1 . As an astronomer(天文学家)，I am accustomed to observing the universe in quiet places. I observe galaxies in the deep universe-places so far away that their light takes billions of years to reach our eyes.
Sometimes I wonder what our own galaxy looked like billions of years ago, before solar system was born. I often stare at the Hubble Deep Field(哈勃深空区)searching for clues∶galaxies colliding(碰撞)，stars exploding，and stellar nurseries. Can looking to the stars bring us closer together?
A couple of months ago，Betelgeuse，a bright star in the Orion constellation(猎户座) started to get dimmer and dimmer. Astronomers all over the world thought this might be a signal that the star was about to explode. Though it might not happen for another 1000 years or more, still I went outside every night to check it out. I was hoping that it would explode. Imagine seeing a star shining as bright as the full moon even during the day.
I started dreaming about using such an event to remind everyone that stars produce nearly all of the chemical elements in the universe, which came directly out of the Big Bang. Everything we breathe, touch and see was made inside of stars. The iron in our blood, calcium bones, and almost the entire periodic table are products of stellar evolution.
Betelgeuse did not explode, and more recent observations note that it is actually returning to normal. But nothing is normal here on Earth now. I am beginning to realize that we did not need a star to explode to unite us. All we needed was a common problem.
I am hoping that everyone on the planet is saving some time to contemplate（凝视，沉思)the universe and to realize we are not alone. No matter where we are or who we are, we are on this planet together. Since we are all made of stars, looking up at the night sky gives us a glimpse of our past and our future, and we can contemplate both together.
1. Why does the author write this article?| A．To advise others to stare at a potentially exploding star recently. |
| B．To research into the scientific mystery in the universe with readers. |
| C．To discuss the proper relationship between human and the universe. |
| D．To suggest us thinking about the way human beings live in this world. |
| A．is a star the author tracked for years |
| B．will produce chemical elements if it explodes |
| C．is a normal star which is disappearing |
| D．will explode in ten thousand years |
| A．Betelgeuse's potential explosion |
| B．Betelgeuse's getting dimmer and dimmer |
| C．the author's checking out every night |
| D．a star's shining as bright as the sun |
| A．What should an astronomer do? |
| B．Should we know more about the universe? |
| C．Looking to the stars can bring us closer together. |
| D．Getting united is a problem impossible to solve. |
2 . Over 400 human footprints preserved in volcanic sediment （沉淀物）provide a sign at social life among ancient hunter-gatherers. The impressions, found in northern Tanzania, add up to Africa's largest collection of ancient human footprints, say evolutionary biologist Kevin Hatala of Chatham University in Pittsburgh and colleagues. People walked across a muddy layer of volcanic ashes dating to between 19,100 and 5,760 years ago, the researchers reported on May 14 in Scientific Reports. Dating of a thin rock layer that partly overlaps （重 叠）the sediment narrows the footprints' age to about 12,000 to 10,000 years ago.
Hatala's team analyzed footprint sizes, distances between prints and which way prints pointed. One collection of tracks was made by 17 people walking southwest. Comparisons with modern prints suggest that this group consisted of fourteen women, two men and one young boy. The women may have been searching for foods while a few males visited or accompanied them, the researchers infer. Some present-day hunter-gatherers form lately female food-gathering groups.
The study is "a nice piece of work”, although it's hard to specify what people were doing, says geologist Matthew Bennett of Bournemouth University in Poole, England.
Many more sets of footprint tracks would be needed to argue convincingly that hunter-gatherers at that time had female food-gathering groups, Bennett says. And it would still be unknown if the women were gathering plants or hunting prey. Other footprint sites present especially promising opportunities for studying ancient behavior, he says. He is involved in work in New Mexico that has uncovered tens of thousands of footprints of humans and other creatures from more than 10,000 years ago. Early results suggest that humans there hunted giant sloths （树 獭）.Bennett expects those prints will yield more insights into Stone Age hunting.
1. What does the underlined word "impressions” in the first paragraph mean?| A．Thoughts about people or things. | B．Collections of volcanic ashes. |
| C．Marks left by creatures or something. | D．Behaviors of imitating someone- |
| A．Ancient hunters were socially organized. |
| B．Ancient male hunters were admired by females. |
| C．Female food-gathering groups were obviously formed. |
| D．Males played a more important role in finding food than females. |
| A．The females gathered plants or hunted prey in the Stone Age. |
| B．The footprint tracks have proved female food-gathering groups existed. |
| C．The footprint sites provide a good chance to further study ancient behavior |
| D．The footprints will hardly influence our understanding of Stone Age hunting. |
| A．How Ancient Hunters Gathered Food |
| B．What Ancient Hunan Footprints Were Like |
| C．What Ancient Human Footprints Tell Us |
| D．How Ancient Food-Gathering Groups Cooperated |
3 . 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. |
4 . 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 |
5 . The universe is expanding faster than it used to, meaning it’s about a billion years younger than we thought, a new study by a Nobel Prize winner says.
At issue is a number called the Hubble constant, a calculation for how fast the universe is expanding. Some scientists call it the most important number in cosmology, the study of the origin and development of the universe.
Using NASAS Hubble Space Telescope, lohns Hopkings University astronomer Adam Riess concluded in this week’s Astrophysical Journal that the figure is 9% higher than the previous calculation, which was based on studying leftovers from the Big Bang.
The trouble is， Riess and others think both calculations are correct. Confused? That’s OK, so are the experts. They find the conflict so confusing that they are talking about coming up with “new physics”, incorporating (合作) perhaps some yet-to-be-discovered particle or other cosmic (宇宙) “fudge factors” like dark energy or dark matter
“Its looking more and more like were going to need something new to explain this,” said Reiss, who won the 2011 Nobel in physics.
NASA astrophysicist John Mather, another Nobel winner, said this leaves two obvious options, “1. We’re making mistakes we can’t find yet. 2. Nature has something we can’t find yet.”
Even with the discovery, life continues on Earth the way it always has. But to astrophysicists trying to get a handle on our place in this expanding universe, this is a cosmic concern. In fact, the universe is really mystical (神秘的). Scientists have done lots of study about it but there is still much they haven’t discovered.
1. What is the finding of the new study?| A．The earth is younger than expected. |
| B．Many universal problems are rising. |
| C．The universe is growing faster than before. |
| D．The finding is based on past scientists’ calculations. |
| A．The Hubble constant. | B．The faster expanding universe. |
| C．The development of the universe. | D．The scientific research on the universe. |
| A．They want to raise a new theory. |
| B．They want to explore dark matter. |
| C．They want to further calculate the finding. |
| D．They want to mix together both calculations. |
| A．We cannot find anything useful. |
| B．Astronomers are making many mistakes. |
| C．We need to learn about the universe. |
| D．We cannot find something new from nature. |
6 . Humans really do have a sixth sense that lets us detect magnetic fields (磁场), but we’re not aware we have it. It has long been known as ESP, Spider Sense, or the ability to see things before they happen. But now scientists have proved that humans really do have a sixth sense-that lets them detect magnetic fields. Tests have shown that mankind may have the same inborn sense of Earth’s magnetic field that has long been proved to exist in animals.
By putting a protein from the human retina (视网膜) into fruit flies, researchers noticed that the insect adjusted its flight path just as if its eye had not been changed. This suggests that the “sixth sense” does exist in humans but we might not be aware of it. Animals use such sight to navigate long distances during migration or, in the case of birds, to “see” where they are going. The complex tests involved examining the process by which light goes through a bird’s eye, which has interested the scientific community for more than 30 years. In the late 1970s, the physicist Klaus Schulten concluded that birds fly by relying on geomagnetically (地磁) sensitive biochemical reactions in their eyes.
Tests have shown that the special cells in the eye carry out this function using the protein cryptochrome (蛋白隐色素). Professor Reppert’s team used wild fruit flies, replacing their version of cryptochrome with the human equivalent (等价物), and then put them in a maze (迷宫) with each wing wrapped in a metal coil (金属圈). They then sent electricity through it so that the coil was magnetised in a way which is just like Earth’s electromagnetic field (电磁场). The flies responded in exactly the same way as if they had their own cryptochrome, by either avoiding the magnetic fields or moving towards them if the researchers had placed sugar nearby.
The new study was published in the journal Nature Communications.
1. What do we know about humans’ sixth sense?| A．Humans have been aware of it since ancient times. |
| B．It is quite different from the animals’. |
| C．It is the ability to predict what will happen. |
| D．It is also a sense developed after birth. |
| A．To change fruit flies’ flight path. |
| B．To test if humans have a sixth sense. |
| C．To examine the process of birds’ flying. |
| D．To allow researchers detect magnetic fields. |
| A．the maze | B．each wing |
| C．cryptochrome | D．the metal coil |
| A．They responded normally as if there had been nothing changed. |
| B．They couldn’t avoid the magnetic fields like before. |
| C．They lost the sense of direction completely. |
| D．They couldn’t find the sugar the researchers had placed nearby. |
7 . In life，once on a path，we tend to follow it，for better or worse.What's sad is that even if it's the latter，we often accept it anyway because we are so used to the way things are that wed don't even recognize that they could be different This is a phenomenon psychologist call functional fixedness.
This classic experiment will give you an idea of how it works and a sense of whether you may have fallen into the same trap: People are given a box of tacks (大头钉) and some matches and asked to find a way to attach a candle to a wall so that it burns properly.
Typically, the subjects try tacking the candle to the wall or lighting it to fix it with melted wax. The psychologists had, of course, arranged it so that neither of these obvious approaches would work. The tacks are too short, and the paraffin (石蜡) doesn't stick to the wall. So how can you complete the task? The successful technique is to use the tack box as a candle-holder. You empty it, tack it to the wall. and stand the candle inside it. To think of that, you have to look beyond the box's usual role as a receptacle just for tacks and re-imagine it serving an entirely new purpose. That is difficult because we all suffer to one degree or another from functional fixedness.
The inability to think in new ways affects people in every corner of society. The political theorist Hannah Arendt coined the phrase“frozen thoughts”to describe deeply held ideas that we no longer question but should. In Arendt's eyes, the self- content reliance on such accepted “truths”also made people blind to ideas that didn't fit their worldview, even when there was plenty of evidence for them.
Frozen thinking has nothing to do with intelligence, she said,“It can be found in highly intelligent people.”
1. What does the underlined word“it”in paragraph 2 refer to?| A．The experiment. | B．Functional fixedness. |
| C．The path. | D．The thinking. |
| A．Tacking the candle to the wall. |
| B．Fixing the candle with melted wax. |
| C．Using the tack box as a candle-holder. |
| D．Lighting the candle to stand it. |
| A．People should question. |
| B．We should be used to the way things are. |
| C．People shouldn't accept the idea that doesn't fit their worldview. |
| D．The smarter people are，the more open to the new things they are. |
| A．An interesting experiment |
| B．A psychological phenomenon. |
| C．A theory to be proved. |
| D．The opinion of Hannah Arendt. |
8 . It is a well accepted assumption that students come to colleges to get good grades and that they are usually too busy to do anything else.
But Connie Snyder Mick, an academic director of the Center for Social Concerns at the University of Notre Dame, says it is just half of the truth. There are many volunteering centers like hers at the colleges and universities in the United States. Mick says these centers help students seek an experience that may not be directly related to a student’s academic progress, but that is still important.
Volunteering is not uncommon in higher education. Many college groups organize volunteer events for different causes. Officials in charge of student housing often organize such events to help build a sense of community. Participation in these kinds of activities is good for students, Mick says. For example, the busy nature of college life can create a lot of stress for students. Doing something completely unrelated to a student's studies can help calm them by putting their mind on other things.
For a more meaningful addition to their college experience. Mick urges students to visit centers like the one she heads. She says these centers exist to create volunteer opportunities that are more complex and meaningful than just a day spent cleaning a local park or raising money, for example.
Such volunteering centers often partner with local organizations that serve the people of the nearby communities. Even for students with little interest in building a connection with the local communities, there is still value in what volunteer centers have to offer, Mick says. She notes some opportunities can push students to use what they are learning in the classroom out in the real world and having that kind of experience can make a student appealing to employers in the years to come.
1. What does the underlined word “that” in paragraph 2 refer to?| A．Academic progress. |
| B．College education. |
| C．Volunteering experience. |
| D．Center for Social Concerns. |
| A．To give students good part-time jobs. |
| B．To raise money for different celebrations. |
| C．To help build a closer bond among the students. |
| D．To improve the living conditions for the students. |
| A．By helping them focus on their study. |
| B．By offering chances to test their knowledge. |
| C．By protecting them from the local communities. |
| D．By increasing their competitiveness in the job market. |
| A．Colorful College Life in the USA |
| B．Guidelines for Volunteering Center Selection |
| C．Volunteering: a Meaningful Addition to College Life |
| D．A Valuable Platform: Mick's Center for Social Concerns |
9 . Medicine is not only a human invention. Many other animals, from insects to birds to nonhuman primates (灵长类), have been known to self-medicate with plants and minerals for infections and other conditions. Behavioral ecologist Helen of the Borneo Nature Foundation has spent decades studying the island’ s orangutans (红毛猩猩) and says she has now found evidence they use plants in a previously unseen medicinal way.
During more than 20,000 hours of formal observation, Helen and her colleagues watched 10 orangutans occasionally chew a particular plant (which is not part of their normal diet) into a juice and then rub it into their fur. They spent up to 45 minutes at a time rubbing the mixture onto their upper arms or legs. The researchers believe this behavior is the first known example of a nonhuman animal using an external pain-killer.
Local people use the same plant—Dracaena cantleyi (龙血树), an unremarkable-looking bush with stalked leaves—to treat aches and pains. Helens, co-authors studied its chemistry. They added chemicals from the plant to human cells that had been grown in a dish and had been artificially stimulated to produce cytokines (细胞因子), an immune system response that causes inflammation (炎症) and discomfort. The plant chemical reduced the production of several types of cytokines. The scientists reported the finding in a study published last November in Scientific Reports.
The results suggest that orangutans use the plant to reduce inflammation and treat pain. Such findings could help identify plants and chemicals that might be useful for human medications.
1. What does “They” in Paragraph 2 refer to?| A．Birds. | B．Local people. |
| C．The ten orangutans. | D．The researchers. |
| A．It can produce cytokines. | B．It is effective as a pain-killer. |
| C．It is a special looking bush. | D．It can lead to inflammation and discomfort. |
| A．Orangutans mainly live on the particular plant. |
| B．Orangutans are the first animals to use a pain-killer. |
| C．Helens findings can be of great use for human drugs. |
| D．Helens co-authors added the chemicals from human cells to the plant. |
| A．By analyzing data. | B．By sharing experiences. |
| C．By making comparisons. | D．By giving examples. |
10 . Some of the most famous scientific discoveries happened by accident. From the microwave oven to penicillin, scientists trying to solve a problem have sometimes found unexpected things. This is exactly how we created phosphorene nanoribbons (磷烯纳米带) — a material made from one of the universe’s basic building blocks, which has the potential to revolutionize a wide range of technologies.
We'd been trying to separate layers of phosphorus crystals (晶体) into two-dimensional sheets. Instead, our technique created tiny ribbons one single atom thick and only 100 or so atoms across, but up to 100,000 atoms long. We spent three years improving the production process, before announcing our findings. The two-dimensional ribbons have a number of remarkable properties (属性). Their unbelievable width allows their properties, such as whether and how they conduct electricity, to be controllable. They are also very flexible, which means that they can follow any surfaces they’re put on perfectly, and can even be twisted.
More than 100 scientific papers predicted the transformative potential of these ribbons, should it be possible to create them, across a range of technologies — some as many as five years before the publishing of our discovery in Nature. Perhaps the most important of these is in the area of battery technology. The structure of phosphorene nanoribbons means that the charged ions (带电离子) that power batteries could soon move up to 1000 times faster than they currently possible do. This would mean a significant decrease in charging time, alongside an increase in capacity of approximately 50%. Such performance gains would provide massive boosts to the electric car and aircraft industries, and allow us to use renewable energy more readily, even on grey, calm days.
1. What does “we” in the text refer to?| A．Scientists. | B．Doctors. |
| C．Publishers. | D．Technicians. |
| A．Its shape. | B．Its origin. |
| C．Its structure. | D．Its characteristic. |
| A．The cleaner source of energy. |
| B．The bigger batteries of tiny ribbons. |
| C．The increasing capacity of batteries. |
| D．The faster moving speed of charged ions. |
| A．The amazing development of battery technology. |
| B．Significant changes brought by wonderful discoveries. |
| C．A “Wonder material” created accidentally by scientists. |
| D．Unexpected inventions made in human’s history. |
