1 . Contribution And Sacrifice
Huang Danian, the renowned Chinese geophysicist, was born in 1958 in Guangxi, China. As a keen and able student, Huang went to the UK in 1993 to further his studies.
By the time Huang moved back to China in 2008, he had been living and working in the UK for 15 years. He had a good job and a life there, but he gave it all up to return to home, driven by the idea that he needed to contribute to his country. As one of the world’s leading experts in deep earth exploration technology, Huang was approached to participate in the “Thousand Talent” programme. He took up a position at Jilin University, Changchun.
Huang was named lead scientist on China’s deep earth exploration programme, developing advanced cameras that can see through the Earth’s crust so that it can be analysed without having to dig into it. He set up a state-of-the-art lab, sometimes paying for equipment with his own money. Some described him as a “lunatic” (a madman). but this passion and drive enabled Huang to propel China’s deep earth exploration technology into a world-leading position. Huang’s dedication contributed to China’s lunar probe Yutu being landed on the moon in 2013 and the launch of the spacecrafts Shenzhou-11 and Tiangong-2 in 2016.
Huang’s health also paid the price for his commitment to his word. He began having fainting fits in 2012, but paid them little attention, stating he did not have time to go to see a doctor – his work always came first. In November 2016, Huang collapsed and was taken to hospital, where he was diagnosed with cancer. The disease was so advanced that he had just a couple of months to live.
Like the true scientist he was, Huang never gave up, but always tried to push forwards. Even from his hospital bed, he continued his work, writing letters of reference for his colleague and replying to questions from his students. He had great faith in the talent of the up-and-coming generation, “Our country is in urgent need of talented people,” he said. “If we spend more time and pay more attention to the young, masters and even Nobel prize winners may rise among them.”
Huang died in January 2017, aged just 58. More than 800 people attended his funeral to celebrate a life that burned so bright, but was so short.
1. Huang moved back to China in 2008, because _________.| A．he would have a good job and a life in China |
| B．he took up a position at Jilin University, Changchun |
| C．he had the idea that he needed to contribute to China |
| D．he wanted to participate in the “Thousand Talent” programme |
| A．Huang’s education | B．Huang’s working experience |
| C．Huang’s influence on his colleagues | D．Huang’s achievements |
| A．Modest and outgoing. | B．Patriotic and committed. |
| C．Ambitious and disciplined | D．Passionate and considerate. |
2 . You know the feeling — you have left your phone at home and feel anxious, as if you have lost your connection to the world. “Nomophobia” (无手机恐惧症) affects teenagers and adults alike. You can even do an online test to see if you have it. Last week, researchers from Hong Kong warned that nomophobia is infecting everyone. Their study found that people who use their phones to store, share and access personal memories suffer most. When users were asked to describe how they felt about their phones, words such as “hurt” (neck pain was often reported) and “alone” predicted higher levels of nomophobia.
“The findings of our study suggest that users regard smartphones as their extended selves and get attached to the devices,” said Dr Kim Ki Joon. “People experience feelings of anxiety and unpleasantness when separated from their phones.” Meanwhile, an American study shows that smartphone separation can lead to an increase in heart rate and blood pressure.
So can being without your phone really give you separation anxiety? Professor Mark Griffiths, psychologist and director of the International Gaming Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University, says it is what is on the phone that counts — the social networking that creates Fomo (fear of missing out).
“We are talking about an Internet-connected device that allows people to deal with lots of aspects of their lives,” says Griffiths. “You would have to surgically remove a phone from a teenager because their whole life is ingrained in this device.”
Griffiths thinks attachment theory, where we develop emotional dependency on the phone because it holds details of our lives, is a small part of nomophobia. For “screenagers”, it is Fomo that creates the most separation anxiety. If they can’t see what’s happening on WeChat or Weibo, they become panic-stricken about not knowing what’s going on socially. “But they adapt very quickly if you take them on holiday and there’s no Internet,” says Griffiths.
1. Which of the following may Dr Kim Ki Joon agree with?| A．We waste too much time on phones. |
| B．Phones have become part of some users. |
| C．Addiction to phones makes memories suffer. |
| D．Phones and blood pressure are closely linked. |
| A．We worry we may miss out what our friends are doing |
| B．We fear without phones we will run into a lot of trouble |
| C．We are accustomed to having a phone on us |
| D．We need our phones to help us store information |
| A．Approved of. | B．Relied on. | C．Opposed to. | D．Determined by. |
| A．In a research report. |
| B．In a science textbook. |
| C．In a popular science magazine. |
| D．In a fashion brochure. |
3 . TikTok has pushed a new safety update to its app that allows parents to take more control of their teenager’s accounts, as social media companies come under increasing pressure to make their platforms safer for children.
The company said that its Family Pairing now enables parents to turn off comments on their children’s videos entirely or limit them to friends only. Parents whose accounts are linked to their kids will also be able to set their accounts to private ones, turn off the search function for content or users, and limit who can see which videos their children have liked.
The Family Pairing lets parents see how long their children are spending on TikTok each day and limit the content they can see.
TikTok allows children to register (注册) and create an account if they’re over the age of 13. All they need to do is provide their date of birth. However, because TikTok doesn’t require registrants (注册人) to prove their identities, some children under 13 have registered by lying about their age, according to U.K. regulator Ofcom (英国通信管理局)
Alexandra Evans, head of child safety public policy for TikTok in Europe, told CNBC that Family Pairing has “put itself in parents’ shoes”since it was launched. “If we’re thinking of it as a toolbox, we want to offer more tools,” she said on a video call ahead of the announcement.
1. What is the second paragraph mainly about?| A．The safety tips from TikTok. |
| B．The limits on Family Pairing. |
| C．New apps explored by TikTok. |
| D．The functions of Family Pairing. |
| A．The low age limit of users. |
| B．The demand for users’ birth dates. |
| C．TikTok’s failure to check identities. |
| D．The difficulty in opening an account. |
| A．Uninterested. | B．Objective. | C．Disappointed. | D．Favorable. |
| A．TikTok’s Safety Update |
| B．New Guidelines for Safety |
| C．Family Pairing under Debate |
| D．Controlling Your Kids Online |
4 . Many people like to explore the Internet. Exploring the Internet is one of the most important activities of the day. The Internet brings the outside world closer to people’s homes. Some people say the world is smaller than before because of the Internet.
What’s going on in other countries? How do people live in faraway places? Is there a good sports game somewhere? What’s life like in the deepest part of the sea? If you want to answer all these questions, just come to the Internet. Of course, people can also learn through reading or listening to the radio. But with the Internet they can learn better and more easily. A lot of information can be collected at a great speed.
Can we go shopping without leaving home? Can we see a doctor without going to the hospital? Can we study without going to school? All these things seemed to be impossible, but now they have become true.
The Internet helps us to open our eyes. The Internet also helps to open our minds. The Internet often gives us new ideas. In a word, it helps us in many ways. Great changes have taken place in our life since the use of the Internet.
1. What’s the main idea of the second paragraph?| A．We can learn only through reading or listening to the radio. |
| B．We can know nothing through the Internet. |
| C．A lot of information can be collected at a great speed through the Internet. |
| D．We can become wise because of the Internet. |
| A．go shopping without leaving home |
| B．see a doctor without going to the hospital |
| C．study without going to school |
| D．draw money without banks |
| A．we cannot think without the Internet |
| B．something is wrong with our minds because of the Internet |
| C．our minds can’t be opened unless we search the Internet |
| D．we can get some new ideas from the Internet |
5 . Fears over the disruption (干扰) to classrooms from pupils using smartphones have made the government decide to carry out research into the way technology affects behaviour in schools.
Children should not be allowed to use smartphones until they are 16, according to Tom Bennett, the school behaviour expert leading the research. “Children are using smartphones too young,” he said. People ask me, “When should I give my child a smartphone?” and I say “Whenever you’re comfortable with them viewing violence, because their curiosity (好奇心) will take them there.” According to him, teachers should not allow them unless necessary.
Mr. Bennett is already leading another study into how teachers are trained to deal with bad behaviour. He has now been asked to look at the wider challenges of managing modern classrooms. Although technology can improve learning, teachers have reported that the growing number of children bringing smartphones into class is leading to disruption, officials warn.
“We need to make sure the advice we give to schools, and the methods being used are fit for the 21st century when even primary school pupils may be bringing in phones. That is why we have taken the decision to widen Tom Bennett’s research to look at how teachers can deal with bad behaviour,” said Nick Gibb, Minister of State for Schools.
Most schools have some policies about smartphone use. However, the picture is far from uniform (统一的) — from complete bans (禁止) to partial bans. “I think smartphones in a classroom may be a temptation (诱惑) for students, but that isn’t to say that I would ban them. ”said Mr. Bennett. “My personal advice is that schools should think very carefully before allowing them. I think the basic rule should be not to allow them unless teachers invite them in for a certain reason.”
1. Why was the research started?| A．To find out the advantages of technology. |
| B．To learn about children’s behaviour in class. |
| C．To look at how smartphones affect kids at school. |
| D．To prevent children from using smartphones in class. |
| A．To look into students’ behaviour at home. |
| B．To change parents’ attitudes to smartphones. |
| C．To encourage children to attend modern classrooms. |
| D．To make sure that schools use proper methods to teach students. |
| A．Many pupils use smartphones for learning. |
| B．Schools have to try harder to ban smartphone use. |
| C．Students always have a good reason to use smartphones. |
| D．Different schools have different policies about smartphone use. |
| A．It is helpful in teaching. |
| B．Schools should take it seriously. |
| C．It should be banned completely. |
| D．There should be a uniform rule. |
6 . People from East Asia tend to have more difficulties than those from Europe in distinguishing facial expressions and a new report published online in Current Biology explains why.
Rachael Jack, University of Glasgow researcher, said that rather than scanning evenly (均匀的) across a face as Westerners do, Easterners fix their attention on the eyes.
“We show that Easterners and Westerners look at different face features to read facial expressions,” Jack said. “Westerners look at the eyes and the mouth in equal measure, whereas Easterners favor the eyes and overlook the mouth.”
According to Jack and her colleagues, the discovery shows that human communication of emotion is more complex than previously believed. As a result, facial expressions that had been considered universally recognizable cannot be used to reliably convey emotion in cross-cultural situations.
The researchers studied cultural differences in the recognition of facial expressions by recording the eye movements of 13 Western Caucasian and 13 East Asian people while they observed pictures of expressive faces and put them into categories: happy, sad, surprised, fearful, disgusted, angry, or neutral. They compared how accurately participants read those facial expressions using their particular eye movement strategies.
It turned out that Easterners focused much greater attention on the eyes and made significantly more errors than Westerners did. “The cultural difference in eye movements that they show is probably a reflection of cultural difference in facial expressions,” Jack said. “Our data suggest that whereas Westerners use the whole face to convey emotion. Easterners use the eyes more and mouth less.”
In short, the data show that facial expressions are not universal signals of human emotion. From here on, examining how cultural factors have diversified these basic social skills will help our understanding of human emotion. Otherwise, when it comes to communicating emotions across cultures, Easterners and Westerners will find themselves lost in translation.
1. What does the discovery show about Westerners?| A．They pay equal attention to the eyes and the mouth. |
| B．They consider facial expressions universally reliable. |
| C．They observe the eyes and the mouth in different ways. |
| D．They have more difficulty in recognizing facial expressions. |
| A．To get their faces impressive. | B．To make a face at each other. |
| C．To classify some face pictures. | D．To observe the researchers’ faces. |
| A．They do translation more successfully. | B．They study the mouth more frequently. |
| C．They examine the eyes more attentively. | D．They read facial expressions more correctly. |
| A．The Eye as the Window to the Soul | B．Cultural Differences in Reading Emotions |
| C．Effective Methods to Develop Social Skills | D．How to Increase Cross-cultural Understanding |
7 . New Caledonian crows are well-known for using different types of tools for preying (捕食) from tree holes and other hiding places. While they firmly hold their tools in the bill, they need to put them down to eat. This is when crows are at risk of losing their tools by accidentally dropping them or having them stolen by other crows.
In an earlier study, researchers in the UK had discovered that crows keep their tools safe when not needed, using one of two “safekeeping” strategies—they either securely hold them trapped underfoot, or temporarily put them into a nearby hole or behind bark. But are crows more careful when handling particularly valuable tools?
“Many of us will fuss (大惊小怪) about a brand-new phone, making sure it does not get scratched, dropped or lost. But we may handle an old phone with a cracked screen quite carelessly,” said lead author Barbara Klump from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Germany.
Crows at one of the team’s long-term study sites use two different kinds of stick tools: complex hooked tools and basic non-hooked tools. The former are painstakingly crafted from a relatively scarce plant species, while the latter are simply twigs (细枝) sourced from the forest floor. “Hooked tools are not only more costly to obtain, but they are also much more efficient,” explained Barbara Klump. “Depending on the foraging (觅食) task, crows can get prey with these tools up to ten times faster than with non-hooked tools.”
In their new study, the researchers now discovered that New Caledonian crows are more likely to keep valuable hooked tools safe between uses than the more basic non-hooked tools. “It was exciting to see crows are just a bit more careful with tools that are more efficient and more costly to replace. This suggests that they have some conception of the relative value’ of different tool types,” noted study co-author James St Clair.
This is the first study to investigate how animals handle and store tools of different kinds, providing a new way to measure how much they value these objects.
1. Why are phones mentioned in paragraph 3?| A．To indicate the necessity of phones in our daily life. |
| B．To emphasize people’s attachment to their old devices. |
| C．To stress the similarity between humans and crows. |
| D．To show people’s improper attitude to old things. |
| A．It can be gotten easily. | B．It can be adjusted freely. |
| C．It can make crows’ foraging more productive. | D．It can prevent crows from danger. |
| A．Their secret hiding places. | B．Their unusual eating habits. |
| C．Their creation of complex tools. | D．Their treatment of valuable tools. |
| A．Crows Use Strategies to Gain Valuable Tools |
| B．Crows Learn to Use Special Tools for Preying |
| C．New Discovery of How Crows Make Tools |
| D．New Caledonian Crows Keep Favorite Tools Safer |
8 . Qibao Ancient Village
Qibao, located in the center of Minhang District, Shanghai, is a village with a history of one thousand years. In the village, wine and tea are served on old-fashioned square tables together with long benches, long-mouth copper pots and flat-end chopstick used. The most famous snacks in old Shanghai are square pastry, rice wine and steamed salted pork in wine.
Entrance Ticket: 45 yuan per all-in-one ticket (preferable price of 30 yuan is available now), covering almost all tourist attractions inside the village.
Telephone: 021-21087225
Jinshan Village of Farmer Painting
Villagers skillfully make good use of folk arts such as printing and dyeing, embroidery (刺绣), wood carving. They take the various folk customs and the busy scenes of labor of villagers in the lower Changjiang valley as the theme of paintings and create farmer paintings in a simple style.
Entrance Ticket: 30 yuan/person
Telephone: 021-57355555
Merry Countryside Tour in Zhonghua Village
The village provides tourists with accommodations, tours, chess, cards, fitness and entertainment through renting out separate farmhouse and sells tourist products and agricultural by-products related to the merry countryside tour.
Entrance Ticket: Free Telephone: 021-57395433
Pudong Lingkong Agric Gardening
It is one of Shanghai countryside tour scenic spots, which features art of teapots, crop plantation and export. The Geological Science Popularization Hall stores up tens of thousands of rare stones collected all over the world.
Entrance Ticket: 50 yuan /person
Telephone: 021-33935557
1. What can you do when you are in Qibao?| A．Enter the village for free. | B．See busy scenes of labor of villagers. |
| C．Experience various folk customs. | D．Taste steamed salted pork in wine. |
| A．Jinshan Village. | B．Qibao Ancient Village. |
| C．Zhonghua Village. | D．Pudong Lingkong Agric Gardening. |
| A．City developments. | B．Countryside life. |
| C．Traditional customs. | D．Agricultural achievements. |
9 . With the weight of its tall buildings, streets and people, New York City is sinking at an average rate of 1 to 2 millimetres each year, a new study says.
The sinking is called “subsidence”. That natural process happens everywhere as ground is compressed (压紧). But the study sought to estimate how the huge weight of the city itself is hurrying things along.
Over 1 million buildings are spread across five boroughs (自治区). The research team found that all those structures add up to 1. 5 trillion metric tons of concrete, metal and glass, equal to the mass of 4, 700 Empire State buildings pressing down on the Earth.
The rate of compression is different throughout the city. Midtown Manhattan’s skyscrapers are largely built on rock, which compresses very little. But some parts of Brooklyn, Queens and downtown Manhattan are on looser soil and sinking faster, the study said.
While the process is slow, parts of the city will eventually be under water. Researchers reached conclusions using satellite imaging, data modeling and mathematical calculations. It will take hundreds of years before New York becomes Venice, which is famously sinking into the Adriatic Sea. But parts of New York are more at risk. A researcher said Manhattan is at risk because of the borough’s large weight.
The ocean is rising at a similar rate that the land is sinking. So the Earth’s changing climate could speed up the process for parts of the city to go under water. Already, New York City is at risk of flooding because of large storms. Storms like Sandy in 2012 caused the ocean to expand inland and flooded neighbourhoods after a lot of rain.
New York City is not the only place sinking. San Francisco, California, is also at risk because of pressure on the ground and the area’s active earthquakes. In Indonesia, the government is preparing for a move from Jakarta, which is sinking into the Java Sea. The government is building a new capital being constructed on the higher ground of an entirely different island.
1. What is the main reason for the different compression rates in New York?| A．Different measurement methods. | B．Different geological(地质的)conditions. |
| C．Different building materials and styles. | D．Different climate changes and impacts. |
| A．Its huge weight. | B．Its distance to the sea. |
| C．Its similar position. | D．Various frequent natural disasters. |
| A．To keep the reader’s attention. |
| B．To improve the atmosphere. |
| C．To show the issue is common. |
| D．To point out the negative effect of sinking. |
| A．New York City Is Slowly Sinking | B．The Flavour of New York City |
| C．Here Comes a Future Venice | D．The Problems Caused by Dropping |
10 . Before James Blunt became a musician, he served in the army. He spent four and a half years there, with six months in Kosovo as part of the peacekeeping force. Before leaving the army, Blunt had decided to achieve his dream of becoming a musician. In 2003, he was discovered by a music producer Linda Perry who signed him to her Custard label. However, the road to success never runs smoothly. It seemed that he would become another struggling singer trying to live from hand to mouth (现挣现吃地) when his first two singles failed to make an impact on the British charts. But everything changed when his third single You’re Beautiful made it all the way to No.1 on the UK singles charts, and remained there for five weeks. The album (专辑) Back to Bedlam soon followed and quickly became one of the biggest selling records of the year, remaining ten continual weeks at No. 1. Since then, he has sold more than three million records, making him the first British artist to top the American singles charts in nearly a decade.
Blunt, 34, a throwback (返祖者)to the 1970s soft rock golden age, has been quoted by Western media as saying that he will never get used to people screaming at him in the street.
His success proves a lasting theory: You spend years chasing the right song. Then, if you’re lucky, and if the song really takes off, you spend the rest of your life trying to escape it, or learning to live with it. A few years removed from You’re Beautiful, he can still fill stages worldwide with fans who stay until the end.
1. Which of the following can describe James Blunt’s life as a musician before he sang the song You’re Beautiful?| A．Difficult. | B．Happy. | C．Boring. | D．Smooth. |
| A．Blunt will never adjust himself to the noisy environment around. |
| B．The popularity of Blunt has been gaining him an increasing number of fans out of his expectation. |
| C．What Blunt sings disturbs people so much that they yell to him their anger. |
| D．People in the street are rude civilians who are against any form of entertaining, including Blunt’s songs. |
| A．Blunt is wellknown in the world for his talent |
| B．Blunt’s fame as a musician came easily |
| C．Blunt wasn’t lucky enough to win his fans’ support |
| D．Blunt has to face the inconvenience his fame has caused |
