1 . High-resolution (高分辨率) satellite imagery has been used to map every single tree in Africa, showing a technique that could help improve the monitoring of deforestation (森林砍伐) across the world. Florian Reiner at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and his colleagues used images from sate lies to map canopy (树冠) across the entire African continent.
Modern sate lies usually catch tree canopies at a resolution of 30 meters — fine for measuring the size of forests, but less good at mapping individual trees. The satellite data Reiner and his colleagues used had a resolution of 3 meters, enabling the study to map all trees, including those not part of a forest.
The results suggest that 30 percent of all trees in Africa aren’t in a forest and instead are across farmland, savannah and urban areas. “Many countries in Africa lack thick forests, but have a lot of trees.” says Reiner. “These trees are extremely important to the local ecosystems, the people and the economy. By tracking every single tree, researchers can start to monitor how these trees are coping with climate change or whether they are sensitive to deforestation.” It could also improve the monitoring of reforestation efforts, which are growing in popularity as a way of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
“At a local level, being able to consistently monitor when and where trees are disappearing or reappearing can lead to more actionable insights,” says John Francis at the Alan Turing Institute in London.
“The study is a proof of concept rather than a map ready for immediate commercial use,” says Reiner. “It’s research work. It’s showing what could be done,” he says. But he is already working with colleagues to scale up the tracking approach to cover the entire global canopy: “We’re hoping that this will be seen as a way forward in monitoring tree resources.”
1. Why is high-resolution satellite imagery used to map every single tree?A.To know the exact height of the tree. |
B.To have a clear picture of the canopy. |
C.To help monitor the deforestation. |
D.To improve the satellite technology. |
A.Doubtful. | B.Disapproving. | C.Indifferent. | D.Favorable. |
A.Protect the trees only in Africa. |
B.Put the map into commercial use. |
C.Track the entire global canopy. |
D.Improve the imagery technology. |
A.Ways to Measure the Size of Forests in Africa |
B.Coping with Climate Change by Tracking Every Single Tree |
C.A Map from the Satellite Ready for Immediate Commercial Use |
D.High-resolution Satellite Imagery Used in Monitoring Deforestation |
2 . Every language and culture has curse words (脏话). What gives a curse word its power is partly its meaning and partly its sound. “In English, for example, curse words tend to contain a high percentage of plosive sounds—including P, T and K,” said Ryan McKay, a psychologist at University of London.
Dr. McKay teamed up with his colleague Shiri Lev-Ari to learn whether this familiar pattern went beyond English. They wondered whether it might even represent what’s called sound symbolism. Sound symbolism is when a word sounds like what it means.
The researchers first asked fluent speakers of Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Korean and Russian to list the most vulgar (粗俗的) words they could think of. Once they’d made a list of each language’s most frequently used curse words, the researchers compared these with neutral words from the same language. In these languages, they didn’t find the plosive sounds that seem common in English curse words. “Instead, we found that the vulgar words were defined by what they lacked: the approximant sounds that include letters I, L, R, W and Y, ”Dr. Lev-Ari said.
Next, the scientists invited 215 native speakers of six languages: Arabic, Chinese, Finnish, French, German and Spanish. The participants listened to pairs of words in a language they didn’t speak, and guessed which word in each pair was offensive. In reality, all the words were invented. For example, the researchers started with the Albanian word “zog, ” for “bird, ”and created the pair of fake words “yog" and “tsog. ”Participants were more likely to guess that words without approximants, such as “tsog, ” were curses.
Finally, the researchers combed through the dictionary for English curse words and their cleaned-up versions. Once again, the clean versions included more of the sounds I, L, R, W and Y.
A 20th-century linguistic (语言学的)principle claimed that the sounds of words were arbitrary: Any word could have any meaning. With curse words, though, as in other cases of sound symbolism, “the sounds themselves seem to carry meaning, ”said Lev-Ari. “That’s a new thing, ”said linguist Benjamin Bergen. “Curse words across languages, unrelated to each other, may pattern similarly. ”He also pointed out, to make sure the pattern of approximants missing from curses isn’t an accident, it would be nice to find it in an even larger sample of languages.
1. What is the purpose of McKay and Lev-Ari’s research?A.To analyze a phenomenon. | B.To confirm an assumption. |
C.To explain a definition. | D.To challenge a theory. |
A.To decide which curse words are used more frequently. |
B.To make up new curse words from real words. |
C.To guess a word’s offensiveness according to its sound. |
D.To identify the approximants in curse words. |
A.Tusck | B.Sola | C.Darn | D.Biach |
A.The old linguistic principle of sounds and meanings is wrong. |
B.In sound symbolism, a word’s sound represents its meaning. |
C.The research reveals the similarities between different languages. |
D.The result of the research is not fully accepted by scientists. |
3 . Two weeks earlier, my husband, Russ, had gotten an early-morning call telling us to move to a safer place immediately. The wildfire tearing through Northern California had spread and
We’d jumped in the car with our cats and a few belongings. For days, we’d
Now we’d been given
How will we go on? It felt as if our lives had been
Russ
Words that must have come from one of my books, a passage I couldn’t
A.cleared | B.headed | C.prevented | D.pointed |
A.begged | B.lived | C.asked | D.moved |
A.good | B.true | C.bad | D.false |
A.encouragement | B.reward | C.advice | D.permission |
A.ruins | B.flames | C.dangers | D.flowers |
A.refuse | B.clean | C.survive | D.remember |
A.saved | B.destroyed | C.decorated | D.enriched |
A.counted | B.hid | C.discovered | D.put |
A.ashes | B.water | C.fire | D.spot |
A.watered | B.cleaned | C.smoked | D.folded |
A.pleasant | B.sincere | C.clear | D.simple |
A.reflect on | B.carry on | C.put on | D.cheer on |
A.success | B.burden | C.information | D.courage |
A.analyze | B.understand | C.recall | D.recite |
A.judge | B.hear | C.forget | D.ignore |
4 . As Alexandria Country Day School’s sixth-graders created miniature 3D printed villages to address homelessness, they learned lessons far beyond technology.
“It Takes a Village” began as a project for a science class, inspired by life-size 3D-printed homes built by Austin, Texas-based technology company Icon.
No strangers to classroom 3D projects, the students were fascinated by Icon’s use of a similar process to create homes made of inexpensive concrete-like material. Unlike standard construction methods, the process of building these durable homes takes just a few days.
While creating their mini 3D buildings, the students explored how such technology allows design freedom and quick changes. Mathematical conversions helped get the relations right. For example, a real 25-foot-by-20-foot one-bedroom house would be printed as 40-millimeter-by-32-millimeter (about 1 1/2 inch by 1 1/4 inch) for their mini village. Salwa Seman, 11, said that getting the dimensions and settings correct before construction began was challenging as she created a curved-wall amphitheater (圆形剧场).
The tech-focused project quickly evolved into “an exercise in empathy (共情), innovation and cooperation designed to bring about lasting change”. “When most people think of helping the homeless, they think of food and clothing drives,” said Juliet Galicia, 11. “While necessary, those are temporary fixes. Even housing by itself is not a complete solution.”
In designing their leave-homelessness-behind neighborhoods, priorities were shelter, food stores, schools, and health centers. But to build a sense of belonging and purpose, the miniature communities also emphasized areas for frequent interaction among residents. “We wanted to make it feel more like a real community,” said Luke Wazorko, 11. A community garden, a place to raise chickens, an amphitheater for shared events, bus stops for access to jobs, and infrastructure for Wi-Fi and cellphones to help in job searches were important features to offer formerly unhoused residents.
Amber Fogarty, president of a nonprofit organization tackling homelessness in Austin, said, “Housing alone will never solve homelessness, but community will. People need a place where they are known, cared for and loved.”
1. Which can be used to describe homes created by Icon?A.Hard-sided. |
B.Long-lasting. |
C.Rough-edged. |
D.Strong-minded. |
A.Juliet Galicia has participated in food and clothing drives in the past. |
B.Temporary solutions have proved to be of little help to unhoused people. |
C.Providing unhoused people with a place to live will solve all of their problems. |
D.A comprehensive approach is required to fully address the issue of homelessness. |
A.a team of people can use 3D printing to build homes |
B.builders can adapt a 3D-printed design to fit a person’s preferences |
C.the students faced challenges in building their miniature communities |
D.places for personal interactions are an important aspect of a community |
A.To emphasize community gardens as the most important part of neighborhoods. |
B.To illustrate technology has nothing to do with helping unhoused people. |
C.To show specific ways the students focused on more than just housing. |
D.To promote the project as a profitable design to Austin. |
5 . Like a phoenix (凤凰), some stars may burst to life covered in “ash,” rising from the remains of stars that had previously passed on.
Two fireballs covered in carbon and oxygen, ashy byproducts of helium fusion (氦聚变), belong to a new class of stars, researchers report in the March Monthly Notices. Though these burning objects are not the first stars found covered in carbon and oxygen, they are the first discovered to have helium-burning cores.
“That merger (并合) tells you the star must have evolved differently,” says study author Nicole Reindl.
The stars may have formed from the merger of two white dwarfs (白矮星), the remaining hearts of stars that exhausted their fuel, Reindl further explains. One of the two was rich in helium, while the other contained lots of carbon and oxygen. These two white dwarfs had already been orbiting one another, but gradually drew together. Eventually the helium-rich white dwarf “ate” its partner, leaving carbon and oxygen all over its surface, just as a messy child might get food all over their face.
Such a merger would have produced a star covered in carbon and oxygen to burn nuclear fusion in its core again, says Tiara Battich, a German astrophysicist.
To test this idea, Battich copied the evolution, death and eventual merger of two stars on his computer and simulated (模拟) the process. He found that putting together a carbon-and-oxygen-rich white dwarf and a more massive helium one could explain the compositions of the two stars observed by Reindl and her colleagues.
“But this should happen very rarely,” Battich says. In most cases the opposite should occur, because carbon-oxygen white dwarfs are usually the more massive ones. For the rarer case to occur, two stars slightly more massive than the sun must have formed at just the right distance and the right time.
"The origins story Battich proposes demands a very specific and unusual set of circumstances, " says Simon Blouin, a Canadian astrophysicist. “But in the end, it makes sense.”
1. What’s the newest discovery of the merger of two stars?A.It produces a mass of helium ash. |
B.It possesses a helium-burning core. |
C.It is covered in carbon and oxygen. |
D.It makes an oxygen atmosphere for life. |
A.By co-working with Rcindl’s team. |
B.By making astronomic observations. |
C.By building models on his computer. |
D.By testing the two stars’ compositions. |
A.the carbon-oxygen white dwarf “ate” the helium one |
B.the helium white dwarf “ate” the carbon-oxygen one |
C.helium white dwarfs are usually the more massive ones |
D.carbon-oxygen white dwarfs are usually the more massive ones |
A.The formation of stars makes sense. |
B.The burning of stars brings them to life. |
C.Stars inspire scientists to reflect on the universe. |
D.Star mergers can unfold in more than one way. |
采访内容:
1.你或你身边的人在日常生活中使用移动支付的情况;
2.移动支付带来的好处
3.你的看法。
参考词汇: 微信: Wechat 支付宝: Alipay 二维码: QR code
注意:1.词数120左右;
2.可适当增加细节,以使行文连贯
Dear Jenny,
How is your survey on mobile payment going? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours faithfully
Li Hua
I grew up in a big family with my parents, my elder brother and sisters. They did all the things that I should do, including cleaning the house, washing clothes, making the bed and so on, so what I did at home was eat and sleep. As time went on, I formed the habit of throwing my things everywhere. Once my family were out, what a mess my room was! My parents were worried about how I could manage myself when I had to leave home.
That day approached. This summer I was admitted by the best boarding school in our county. It was required that two students share one room. My roommate, Jenny, was a gentle and quiet girl. I was not very neat. On the contrary, Jenny was extremely organized. Each of her objects had its place, but mine always hid somewhere. She even labeled (贴标签) everything. I always looked for everything. Over time, Jenny got neater and I got messier. She would push my dirty clothing over, and I would lay my books on her tidy desk. We both got tired of each other.
War broke out between us one evening. Jenny came into the room. Soon, I heard her screaming, “Take your shoes away! Why under my bed!” Deafened, I saw my shoes flying at me. I jumped to my feet and started shouting. She shouted back louder.
The room was filled with anger. We could not have stayed together for a single minute but for a phone call. Jenny answered it.
From her end of the conversation, I could tell right away that her grandma was seriously ill. When she hung up, she quickly crawled (爬) under her covers, crying.
Obviously, that was something she should not go through alone.
注意:
1. 续写词数应为150左右;
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Paragraph 1: All of a sudden, a warm feeling of sympathy (同情) rose up in my heart.
________________________________________________________________
Paragraph 2: She was watching, tears dried and disbelief on her face.
________________________________________________________________
My husband Fred and I moved to a new place. We bought a small house in a reasonably good neighborhood close to Fred’s office. It was a one-and-a-half-floor brick house built for soldiers returning from World War II. That house impressed nobody except me. We had to decorate it first because it was so old. Fred and I started to paint the walls and the doors. I also worked outside the house, helping Fred break the ugly fence between us and the neighbors and grow some flowers.
After I finished painting walls in the bedroom upstairs, I brought up some water and old towels to wash the window. I washed the inside, then opened the window and stepped out on the kitchen roof to wash the outside. The window was the kind that you couldn’t open from the outside.
I was so devoted to my housework that I didn’t realize the window gradually closed. After finishing cleaning, I stood back to admire the clean glass. And then, I tried to open the window, but I failed. Standing on my kitchen roof, I looked around the neighborhood. That was a lovely afternoon. Where were the neighbor kids riding their bikes? They often rode back from the park. No young voices shouted to one another. The neighbor on the left was at work. Carroll and Julie, an elderly couple, lived in the house at the corner and were our nextdoor neighbors. They were likely to be at home, but our kitchen was on the wrong side of our house for me to call them.
I sat down and thought about my situation. Even if someone came along, he couldn’t walk in the house and open the window. The doors were locked. That was my husband’s doing. “When you’re working on an indoor project, anyone could just open the door and come in. So, just keep the doors closed,” he would say. I just needed a rope to get down. I sat there, thinking how stupid I was and wishing a rope would magically appear.
注意:
1. 续写词数应为150左右;
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Suddenly, I heard a little boy laughing.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The boy looked at me for a while and left to ask for help.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
9 . One day, I was on my way to work. Suddenly, a truck knocked me down and completely crushed my
What got me through this
Afterwards I took the treatment, and began to learn how to walk all over again. My
When people ask me, “How do you do so much?” I just
A.waist | B.head | C.arm | D.leg |
A.plan | B.fault | C.opinion | D.purpose |
A.directed | B.misled | C.blocked | D.widen |
A.pulled | B.sent | C.arranged | D.dragged |
A.operated | B.called | C.depended | D.fed |
A.stronger | B.better | C.worse | D.uglier |
A.disaster | B.disease | C.mistake | D.competition |
A.decide | B.choose | C.forget | D.attempt |
A.former | B.answer | C.suggestion | D.latter |
A.cheerful | B.confused | C.emotional | D.disappointed |
A.lowest | B.highest | C.least | D.biggest |
A.volleyball | B.tennis | C.basketball | D.badminton |
A.difficult | B.simple | C.necessary | D.useful |
A.giving | B.taking | C.refusing | D.comparing |
A.get over | B.look into | C.try out | D.give up |
A.trained | B.relaxed | C.worked | D.wandered |
A.medals | B.skills | C.advantages | D.positions |
A.However | B.Therefore | C.Meanwhile | D.Instead |
A.escaped | B.begged | C.settled | D.travelled |
A.whisper | B.reply | C.shout | D.scream |
10 . When it comes to finding the best college for you, there are more things for people to consider.
Large colleges can offer depth and width in their majors that are usually unavailable at smaller schools. Leighton Stamps, a retired professor from both a large school and a small one in the US, said, “Students at a large university are more likely to take highly specialized majors, some of which are typically not available at smaller schools.”
Larger and better-known professors
Resources
Everything is big at big schools, including the availability of resources.
Endless opportunities
Big schools offer more experiences that can supply what you can't learn in class.
One last piece of advice: It's much easier to make a big school smaller than to make a small school bigger. That means if you choose a larger school, find your people and make it your best school.
A.Abundant activities |
B.More choices |
C.Large schools often have faculty who are leaders in their fields. |
D.There are also more events, clubs and other organizations. |
E.One important factor is the size of the school. |
F.Different people hold different attitudes towards learning. |
G.For example, Harvard has more than 60 libraries. |