1 . Close your eyes for a minute and imagine what life would be like if you had a hundred dollars less. Also imagine what it would be like spending the rest of your life with your eyes closed. Imagine having to read this page, not with your eyes but with your fingertips.
With existing medical knowledge and skills, two thirds of the world’s 42 million blind should not have to suffer. Unfortunately, rich countries possess most of this knowledge, while developing countries do not.
ORBIS is an international nonprofit organization which operates the world’s only flying teaching eye hospital. ORBIS intends to help fight blindness worldwide. Inside a DC8 aircraft, there is a fullyequipped teaching hospital with television studio and classroom. Doctors are taught the latest techniques of bringing sight back to people there. Project ORBIS also aims at promoting peaceful cooperation (合作) among countries.
ORBIS tries to help developing countries by providing training during three-week medical programs. ORBIS has taught sightsaving techniques to over 35,000 doctors and nurses, who continue to cure tens of thousands of blind people every year. ORBIS has conducted 17 plane programs in China so far. For the seven to ten million blind in China ORBIS is planning to do more for them. At the moment an ORBIS is working on a longterm plan to develop a training center and to provide eye care service to Shanxi Province. ORBIS needs your help to continue their work and free people from blindness.
For just $ 38, you can help one person see; for $ 380 you can bring sight to 10 people; $ 1,300 helps teach a doctor new skills; and for $ 13,000 you can provide a training programme for a group of doctors who can make thousands of blind people see again. Your money can open their eyes to the world. Please help ORBIS improve the quality of life for so many people less fortunate than ourselves.
1. What do we learn about existing medical knowledge and skills in the world?| A．They are adequate. |
| B．They have not been updated. |
| C．They are not equally distributed. |
| D．They have benefited most of the blind. |
| A．teaching medical students |
| B．training doctors and nurses |
| C．running flying hospitals globally |
| D．setting up nonprofit organization |
| A．ORBIS in China |
| B．Fighting Blindness |
| C．ORBIS Flying Hospital |
| D．Sightseeing Techniques |
| A．introduce a new way of reading |
| B．advise the public to lead a simple life |
| C．direct the public’s attention to the blind |
| D．Encourage the public to use imagination |
2 . It happens every spring. Flowers suddenly come out everywhere on the same day, as if they made an appointment with one another. But how exactly do plants “know” when to flower?
It is a question that has puzzled biologists for years. But according to Science Daily, a US research group may have finally answered it —the secret lies in a protein (蛋白质) called FKF1. This allows plants to sense the differences in day lengths so that they can tell the seasons are changing.
Researchers discovered the FKFI protein when they were studying a plant called Arabidopsis. They found that the FKFI protein is a photoreceptor (感光器). This means it is sensitive to, and can be activated by sunlight.
“Plants produce this protein every day in the late afternoon throughout the year. If there is no light at this time, for example, in winter when the sun goes down early, the protein won’t be activated,” explained Takato Imaizumi, the leader of the study. “But when spring comes and the days get longer, the FKF1 protein can be activated by daylight and the plants ‘know’ it is time to flower.”
Although researchers have only studied how the FKF1 protein works in the Arabidopsis, they believe that the process is similar in other plants, including crops like rice and wheat. This could be useful to the agricultural industry in the world.
1. The underlined word “activated” in paragraph 3 probably means__________.| A．woken | B．prevented | C．produced | D．weakened |
| A．produce more rice and wheat in winter |
| B．develop the global agricultural industry |
| C．grow plants that flower the whole year |
| D．produce more protein to activate plants |
| A．a travel brochure | B．a science magazine |
| C．a medical magazine | D．a personal journal |
3 . From a very early age, some children exhibit better selfcontrol than others. Now, a new study that began with about 1,000 children in New Zealand has tracked how a child’s low self-control can predict poor health, money troubles and even a criminal record in their adult years.
Researchers have been studying this group of children for decades now. They observed the level of self-control the youngsters displayed. Parents, teachers, even the kids themselves, scored the youngsters on measures like “acting before thinking” and “Persistence in reaching goals.” The study led by Moffitt of Duke University and colleagues followed 1,000 children from birth to age 32 in Dunedin, New Zealand.
“The children who had the lowest self-control when they were age three to ten, later on had the most health problems in their 30s,” Moffitt said, “and they had the worst financial situation. They were more likely to have a criminal record and to be raising a child as a single parent on a very low income.” Moffitt explained that self-control problems were widely observed, and weren’t just a feature of a small group of misbehaving kids.
Moffitt said it’s still unclear why some children have better self-control than others, though she said other researchers have found that it’s mostly a learned behavior, with relatively little genetic influence. But good self-control can be set to run in families because children with good self-control are more likely to grow up to be healthy and prosperous parents. But the good news, Moffitt said, is that self-control can be taught by parents, and through school curricula that have been shown to be effective.
1. Children with low self-control are more likely to ________．| A．become wealthy in later life |
| B．get good school performance |
| C．have better financial planning |
| D．adopt negative behaviors |
| A．Self-control cannot be taught in schools. |
| B．The study is restricted within few participants. |
| C．It’s never too late to deal with self-control problems. |
| D．Good parenting can improve self-control and life success. |
| A．Child’s Selfcontrol Predicts Future Health, success |
| B．Kids are Encouraged to Take Risks at an Early Age |
| C．Children’s Development Cannot be Changed by Teachers |
| D．How to Teach the Kids a Bit of Self-control in schools |
| A．the research has been carried out for five years |
| B．self-control in kids tends to determine their future |
| C．self-control was assessed by children’s intelligence |
| D．children’s self-control is almost the same at early age |
| pioneering work pursue further studies struggle with work on major breakthrough win a scholarship in an attempt to stand out undergraduate study be interested in |
John Goodenough, born 1922, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2019 for his work on developing lithium-ion batteries.
As a child, Goodenough
Goodenough had been told many times in his career that he was too old to succeed, but he had not taken it to heart. Now, at 97, he
Scientists
6 . Every culture has a recognized (公认的) point when a child becomes an adult, when rules must be followed and tests passed.
In China, although teenagers can get their ID cards at 16, many only see themselves as an adult when they are 18. In the US, where everyone drives, the main step to the freedom of adult life is learning to drive. At 16, American teens take their driving test. When they have their license (执照), they drive into the grown-up world.
“Nobody wants to ride the cheese bus to school,” said Eleanor Fulham. 17. “It’s like you’re not cool if you don’t have a car,” she said.
According to a recent research, 41% of 16 to 19 year-olds in the US own cars, up from 23% in 1985. Although, most of these cars are bought by parents, some teens get part-time jobs to help pay.
Not all families can afford cars for their children. In cities with undergrounds and limited (有限的) parking, some teenagers don’t want them. But in rich areas outside the city, if there are no undergrounds, and bicycles are more for fun than cars, it is strange for a teenager not to have a car.
But police say 16-year olds have almost three times more accidents than 18 and 19 year-olds. This has made many parents stop before letting their kids drive. They need to wait until they are more experienced.
Julie Susiana, of Virginia, decided that her son Chad, 15, will wait until he is 17 to apply for his learner’s permit (许可).
Chad said he has accepted his parents’ decision, although it has caused some laughing from his friends. “They say that I am unlucky,” he said. “But I’d rather be alive than driving, and I don’t really trust my friends on the road either.”
In China as more families get cars, more 18 year-olds learn to drive. Will this become a big step to becoming an adult?
1. Which may NOT be taken into consideration when deciding whether to buy a car?| A．How rich the family is. |
| B．Whether the kid is old enough. |
| C．What traffic condition there is around. |
| D．Whether it’s practically needed. |
| A．an American culture about teenagers’ driving |
| B．a change in the Chinese culture |
| C．a cultural difference between America and China |
| D．the relationship between driving and a person’s development |
| A．Cars Helping You to Grow Up |
| B．Driving into the Grownup World |
| C．Teenagers’ Driving in America |
| D．Recognized Point of Becoming an Adult |
| A．they want to show themselves off |
| B．they are not experienced drivers |
| C．older people always drive better |
| D．they never drive carefully on the road |
I have loved
The last film shown in this cinema was a detective film. It was five minutes from the end when suddenly all the lights went out and the film stopped.
What a funny and disappointing experience! But I don’t regret
8 . Children are starting on digital devices at ever younger ages, and opinions on the effects of children’s digital-media habits are deeply polarized (两极分化的).
Jean Twenge, a psychology professor, thinks excessive use of the Internet and social media makes children lonely and depressed and poses serious risks to their physical and particularly their mental health, sometimes to the point of driving them to suicide.
However, Daniel Kardefelt-Winther of the Innocenti research office of Unicef examined various evidence and found less cause for alarm than is often suggested. Most of the studies be examined seem to show that the technology helps children stay in touch with their friends and make new ones.
The relationship between the use of digital technology and children’s mental health, broadly speaking, appears to be u-shaped. Researchers have found that moderate use is beneficial, whereas either no use at all or extreme use could be harmful.
What worries some experts more is that screens are becoming part of the middle-class armoury (武器库) for perpetuating (巩固) social advantage. Children from well-off homes are enrolled in private classes to learn skills like “How to be a You Tuber”, which poorer parents cannot afford.
1. What is Daniel Kardefelt-Winther’s attitude to the use of digital media?| A．Objective. | B．Favorable. |
| C．Indifferent. | D．Uncertain. |
| A．Not all children from rich homes can attend private classes. |
| B．Not all children from poor homes can learn skills like “How to be a YouTuber”. |
| C．Digital media is the only way of strengthening the middle-class. |
| D．Digital media can widen class gap. |
| A．Should Children Interact with Digital Media? |
| B．Should Parents Allow Their Children Interact with Digital Media? |
| C．What Children Do to Interact with Digital Devices. |
| D．How Children Interact with Digital Devices. |
| A．The disadvantages of overusing digital media. |
| B．The bad effects of using digital media. |
| C．Several bad impacts of using digital media. |
| D．The advantages of overusing digital media. |
Advertisements play a(n)
The most common advertisements are commercial
10 . Population data for European mountain birds have been for the first time combined in a recent study, with worrying results: the abundance of mountain-specialist birds has declined by as much as 10% in the 2000s.
Ecological communities in mountain areas include species not found in any other habitats. These species are also very susceptible to climate change, as global warming is reducing their liveable habitats. In principle, species may relocate further up the mountains, but closer to the top their habitat inevitably shrinks.
According to the new article,the abundance of European mountain birds has in fact declined in line with climate change projections.
The recently released study examined the population trends of 44 bird species in the 2000s in the mountain and fell regions of Fennoscandia, Great Britain, the Alps and the Iberian Peninsula. A decline was seen in 14 of the observed species, while eight of them saw significant increase.
“On average, population decline among the species studied was 7% over the 13-year research period, making the situation of mountain birds distinctly worse compared to, for example, European forest birds, whose numbers did not change during the same period,” explains Aleksi Lehikoinen, an Academy of Finland research fellow at the Finnish Museum of Natural History Luomus (part of the University of Helsinki), who headed the study.
The situation is direst for species that only inhabit mountain regions and are unable to live in other European environments. For these species, known as mountain specialists, the numbers dwindled by as much as 10% during the monitoring period.
1. Which one is TRUE according to a recently released study?| A．All 44 bird species decreased. |
| B．Only 8 of the species declined. |
| C．14 of the observed species declined. |
| D．There was no change in the number of the bird species. |
| A．Air pollutions. | B．Global warming. |
| C．Human activities. | D．Competition with other species. |
| A．They are newly found species. |
| B．They can be found at any place of the world. |
| C．The number of the birds has decreased greatly. |
| D．The number of the birds has increased greatly. |
| A．Serious. | B．Useful. |
| C．Suitable. | D．Waterless. |
