1 . Most of our everyday plastic items end up in landfill, left to rot away for many years. But some of it blows away, spoiling the countryside and causing damage to the natural environment and harming wildlife. The problem is most severe in our oceans. Research has found a deserted island in the South Pacific is littered with the highest density (密度) of plastic waste anywhere in the world.
The study described how remote islands act as a ‘sink’ for the world’s rubbish. They become collecting points for fishing items and everyday things including toothbrushes, cigarette lighters and razors-things that we throw away. Dr Jennifer Lavers from the University of Tasmania says “Almost every island in the world and almost every species in the ocean is now being impacted one way or another by our waste.”
This highlights the potentially deadly effect of our disposable (用后即丢弃) culture. When we throw something away, it doesn’t just disappear, it goes somewhere and because of the nature of plastic, it takes a long time to rot away and stays there causing great damage to the ocean’s ecology (生态). And worse still, plastic is broken down into tiny particles over a long period by the wind and the waves, then sea creatures at the bottom of the food chain swallow them. These creatures are eaten by the fish that we eventually consume.
The solution to this problem would be to use less plastic. Several countries now charge for using plastic carrier bags which reduces the amount used and some products now use natural and recyclable materials.
1. What does the author really want to tell us in the first parapraph?| A．It is a good idea to end plastic items in a landfill. |
| B．Plastic items blow away easily in the strong wind. |
| C．It is a bad habit to throw away plastics everywhere. |
| D．Plastic pollution in oceans is a most serious issue. |
| A．The islands begin to sink with much rubbish on them. |
| B．The islands have become gathering places for rubbish. |
| C．The islands are ideal places to hide the plastic products. |
| D．The islands are inaccessible due to the white pollution. |
| A．Impact on sea species. | B．Thrown-away rubbish. |
| C．The nature of plastic. | D．The ocean’s ecology. |
| A．Breaking the balance of ocean ecology. | B．Causing many sea creatures to die out. |
| C．Presenting potential risks to our health. | D．Cutting off the food chain of sea creatures. |
2 . 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 |
3 . My challenge for you is this: to read a book for 15 minutes very single day for a month.
Let me explain a bit, by telling you where the challenge came from. I have many things in common with my dad, like music taste and sense of humor, but sadly reading isn’t one of them. I can happily spend a whole day with a book, but my dad can’t read a book for longer than about 5 minutes. He reads emails, websites and papers for work, but not books. He's busy, so I think siting down to read for just 15 minutes a day is a good way to relax and to introduce him to reading. My dad is by no means the only person who avoids books. I know lots of people would rather relax on their computers or in front of the TV. Everyone is different and has their own interests, but I think there’re lots of benefits of reading, which screen-based activities don’t have.
Firstly, it’s better of your eyes. Looking at screens can be very stressful for your eye muscles, and clearly you should avoid looking at screens for an hour before bed, to get a good night’s sleep.
I personally love reading in that I can be transported to another world—I often forget the time or things around me! Reading is a great way to switch off before you go to bed, because you think more about the world of the book, rather than the real world, so you can truly relax. I know you can be transported to a different world in a film or a TV show, but I think books do it better.
I also enjoy hearing what people are doing and finding out what they think. Reading gives me the chance to get to know hundreds of new people! It also teaches you to see things from other people's points of view, and understand other people's decisions or opinions. With a book, you can hear everything a character is thinking or feeling—you really can be inside someone else’s head!
So give it a go! Take 15 minutes when you're waking up, going to bed, eating lunch, or having a coffee. If you read a lot, why not try 15 minutes of an English book, or pass the challenge on to someone else? Good luck, and happy reading!
1. The author mentions his father in the text to show _______.| A．reading is important | B．his father is very busy |
| C．his father likes reading | D．many people have no habit of reading |
| A．Knowledge from books. | B．Some scientific experiments. |
| C．The authors personal experience. | D．The author's father's personal advice. |
| A．Helping readers sleep well. | B．Making readers feel relaxed. |
| C．Reminding readers of the real world. | D．Transporting readers to a different world. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Objective. | C． Supportive. | D．Disapproving. |
| A．15-minute Reading Challenge. | B．Tips for Reading English Books. |
| C．The ways to Improve Reading Skills. | D．Having a Coffee While You Read. |
4 . Until recently, several lines of evidence — from fossils genetics, and archaeology — suggested that humans first moved from Africa into Eurasia (the land of Europe and Asia) about 60,000 years ago, quickly replacing other early human species, such as Neanderthals and Denisovans, that they may have met along the way.
However, a series of recent discoveries, including 100,000-year-old human teeth found in a cave in China, have clouded this straightforward statement. And the latest find, a prehistoric jawbone at the Misliya Cave in Israel dating back to nearly 200,000 years ago, which is almost twice as old as any Homo sapiens (智人) remains discovered outside Africa, where our species was thought to have originated from, has added new and unexpected twist.
The find suggests that there were multiple waves of migration across Europe and Asia and could also mean that modern humans in the Middle East were interacting, and possibly mating, with other human species for tens of thousands of years. “Misliya breaks the mould (模式) of existing assumptions of the timing of the first known Homo sapiens in these regions,” said Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London. “It’s important in removing long-lasting-constraint (限制) on our thinking.”
Prof. Hershkovitz, who led the work at Tel Aviv University said, “What Misliya tells us is that modern humans left Africa not 100,000 years ago, but 200,000 years ago. This is revolution in the way we understand the evolution of our own species.” He also added that the record now indicates that humans probably travelled beyond the African continent whenever the climate allowed it. “I don’t believe there was one big departure from Africa,” he said. “I think that throughout hundreds of thousands of years humans were coming in and out of Africa all the time.”
The discovery means that modern humans were potentially meeting and interacting during a longer period with other ancient human groups, providing more opportunity for cultural and biological exchanges. It also raises interesting questions about the fate of the earliest modern human pioneers. Genetic data from modern-day populations around the world strongly suggest that everyone outside Africa can trace their ancestors back to a group that left around 60,000 years ago. So, the inhabitants of the Misliya Cave are probably not the ancestors of anyone alive today, and scientists can only guess why their branch of the family tree came to an end.
1. What does the underlined word “they” refer to in Paragraph 1?| A．Early human species living in Europe. |
| B．Neanderthals and Denisovans. |
| C．People first moving from Africa into Eurasia. |
| D．Ancient people living in Africa all the time. |
| A．Our ancestors were powerful and kind of aggressive. |
| B．Our ancestors left Africa much earlier than thought. |
| C．The origins of modern humans are from Europe. |
| D．Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans once lived together. |
| A．Climate was a big factor in human migration from Africa. |
| B．There was a large-scale human migration from Africa. |
| C．Human migration was occasional in Africa 200,000 years ago. |
| D．The Misliya find is against our understanding of human evolution. |
| A．They were ancestors of people living in China. |
| B．They left evidence for their mysterious disappearance in history. |
| C．They probably contributed little to present-day people genetically. |
| D．They could be traced by their remains left on their travelling route. |
5 . Like many inventions, language translators were imagined by writers long before they became real. In Hugo Gernsback’s 1911 novel A Romance of the Year 2660, characters use a video telephone that can translate from one language to another. A language translator also appears in Murray Leinster’s 1945 First Contact. In that story, humans and creatures from another planet made a translation device together after asking for contact with one another. The idea of the language translator didn’t become truly popular, however, until the “universal translator” appeared in the 1970 Star Trek series, which delighted television viewers at that time. That device was universal in the sense that it could translate any language that it came across.
The first real language translator was demonstrated（展示）by engineers from IBM company and Georgetown University in 1954. Their machine could only translate Russian sentences into English.
Language translators have come a long way since then. Today, online translations can be accessed easily at no cost to users. With translation apps, users sometimes don’t even have to look things up. All they need to do is point their cellphone’s camera at some writing, and a translation immediately appears. If users want to translate something being said aloud, they just turn on their phone’s microphone. All of these features save time and effort.
Translation apps on phones make foreign travel much easier than before. They are invaluable and convenient when it comes to communicating with taxi drivers or hotel waiters who don’t speak a traveler’s native language. But these apps are far from perfect. Sometimes a translation makes no sense, forcing the user to guess what the translation means. At other times, the user might not know that the translation has failed until he or she shows it to a native speaker.
1. When was the idea of the language translator widely known?| A．In 1911. | B．In 1945. | C．In 1970. | D．In 1954. |
| A．writers are usually cleverer than inventors. |
| B．the idea of a language translator came from science stories. |
| C．engineers made language translators to delight TV viewers. |
| D．it took little effort for people to develop language translators. |
| A．Translation apps. | B．Users. |
| C．Translations. | D．Phones. |
| A．By telling that online translation will change our life. |
| B．By explaining that online translation has its weakness. |
| C．By introducing how to use translation apps in travelling. |
| D．By discussing why people should give up translation apps. |
| A．How do science stories become true? |
| B．Can languages be translated into each other? |
| C．How does a language translator develop? |
| D．Why do we depend on language translators? |
6 . Earthquake rescue robots have experienced their final tests in Beijing. Their designers say with these robots, rescuers will be able to buy more time to save lives during an earthquake.
This robot looking like a helicopter, is called the detector-bot. It's about 4 meters long, and it took about 4 years to develop the model. Its main functions are to collect information from the air, and send goods of up to 30 kilos to people trapped by an earthquake.
This robot has a high definition 360 degrees panoramic(全景)camera. It can work day and night and will also be able to send the latest pictures from the quake area.
Dr. Qi Juntong, Chinese Academy of Science, said, "The most important feature of this 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 a 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 40 centimeters 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 do we know about the detector robot?| A．It weighs about 30 kilos. | B．It is carried by a helicopter. |
| C．It hasn't been put into production so far. | D．It is a machine with a length of 10 meters. |
| A．It has more functions. | B．It can work by itself. |
| C．It has a unique shape. | D．It has advanced cameras. |
| A．A detector | B．A camera. | C．A rescuer | D．A supply. |
| A．What the robot looks like. | B．How the robot is made. |
| C．An introduction to the robot. | D．Information about earthquakes. |
7 . Jules Verne was born on 8 February 1828 in the French city of Nantes. From an early age, he had a fascination with exploration and discovery. When he was six, his teacher, Madame Sambin, told him stories about her husband, who disappeared while travelling the world on a ship 30 years before. She told her class that he was like Robinson Crusoe, a fictional (虚构的) castaway who lived on a desert island. Verne would later write stories about similar characters.
In 1847, Verne was sent by his family to study law at a university in Paris, but he preferred to write novels, poems and plays. After graduating, he realized he wanted to write science adventure stories. This had never been done before, but Verne was sure that it would be a success. His first story, Five Weeks in a Balloon, was published in September 1862. His career lasted for more than 40 years, during which time he wrote more than 60 gripping (扣人心弦的) stories.
To begin with, Verne wrote positive and optimistic books. Many of these were to be his most popular creations. Although some included fantastical elements, they were usually based on scientific facts, making them believable. These happy stories weren’t to last. As he got older, Verne became less confident in the idea that science and technology were always good for the planet. His books started to include more scientists who used technology for their own—sometimes evil—purposes. Verne died on 24 March 1905, but new books continued to be published until 1919. These stories were based on ideas Verne had written about while he was still alive, but featured new characters and plots created by his son, Michel.
In the 20th century, his books were translated into more than 140 languages and several successful film versions came out. His creations have been recognized as an inspiration for many scientists and inventors. Many of the futuristic ideas from his most popular books have since come true.
1. What is the function of paragraph 1?| A．To describe Verne’s discovery. |
| B．To introduce the characters of his stories. |
| C．To present the adventure of Sambin’s husband. |
| D．To show the teacher’s impact on Verne’s writing. |
| A．Studying law. |
| B．Graduating from university. |
| C．Writing novels, poems and plays. |
| D．Writing science adventure stories. |
| A．They covered happy elements. |
| B．They were unbelievable stories. |
| C．They revealed Verne’s doubt on science. |
| D．They were partly written by Verne’s son. |
| A．Talented and productive. | B．Popular and caring. |
| C．Optimistic and generous. | D．Friendly and honest. |
8 . Tsunamis(海啸) are one of the most terrifying natural phenomena that the world suffers. The series of waves produced by the displacement(位移) of a large volume of water can be caused by several events, including earthquakes, underwater explosions and landslides. Once triggered (引发), a tsunami can hit the coast within minutes and its destructive power can be enormous.
At present, early warning systems rely on measuring the movement of dart buoys(浮标), which record changes in the sea level, or assessing the bottom water pressure of the developing tsunami. But they require the tsunami to physically reach the measurement location. The buoys could be fixed in the deep ocean, but this requires an unrealistically big number of buoys. Or people can fix the buoys along the shoreline, but due to the high speed of the tsunami, this method may leave no warning time for people on the land.
Instead, there is a new system ------ using sound waves to predict tsunamis. Sound waves caused by an earthquake can travel much faster than the tsunami that has been triggered. Using standard underwater microphones, we can record these sound waves long before the tsunami arrives regardless of the direction in which the tsunami will travel. The sound signals come from changes in pressure, so what we actually analyze is a series of data on how the pressure is changing overtime. Though buoys also show changes in pressure, the tsunami front must actually reach the buoys to inform us that there is an increase in the water surface. By using underwater microphones，however, we only need to catch the sound signals.
Though the idea of using sound waves to predict tsunamis has been put forward previously, the key to our idea is a new mathematical method that can be used to analyze these recorded sound signals in near real-time. Once this is worked out, we can not only warn people of a tsunami but also more accurately estimate its size long before it reaches the shoreline.
1. From Paragraph 1, we know .| A．what can trigger off tsunamis |
| B．how to predict tsunamis effectively |
| C．why tsunamis are the worst natural disaster |
| D．how to protect the coastal areas from tsunamis |
| A．The dart buoys. |
| B．The changes in the sea level. |
| C．The changes in water pressure. |
| D．The present early warming systems. |
| A．It has high accuracy. |
| B．It can increase warning time. |
| C．It can monitor changeable sea levels. |
| D．It can adapt to various water wave conditions. |
| A．Ways to guard against tsunamis |
| B．Methods of analyzing sound signals |
| C．A new real-time tsunami warning system |
| D．Tsunami ----- the most terrifying natural disaster |
9 . Baby bats learn language from peers (同伴) in their social group, and will adopt the group’s dialect, or accent, instead of their mother’s, researchers said on Tuesday. The findings shed new light on crowd-learning of language, a skill thought to belong mainly to humans and just a few other mammals. It also shows that bats are different from songbirds, which tend to learn songs by copying one of their parents. “The ability to copy vocalizations (发音) from others is extremely important for speech learning in humans, but it’s believed to be rare among animals”, said lead author Yossi Yovel of Tel Aviv University.
For the study, researchers captured 14 pregnant Egyptian fruit bats. They separated them into three different bat social groups, where they raised the young bats with their mothers. Each bat group was exposed to a different recording of bat vocalizations. “The baby bats all adopted the manner of vocalizing of the group they heard, not their mothers. The difference between the vocalizations of the mother bat and those of the group is comparable to the difference in a London accent and, say, a Scottish accent,” Yovel said.
“The babies heard their mothers’ London dialect, but also heard the Scottish dialect produced by many dozens of Scottish bats. The babies eventually adopted a dialect that was more similar to the local Scottish dialect than to the London accent of their mothers.” Researchers hope to conduct future studies to examine how bats’ dialects change when they leave their social groups, and if it affects how they integrate with others.
1. What are the latest findings about bats?| A．Bats are born to adopt their mother’s dialect. |
| B．Bats can understand peers with different dialects. |
| C．Bats’ accents are influenced by their peer’s accents. |
| D．Bats pick up language quickly in company with their peers. |
| A．Accents. | B．Baby bats. |
| C．Researchers. | D．Mother bats. |
| A．To show the differences in dialects among social groups. |
| B．To explain why bat produce different sounds. |
| C．To indicate the birthplace of baby bats. |
| D．To compare how the two accents influenced understanding. |
| A．How bats adopt a new dialect after entering a new social group. |
| B．What changes might occur to bats’ accent after entering a new social group. |
| C．Whether bats leave their social group if they change their accents. |
| D．Why some bats fail to be accepted in a new group after they are born. |
10 . Tired of your quiet day-to-day life? How about leaving your computer games behind and taking up an extreme sport?
You can ride a bicycle, right? In that case you’re halfway to becoming a mountain biker. All you have to do is take your bike off the road and try some hilly areas. Mountain biking was developed in California in the 1970s and became an Olympic sport in 1996.
Not challenging enough? Skydivers jump from planes at a height of 1,000 to 4,000 meters. You have to be fit but there’s no age limit with this sport. For example, Dilys Price from Cardiff went on her first jump aged 54. The minute she came down, she wanted to go up again. She said: “It was so attractive”.
Some adventures have invented base jumping, in which people jump from tall structures, such as buildings or bridges, with a parachute. Many of their jumps aren’t legal, especially in the cities.Dan Witchalls has jumped off The Shard —London’s 310 meter-high building four times.He says, “Base jumping is scarier than jumping out of a plane. In a plane there is no sense of height, but when you are standing on the edge of the building you can see people and cars, the experience makes it very real.”
It seems there’s no shortage of imagination when it comes to risking life to look cool and get the heart beating wildly. Surfing, diving, rock climbing ...And how about extreme ironing? That is, pressing your clothes on top of a mountain! Extreme ironing is said to have been created in the 1990s in England by a man who saw a large amount of wrinkled clothes and felt bored when doing the cloth ironing. That man was Phil Shaw. For him, the excitement of this sport comes from looking at the viewers’ faces. Shaw says, “Sometimes they look confused; sometimes they laugh. It’s fun to see how people react to it.”
1. What does the author think about mountain biking?| A．A bit boring. | B．Challenging indeed. |
| C．Great fun. | D．Not very hard. |
| A．Skydivers have to be very healthy. | B．Skydiving is not challenging enough. |
| C．Elderly people can also take up skydiving. | D．People can easily become crazy about skydiving. |
| A．The sense of height. | B．Base jumping experience. |
| C．The edge of the building. | D．Jumping out of a plane. |
| A．He liked ironing clothes. | B．He wanted to make clothes ironing more fun. |
| C．He enjoyed different looks on people's faces. | D．He had a good view standing on top of a mountain. |
