1 . Finnish researchers say they have produced coffee in a laboratory that smells and tastes very similar to the real thing. The team reports that lab-grown coffee could be important as climate change continues to threaten traditional coffee farming.
Scientists at Finland’s VTT Technical Research Center created cell cultures (培养物) from the leaves of coffee plants. The process involves floating the cell cultures in bioreactors (生物反应器) filled with nutrients. The same method is used to make other kinds of animal- and plant-based products.
Heikki Aisala is a VTT researcher who oversaw the process. Aisala said that cups of the cellular (细胞的) coffee probably would not pass taste tests comparing it to traditional coffee. “Not like, of course, 100 percent. It tastes like a combination of different types of coffees,” Aisala said. The researcher added that while the cellular coffee is not ready for the market just yet, “it certainly does resemble coffee at the moment.” Aisala added it is possible that the lab-grown version could one day develop into a multi-billion-dollar industry.
VTT Research team leader Heiko Rischer said cell cultures offer a more sustainable way to make coffee. This is because coffee is in high demand. This has led to countries opening up more land to grow coffee beans, which causes increased deforestation (滥伐森林). Rischer said the environmental benefits of lab-grown coffee include reduced use of pesticides(农药) and fertilizer and less need to ship coffee beans long distances to markets.
In Europe, lab-grown coffee would need to be approved before it could be marketed. But an important question remains: Will coffee lovers actually drink the lab-grown creation? A Reuters reporter put that question to Satu, a server in a Helsinki coffee shop.
“I think someday we’re going that way because all the natural coffee sources are disappearing,” she said. “So, we have to move along... if it tastes good and the aroma (香味) is coffee based, so why not? I think it’s possible.”
1. Compared to traditional coffee, the lab-grown coffee .
A.has a lower cost and more production |
B.hardly meets people’ S taste need |
C.can’ t be accepted because of its looks |
D.is unable to be produced in a large scale |
A.There’S no difference between lab-grown coffee and traditional coffee. |
B.Researchers think lab grown coffee is beneficial to people’s health. |
C.Traditional coffee farming are being affected by the climate change. |
D.The new method can be only used to grow lab-grown coffee. |
A.the taste of the lab-grown coffee can be improved |
B.the lab-grown coffee will be approved in Europe |
C.the customers will accept the lab-grown coffee |
D.natural coffee sources will disappear in the future |
A.it doesn’t need pesticides and fertilizer |
B.it’s extremely friendly to the environment |
C.it will increase the forest coverage |
D.it reduces the fuel consumption of ships |
1. Where does David stay during his summer camp?
A.In a tent. | B.In a hotel. | C.In a cabin. |
A.Go fishing. | B.Go hiking. | C.Draw pictures. |
A.Salad. | B.Hamburgers. | C.Hot dogs. |
A.At 2:00 p.m. | B.At 6:30 p.m. | C.At 7:00 p.m. |
3 . We are now in the 22nd century. With the development of science and technology, people can change their bodies
As years went by, Mr. Smith was bored of his look. Several months ago, Mr. Smith went to a body engineering shop and
In the next few weeks, Mr. Smith’s interest in his
A.in | B.by | C.on | D.of |
A.cared for | B.waited for | C.asked for | D.sent for |
A.popular | B.similar | C.strange | D.useful |
A.long | B.short | C.thick | D.thin |
A.silently | B.foolishly | C.carelessly | D.suddenly |
A.shape | B.age | C.life | D.look |
A.probably | B.hardly | C.nearly | D.completely |
A.Because | B.But | C.However | D.Although |
A.guided | B.refused | C.forced | D.allowed |
A.interest | B.condition | C.decision | D.situation |
4 . What’s next after the smartphone?
Humans can perform tricks today that magicians couldn’t have imagined 50 years ago. Armed with only a tiny device today, our smartphone allows us to access a lifetime’s worth of information, connect with anyone in real time even if they are miles away and perform complex tasks like drawing a floor plan within minutes. But, the most astonishing part of this technological “magic” is the speed at which new opportunities and experiences are coming out.
From generation to generation, we have seen the inevitable connection between humans and technology as advancements are adopted to serve us and improve our quality of life. And the rate of technological progress is doubling every year.
Twenty years ago, who would have thought that we would be walking with robots and cyborgs (半人半机器的生物)? With the advancement of technology, we humans are accepting digital technologies to improve and extend our senses and capabilities.
Take Moon Ribs and Neil Harbison for example. They are the founders of the Cyborg Foundation, which aims to help humans become cyborgs, defend cyborg rights and promote cyborgs as social and artistic movement. Both Ribs and Harbison are cyborgs, with Ribs having a seismic chip put into her arm so she can feel earthquakes all around the world in real time and Harbison, who is color blind, has an antenna (天线) put into his head to allow him to be aware of visible and invisible colors via sound waves.
This is only the beginning of beginnings. As we continue to spend more time with machines, the more they will become embedded (嵌入) in our lives. Technology already feels like it has a mind of its own, and over the next two decades, this will become even more pronounced.
Machines will eventually become as intelligent as us, and, while today they may just live in our pockets, tomorrow they could be in our blood stream and our minds, linking us to the cloud. And as this gap separating humans and machines continues to close, we will reach a point where we become indistinguishable from one another. Technology and humanity will fuse (融合) together some day in the near future.
1. The first paragraph of the passage is intended to tell readers .A.smartphone brings us much convenience |
B.the magical and powerful functions of smartphone |
C.the most astonishing technological magic of smartphone |
D.new opportunities and experiences are coming out at a high speed |
A.Unavoidable. | B.Unbelievable. | C.Unreliable. | D.Unrealistic. |
A.help human to create other cyborgs |
B.sense colors by using sound waves |
C.see both visible and invisible colors |
D.feel earthquakes all around the world |
5 . The United States has over 50 famous, well-traveled national parks. Among them are Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone and Acadia. The country also has several roads called National Parkways. These long, winding paths let Visitors experience nature, history and culture from a car. Like the parks, the roads are managed by the National Park Service.
The parkways cut through some of the most scenic parts of the country. One of the longest and most popular is the Blue Ridge Parkway.
National parkways are made up of scenic roads and surrounding land. They were designed to give people driving cars a chance to see beautiful parts of the country. They have also been important for improving local economies.
The idea for National Parkways began in the early 1930s, during the Great Depression. The Great Depression was a difficult economic time in the United States. Families and communities suffered. Many people were without work.
To create more jobs and improve the economy, the U.S. government built roads that passed through beautiful parts of the country that had suffered during the Depression.
One of these roads was the Blue Ridge Parkway. The early goal for the parkway was to build a road through the Appalachian Mountains that connected Shenandoah National Park with the Great Smokey Mountains National Park.
In the beginning, building the parkway created some problems for local communities. People who had been living in the area were forced to move. Also, people were not permitted to drive vehicles on the parkway while carrying items for sale. But, in the end, the Blue Ridge Parkway brought jobs and money to the communities. And today, it is an important part of the local economy. In the last year, the Blue Ridge Parkway earned over a billion dollars from tourism. That is more money than any other place managed by the National Park Service.
1. What is the text mainly about?A.The U.S. national parks. |
B.The National Park Service. |
C.The U.S. National Parkways. |
D.The history of National Parkways. |
A.Offering comfortable driving. |
B.Avoiding depressed emotions. |
C.Watching the scenery of National Parks. |
D.Experiencing beautiful parts of the country. |
A.To link two national parks. |
B.To improve the economy. |
C.To enjoy natural beauty. |
D.To create more jobs. |
A.Its natural beauty. |
B.Its economy value. |
C.Difficulty in building it. |
D.Its problems for local people. |
6 . Facebook has developed the first machine learning model that can translate between any two of 100 languages without going into English first. It says the new multilingual machine translation model was created to help its more than two billion users Worldwide. The company is still testing the translation system-which it calls M2M-100-and hopes to add it to different products in the future.
Angela Fan, a research assistant at Facebook, said the model produces better results than other machine learning systems that depend on English to help in the translation process. The other systems use it as an intermediate step-like a bridge-to-translate between two non-English languages.
One example would be a translation from Chinese to French. Fan noted that many machine translation models begin by translating from Chinese to English first, and then from English to French. This is done “because English training data is the most widely available,” she said. But such a method can lead to mistakes in translation.
Facebook says about two-thirds of its users communicate in a language other than English. The company already carries out an average of 20 billion translations every day on Facebook’s News Feed. But it faces a huge test with many users publishing large amounts of content in more than 160 languages.
One difficulty the team faced was trying to develop an effective machine translation system for language combinations that are not widely used, Facebook calls these “low-resource languages”. The data used to create the new model was collected from content available on the Internet. But there is limited Internet data on low-resource languages.
For now, it plans to continue exploring new language research methods while working to improve the new model. No date has been set for launching the translation system on Facebook.
But Angela Fan said the new system marks an important step for Facebook, especially for the times we live in. "Breaking language barriers through machine language translation is one of the most important ways to bring people together, provide authoritative information on COVID-19, and keep them safe from harmful content,” she said.
1. What do we know about M2M-100 from the first paragraph?A.It is still in the testing stage at present. |
B.It can translate any of the world languages. |
C.It is the first translation system in the world. |
D.It has been widely used by two billion users. |
A.The model. | B.The machine. | C.English. | D.A non-English language. |
A.Languages that are used worldwide. | B.Languages that are seldom used. |
C.Languages that have data on the Internet. | D.Languages Facebook uses in its system. |
A.Doubtful. | B.Negative. | C.Positive. | D.Objective. |
7 . Do you like potato chips? Can you imagine someone postponing graduation just to make them? This is exactly what happened with Du Haotian, a graduate student from Shaanxi province.
The potato chips Du is making are called guoba, originally made of millet rice, but here Du chose colored potatoes as the ingredients.
Zhenba County, located in the southern part of Shaanxi, has been striving to promote high-quality potato sales, despite the inconvenient geographical conditions. Du Haotian, a graduate student of Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University, together with his team, introduced NWAFU’s colorful potato to solve the problem. After adjusting the recipe several times, it gradually turned into a popular snack at Du’s university. “We sold 10,000 yuan (of chips) in an hour during the trial period,” Du said.
At the end of last year, Du’s team set up their own factory in the village to commercialize the colorful potato and derivative snacks, planting and producing the products locally. At the beginning of this year, the production line was officially put into operation. It can process 5,000 tons of potato snacks per year, increasing the added value by 1,000 yuan to 1,500 yuan per ton of potatoes. However, while helping the local community, Du Haotian is under pressure to graduate.
Although he was supposed to graduate in June 2020, Du applied for a postponement for one year. Du said the production line project is still under construction and he wants to live up to the expectations of the villagers. “A lot of my friends and teachers told me not to do that, but I still want to stay and support the village for another half year. Otherwise, if the factory is built but does not work out, then it would be against my original intention.” Eventually, Du’s mentor supported him. Once, a villager recommended the potato snack to Du before realizing he was the founder. “At that time it warmed my heart and I experienced a sense of recognition.” Recently, Du’s potato snacks took part in a college food competition on behalf of his university. His product once soared to the top of the list with the support of many local villagers, which touched Du.
1. What factor affects local potato sales?A.People’s lack of skills in sales. | B.The local geographical conditions. |
C.People’s little knowledge of outside world. | D.The poor quality of potatoes produced there. |
A.creating more job opportunities | B.enjoying delicious potato snacks |
C.increasing values of the potatoes | D.harvesting more potatoes than before |
A.to make potato chips a popular snack | B.to show his ability in making money |
C.to help local villagers earn more money | D.to set up a factory for making potato chips |
A.Courageous and calm. | B.Cooperative and generous. |
C.Enthusiastic and confident. | D.persistent and kind-hearted. |
1. Where does the woman come from?
A.A small city. | B.A big town. | C.A small town. |
A.The quickest. | B.The cheapest. | C.The most convenient. |
A.By subway. | B.By bus. | C.On foot. |
9 . Chewbaca climbed into the pilot seat of the Milemium Falcon as fireworks exploded above Disneyland in Anahein, California, Wednesday. Chewbacca is an imaginary creature born in the first of the Star Wars series of movies. He was in Disneyland for a ceremony to open the new Star Wars area at the theme park.
“Chewie, let’s fire up the Falcon,” said Mark Hamill, the actor who played Luke Skywalker. He also attended the event to open the more than five-and-one-half hectare area called Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. It opened to the public Friday.
The furry Chewbacca had trouble starting the huge spaceship, which led actor Harison Ford to Surprise the crowd and offer an assist. Ford played the Siar Wars character Han Solo. He hit the side of the ship and said “Peter, this one’s for you,” in honor of Peter Mayhew, the actor who played Chewbacca in five films and died in April.
Ford stood on stage with Hamil, Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger, Star Wars creator George Lucas, and Bily Dee Williams, who performed the part of Lando Calrissian in Star Wars.
Lucas created the Star Wars movie series in 1977 and sold it to Disney in 2012. He gave high praise to Galaxy’s Edge, which is set in Black Spire Outpost, a settlement on a planet called Batuu that appeared in “Star Wars” books but never in the film.
The Star Wars area offers visitors the chance to step into the Millennium Falcon’s cockpit and control a simulated flight. Guests can also drink blue milk, eat space meat cooked by a pod-racing engine and have a drink at an outer-space restaurant.
Expectations run high from generations of fans. Many of the movie series lovers have waited 40 years since the first film to visit a real-world version of the galaxy far, far away.
Disney also aims to appeal to a broad group of Star Wars lover s as well as people without any attachment to the futuristic series.
1. Who is a human being?A.Chewbacca. | B.Chewie. | C.Mark Hamill. | D.Luke Skywalker. |
A.It’s a planet in space. | B.It’s a place in a book. |
C.It’s a settlement in a film. | D.It’s a community in the US. |
A.Taste space food. | B.Tour in the universe. |
C.Enjoy Star Wars movies. | D.Learn knowledge of space. |
A.Disneyland in California Takes on a New Look |
B.Actors of Star Wars Gather in Disneyland |
C.Dream of “Star Wars” Lovers Has Come True |
D.Disneyland Opens the Star Wars Area of the Park |
10 . Are you traveling to an English-speaking country? If you are, one of the most important things you need to know is
Remember to be
“How do I get to ...” — This is the simplest
“Where exactly am I?” — Sometimes in order to understand the directions well, you have to
“What is the quickest way to get to ...” — Let us say that you have to go somewhere
“Where is ...” — This phrase is also useful
Now you are ready to travel to an English-speaking country and to ask for directions. Enjoy your
A.who | B.where | C.how | D.why |
A.polite | B.quiet | C.honest | D.fair |
A.reason | B.skill | C.talk | D.way |
A.study | B.change | C.follow | D.explain |
A.work out | B.find out | C.bring out | D.take out |
A.by | B.on | C.with | D.from |
A.often | B.suddenly | C.fast | D.secretly |
A.since | B.before | C.though | D.when |
A.use | B.miss | C.invent | D.expect |
A.meals | B.shows | C.travels | D.questions |