1 . The Torch Festival (火把节) is a traditional festival which is celebrated among some ethnic groups in southwestern China, such as the Yi, Bai, Hani, Lisu, and Lahu, etc. It usually falls on the 24th or 25th of June, with three days of celebrations. The festival came from worship (崇拜) of fire by ancestors (祖先). For some ethnic groups, it’s a tradition in the festival for elders to share farming experience with young people and educate them about taking care of crops.
During the festival, big torches are made to stand in all villages, with small torches placed in front of the door of each house. When night falls, the torches are lit and the villages are bright. At the same time, people walk around the fields and houses, holding small torches and placing the torches in the field corners. Inside the villages, young people are singing and dancing around the big torches that keep burning throughout the night. Other activities like horse races are also held during the festival.
In a horse race of the Yi people in Yunnan, torches are used to form hurdles for riders to get through. The Hani people in Yunnan traditionally tie fruits to torches with strings. When the strings are broken after the torches are lit, people struggle for the fruits for good luck.
For the Lisu people in Sichuan, the festival is an occasion for holding torch parades. Big torches are carried by teams of people, which is like a fire dragon. If different teams meet, it’s a tradition to exchange the big torches with one another.
1. What can we know about the Torch Festival from the first paragraph?| A．It has nothing to do with farming. |
| B．Its celebrations usually last two days. |
| C．It is a traditional festival of all China. |
| D．It is a festival to show worship of fire. |
| A．ancestors. | B．young people. |
| C．elders. | D．ethnic groups. |
| A．Why the festival is enjoyed. | B．Where the festival is celebrated. |
| C．How the festival is celebrated. | D．What torches are used for the festival. |
| A．Holding torch parades. | B．Tying fruits to torches with strings. |
| C．Struggling for fruits for good luck. | D．Using torches as hurdles for a horse race. |
2 . The ruins of a Maya city have been discovered in Guatemala with the help of the remote sensing technique LiDAR. This lost city envelops sites like Tikal, Holmul, and Witzna, but shows that these famous areas are a small part of this lost urban network.
Hidden under the jungles of the Maya Biosphere Reserve site, more than 60,000 human-made features — homes, canals, highways, and more — have been identified in aerial (从飞机上的)images collected by some international researchers headed by the PAGUNAM Foundation, a Maya cultural and natural heritage organization. Those have experts rethinking the outlines and complexity of the Maya Empire.
These ancient peoples obviously created these imaginative cultures based on their known relics (遗迹), but the new research has suggested that the size of this lost society is far beyond what experts imagined. The findings will be explored in a one-hour documentary called “Lost Treasures of the Maya Snake Kings”, to be broadcast on the National Geographic Channel.
This breakthrough was possible thanks to LiDAR sensors, which can survey lands in 3D by bouncing pulses off the ground from unmanned air vehicles and others. LiDAR is exceptionally useful for detecting archeological(考古的)sites, as it gets through jungles and other features that hold up exploration on the ground. The technique has made many discoveries become a reality in recent years. For instance, major finds at Angkor, Cambodia and Caracol, Belize can explain what it did. The final goal is to survey Guatemala’s lowlands with it.
“There are entire cities we didn't know about now showing up in the survey data,” Francisco Estrada-Belli, one of the lead archeologists on the project, said in Nat Geo's coming documentary. “There are 20,000 square kilometres more to be explored and there are going to be hundreds of cities about the mysterious people who built this urban network there that we don’t know about, and we will push back the frontiers with the technology,” he added.
1. What does the underlined word "Those" in paragraph 2 refer to?| A．Jungles. | B．Human-made features. |
| C．Researchers. | D．Aerial images. |
| A．The working principle of LiDAR sensors. |
| B．The process of researching Maya civilization. |
| C．Great importance of Guatemalans lowlands. |
| D．LiDAR’s contribution to discovering the relics. |
| A．Small and hidden. | B．Famous and high-tech. |
| C．Vast and complex. | D．Fully-explored and imaginative. |
| A．Continue to explore the unknown. | B．Upgrade the LiDAR technology. |
| C．Study the documentary carefully. | D．Build a massive urban network, |
3 . The voice of an ancient Egyptian priest has been heard for the first time in more than 3,000 years, thanks to a detailed reconstruction of his vocal tract (声带) from his mummified remains.
A team of scientists in England used medical scans of the famous mummy of Nesyamun to create a digital, 3D model of the insides of the individual’s throat and mouth, which were reproduced on a 3D printer. Then the researchers created an artificial larynx (喉头) with a loudspeaker using an electronic waveform. The sound was then played through the speaker into the 3D printed vocal tract to produce a short bust of Nesyamun’s voice — a sound not heard since the 11th century B.C.
Previous efforts to reproduce ancient voices could only approximate them, by animating facial reconstructions with software. In comparison, the sound of Nesyamun’s voice is based on “an extant (现存的) vocal tract preserved over 3,000 years,” the researchers wrote.
Nesyamun lived around 1100 B.C. He is thought to have died in his late 50s from a severe allergic reaction. Almost 3,000 years later, his mummy was discovered at Karnak and transported to the Leeds City Museum in 1823. His remains and ornate coffin (棺材) have since become some of the world’s best researched relics of ancient Egypt.
“Nesyamun’s mummy was a good choice for studying the sound of an ancient voice,” said David Howard, the lead author of the new research, “It was particularly suited, given its age and preservation of its soft tissues, which is unusual.”
He said he hopes the scientific understanding of how human voices are created can be combined with knowledge of the ancient Egyptian language to reconstruct longer passages of Nesyamun’s speech.
Before examining the mummy, the researchers had to deal with ethical (道德的) concerns related to examining a person without their consent. They used nondestructive research methods, and took into account words on his coffin, relating that Nesyamun hoped again to address the gods as he had in his working life.
The researchers interpreted that to indicate his desire to speak again after death. “We are in a way fulfilling his declared wishes,” Howard said.
Howard and Schofield said they hope a reconstruction of Nesyamun’s speech, perhaps reciting an ancient Egyptian prayer, can be featured at the Karnak temple in Egypt for modem tourists.
“When visitors encounter the past, it is usually a visual encounter,” said Schofield. “With this voice, we can change that.”
1. The voice of Nesyamun was recreated by _____.| A．repairing his vocal tract |
| B．bringing Nesyamun back to life |
| C．using some advanced technologies |
| D．combining it with facial movements |
| A．He often gave long speeches. |
| B．His vocal tract is well preserved. |
| C．A severe disease resulted in his death. |
| D．His remains are displayed in the museum. |
| A．The researchers took into account words on his coffin. |
| B．Nesyamun’s mummy was examined without his consent. |
| C．The researchers hope to reconstruct longer passages of his speech. |
| D．Nesyamun hoped to address the gods as he had in his working life. |
| A．A 3000-year-old mummy speaks again |
| B．The voice of a mummy excites visitors |
| C．A 3D-printed vocal tract has been created |
| D．The dream of Nesyamun has been achieved |
4 . When baby turtles first come out of eggs, they head to the sea by nature. The beach surface goes down, which is one directional clue they follow. Another is light: The horizon (地平线) over the sea is brighter than the horizon over land.
But lights from towns and beach developments can confuse the baby turtles. The sky shining above a city can mislead them to wander. And particularly bright lights can draw them away from the sea.
You’d think the extra time crawling (爬行) might wear out baby turtles, which need energy once they get in the water to swim for about a day to get to their destination in the sea. In a normal trip from nests to waves, the babies build up chemicals that show they have been pushing themselves.
Some researchers took the baby turtles to a lab, where they ran on a treadmill and swam in a tank while their blood and breathing were monitored. The finding is surprising: even after hours of crawling, the turtles were fine by all measures and swam as well as turtles that didn't have an extra crawling period.
The reason is that they often stop while crawling if they are doing U for a long time, unlike the disturbed trip they make when heading straight to the water. So misled turtles are not worn out.
But the misleading lights are still a problem for the babies. The longer they spend on the beach wandering, the more they are exposed to natural enemies. They can also end up losing their lives in the heat of the sun.
1. What attracts the baby turtles away from the sea?| A．Bright lights. | B．Vast beaches. |
| C．Buildings in cities. | D．Noises from towns. |
| A．Chemicals. | B．Nests. |
| C．Waves. | D．Baby turtles. |
| A．They travel by night. | B．Their trip is undisturbed. |
| C．They take frequent breaks. | D．They are refreshed by city lights. |
| A．They are in great danger. |
| B．They avoid their natural enemies. |
| C．They will wander on the beach for a while. |
| D．They are more likely to find the destination. |
5 . Earthquake rescue robots have experienced their final tests in Beijing. Their designers say that with these robots, rescue workers will be able to have more time to save more lives during an earthquake.
This robot looking like a helicopter(直升机) is called the flying robot . It's about 3 meters long, and it took about 4 years to develop the model. Its main functions(作用)are to collect information from the air, and send goods of up to 30 kilos to people trapped by an earthquake. It has a high-definition 360-degree panoramic(全景的) camera. It can work day and night and is also able to send the latest pictures from the quake area.
Dr. Qi Juntong, a researcher at Chinese Academy of Science, said, ''Unlike other automatic machines, the most important feature of this flying robot is that it doesn't need a distant control. We just set the destination information on it, and then it takes off, and lands by itself. It flies as high as 3,000 meters, and as fast as 100 kilometers per hour. ''
This robot has another different function --- it can change as the environment changes. Its main job is to search for any signs of life in places where human rescuers are unable to go. As well as a detector(探测器)that finds victims and detects poisonous gas, a camera is placed in the 3-meter-long robot, which can work in the dark. Another use for the rescuers is the supply bot, with its 10-meter-long pipe, people who are trapped in the ruins will be able to get supplies including oxygen and liquids.
Experts have said that the robots will enter production and serve as part of the national earthquake rescue team as soon as next year.
1. What can we learn about from the passage?| A．It hasn't been put into production so far. |
| B．It is a machine with a length of 10 meters. |
| C．It is a machine carried by a helicopter. |
| D．It weighs about 30 kilos. |
| A．it has more functions |
| B．it has a more advanced camera |
| C．it can change as the environment changes |
| D．it can work by itself once given the information |
| A．a camera | B．a detector | C．a rescuer | D．a doctor |
| A．The appearance of the robot. | B．An introduction to the robot. |
| C．The reason for making the robot. | D．Some information about earthquakes. |
6 . No one is sure how the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids near Cairo. But a new study suggests they used a little rock ‘n’ roll. Long- ago builders could have attached wooden poles to the stones and rolled them across the sand, the scientists say.
"Technically, I think what they’re proposing is possible," physicist Daniel Bonn said.
People have long puzzled over how the Egyptians moved such huge rocks. And there’s no obvious answer. On average, each of the two million big stones weighed about as much as a large pickup truck. The Egyptians somehow moved the stone blocks to the pyramid site from about one kilometer away.
The most popular view is that Egyptian workers slid the blocks along smooth paths. Many scientists suspect workers first would have put the blocks on sleds (滑板). Then they would have dragged them along paths. To make the work easier, workers may have lubricated the paths either with wet day or with the fat from cattle. Bonn has now tested this idea by building small sleds and dragging heavy objects over sand.
Evidence from the sand supports this idea. Researchers found small amounts of fat, as well as a large amount of stone and the remains of paths.
However, physicist Joseph West thinks there might have been a simpler way, who led the new study. West said, "I was inspired while watching a television program showing how sleds might have helped with pyramid construction. I thought, ‘Why don’t they just try rolling the things?’" A square could be turned into a rough sort of wheel by attaching wooden poles to its sides, he realized. That, he notes, should make a block of stone "a lot easier to roll than a square".
So he tried it.
He and his students tied some poles to each of four sides of a 30-kilogram stone block. That action turned the block into somewhat a wheel. Then they placed the block on the ground.
They wrapped one end of a rope around the block and pulled. The researchers found they could easily roll the block along different kinds of paths. They calculated that rolling the block required about as much force as moving it along a slippery (滑的) path.
West hasn’t tested his idea on larger blocks, but he thinks rolling has clear advantages over sliding. At least, workers wouldn’t have needed to carry cattle fat or water to smooth the paths.
1. It’s widely believed that the stone blocks were moved to the pyramid site by .| A．rolling them on roads | B．pushing them over the sand |
| C．sliding them on smooth paths | D．dragging them on some poles |
| A．made the paths wet | B．made the paths hard |
| C．made the paths wide | D．made the paths slippery |
| A．Rolling the blocks with poles attached. |
| B．Rolling the blocks on wooden wheels. |
| C．Rolling poles to move the blocks. |
| D．Rolling the blocks with fat. |
| A．Because more force is needed for sliding. |
| B．Because rolling work can be done by fewer cattle. |
| C．Because sliding on smooth roads is more dangerous. |
| D．Because less preparation on paths is needed for rolling. |
7 . A good way to look at failure straight in the face is by writing a failure resume(简历)or CV. Like social media，there，we usually only see our friends’“highlight part”. When we look at others’resumes，we get scared and think how ours doesn’t measure up. But even the most accomplished people have plenty of failure behind them—we just don’t see it.
Stefan felt this deeply as a scientist，so she wrote a different CV which of course boasted (夸耀)about her good grades，PhD，and published papers. But the way she deals with her failure CV is a model of what we could a11 do.
“My CV does not reflect my great academic efforts—it does not mention the exams I failed，my unsuccessful PhD or scholarship applications，or the papers never accepted for publication. During the interviews，I talk about the one project that worked，not about the many that failed，”writes Stefan in a column for Nature.com.
Stefan suggests keeping a draft on which you log，casually but regularly，every unsuccessful application，refused grant proposal and rejected paper.
And that’s the point：not to consider what we got wrong，but to use that information to both look at failure and realize it’s really okay，and also to use our failures for another purpose：as learning tools.
The point is to be real—with ourselves and about how the world works. Being real means taking an honest，critical，but also kind look at what we didn’t get right，and then doing our best to change what we can. Instead of focusing on how that failure makes you feel，take the time to step back and analyze the practical，operational reasons that you failed.
So，prctice being okay with failure，and turning your failures into lessons learned. And yes，sometimes we have to learn those lessons more than once，letting go of what you can’t change. And keep moving forward to success.
1. What does the underlined word“it”in the first paragraph refer to?| A．Plenty of failure. | B．A failure resume. |
| C．Highlight part. | D．Social media. |
| A．A11 her failures in her career. |
| B．Benefits she got from her failures. |
| C．The content of her own resume. |
| D．The difference between her resume and others’. |
| A．Regard failures as part of our life. |
| B．Keep a record of our failures. |
| C．Value our achievements. |
| D．Long for failures. |
| A．No pains，no gains. |
| B．A11 roads lead to Rome. |
| C．Where there is a will，there is a way. |
| D．Failure is the mother of success. |
8 . A rescue center in Alaska has taken in an orphaned baby seal (海豹) that was still in the body when a hunter killed its mother on Easter Sunday.
The Alaska Sea Life Center says a hunter killed the baby’s mother in a village on Nelson Island in the Bering Sea. The hunter then realized there was a live baby inside the seal and successfully delivered (接生) it.
The hunter’s daughter found a hotline of the Seward Rescue Center and called to report the incident. Guided by center staff, a village teacher helped transport the baby to the local airport, and the animal was flown to Anchorage. The Alaska Sea Life Center members met the baby, now called Maxwell, at the Anchorage airport and drove him to Seward on Monday. Staff members say the baby has responded well to food and care, but his condition is still considered very serious.
“Maxwell was close to full-term, and everything looks fairly normal,” said Pam Tuomi, a center vet. “But babies that have never received antibodies (抗体) from their mothers’ milk are at higher risk of infection (感染), so we will keep Maxwell in a separate place and watch him closely for the next few weeks.”
The Sea Life Center is Alaska’s only permanent facility licensed to house stranded marine mammals and seabirds. The staff choose a theme each year for naming animals admitted there, and this year the names are related to caffeine.
“We hope to give Maxwell a second chance to live as a wild sea,” said Brett Long, the center’s director.
1. What can we learn from the passage?| A．The mother seal was killed in order to protect the baby seal. |
| B．The mother seal was killed before the baby seal was born. |
| C．The cruel hunter was unwilling to save the baby seal. |
| D．Both the mother seal and the baby seal were in good condition now. |
| A．She helped to feed it. | B．She delivered it successfully. |
| C．She reported it to a rescue center. | D．She persuaded her father to save it. |
| A．The hunter | B．The baby seal |
| C．a member of the center | D．the village teacher |
| A．It still faces the danger of dying young. | B．It is only half of the normal size. |
| C．It is found to be difficult to feed. | D．It will be set free into the sea soon. |
9 . As the world's resources become rarer because of continuing land development and the growing human population, the natural habitats of wild animals have continued to decrease. As a result, the survival of some species of wildlife is threatened. To help protect wildlife, a lot of practices should be carried out by environmentalist as well as the general public.
Create homes for species that are endangered because of losing their own natural habitats. Wildlife shelters should be developed, and habitats should be created in existing(现存的) national parks. Efforts(努力) should also be made to protect existing habits, such as providing food and water sources and limiting hunting. Breed(培育) endangered species in places such as zoos. Once the young animals grow up, they can be set free into the wild where they can continue to increase the population.
The general public may not realize that a species is endangered until it's too late. Educational programs making use of TV advertising and instructional meetings at national parks can be used to make the public know the situation.
The general public can help protect the wildlife by not hunting wild animals for sport or for a source of food. They should also stop supporting those who earn money from the illegal hunting of wild animals, such as hunters who kill animals for the only purpose of harvesting their body parts and selling them for money.
The public should avoid(避免) keeping wild animals as pets. This will limit the number of animals being tracked, trapped, sold and removed from their natural habitat.
1. Which of the following is not the measure of protecting animal habitats?| A．Developing wildlife shelters. |
| B．Creating new habitats. |
| C．Setting young animals free in the wild. |
| D．Protecting the existing habitats. |
| A．the general public may not know species are endangered. |
| B．many endangered species are facing the danger of extinction. |
| C．people can do much to protect the endangered species. |
| D．human activities can affect the existence of species. |
| A．some people hunt animals and sell them as pets |
| B．hunters get little money from hunting animals |
| C．general public do nothing about protecting the wildlife now |
| D．animal population becomes larger in the zoo |
| A．Environment. | B．Sports. |
| C．Technology. | D．Education. |
10 . If there was a subject at school that made me anxious, it was science. Maybe that’s because in my tenth grade, I couldn't understand my physics teacher's instructions, causing me to accidentally set fire to the classroom. So, when my husband and I decided to home-school our daughters, we made a deal: he would teach science, while I would handle everything else. But that’s not how things have been going these past few weeks, since my husband has been too busy to teach the girls.
Recently, while out on my morning hike before starting lessons, I noticed that the sky was a beautiful blue, and the air was filled with the sweet smell of flowers. That s why I decided that the day’s lessons would be taught outside, although I remembered that my daughters hadn't had any science classes from my husband for a while.
I returned to the house to get the girls ready. We headed up into the forest, settling ourselves by a pond that rarely has any visitors. My daughter Saoirse started to pick up pond weeds and catch frogs, while my other daughter Ula looked at me, waiting to be instructed. I handed her a drawing board and colored pencils. "We wait, "I told her, " and see if something comes along. In the meantime, just draw what's around you.”
We worked for more than an hour, hardly speaking. A bird flew across the water, and then settled in a front of a fallen tree. I quickly told Ula, worried that she’d not seen the creature. But she had, and she started drawing it. An hour later, she’d not finished her picture and I stared down at it. She drew the bird on her paper with amazing accuracy. But there was one other interesting fact about this drawing: she also drew me, sitting beside her.
I realized, as I stared at this child's drawing of us watching a bird, how I'd lived for 40 years, gathered 10 years of higher education, and never understood the foundation of science before this moment. The foundation of science is a sense of wonder; it isn't about accurately reciting words from a textbook. It is first and foremost about stepping outside our busy lives and amazing at the world around us.
1. How did the author feel about science when in school?| A．She was nervous about it. | B．She was fond of it. |
| C．She was confused about it. | D．She was eager for it. |
| A．the fallen tree | B．the forest |
| C．the bird | D．the picture |
| A．She's very outgoing. | B．She's good at observing. |
| C．She's very hard-working. | D．She shares interests with her sister. |
| A．Attention to accuracy. |
| B．Curiosity about the outside world. |
| C．Determination to find out the truth. |
| D．Ability to understand teachers' instructions. |
