The home of the future won't be
Space holidays will develop in the future, but these holidays won't be for everyone because they are
According to the laws of physics, the earth is going to
2 . Some people have a dependency on an afternoon nap.
Napping is a great way to feel more rested and alert-and some research shows it car benefit our cognitive function.
While short naps are great for increasing energy, longer naps are more beneficial for learning. According to the research, they improve activation of the hippocampus—an area of the brain important for learning and memory.
Although napping has many positive short-term effects, they are not recommended for people who suffer from insomnia（失眠症）. Because naps decrease sleepiness, they may make it harder to fall asleep when going to bed in the evening.
| A．But many more prefer not to |
| B．It is to catch up on lost sleep. |
| C．How has napping become so popular? |
| D．Naps should also be avoided in some situations |
| E．Why short naps are so beneficial is not well understood |
| F．However, you may want to consider how long you have to nap. |
| G．A one-to-two-hour nap benefits both motor skills and memory abilities. |
(1)接受邀请；
(2)说明你将分享的节日，并做介绍；
(3)分享你选择该节日的缘由。
注意：
(1)词数不少于100(开头和结尾已给出，但不计入总词数)；
(2)可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
Dear Ted,
Thank you for inviting me to talk about one of China’s traditional festivals at the lecture.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Jin
4 . Scientists may one day be able to destroy viruses in the same way that opera singers break wine glasses. New research mathematically determined the frequencies at which simple viruses could be shaken to death.
The capsid (壳) of a virus is something like the shell of a turtle, said physicist Otto Sankey of Arizona State University. “If the shell can be damaged by mechanical vibrations (震动), the virus can be destroyed.”
Recent experimental evidence has shown that laser (激光) pulses with the right frequency can kill certain viruses. However, locating these resonant (共振的) frequencies is a bit of trial and error. Experiments must try various conditions, Sankey said.
To further this search, Sankey and his student Eric Dykeman have developed a way to calculate the vibrations of every atom in a virus shell. From this, they can determine the lowest resonant frequencies. An experiment has recently shown that pulses of laser light can cause destructive vibrations in virus shells. Sankey said, “Like pushing a child on a swing from rest, one sudden push gets the virus shaking.”
However, it is difficult to calculate what sort of push will kill a virus, since there can be millions of atoms in its shell structure. A direct calculation of each atom’s movements would take several hundred thousand Gigabytes of computer memory, Sankey explained.
The team plans to use their technique to study other, more complicated viruses. However, it is still a long way from using this to destroy the viruses in infected people. “This is such a new field, and there are so few experiments that the science has not yet had enough time to prove itself,” Sankey said. “We remain hopeful but remain skeptical at the same time.”
1. What is the new way to kill viruses?| A．Replacing viruses’ capsids with shells. |
| B．Breaking viruses’ capsids by vibration. |
| C．Locating the position of certain viruses. |
| D．Damaging the conditions that viruses like. |
| A．To prove how simple the new theory is. |
| B．To explain how to start the virus shaking. |
| C．To suggest the idea comes from our real life. |
| D．To show the destructive power of vibrations. |
| A．The shell structure of viruses. |
| B．The lack of computer memory. |
| C．The challenging part of the research. |
| D．The importance of atoms’ movement. |
| A．Disapproving. | B．Worried. |
| C．Uncaring. | D．Positive. |
5 . The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report stating that the world is quickly running out of time to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius. To get there, the world would have to cut current emissions by 45 percent by 2030.That sounds absurdly unlikely.
But before we give in to hopelessness，we should remember that the technology to deal with climate change is going along at high speed. The largest source of U. S. carbon emissions is transportation，and a Green New Deal for motor vehicles would be quite straightforward. The reason is simple：with some government subsidies (补贴), electric cars and buses are now cost-competitive with fossil-fuel vehicles. Electric buses have made the greatest speed into the market, because they are a logical choice for electrification. By the end of 2018, electric vehicles were replacing about 280,000 barrels of oil demand per day — about 84 percent of which was mainly consumed by buses.
The electric car market is also reaching maturity, with appealing designs, longer range, and a quickly-expanding rapid charging network in many countries. It’s worth emphasizing that most of the infrastructure (基础设施) necessary to recharge electric vehicles already exists. People often tend to think that we need to replace every gas station, but actually all homes and businesses already have an electrical connection which can be easily improved for fast charging. All that is needed to go fully electric is enough battery capacity and fast charging stations to deal with long trips.
Now America would have to repair its electricity production, freight rail, shipping, and so on to fully decarbonizes (脱碳) the transportation sector, which will be considerably more difficult than simply rooting out fossil fuel vehicles from the market.
But greening America’s vehicle would be straightforward, relatively cheap, and a huge step forward on climate. The politics of climate change are so fearful that being hopeless can seem logical, but the first step to achieving a tough goal is the confident belief that it can be done. And this particular step wouldn’t even be that tough.
1. How’s the goal of keeping global warming below 1.5 Celsius according to Paragraph 1?| A．Reasonable. | B．Safe. |
| C．Realistic. | D．Impossible. |
| A．are cost-competitive with government subsidies |
| B．run at a greater speed on the road |
| C．deal with longer trips |
| D．look more appealing |
| A．Replace as many as gas stations. |
| B．Build more infrastructures for recharging. |
| C．Make businesses have electrical connections. |
| D．Solve the problem of long trips. |
| A．Negative. | B．Supportive. |
| C．Uncertain. | D．Indifferent. |
6 . Professor Ashok Goel of Georgia Tech developed an artificially intelligent teaching assistant to help handle the enormous number of student questions in the online class, Knowledge-Based Artificial Intelligence. Professor Goel already had eight teaching assistants, but that wasn’t enough to deal with the overwhelming number of daily questions from students.
Many students drop out of online courses because of the lack of teaching support. When students feel ignored or confused and reach out with questions that go unanswered, their motivation to continue begins to taper off. Professor Goel decided to do something to improve this situation and his solution was to create a virtual assistant named Jill Watson.
Goel and his team developed several versions of Jill Watson before releasing her to the online forums. At first, the virtual assistant wasn’t too great. But Goel and his team sourced the online discussion forum to find all the 40,000 questions that had ever been asked since the class was launched. Then they began to feed Jill with the questions and answers. After some adjustments and sufficient time, Jill was able to answer the students’ questions correctly 97% of the time. The virtual assistant became so advanced and realistic that the students didn’t know she was a computer. The students, who were studying artificial intelligence, were interacting with the virtual assistant and couldn’t tell it apart from a real human being. Goel didn’t inform them about Jill’s true identity until April 26. The students were actually very positive about the experience.
The goal of Professor Goel’s virtual assistant next year is to take over answering 40% of all the questions posed by students on the online forum. Professor Goel has a much rosier outlook on the future of artificial intelligence.
1. What problem did Professor Goel meet with?| A．Students’ questions were too many to deal with. |
| B．Teaching assistants were not professional at all. |
| C．Many students were lack of interest in his class. |
| D．He felt confused about how to teach online. |
| A．grow dramatically | B．increase sharply |
| C．decrease gradually | D．decline unreasonably |
| A．She could answer all questions without mistakes. |
| B．She turned out to be a great success. |
| C．Her performance was remarkable all the way. |
| D．Her true identity was still a secret to students. |
| A．A robot gives an online course. |
| B．Virtual assistant is getting popular in school. |
| C．Robots will replace humans in online classes. |
| D．One Georgia Tech’s teaching assistant isn’t human. |
7 . 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. |
8 . “Good Night Lights” began as a game，with the effort of Steve Brosnihan, a cartoonist volunteering at Hasbro Children’s Hospital. He
As he left, Brosnihan told the
Brosnihan made it a(an)
Good Night Lights has been such a simple,
“It would be very hard not to do this
Brosnihan hopes it
| A．rushes | B．moves | C．checks | D．marches |
| A．put | B．turn | C．cheer | D．bring |
| A．visit | B．show | C．experience | D．journey |
| A．strange | B．exciting | C．similar | D．different |
| A．colleague | B．teenager | C．doctor | D．friend |
| A．biked | B．ran | C．fled | D．walked |
| A．park | B．hospital | C．road | D．bike |
| A．in return | B．in order | C．in response | D．in place |
| A．ceremony | B．activity | C．habit | D．routine |
| A．logical | B．unique | C．fun | D．important |
| A．local | B．generous | C．native | D．distant |
| A．fires | B．forks | C．plates | D．lights |
| A．hit | B．wonder | C．start | D．tradition |
| A．and | B．yet | C．or | D．so |
| A．given | B．crowded | C．involved | D．participated |
| A．once | B．whether | C．while | D．as |
| A．waste | B．enjoy | C．spend | D．suffer |
| A．grows | B．spreads | C．discovers | D．deepens |
| A．give up | B．set up | C．pick up | D．build up |
| A．design | B．invite | C．open | D．create |
9 . In the summer of 2016, I gave a talk at a small conference in northern Virginia. I began by admitting that I’d never had a social-media account; I then outlined arguments for why other people should consider removing social media from their lives. The event organizers uploaded the video of my talk to YouTube. Then it was shared repeatedly on Facebook and Instagram and, eventually, viewed more than five million times. I was both pleased and annoyed by the fact that my anti-social-media talk had found such a large audience on social media.
I think of this event as typical of the conflicted relationships many of us have with Facebook, Instagram, and other social-media platforms. On the one hand, we’ve grown wary of the so-called attention economy, which, in the name of corporate profits, destroys social life gradually and offends privacy. But we also benefit from social media and hesitate to break away from it completely. Not long ago, I met a partner at a large law firm in Washington, D.C., who told me that she keeps Instagram on her phone because she misses her kids when she travels; looking through pictures of them makes her feel better.
In recent months, some of the biggest social-media companies, Facebook and Twitter, in particular, have promised various reforms. In March, Mark Zuckerberg announced a plan to move his platform toward private communication protected by end-to-end encryption (端对端加密); later that month, he put forward the establishment of a third-party group to set standards for acceptable content.
All of these approaches assume that the reformation of social media will be a complex, lengthy, and gradual process. But not everyone sees it that way. Alongside these official responses, a loose collective of developers that calls itself the IndieWeb has been creating another alternative. They are developing their own social-media platforms, which they say will preserve what’s good about social media while getting rid of what’s bad. They hope to rebuild social media according to principles that are less corporate and more humane.
1. Why did the author feel annoyed when his video was spread online?| A．His video caused many arguments. |
| B．His video was shared without his permission. |
| C．His talk was opposed by a large amount of people. |
| D．His video’s popularity on social media is against his talk. |
| A．To prove that social media has some benefits. |
| B．To advise people to break away from social media. |
| C．To tell the negative effects social media may produce. |
| D．To describe people’s conflicted relationships with social media. |
| A．To attract more users. |
| B．To make more profits. |
| C．To improve network environment. |
| D．To provide more convenient service. |
| A．Develop new social-media platforms. |
| B．Set up principles of the use of social media. |
| C．Improve the existing social-media platforms. |
| D．Help social-media companies to make reformation. |
10 . “You’ll get square eyes!” my mother used to say as I sat for hour after hour glued to the TV. I ignored her, of course. Past-forward a few decades and now I’m the parent. My 5-year-old lives in a world where screens aren’t fixed pieces of furniture. You can’t even avoid them by going outside. Screens are not only in our pockets; they’re everywhere.
The concerns have grown with the screens. In the past decade, we have heard that they will damage our mental health. Many of us feel more distracted by them, feeling guiltier and more tired as a result.
The apps and websites we can access on our phones have also sparked widespread concern. Big tech companies are also good at making use of our need for social recognition, hooking us on likes, retweets and follower counts. Social media has created a culture of mass narcissism (自恋), which has led many to worry about the emotional stresses on teenagers. A quick online search brings up dozens of papers linking screen use or social media with harmful effects on mental health, including depression and suicide.
Such statements are alarming. They are also widely believed, thanks to popular books like iGen by Jean Twenge, which claims that digital technology has ruined a generation. Yet, Amy Orben at the University of Oxford, who studies the impact of digital technology and social media in particular on mental health, holds different views. She claims that the underlying data can be used to tell different stories. She also spotted shortcomings in several large studies that claimed to show correlations (相关性) between the use of devices with screens and depression in users.
Twenge stands by her own finding, pointing in turn to what she considers flaws in Orben’s research methods. For David Max, at Royal College of Child Health in London, the effect of screen time and social media use on mental health remains speculative. “We cannot regard social media overall as good or bad,” says Davie. “We don’t know whether in individual cases social media is not responsible,” he says.
The explosion of mobile phone use has revolutionized our lives. I can download movies, write articles, communicate with my family and broadcast to the world all at the push of a button. Rather than impose constraints (限制), we should take a look at our use of screens and ask how they fit with the activities and lifestyle.
Every new technology with widespread impact has given rise to new fears. So the best bet may simply be to ask yourself what level of screen use makes you and those around you happy and try to stick to it. If you find yourself over addictive, don’t panic—and certainly don’t feel guilty. Nobody knows anything worth getting scared about.
1. According to the passage, people give likes, retweet or count followers to __________.| A．share one’s lifestyles | B．show respect for others |
| C．seek social recognition | D．relieve emotional stresses |
| A．doubtful | B．specific |
| C．important | D．abstract |
| A．Teenagers are more affected by screen use both physically and mentally. |
| B．Orben claims it is far too early to blame screen use for ruining a generation. |
| C．Big tech companies help to produce many research papers on mental health. |
| D．Twenge mainly introduces the overall benefits of digital technology in her books. |
| A．encourage readers to reduce the time of screen use |
| B．share different opinions on the effects of screen use |
| C．explain why screen use may have negative effects on people |
| D．relieve people’s concerns and worries about the use of screens |
