1 . Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and the main point(s) of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.

Will Plant-based Protein Continue to be an Appetizer in Food World?

A good vegan milk needs to look like milk and taste like milk, whether it’s a fatty version, preferred by bakers, or a skimmed one, favored by the health-conscious. For years, manufacturers of plant-based protein have had trouble hacking this delicate imitation game and it seems that they are winning back a bit. The global revenues (收益) from alternative proteins could reach $290 billion by 2035 and that is a cautious estimate. However, can it last?

Unlike those early products, which were neither terribly tasty nor particularly nutritious, cleaver (剁肉刀) processing improves textures, additives boost taste and a pinch of specially engineered peas and beans adds nutrient in the latest products. Still, ultra-processed substitutes seldom match animal proteins in nutritional value. Animal products, including milk, are better for children’s bone development, though lab- grown versions of meat or dairy are becoming more nutritious. Meanwhile, green-minded consumers are realizing that plant-based does not necessarily mean sustainable in that it still takes a lot to obtain raw materials. Farming almonds (杏仁) to make a milk-like drink, for example, uses huge quantities of water.

Plant-based proteins are also a tough sell in giant markets like India, where diets are already rich in plants and vegetables, or Nigera, where meat-eating is a sign of wealth. That limits their global appeal.

All these suggests that alternative proteins have far to go to replace the animal kind. The limitations may be weighing on the firms involved. Oatly’s market value has fallen by about 80% since its listing, partly because of production difficulties. That of Beyond Meat, whose burgers feature in McDonald’s latest menu, is down by 90% from its peak. Plant-based foods may no longer be only an appetizer in diets, but their maker remain one in food business.

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2 . Back in 1930, the economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that with technological change and improvements in-productivity, we’d only be working 15 hours a week by now. But while working hours have _______ by 26%, most of us still average 42.5 hours a week.

One of the things Keynes underestimated is the human desire to _______ with our peers — a drive that makes most of us work more than we need to. “We don’t measure productivity by how much we’ve harvested anymore,” says Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, visiting scholar at Stanford University. “Overworking has been part of Western society since the Industrial Revolution. When some predicted that automation would create an extra amount of _______ time, needless to say, that didn’t happen.

Thanks to computerization and globalization in the 1980s, managers could demand more of employees under the _______ that jobs could be given to someone else. So the _______ piled on. And we took it exhausted, but asking up the burden all the same. The psychologist Barbara Killnger writes in Workaholics: Te Respectable Addicts about how we _______ sacrifice our own well-being through overwork for “success”.

But far from delivering productivity, value, or personal fulfillment, overwork has been proven to lead to burnout, stress, greater risk of heart disease and even shorter lifespans. _______ we carried on — until COVID-19 came along.

Besides making us work longer hours from home, COVID-19 has also _______ the move towards the adoption of automated machine, especially tor jobs requiring much interpersonal contact-from Amazon developing delivery drones (无人机) to self-driving cars. By 2050, Michael Osborne, a professor of machine learning at the University of Oxford, predicts that at least 40% of current jobs will be lost to _______.

There are ________. Jobs that involve complex social interactions are beyond current robot skills: so teaching, social care, nursing and counselling are all likely to ________ the AI revolution. As are jobs that rely on creativity. The same also goes for ________ jobs, according to Osborne, due to the large number of different objects cleaners encounter and the variety of ways those objects need to be dealt with. Interestingly, areas of the workplace traditionally dominated by women won’t be so easily adopted by AI. Robots are unlikely to ________ in the “work” of taking care of children, preparing lunchboxes and doing the laundry.

Those whose work falls outside the caring, cleaning or creative field will still work in future, just ________. In about 60% of occupations, it is estimated that a third of the tasks can be automated, meaning changes to the way we work. A large-scale study has predicted that over the next 20 years, although 7 million jobs will be taken over by AI. 7.2 million new ones will be ________ as a result. So we will work in future: we just don’t know what we’ll be doing yet.

1.

A．declined

B．increased

C．continued

D．kept

2.

A．disagree

B．compete

C．cooperate

D．identify

3.

A．working

B．tough

C．leisure

D．active

4.

A．fantasy

B．influence

C．threat

D．impression

5.

A．joy

B．cash

C．ambition

D．pressure

6.

A．excitedly

B．willingly

C．dramatically

D．hopefully

7.

A．Otherwise

B．Still

C．Furthermore

D．Therefore

8.

A．speeded up

B．followed up

C．prepared for

D．planned for

9.

A．overwork

B．labour

C．automation

D．science

10.

A．dreams

B．models

C．expectations

D．exceptions

11.

A．cause

B．cease

C．survive

D．undergo

12.

A．caring

B．cleaning

C．curing

D．coaching

13.

A．assist

B．exist

C．believe

D．understand

14.

A．hardly

B．differently

C．unfortunately

D．probably

15.

A．lost

B．recovered

C．substituted

D．created

3 . The curb cut (下斜路缘). It’s a convenience that most of us rarely, if ever, notice. Yet, without it, daily life might be a lot harder—in more ways than one. Pushing a baby stroller onto the curb, skateboarding onto a sidewalk or taking a full grocery cart from the sidewalk to your car—all these tasks are easier because of the curb cut.

But it was created with a different purpose in mind.

It’s hard to imagine today, but back in the 1970s, most sidewalks in the United States ended with a sharp drop-off. That was a big deal for people in wheelchairs because there were no ramps (斜坡) to help them move along city blocks without assistance. According to one disability rights leader, a six-inch curb “might as well have been Mount Everest”. So, activists from Berkeley, California, who also needed wheelchairs, organized a campaign to create tiny ramps at intersections to help people dependent on wheels move up and down curbs independently.

I think about the “curb cut effect” a lot when working on issues around health equity (公平). The first time I even heard about the curb cut was in a 2017 Stanford Social Innovation Review piece by PolicyLink CEO Angela Blackwell. Blackwell rightly noted that many people see equity “as a zero-sum game.” Basically, that there is a “prejudiced societal suspicion that intentionally supporting one group hurts another.” What the curb cut effect shows though, Blackwell said, is that “when society creates the circumstances that allow those who have been left behind to participate and contribute fully, everyone wins.”

There are multiple examples of this principle at work. For example, investing in policies that create more living-wage jobs or increase the availability of affordable housing certainly benefits people in communities that have limited options. But, the action also empowers those people with opportunities for better health and the means to become contributing members of society—and that benefits everyone. Even the football huddle (围成一团以秘密商讨) was initially created to help deaf football players at Gallaudet College keep their game plans secret from opponents who could have read their sign language. Today, it’s used by every team to shield the opponent from learning about game-winning strategies.

So, next time you cross the street, or roll your suitcase through a crosswalk or ride your bike directly onto a sidewalk—think about how much the curb cut, that change in design that broke down walls of exclusion for one group of people at a disadvantage, has helped not just that group, but all of us.

1. By “might as well have been Mount Everest” (paragraph 3), the disability rights leader implies that a six-inch curb may become ________.

A．as famous as the world’s highest mountain

B．an almost impassable barrier

C．a connection between people

D．a most unforgettable matter

2. According to Angela Blackwell, many people believe that ________.

A．it’s fair to give the disadvantaged more help than others

B．it’s impossible to have everyone be treated equally

C．it’s necessary to go all out to help the disabled

D．it’s not worthwhile to promote health equity

3. Which of the following examples best illustrates the “curb cut effect” principle?

A．Spaceflight designs are applied to life on earth.

B．Four great inventions of China spread to the west.

C．Christopher Columbus discovered the new world.

D．Classic literature got translated into many languages.

4. What conclusion can be drawn from the passage?

A．Everyday items are originally invented for people with disabilities.

B．Everyone in a society should pursue what is in his or her interest.

C．A disability rights leader changed the life of his fellow men.

D．Caring for disadvantaged groups may finally benefit all.

4 . Going off to university gives students the opportunity to move out of home and into halls – and the chance to make their own decisions free of parental _________. For many, the experience is _________. But it is not suitable for everyone, which is why many students choose to commute(走读).

At Oxford Brookes University, a travel survey for 2012 found that almost a quarter (24.1%) of students travelled more than 10 miles to get to campus, while more than a third (34%) took journeys _________longer than 30 minutes. These figures may seem surprisingly high, but with the increase in tuition fees and the rising costs of living, they are _________ to grow.

Of course _________ pressures are not the only reason students opt to travel significant distances to university. Helen Jenkins, who studies English and Japanese, decided to commute to Oxford Brookes after _________ from depression in her first year.

The question of degree availability is vital. Less _________ subjects aren't taught at all institutions. Students who are tied _________ by family commitments are left with little choice but to travel considerable distances to _________ their studies.

Moreover, first-year students who fail to get a place in halls, or got a last-minute university place through clearing, are often __________ to commute – at least in the beginning.

Having lived in student accommodation in my first year, I opted to commute from London to Oxford in my second. I am fully __________ of the pros and cons(利害之处) of being a teenage coach commuter. While I adore my course, "student life" wasn't for me.

Though I now have all my home comforts, it is important to stress that living at home is not the easy option. I endure a journey that takes several hours out of my day, have less time to socialize, and am an awfully long way away from the university library. I estimate my travel will have __________ me £1,000 by the end of the year. This isn't cheap, but it is considerably less than the cost of __________ a property and having to worry about all the bills that come with it.

Students are finding a variety of __________ to the problem of high rentals: some have decided to study by distance learning, for example, through the Open University, while others are doing degrees at local further education colleges. The more __________ are opting to study in Europe, where education is cheaper, though the cost of travelling back and forth to Britain soon cuts into their savings.

1.

A．violence

B．authority

C．discipline

D．scale

2.

A．thrilling

B．terrifying

C．boring

D．confusing

3.

A．continuing

B．keeping

C．lasting

D．starting

4.

A．possible

B．likely

C．perhaps

D．never

5.

A．emotional

B．financial

C．influential

D．residential

6.

A．benefiting

B．suffering

C．learning

D．resulting

7.

A．traditional

B．original

C．efficient

D．popular

8.

A．geographically

B．academically

C．accidentally

D．unwillingly

9.

A．abandon

B．pursue

C．search

D．research

10.

A．willing

B．forced

C．wise

D．released

11.

A．aware

B．familiar

C．resistant

D．informative

12.

A．spend

B．cost

C．take

D．occupy

13.

A．managing

B．sharing

C．living

D．renting

14.

A．remedies

B．solutions

C．methods

D．origins

15.

A．intelligent

B．economical

C．responsible

D．adventurous

5 . Questions are based on the following passage.
1.

A．They have a short memory

B．They have language interference.

C．They are lacking in language skills.

D．They don’t know the language patterns.

2.

A．All Russian words have genders.

B．Russian has fewer grammar rules.

C．Russian has different sentence structures.

D．Russian has an obligatory category for gender.

3.

A．Translators have language interference.

B．Languages have different obligatory categories.

C．Languages connect with the community that uses them.

D．Translation is obviously a one-way street for any language.

6 . Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and the main point(s) of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.

New Testing Method in Era of Online Learning

In research published today in Science of Learning, engineers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute demonstrate how a testing strategy they call “distanced online testing” can effectively reduce students’ ability to receive help from one another in order to score higher on a test taken at individual homes during social distancing.

“Often in remote online exams, students can talk over the phone or internet to discuss answers,” said Ge Wang, a chair professor of biomedical engineering at Rensselaer and the corresponding author on this paper. “The key idea of our method is to minimize this chance via discrete optimization(离散优化)aided by knowledge of a student’s competencies.”

When a distanced online test is performed, students receive the same questions, but at varying times depending on their skill level. For instance, students of highest mastery levels receive each question after other groups of students have already answered those questions. This approach, Wang said, reduces the motivator for students to receive help from those who have more mastery of the material. In order to determine the order of each student’s questions, their competence levels are estimated using their grade point averages, SAT scores, or midterm scores, depending on what is available at a specific point in the semester.

According to statistical tests and post-exam surveys, this method reduced the points gained through cheating by orders of magnitude (数量级) when compared to conventional exam methods. As an added benefit, Wang said, when students knew collusion would not be possible, they were more motivated to study class material. Wang and his colleagues hope to share this innovation of teaching methods and theory beyond the Rensselaer campus.

“We plan to develop a good platform so that others can easily use this method,” said Wang, a member of the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies at Rensselaer.