1 . Psychologists take opposing views of how external rewards, from warm praise to cold cash, affect motivation and creativity. Behaviorists, who study the relation between actions and their consequences, argue that rewards can improve performance at work and school. Cognitive (认知学派的) researchers, who study various aspects of mental life, believe that rewards often destroy creativity by encouraging dependence on approval and gifts from others.
The latter view has gained many supporters, especially among educators. But the careful use of small monetary rewards sparks creativity in grade-school children, suggesting that properly presented inducements (刺激) indeed aid creativity, according to a study in the June Journal of Personality and Social Psychology".
"If kids know they're working for a reward and can focus on a relatively challenging task, they show the most creativity," says Robert Eisenberger of the University of Delaware in Newark. "But it's easy to kill creativity by giving rewards for poor performance or creating too much desire for rewards." A teacher who continually draws attention to rewards or who hands out high grades for ordinary achievement ends up with uninspired students, Eisenberger holds. As an example of the latter point, he notes growing efforts at major universities to tighten grading standards and restore failing grades.
In earlier grades, the use of so-called token economies, in which students handle challenging problems and receive performance-based points toward valued rewards, shows promise in raising effort and creativity, the Delaware psychologist claims.
1. Psychologists are divided with regard to their attitudes toward ________.| A．the choice between spiritual encouragement and monetary rewards |
| B．the amount of monetary rewards for students' creativity |
| C．the study of relationship between actions and their consequences |
| D．the effects of external rewards on students' performance |
| A．They have no doubts about them. | B．They have doubts about them. |
| C．They approve of them. | D．They avoid talking about them. |
| A．rewarding poor performance may kill the creativity of students |
| B．punishment is more effective than rewarding |
| C．failing uninspired students helps improve their overall academic standards |
| D．discouraging the students' desire for easy rewards is a matter of urgency |
| A．ways to develop economy | B．systems of rewarding students |
| C．approaches to solving problems | D．methods of improving performance |
2 . Artificial intelligence (AI) （人工智能）is the ability of a computer program or a machine to think and learn. It is also a field of study that tries to make computers "smart". John McCarthy, a scientist, came up with the name "artificial intelligence" in 1955. Many things such as learning and problem solving can be done by computers, though not in the same way as we do.
An unusual goal of AI research is to create computer programs that can learn, solve problems, and think logically（逻辑地）. At present we use the term Al for successfully understanding human speech, recognizing（识别）human faces, operating self-driving cars and competing in some game systems like Chess and AlphGo（阿尔法狗）. Some people also consider AI a danger to humans if it develops too quickly. Professor Stephen Hawking, a well-known British scientist, was not for this kind of technology.
Math is the basic language of AI. If we raise the standard in the learning of math, our students will be more likely to become successful AI designers in the future. We not only want bright students, but also need to attract average students and give them the math skills which are needed to change them into AI designers. Besides, a good knowledge of computer science is also necessary for AI designing.
Scientists hope to create creative and emotional AI which can possibly understand human feelings or create art. Many ways and tools have been tried to discover this fascinating field.
1. From Paragraph 1, we know that_________.| A．all problems can be solved by AI | B．machines with AI can think and learn |
| C．AI has been around for only 60 years. | D．AI works in the same way as humans |
| A．Chess | B．AlphaGo | C．the danger | D．AI |
School Report
Subject/Name | Math(100) | Art(100) | Computer(100) |
Mike | 60 | 95 | 95 |
Peter | 95 | 65 | 90 |
Amy | 65 | 90 | 95 |
Cathy | 95 | 95 | 60 |
| A．Mike. | B．Peter. | C．Amy. | D．Cathy. |
| A．wishes | B．worries | C．feelings | D．discoveries |
3 . England continues to be one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. London in particular is one of the most visited cities and draws people in with its appeal, history, and pubs. England’s smaller cities, like Bath and Oxford, are equally as attractive with a lot of culture and fewer crowds. Liverpool, birthplace of The Beatles, has a rich musical history. The countryside has wonderful natural beauty. Here are some tips on traveling in England.
Free museums-Public museums offer free admission in every city throughout England and the UK. It’s a great way to learn about the country’s most influential artists and history, and spend a rainy day without paying a cent. Book early-Book all transportation well in advance, even if you don’t plan to use it.Fares can be around ￡2 with a little planning. The Megabus not only runs buses but also provides trains throughout England and is the best choice for cheap travel throughout the country.
Pub food-Eating in England can be quite expensive, but for good cheap and filling meals, visit the local pubs, where you can get a good meal for less than ￡10. Besides, the pubs are a great way to meet people!
Get a Taste of UK card-The Taste of the UK card offers up to 50% off at selected restaurants. You don’t need to be an English to get the card,and you needn’t pay the first month’s membership fee, which is perfect for most travelers. Take a free walking tour-Many major cities in England offer free walking tours accompanied by some guides. They usually last a few hours and are a great way to see the city.
1. Compared with London, Oxford is ________.| A．more appealing |
| B．less crowded |
| C．smaller in size |
| D．richer in history |
| A．The price of food is low. |
| B．The chance of meeting stars is high. |
| C．The service is excellent. |
| D．The dining atmosphere is perfect. |
| A．All museums are of charge. |
| B．Traveling by bus is recommended. |
| C．Some cities provide free walking tours. |
| D．Visitors can’t get taste of UK cards. |
4 . Plastic—Eating Worm
Humans produce more than 300 million tons of plastic every year. Almost half of that ends up in landfills(垃圾填埋场) , and up to 12 million tons pollute the oceans. So far there is no effective way to get rid of it, but a new study suggests an answer may lie in the stomachs of some hungry worms(幼虫).
Researchers in Spain and England found that the worms of the greater wax moth(大蜡螟) can break down polyethylene(聚乙烯), which accounts for 40% of plastics.
That is to say, part of plastics can be consumed by this kind of worms. The team left 100 wax worms on a plastic shopping bag for 12 hours, and the worms consumed and broke down about 92 milligrams, or almost 3% of it. To confirm that the worms' chewing alone was not responsible for the polyethylene breakdown, the researchers made some worms into paste(糊状物)and applied it to plastic films. 14 hours later the films had lost 13% of their mass—apparently broken down by enzymes(酶)from the worms' stomachs. Their findings were published in Current Biology.
Federica Bertocchini, co—author of the study, says the worms' ability to break down their everyday food—beeswax—also allows them to break down plastic." Wax is a complex mixture, but the basic bond in polyethylene, the carbon—carbon bond, is there as well," she explains. "The wax worm developed a method or system to break this bond."
Jennifer Debruyn, a microbiologist at the University of Tennessee, who was not involved in the study, says it is not surprising that such worms can break down polyethylene. But compared with previous studies, she finds the speed of breaking down in this one exciting. The next step, DeBruyn says, will be to identify where the enzyme comes from. Is it an enzyme produced by the worm itself or by its gut microbes(肠道微生物)?
Bertocchini agrees and hopes her team's findings might one day help make use of the enzyme to break down plastics in landfills. But she expects using the chemical in some kind of industrial process—not simply "millions of worms thrown on top of the plastic."
1. What can we learn about the worms in the study?| A．They take plastics as their everyday food. |
| B．They can consume plastics. |
| C．They end up in landfills. |
| D．They are new creatures. |
| A．prove the research findings |
| B．discover other kinds of worms |
| C．increase the breakdown speed |
| D．find out the source of the enzyme |
| A．help to raise worms |
| B．help make plastic bags |
| C．be used to clean the oceans |
| D．be produced in factories in future |
| A．To propose new means to keep eco—balance. |
| B．To present a way to break down plastics. |
| C．To introduce the diet of a special worm. |
| D．To explain a study method on worms. |
5 . To take the apple as a forbidden fruit is the most unlikely story the Christians ever cooked up. For them, the forbidden fruit from Eden is evil (邪恶的). So when Columbus brought the tomato back from South America, a land mistakenly considered to be Eden, everyone jumped to the too obvious conclusion. Wrongly taken as the apple of Eden, the tomato was shut out of the door of Europeans.
What made it particularly terrifying was its similarity to the mandrake, a plant that was thought to have come from Hell (地狱). What earned the plant its awful reputation was its roots which looked like a dried-up human body occupied by evil spirits. Though the tomato and the mandrake were quite different except that both had bright red or yellow fruit, the general population considered them one and the same, too terrible to touch.
Cautious Europeans long ignored the tomato, and until the early 1700s most of the Western people continued to drag their feet. In the 1880s, the daughter of a well-known farmer wrote that the most interesting part of an afternoon tea at her father’s house had been the “introduction of this wonderful new fruit---or is it a vegetable?” As late as the twentieth century, some writers still classed tomatoes with mandrakes as an “evil fruit”.
But in the end tomatoes carried the day. The hero of the tomato was an American named Robert Johnson, and when he was publicly going to eat the tomato in 1820, people journeyed for hundreds of miles to watch him drop dead. “What are you afraid of ?” he shouted. “I’ll show you fools that these things are good to eat!” Then he bit into the tomato. Some people fainted. But he survived and, according to a local story, set up a tomato-canning factory.
1. The tomato was shut out of the door of early Europeans mainly because ________.| A．it was religiously unacceptable | B．it was the apple of Eden |
| C．it came from a forbidden land | D．it made Christian evil |
| A．The process of ignoring the tomato slowed down. |
| B．The tomato was still refused in most western countries. |
| C．There was little progress in the study of the tomato. |
| D．Most western people continued to get rid of the tomato. |
| A．To make himself a hero. |
| B．To persuade people to buy products from his factory. |
| C．To speed up the popularity of the tomato. |
| D．To remove people’s fear of the tomato. |
| A．To present the change of people’s attitudes to the tomato. |
| B．To give an explanation to people’s dislike of the tomato. |
| C．To challenge people’s fixed concepts of the tomato. |
| D．To show the popularity of the tomato in Europe |
6 . Last week, our forum(论坛)asked if you had any funny or strange stories about using English. We didn’t expect to get so many posts! Here are some of our favorites, to remind us that some of the English we learn in the classroom is rather different from the English in the outside world.
| People say that the British always play safe with what they eat. Not true! I went to a summer school in Manchester and my English teacher was called Maggie. One day, a different teacher took our class. He told us that Maggie couldn’t teach that day COZ she had a frog in her throat. Poor Maggie-but why did she try to eat such a big frog?
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| When I first visited New York, I went to a downtown shopping centre to buy some winter boots. At the information desk at the entrance, I asked a lady where the shoe shop was. She said that it was on the first floor. So I went up to the first floor, but I couldn’t find any shoes. I decided to leave. When I was looking for the exit, I saw that shoes were actually sold downstairs on the ground floor, not the first floor. Why did she give me the wrong information?
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| The British must have really high standards. I was part of a student exchange programme between a university in England and my university in China. I spent days preparing and writing my first English paper. I knew I had done a good job and was looking forward to getting a positive comment. When I got the paper back, I found my teacher had written the comment “Not bad!” Not bad? But there weren’t any errors in my paper.
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| A．She didn’t play safe with what she ate. |
| B．She has drawn a picture of frog on her face. |
| C．She ate a big frog and her throat was blocked. |
| D．She couldn’t speak clearly because her throat is dry. |
| A．Both of them have difficulty in learning English. |
| B．They didn’t know the words’ different meanings in other countries. |
| C．The spellings are too complicated for both of them to understand. |
| D．The speakers spoke so fast that Sophie and Zheng Xu couldn’t follow. |
| A．In a novel. | B．In a magazine. | C．On the Internet. | D．In a diary. |
7 . On September 7, 1930, Yuan Longping was born in Beijing. Fluent in English, his mother often read Friedrich Nietzsche's works to him. Influenced by his mother, Yuan Longping liked English, geography and chemistry at school. After graduating from university, he became a teacher in the countryside of Hunan in 1953.
With lots of crop failures, nationwide hunger hit China in the 1960s, making many people live a bad life. Yuan was sad and felt he must do something. Since the climate in Hunan was not friendly to growing wheat. He decided to devote himself to studying how to increase the production of rice, a basic food for over 60 percent of Chinese people. From then on, he began a lifelong connection with rice.
Yuan Longping succeeded in growing the world's first high production hybrid rice (杂交水稻) variety in 1973, which could reach a yield of over 500 kg per more than 200 kg than before. For the next four decades, he continued to work on the research of hybrid rice. In 2020, hybrid rice developed by his team achieved 1,500 kg per mu in two growing seasons, a new world record.
Nowadays, the hybrid rice is grown in almost half of China's rice fields and its production accounts for 60 percent of the total rice production in China. The hybrid rice production is 20 percent more than the common kinds , the yearly increase of which feeds up to 100 million people.
In 2019, Yuan Longping, known as the “Father of hybrid rice”, was awarded with Medal of the Republic, China's highest honor.
Yuan Longping's biggest dream in life was to develop more hybrid rice varieties, which could be grown all over the world to help solve the global food problem. So far, the hybrid varieties he developed have been grown in over 40 countries, including the USA, Brazil and India.
1. What do we know about Yuan Longping according to the text?| A．He began to study hybrid rice in 1973. |
| B．He received the highest honor in China at 90. |
| C．He ever taught math in the city after graduation. |
| D．He ever hoped Chinese would be free from hunger. |
| A．By listing figures. | B．By quoting reports. |
| C．By imagining results. | D．By explaining reasons. |
| A．Patient and honest. | B．Energetic and athletic. |
| C．Capable and remarkable. | D．Humorous and adventurous. |
| A．The life of Yuan Longping. | B．The team of Yuan Longping. |
| C．The honor of Yuan Longping. | D．The education of Yuan Longping. |
8 . Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (麻省理工学院) have turned spider webs into music——creating an strange soundtrack that could help them better understand how the spiders output their complex creations and even how they communicate.
The MIT team worked with Berlin-based artist Tomas Saraceno to take 2D (two- dimensional) laser (激光) scans of a spider web, which were linked together and made into a mathematical model that could recreate the web in 3D in VR (virtual reality). They also worked with MIT’s music department to create the virtual instrument.
“Even though the web looks really random (随机)，there actually are a lot of inside structures and you can visualize (可视化) them and you can look at them, but it’s really hard to grasp for the human imagination or human brain to understand all these structural details,” said MIT engineering professor Markus Buehler, who presented the work on Monday at a virtual meeting of the American Chemical Society.
Listening to the music while moving through the VR spider web lets you see and hear these structural changes and gives a better idea of how spiders see the world, he told CNN. “Spiders use vibrations (振动) as a way to locate themselves, to communicate with other spiders and so the idea of thinking really like a spider would experience the world was something that was very important to us as spider material scientists,” Buehler said.
Spiders are able to build their webs without shelves or supports, so having a better idea of how they work could lead to the development of advanced new 3D printing techniques. “The reason why I did that is I wanted to be able to get information really from the spider world, which is very weird and mysterious,” Buehler explained. In addition to the scientific value, Buehler said the webs are musically interesting and that you can hear the sounds the spider creates during construction. “It’s unusual and eerie and scary, but finally beautiful.” he described.
1. What have MIT scientists done according to the passage?| A．They have translated spider webs into sounds. |
| B．They have made a mathematical model to produce webs. |
| C．They have created a soundtrack to catch spiders. |
| D．They have known how spiders communicate. |
| A．Their structures are beautiful and clear. |
| B．Professor Markus Buehler knows them well. |
| C．The American Chemical Society presents the result. |
| D．They are complex for people to figure it out. |
| A．virtual reality | B．printing |
| C．painting | D．film-making |
| A．It tells us that the music created by spiders is scary. |
| B．It shows how the researchers carry out the experiment. |
| C．It presents a new and creative way to study spiders. |
| D．It explains why scientists did the experiment. |
9 . The Biggest Stadiums in the World
People have been pouring into stadiums since the days of ancient Greece. In around 80 A.D., the Romans built the Colosseum, which remains the world’s best known stadium and continues to inform contemporary design. Rome’s Colosseum was 157 feet tall and had 80 entrances, seating 50,000 people. However, that was small fry compared with the city’s Circus Maximus, which accommodated around 250,000 people.
These days, safety regulations-not to mention the modern sports fan’s desire for a good view and comfortable seat — tend to keep stadium capacities (容量) slightly lower. Even soccer fans tend to have a seat each; gone are the days of thousands standing to watch the match.
For the biggest stadiums in the world, we have used data supplied by the World Atlas list so far, which ranks them by their stated permanent capacity, as well as updated information from official stadium websites.
All these stadiums are still functional, still open and still hosting the biggest events in world sport.
·Rungrado 1st of May Stadium, Pyongyang D.P.R. Korea. Capacity: 150,000. Opened: May 1,1989.
·Michigan Stadium, Ann Arbor, Michigan, U. S. Capacity: 107,601. Opened: October 1, 1927.
·Beaver Stadium, State College, Pennsylvania, U. S. Capacity: 106,572. Opened: September 17, 1960.
·Ohio Stadium, Columbus, Ohio, U. S. Capacity: 104,944. Opened: October 7,1922.
·Kyle Field, College Station, Texas, U. S. Capacity: 102,512. Opened: September 24, 1927.
1. How many people could the Circus Maximus hold?| A．104,944. | B．107,601. | C．About 150,000. | D．About 250,000. |
| A．Michigan Stadium. | B．Beaver Stadium. | C．Ohio Stadium. | D．Kyle Field. |
| A．They host big games. | B．They have become tourist attractions. |
| C．They were built by Americans. | D．They are favored by architects. |
10 . Long March (长征) exhibition
The Shanghai History Museum is putting on an exhibition to remember the Long March. More than 220 photos and 40 other things are on show. All the exhibition is explained in Chinese. The show will end on November 20.
Time: 10：00 am-4：00 pm
Address: 1286 Hongqiao Road
Ticket: 8 yuan for Chinese/15 yuan for foreigners
Thai elephants
Eight elephants from Thailand are an attraction for visitors at Changfeng Park by riding bikes, playing basketball, dancing and blowing a musical instrument. The elephants give three shows a day at 9:30 am, 3:30 pm and 8:00 pm, and there is an extra show at 1:30 pm at weekends. The show will end on November 15.
Address: 189 Daduhe Road
Ticket: 30-40 yuan
Dancing dolphins
Dolphins jumping from the water to touch a ball, dancing to music, kissing people and doing easy maths problems, have made a large part of the aquarium in Peace Park, which interests children greatly. Seals and sea lions also perform.
Time: 10:30 am, 4:00 pm, and 7:30 pm
Ticket: 20 yuan for adults and 10 yuan for children
1. Where can one see the Long March exhibition?| A．In Shanghai History Museum. | B．In Changfeng Park. |
| C．In Peace Park. | D．On 189 Daduhe Road. |
| A．One. | B．Two. | C．Three. | D．Four. |
| A．Ten yuan. | B．Twenty yuan. | C．Thirty yuan. | D．Forty yuan. |
| A．The Long March exhibition is explained in English. |
| B．The sea animals can work out difficult maths problems. |
| C．Thai elephants’ shows can only be seen in the day. |
| D．The sea animals perform three times a day. |
