1 . The history of microbiology begins with Dutch cloth maker named Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, a man of no formal scientific education. In the late 1600s. Leeuwenhoek, inspired by the magnifying lenses（放大镜）he used to examine cloth, built some of the first-microscopes. He developed technique to improve the quality of tiny, rounded lenses, some of which could magnify an object up to 270 times. After removing some plaque from between his teeth and examining it under a lens, Leeuwenhoek found tiny twisting creatures, which he called “animalcules”.
His observations, which he reported to the Royal Society of London, are among the first descriptions of microbes（微生物）. Leeuwenhoek discovered an entire universe invisible to the human eye. He found different microbes in samples of pond water, rain water, and human blood. He gave the first description of red blood cells, observed plant tissue, examined muscle, and investigated the life cycle of insects.
Nearly two hundred years later, Leeuwenhock’s discovery of microbes helped French chemist and biologist Louis Pasteur to develop his “theory of disease”. This concept suggested that disease originates from tiny organisms attacking and weakening the body. Pasteur’s theory later helped doctors to fight infectious diseases including anthrax, diphtheria, polio, smallpox, tetanus, and typhoid. All these breakthroughs were the result of Leeuwenhoek’s original work. Leeuwenhoek did not foresee this legacy.
In a 1716 letter, he described his contribution to science this way: “My work, which I’ve done for a long time, was not pursued in order to gain the praise I now enjoy, but chiefly from a strong desire for knowledge, which I notice resides in me more than in most other men. And therefore; whenever I found out anything remarkable, I have thought it my duty to put down my discovery on paper, so that the scientific community might be informed thereof.”
1. Which of the following best describes Leeuwenhoek?| A．trained researcher with an interest in microbiology |
| B．A curious amateur who made pioneer studies of microbes |
| C．A talented scientist interested in finding a cure for disease |
| D．A bored cloth maker who accidentally made a major discovery |
| A．the discovery of microbes |
| B．Pasteur’s theory of disease |
| C．Leeuwenhoek’s contribution |
| D．the origin of the tiny organism |
| A．He admitted that many of his discoveries happened by chance. |
| B．He considered his work to be central to later medical breakthroughs. |
| C．He was greatly concerned with improving people’s living conditions. |
| D．He believed the sharing of knowledge was a key to scientific progress |
a. Magnifying lenses were built.
b. The “theory of disease” was put forward
c. Microbes were discovered in samples of waters.
d. Leeuwenhoek’s first microscopes were successfully developed.
e. Leeuwenhoek explained his thoughts upon his own contribution.
| A．a-d-c-e-b | B．d-a-c-e-b | C．a-c-d-b-e | D．d-a-e-b-c |
2 . One of the most outspoken supporters that I know of women and girls is actually a man. As co-founder of the ONE Campaign, my friend Bono spends a lot of time speaking out against global poverty(贫困). Together, we’re working to get out a simple, powerful message: poverty is sexist.
Women and girls are more likely to be in poverty, less likely to get an education and more likely to suffer bad health. And when they are born into poverty, it is much more difficult for them to lift themselves and their families out of it.
Why? One reason is that breaking out of poverty takes time--and that is a resource women around the world are short of. On average, women spend about twice as much time as men in doing the unpaid work that makes life possible for everyone, like cooking, washing, cleaning, shopping and caring. In developing countries, the gap is even much bigger. As a result, women have no time to finish their education, learn new skills, open a business, develop personal relationships or even go to the doctor. They dream of creating a better future for their children, but they cannot spare the hours to put those dreams that they have into action.
The fact that the possibility of so many women and girls is going unrealized is a sad thing-- but it is also an opportunity for us. We need to recognize, reduce and redistribute the burden of work that is holding them back because if women have time to invest in themselves and their ideas, they could change the world.
1. According to the author, what makes it more difficult for women to climb out of poverty?| A．Lack of education. |
| B．Heavy burden of housework. |
| C．Impossible dreams. |
| D．Poor health conditions. |
| A．the time women and men spend on their housework. |
| B．the space women and men need for their private life. |
| C．the income women and men earn each year. |
| D．the dream women and men have about their children. |
| A．Why poverty is sexist. |
| B．What global poverty is. |
| C．How to reduce female poverty. |
| D．How to break down sexism. |
3 . Anyone wanting to help the poor may like this idea—recycling aluminum cans in a different way, which is apparently also good for the environment. So you're actually killing two birds with one stone. It goes without saying that recycling aluminum cans can save resources, energy, time and money. People usually save and place aluminum cans in the dustbins, which are then collected and taken away by cleaners, who will finally recycle them in the recycling center. But if you save the aluminum cans, and skip the cleaners, you can save these same cans for something more important—helping the poor. In other words, by doing less, you are giving the environmental cause some new significance.
Here is how to put this idea into action. Take your aluminum cans and place them in a plastic bag. For the dirty ones, rinse them out first. Store the bag of clean aluminum cans. Once you collect about one hundred cans or more, take the cans to the recycle center yourself. There are about eighteen aluminum cans in a pound. And you can receive three to four dollars for one hundred cans. Donate your three to four dollars to the poor or any charity organization of your choice.
By now, you may wonder if your few dollars have really made a difference to the poor. Consider this: Is there any individual or any specific event that is great enough to change the world or decide the direction that history takes? The answer is probably no. What if there were a lot of people who would do the same thing? History shows nothing but the collective will of the whole community. And that will surely be powerful enough to make a bigger difference.
Go to your community or your school and spread your idea. Share your idea and save your aluminum cans with other people. One hundred people can speak louder than one. And the money you make by saving cans can be multiplied by one hundred times. And if more people join in the cause around the world, an even larger difference can be made , and more people in need will enjoy the benefits.
1. What's special about the new idea?| A．It makes profits. | B．It saves resources. |
| C．It benefits the poor. | D．It involves cleaners. |
| A．Dirty cans do not sell well. | B．You decide who receives the money. |
| C．A hundred cans weigh about 3 pounds. | D．The recycle center is conveniently located. |
| A．A great individual or event. | B．The direction history takes. |
| C．The collective will of people. | D．The neighbourhood you live in. |
| A．Many hands make light work. | B．Kill two birds with one stone. |
| C．Don't put the cart before the horse. | D．No man can do two things at once. |
4 . Greek myth (神话) is filled with tales of heroic strength—perhaps the most famous being that of Atlas, who single-handedly held the heavens high up in the air. In an inspiring modern-day version of Atlas, one courageous athlete recently climbed Mount Olympus—home to the ancient gods, carrying a disabled companion to the summit (山顶).
Long-distance runner Giannakos has a long track record of taking on challenges: He hiked 168 miles across the Al Marmoum Desert and he also took first place in a freezing 93-milc cross-country race in Antarctica. Before his latest effort, he’d already successfully admired the view from atop Mount Olympus’ highest peak 50 times.
When Giannakos met and befriended 22-year-old biology student Torsion and learned of her dream to experience the summit herself, it seemed only natural that he was more than ready to rise to the occasion. “For me, all international races, the medals and the distinctions so far, mean little compared to that goal,” he told the Greek Reporter.
With Torsion securely fastened in a specially adapted backpack, Giannakos, along with an eight-member support team, started the exhausting uphill climb of Olympus’s tallest summit, Mount Mytikas. When they reached 2,400 meters, the party stopped to rest. After making camp for the night, they continued with their climb at 6 a.m. the following morning. Three hours later, at 9:02 local time—having put in more than 10 hours climbing in total—the victorious pair reached the 2,918-meter summit “There is nothing more real than the dream,” Giannakos said with extreme happiness.
It’s heartening to know that while we generally think of heroes as the stuff of myth and legend, there are actually some shining examples—like Giannakos—who exist in real life as well.
1. What can we learn from the text?| A．Giannakos turned the Greek myth into reality. |
| B．Giannakos successfully challenged world hiking records. |
| C．Giannakos is the first to run the Antarctic cross-country race. |
| D．Giannakos reached Mount Olympus highest peak 51 times. |
| A．Torsion’s hope to be Giannakos’ friends. |
| B．Torsion’s dream to experience the summit. |
| C．Giannakos’ effort to help disabled students. |
| D．Giannakos’aim to win international medals. |
| A．The team needed to stop for the night. |
| B．Torsion became exhausted on the climb. |
| C．They needed support from a rescue team. |
| D．They met unexpected emergency halfway. |
5 . Many families take their children on vacation. They will usually travel for a few days or weeks during school breaks. But Julie and Tim Smith planned a longer vacation with their two children. The Smith family is on a one-year trip around the world. They plan to visit 30 countries in all. Right now, the four travelers are about halfway through their trip. Ms. Smith says they are trying to see as much of the world as they can.
Mr. Smith says one of the most interesting experiences of the trip has been meeting new people. He says people have been extremely friendly, very welcoming and love their kids. Eleven-year-old Tyler says he has enjoyed learning about the people they have met. He said, "I learned in Africa that people have very different lifestyles than in America." His sister, 9-year-old Kara, discovered that she liked Thai food. Ms. Smith says that the trip teaches the children a lot.
It took the family a year to prepare for the trip. They had to sell their house and cars. Ms. Smith left her job and her husband is using unpaid leave. They carry small bags filled with lightweight clothing and whatever else they need. Ms. Smith says she enjoys being able to carry everything she needs on her back. She says she does not miss the things she has back home. "What has become more important is making these memories as a family and taking those with us instead."
The Smiths will continue to head east for the next six months.
1. In what way is the Smith family's trip different from many others' according to paragraph 1?| A．They take their children on vacation. |
| B．They travel around the world for a year with children. |
| C．They travel during school breaks. |
| D．They travel for a few weeks with children. |
| A．Living in Africa. | B．Lifestyles in America |
| C．Having Thai food. | D．Learning about the people they have met. |
| A．They left their jobs. |
| B．It took the Smith family a year. |
| C．They sold their house and cars. |
| D．They put lightweight clothing in small bags. |
| A．The small bags they carry. | B．The memories of the family. |
| C．The things on her back. | D．The things back home. |
6 . Tam the aunt, granddaughter, daughter ,and sister of Baptist ministers. Service was as essential a part of my upbringing as eating and sleeping and going to school. The church was a center of Black children's social existence,and Black adults were buffers(缓冲）against the segregated(种族隔离的）outside world that told us we weren't important. But our parents said it wasn't so.
We couldn't play in public playgrounds or sit at drugstore lunch counters and order a Coke, so Daddy built a playground and canteen behind the church. There were no Black homes for the aged in Bennettsville, so he began one across the street for which he and Mama and we children cooked and served. And we children learned that it was our responsibility to take care of elderly family members and neighbors.
We learned early what our parents and extended community “parents” valued. Children were
taught-not by teaching, but by personal example-that no kindness, however small, was ever wasted. I remember a debate my parents had when I was eight or nine as to whether I was too young to go to help clean the bed of a very sick, poor woman. I went and learned just how much the smallest helping hands could mean to a person in need.
The adults in our community made children feel valued and important. They struggled to find ways to keep us busy. And while life was often hard and resources scarce, we always knew who we were and that the measure of our worth was inside our heads and hearts. We were told that the world had a lot of problems, that Black people had an extra lot of problems, but that we ought to and were able to struggle and change them, that being poor was no excuse for not achieving, and that we had the responsibility of sharing with the less fortunate.
1. What does the underlined word "it" in paragraph 1 refer to?| A．Service was very important. |
| B．Church was where blacks could stay. |
| C．Blacks were not as important as others. |
| D．Black adults were protectors against the outside world. |
| A．To call on others to help the woman. |
| B．To prove children learn by personal example |
| C．To stress the influence of parents on children. |
| D．To indicate even the smallest good deed counts |
| A．they had to struggle and share |
| B．they had little chance of success |
| C．they were too young to help others. |
| D．they caused extra problems to the world |
7 . 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 |
8 . 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. |
9 . 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 |
10 . When temperatures rise, many people swim to beat the heat. But swimming does a lot more than that. It is a great workout for the whole body. Health experts at the University of California, Berkeley state that swimming is a great way to stay in shape.
Swimming is a very good high-intensity cardio exercise (高度有氧运动). Cardio involves the heart, lungs, and circulatory(血液循环的) system. The Berkeley experts say swimming can increase your heart rate and exercise your lungs. Some high-intensity cardio exercises, such as running, can improve your health but can also be likely to hurt your body. Swimming, on the other hand, is beneficial to the body and people often use it to recover from injuries.
Paul Waas, a coach and former competitive swimmer, says that swimming is more beneficial to the body than other sports because it is low-impact. A mother called Paloma with two daughters says that for her girls, swimming has been more beneficial to the body than some other sports. She said, “So far, I think it’s been good for their bodies. It’s a high-intensity cardio exercise, as you know. But it spares their knees, their joints, and so on. So it’s rare to get injured in swimming.”
The coach adds that swimming is a great exercise for kids who grow a lot in a short amount of time. Coach Waas said, “Swimming is really good for kids who are growing fast. Their bones might be hurting and they’re suffering from serious pain all the time. And then they get in the pool and, you know, they can float and stretch out a little bit and it reduces that as well.”
People who are overweight can also find relief through swimming. Their weightlessness in the water can help them to avoid injury as they exercise.
1. According to Paragraph 2,swimming is better than running because| A．it’s a bit easier to do | B．it’s better and safer for our bodies |
| C．it makes people feel more comfortable | D．it increases our heart rates more slowly |
| A．Positive. | B．Negative. | C．Doubtful | D．Worried |
| A．Floating and stretching out. | B．Fast physical growth of kids. |
| C．Swimming in a swimming pool. | D．The pain caused by kids’ physical growth. |
