatures in Norilsk used to be lower than this summer. |
| D．The world gets warmer because of the heat wave in the Arctic. |
| A．The heat wave in the Arctic. |
| B．The result of global warming. |
| C．Getting warmer in the world. |
| D．The Arctic getting warm faster. |
| A．The polar will become dangerous. |
| B．Sea levels rise in the long term. |
| C．There will be an end of water shortage. |
| D．There will be no ice in the world by 2040. |
| A．Heat hits Arctic. |
| B．Arctic animals are in danger. |
| C．The world became hotter than before. |
| D．Some countries may disappear into the sea. |
7 . Call it a mobility system or a wheelchair—it can be seen at the Tokyo airport moving on its own.It is helping with social distancing while fighting the spread of the coronavirus. It also helps older passengers and those who otherwise need assistance walking the last few steps to the boarding gate.
The mobility system seats one person and runs on its own without hitting anything. It has a pre-programmed path of about 600 meters at Tokyo's Haneda International Airport. It was shown on Monday by WHILL, the company behind the technology.
WHILL Chief Executive Satoshi Sugie said robotics and self-driving technology reduce the need for a human at the wheel. They are good for these times of "living with" coronavirus. The ride lasts several minutes. It travels from the security area to the boarding gate at a speed of 3.5 kilometers per hour. But many people hope the technology can help in other places, such as hospitals or parks. The technology uses sensors and cameras to see a clear path and avoid hitting those walking toward it. It could also help Japan free up laborers. Japan, like many other nations, suffers from a labor shortage. The technology could free a worker to do another job.
Tests have been carried out at several airports since last year, including John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. The company hopes to put it in airports around the world.
The person on the machine can start or stop it through a simple controller .It runs on batteries and is programmed to return to where it started when its passenger gets off Anyone needing help walking long distances can use it at Terminal One at Haneda airport. It is called the "last-mile mobility, says WHILL.
1. What do we know about the mobility system?| A．It can seat more than one person. | B．It runs with the assistance of a controller. |
| C．It helps older passengers to the boarding gate. | D．It has a flexible path of about 600 meters. |
| A．Humans at the wheel. | B．The needs for human beings. |
| C．These times of "living with" coronavirus. | D．Robotics and self-driving technology. |
| A．Sensors and cameras. | B．The speed of the machine. |
| C．The path of the ride. | D．The distance of the ride. |
| A．The system runs completely on its own. |
| B．The system has been put into use in the US. |
| C．WHILL will continue to test the system in airports worldwide. |
| D．The system is controlled by a passenger to return to the start. |
8 . Teenagers who travel around the world alone have been making headlines quite often. A young person alone in a dangerous situation attracts attention and sponsors. Young sailors also attract various views. For example, Jessica Watson was asked by the government to cancel her voyage, yet the Prime Minister called her “a hero for young Australians” when she returned. It seemed there is confusion about the competence and independence of young people.
The popular psychologists tell us that teenage brains are likely to make wrong judgments. But such ideas often do not apply to specific individuals. Between the ages of 14 and 18, teenagers vary greatly in their abilities. The amount of independence that each is allowed should be determined not simply by their age but by discussion with the related, responsible adults. Some teens are certainly inexperienced and capable of childish mistakes, but the ones who attempt dangerous journeys normally do so by winning the confidence of hard-headed and well-qualified adult supporters.
But it’s also wrong to think that any 16-year-old can desire to get achievements as unusual as Jessica Watson’s. Watson calls herself “an ordinary girl who had a dream”. Her intention is to encourage teenagers but this idea can have the opposite effect of making them feel not good enough because great achievements are beyond them. Should all teens have such dreams? Actually, individuals face varying circumstances that restrict their dreams.
Teenagers who travel around the world alone should not be judged by preconceived (事先形成的) views about young people. Nor should young “ordinary” teenagers feel pressure to long for extraordinary personal goals. In fact, I believe the example of solo sailing overstresses individualism. The teenage years are when most of us “ordinary” people learn that we can achieve great things in cooperation with others.
1. What can we learn about Jessica Watson?| A．She was criticized by the government. |
| B．She eventually canceled her voyage. |
| C．She has traveled around the world. |
| D．She made a successful voyage. |
| A．They have similar abilities. |
| B．They make decisions on their own. |
| C．They always make wrong judgments. |
| D．They need supports of responsible adults. |
| A．Parents. | B．Teenagers. |
| C．Psychologists. | D．Adults. |
| A．Divided Opinions on Young Adventurers |
| B．Problems Faced by Adventurous Teens |
| C．Various Ways to Become Independent |
| D．Pressure to Achieve Personal Goals |
9 . Do you want to live another 100 years or more? Some experts say that scientific advances will one day enable humans to last tens of years beyond what is now seen as the natural limit of the human life span.
“I think we are knocking at the door of immortality(永生),” said Michael Zey, a Montclair State University business professor and author of two books on the future. “I think by 2075 we will see it and that’s a conservative estimate(保守的估计).”
At the conference in San Francisco, Donald Louria, a professor at New Jersey Medical School in Newark said advances in using genes as well as nanotechnology(纳米技术) make it likely that humans will live in the future beyond what was possible in the past. “There is a great effort so that people can live from 120 to 180 years,” he said. “Some have suggested that there is no limit and that people could live to 200 or 300 or 500 years.”
However, many scientists who specialize in aging are doubtful about it and say the human body is just not designed to last past about 120 years. Even with healthier lifestyles and less disease, they say failure of the brain and organs will finally lead all humans to death.
Scientists also differ on what kind of life the super aged might live. “It remains to be seen if you pass 120, you know; could you be healthy enough to have good quality of life?” said Leonard Poon, director of the University of Georgia Gerontology Centre. “At present people who could get to that point are not in good health at all.”
1. By saying“we are knocking at the door of immortality”,Michael Zey means_________.| A．they have got some ideas about living forever |
| B．they believe that there is no limit of living |
| C．they are able to make people live past the present life span |
| D．they are sure to find the truth about long living |
| A．the human body is designed to last past about 120 years |
| B．it is possible for humans to live longer in the future |
| C．it is still doubtful how long humans can live |
| D．people can live from 120 to 180 |
| A．a great effort |
| B．the conservative estimate |
| C．the idea of living from 200 to 300 years |
| D．the idea of living beyond the present life span |
| A．No Limit for Human Life |
| B．Living Longer or not |
| C．Science,Technology and Long Living |
| D．Healthy Lifestyle and Long Living |
10 . This new packaging material looks like conventional plastic, but it's actually made from fish waste and algae(海藻)--and unlike plastic, if it escapes into the ocean, a fish could likely eat it safely. The material, called MarinaTex, is the winner of this year's James Dyson Award.
"It began with my desire to work with waste," says Lucy Hughes, a recent graduate from University of Sussex, who once visited a fish processing factory to see the massive quantity of waste generated by the industry and find new ways to use it. She focused on fish skins and scales (鳞片). "When I had it in my hands, I realized this has got potential, she says. "It's super strong and flexible." Hughes spent months experimenting with fish waste in her kitchen, running more than 100 experiments to find a binder and a process that could hold together the proteins in the fish skins and scales. "I had a lot of failed attempts—a lot of things either were too easily broken or too soft or easily went bad," she says. She finally landed on a type of algae that can be locally got.
The material can be used to replace oil-based plastic in packaging such as bags or the half transparent windows used to show products in boxes. As her research continues, Hughes says that she'll be studying how MarinaTex works and how long it could be used to store food.
Unlike some "compostable" plastics, which need to be processed in an industrial composting facility to break down, the new material can break down in four to six weeks in a backyard compost bin. ''All the ingredients are food-grade safe," Hughes says." So, this breaks down much like a piece of food would break down."
1. Why did Hughes develop MarinaTex?| A．She wanted to look for a new plastic. |
| B．She would like fish to eat it safely. |
| C．She wanted to win James Dyson Award. |
| D．She wanted to make use of fish skins and scales. |
| A．The fish processing factory. | B．The fish waste. |
| C．Fish scales. | D．Fish skins. |
| A．It is stronger and more flexible. |
| B．It can be used as plastic bags. |
| C．It has the nutritional value for fish. |
| D．It can break down very easily and fast. |
| A．Working with Waste | B．Developing New Ideas |
| C．Making Bags from Fish Waste | D．Getting Rid of Plastic Pollution |
