1 . In late June, two companies were given permits to sell chicken meat that has been grown in a lab. The companies say they will be serving the meat in restaurants this summer.
Unlike normal chicken meat, lab-grown meat isn’t created by raising and killing chickens. Instead, it’s a meat product developed from animal cells that are grow n in a lab. The process is called “cell-based” or “cultured” meat.
The process of creating lab-grown meat is completely different from the normal meat raising process. Scientists have known for a long time how to keep living cells alive and grow them in a lab. In this case, experts choose cells that can grow quickly and will have good flavour. The first cells come from live animals. Then the cells are grown inside large steel tanks, where they’re fed with everything they need to grow. In a few weeks, the cells grow into sheets of meat. The companies then form this meat into more familiar shapes that can be cooked and sold.
The companies say that their meat is better for the environment than meat from animals. Raising animals for food uses huge amounts of land and water. It also creates a lot of pollution. Raising animals for food create s about 15% of the world’s greenhouse gases. That’s why cutting back on eating meat is one of the easiest ways to fight climate change.
There are many companies these days that focus on making plant-based meat substitutes (替代物). But since lab-grown meat is made from animal cells, it is very hard to tell it apart from actual meat. It looks, smells, and tastes like chicken.
Polls (民意调查) have shown that many people aren’t too interested in lab-grown meat. Lots of people believe that “it just sounds strange”. But Russel Phillips, a biologist, suggests people give it a try. He says that once people try the meat, they will be amazed. The common response must be, “Oh, it tastes like chicken.”
But right now, the meat is far more expensive than meat from animals. Now that the companies have been approved, they have the huge challenge of figuring out how to make much more meat far more cheaply. It will probably be a long time before you’re able to buy lab-grown chicken in stores.
1. To produce lab-grown meat, the companies should________.| A．study how to feed live animals. | B．decide where to store meat products. |
| C．add different flavours to sheets of meat. | D．select cells suitable for producing meat. |
| A．future. | B．advantage. | C．techniques. | D．process. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Worried. | C．Supportive. | D．Uninterested. |
| A．quality. | B．safety. | C．price. | D．taste. |
If you enjoy walking for exercise, there’s a simple way to meet your demand—change your walk into a ruck, and it’s an increasingly popular form of exercise.
Rucking is walking with weight on your back. The term “rucking” comes from ruck marching, a core skill used by the military around the world. One of the tests the army normally gives to soldiers is a 12-mile ruck, which they must complete within three hours while carrying a weight of at least 35 pounds.
The reason why rucking is growing in popularity is that it’s an easy and all-body exercise. One study in 2019 showed that 10 weeks of weighted walking improved physical performance. Since rucking is usually performed outdoors, there is no doubt that it’s also good for your mental health. Lots of studies suggest that the mental health benefits of being in a natural environment are huge.
There are several tips for your rucking when you get started. First, don’t be too eager. As with any new exercise, you’ll need to begin slowly. Start with an empty backpack (背包) and walk a distance you’ve already done. When you start adding weight to your pack, try something low, like 10% of your body weight. Adding weight is going to put more stress on your ankles, knees, hips and back, so do it gradually. Another option is to start with a weighted vest (背心) instead of a backpack. This spreads the weight between your front and back. And of course, don’t forget your feet. Select a comfortable pair of shoes to prevent getting hurt.
1. What is rucking?(不多于六个单词)2. Why is rucking popular?(不多于六个单词)
3. Where is rucking usually performed?(不多于一个单词)
4. What is the last paragraph mainly about?(不多于三个单词)
3 . Best friends Tommy, 17, and Daniel, 15, decided to sign up for their school’s robotics team in their freshman year, and began their journey towards changing lives for the better.
They began their work with 3D printers to create parts for their robots, but they wanted their impact to be greater. “It started off with a team idea,” Tommy said. “We were trying to figure out how we could make a difference to society as a first-year robotics team. We later thought of the idea of using 3D printers to make prostheses (假肢), like hands.”
The team worked with IMAHelps, a nonprofit organization, and received help from the Science Robotics Initiative. Shortly after, they began working with their first person in need of a prosthesis.
“We started off with making an artificial (人造的) arm for Samantha, a 12-year-old little girl in Ecuador who lost her arm in a bus accident,” Tommy explains. “We got her measurements and then made the prosthesis. IMAHelps brought it to Samantha and it fit her perfectly and worked well.”
“Samantha had a dream to write, and we wanted to help with that,” adds Daniel.
It didn’t take long for other kids to see Samantha’s prosthesis. A young man named Ernest Priester, 13, asked to have an artificial foot. Later, the team offered to make him one for free. “He started tearing up. It brought so much joy to his eyes.” Tommy says.
This July, the team traveled to Ecuador to deliver four more prostheses to those in need. “We were so happy to help,” Tommy shares.
The team also plans on continuing to give away their 3D creations. “You can do whatever you want to do when it comes to helping people and changing the world,” Tommy says. “There are no age limits.”
“By offering a little bit,” adds Daniel. “We can change a lot.”
1. To make the robotics team’s impact greater, Tommy and Daniel decided to________.| A．create robot parts | B．start a robotics course |
| C．make prostheses | D．invent a 3D printer |
| A．They set up IMAHelps for her. | B．They made her an artificial arm. |
| C．They offered her medical treatment. | D．They gave her instructions on writing. |
| A．Curious. | B．Relaxed. | C．Regretful. | D．Pleased. |
| A．Caring. | B．Calm. | C．Honest. | D．Brave. |
4 . I sill remember my first day of second grade. I was led to a classroom. No teacher yet. Girls talking and laughing. Boys playing games.
I took some paper and a pencil, picked a desk, and went to work. Minutes later, a girl came over and sat on top of my desk.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“I am doing Fun with Number” I replied. Then I rose from my seat to get my pencil sharpener. I had no idea that when I stood, the desk would fall over and hurt her leg.
Her name was Lucy. From that day on we got to know each other, and she became my best friend. Now we have been close friends for more than 60 years. We often get together and recall the past.
Some TV advertisements try to tell us what children need for school, new shoes, clothes, and schoolbags. But really, children’s needs are simple. Besides the basics—to be fed, cared for, and loved—they need the gift of friendship.
For years, I feared how people saw me. But one day, I finally understood I didn’t need to be smart or pretty or popular, but just needed to be kind.
My grandson William recently finished his preschool and received a prize for “friendship”. Even an Olympic medal wouldn’t make me prouder! I think children need to know that they are loved. They need to know they have all they need and that the best way to win friends is to be kind.
1. When and where did the author meet Lucy for the first time?2. What was the author doing when Lucy came over?
3. How do Lucy and the author keep their friendship growing?
4. Besides the basics, what do children need for a happy school life?
A joke spread online during the epidemic (疫情) that “No one should go out until Zhong Nanshan said you can,” which reflects Chinese people’s trust in him.
The trust has existed for 17 years, going back to when Zhong told the public about the facts on the SARS virus, pointing out that the epidemic was far from being controlled as there was still no clue about the cause of and treatment to the disease.
17 years later, he stood between the epidemic and the public, once again.
As a professional expert in medicine, he once said his words might embarrass his colleagues, but he had to tell the truth. “I think patients’ lives are the most important thing.”
Zhong said his father had told him to speak the truth ever since he was a child.
In the backdrop of great fame and high reputation, he said that “I am nothing but a medical worker.”
Wuhan has gripped the hearts of people throughout the country since the outbreak the virus. Zhong said with a hoarse voice that “with the help of the entire country, Wuhan can survive this difficult time as it is a heroic city.”
He has expressed sympathy to the medical workers fighting on the frontline of epidemic control.
1. What does the joke imply? （no more than 10 words）2. Why do Chinese people trust Zhong?（no more than 15 words）
3. According to the passage, who has a great influence on Zhong Nanshang?（no more than 2 words）
4. What does the underlined sentence mean? （no more than 20 words）
6 . Today, battery power per kilowatt hour costs around only ten percent of what it did a decade ago. And the expectation is that the costs will continue to fall, because battery chemistry improves and manufacturing lots of batteries on a massive scale makes the production of individual batteries cheaper.
You can be forgiven for thinking that this might only be of interest to accountants, but the possible effects of this are enormous, and will benefit all of us. First and most obviously, it has made the batteries in electric cars cheaper and longer-lasting. And brilliantly, because electric batteries are improving so dramatically, we can already see the results. Last September, 15 percent of all new vehicle registrations were pure electric vehicles. So the change is starting to happen.
Better batteries does not just mean better cars however. They can also help us decarbonise the entire national grid (输电网). Storing energy has always been a problem for the grid. Today, only a tiny amount of generated electricity is stored for later use, which leads to lots of power going to waste. But better batteries make it technologically and economically viable to store large amounts of energy from the grid.
It’s possible that in the not-too-distant future, we might have an enormous battery in the garage. It would take power from the grid (or maybe even solar panels on the roof), and power appliances and lights in our homes at the times when demand for electricity is high. Home batteries are not yet as established as electric cars, but-they are also growing in popularity.
So, given that how much technology has improved batteries over the last decade, I can’t help but be strangely optimistic about the future. Batteries may not be as flashy (华丽的) as phones, rockets or other new technologies. But when it comes to technology to fight climate change, they’re definitely leading the charge.
1. What contributes to the popularity of electric cars?| A．The increasing vehicle registrations. |
| B．The production of individual batteries. |
| C．Accountants’ interest in cheaper batteries. |
| D．The longer duration and less cost of batteries. |
| A．Sustainable. | B．Adaptable. |
| C．Workable. | D．Exceptional. |
| A．They will become durable. |
| B．They will sell better than phones. |
| C．They will help make the world greener. |
| D．They will replace chargers on a long trip. |
| A．Home Batteries Will Catch On |
| B．Batteries Are Getting Better and Better |
| C．Petrol-powered Cars Will Be Replaced |
| D．Battery Technology Needs Improving Urgently |
7 . The beautiful island country of Madagascar has a serious school shortage. About a third of Malagasy children have no access to education because the schools are too far away or severely overcrowded. Thinking Hus, a non-profit dedicated to increasing global access to education, plans to tackle the issue with a series of 3D-printed schools, the first of which was completed in April 2022.
The 765-square-feet structure, named Bougainvillea, will house 30 students. The construction a began with the printer pouring a cement-like (水泥状) mixture in a pattern to create the walls. The entire process took just 18 hours! The roof, doors and windows were locally sourced, and the walls were made of a cement mixture that can resist big environmental pressures in the area. Bougainvillea was 3D printed by 14 Trees, a company with experience printing buildings throughout Kenya and Malawi.
Maggie Grouts, the 22-year-old founder of Thinking Huts, is a senior at the University of Colorado and was just 15 when she started Thinking Huts. Adopted from a rural village in China when she was 18 months old, Grout realized that not all kids were as fortunate as her and wanted to help. The idea for the 3D-printed schools came to her after brainstorming(集思广益) with her father on ways to use the technology for the greater good.
The 3D printing approach shrinks the construction turnaround time from months to days, as well as the cost. This allows more schools to be built in less time and reduces the building’s carbon footprints. And these savings in time, cost and materials meet a real need for education infrastructure (基础设施) to help bridge the global opportunity gap.
“Thinking Huts hopes to have a Thinking Hut in every community where children do not have a place for education and is fundraising to develop this goal. By using 3D printing, we are combining the potential of technology with architectural solutions that tackle real problems the world faces within education,” says Grouts.
1. What are 3D-printed schools intended for?| A．Reducing construction wastes. |
| B．Providing high-quality education for local students. |
| C．Helping deal with a shortage of schools. |
| D．Drawing public attention to 3D-printing technology. |
| A．It has a complex architectural structure. |
| B．It features strong resistance to bad weather. |
| C．It is built with the help of the local government. |
| D．It can hold more students than traditional schools. |
| A．She is truly creative and warmhearted. |
| B．She had no access to school as a child |
| C．She is devoted to designing 3D-printed products， |
| D．She raised money for kids from rural areas in China. |
| A．The advantages of 3D-printed schools. |
| B．The wide popular tyof3D-prining technology. |
| C．The significance of narrowing the global opportunity gap. |
| D．The impact of 3D-printed buildings on the environment. |
8 . Ever been hungry enough to eat a house? Now, you actually could.
Food waste is a big problem in Japan and globally. Japan produced around 5.7 million tons of food waste in 2019. The government plans to reduce that by around 2.7 million tons by 2030. Tokyo University researchers Kota Machida and Yuya Sakai have developed a way to transform food waste into cement(水泥) for construction use and more. This is the first-ever process created for making cement entirely from food waste. The researchers say their product is four times as strong as traditional concrete. This particular cement can be used to make things like tea cups or chairs as well. However, there’s one additional feature — it’s also edible(可食的).
Kota and Yuya are the intelligence behind the formation of Fabula Inc., a company with purposes of reducing food waste, and helping fight global warming.
As expected, something this unique took years to develop. It took a few attempts to find just the right process. Kota and Yuya created the unique technology while researching possible environmentally-friendly materials to replace cement-based concrete. Cement production accounts for 8% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions.
After a few failures, they realized they could get the cement to bind(黏合) by adjusting the temperatures. “The most challenging part was that each type of food waste requires different temperatures,” Yuya said. So the researchers had to observe them and respond in time. In the experiments, Kota and Yuya have successfully made cement using tea leaves, coffee grounds, cabbage and even lunchbox leftovers.
Fabula Inc. is currently working to make tea cups and furniture, but Yuya is thinking a little bit bigger. Their product could provide relief in the form of edible emergency shelters in disaster ones. “For example, if food cannot be delivered to the people, they could eat makeshift beds made out of food cement,” he said. To eat the material, a person needs to break it apart and boil it.
1. Which is one of Kota and Yuya’s purposes in making use of food waste?| A．To handle climate change. | B．To offer Fabula Inc. more cement. |
| C．To warn how serious food waste is. | D．To extend concrete’s service life. |
| A．Its damage to the environment. | B．Its cost of recycling the cement. |
| C．Its difficulties they would face. | D．Its popularity among the public. |
| A．Making sure to make cement tasty. | B．Selecting correct food waste timely. |
| C．Getting cement broken apart easily. | D．Regulating the temperatures constantly. |
| A．Bendable. | B．Strong. | C．Temporary. | D．Commercial. |
9 . In a tiny, lab-grown garden, the first seeds ever sown in lunar dirt have come up. This small crop, planted in samples (样本) returned by Apollo tasks, offers hope that astronauts could someday grow their own food on the moon.
But plants planted in lunar dirt grew more slowly and were thinner than others grown in volcanic(火山的) material from Earth, researchers report 12 May in Communications Biology. That finding suggests that farming on the moon would take a lot more than a gardening skills.
“Ah! It’s so cool!” says a botanist (植物学家) Richard Barker. “Ever since these samples came, back, there’s been botanists that wanted to know what would happen if you grew plants in them,” says Barker, who wasn’t involved in the study. “But everyone knows those precious samples are priceless, and so you can understand why NASA was unwilling to publish them.”
The team planted seeds in tiny pots that each held about a gram of dirt. Four pots were filled with samples returned by Apollo 11, another four with Apollo 12 samples and a final four with dirt from Apollo 17. Another 16 pots were filled with earthly volcanic material used in past experiments to copy moon dirt. All were grown under LED lights in the lab and watered with nutrients.
“Nothing really compared to when we first saw the seedlings as they were coming up in the lunar dirt,” says Anna-Lisa Paul, a plant biologist. “That was a moving experience. We could not speak when we watched the very first plants growing in unique materials.”
Plants grew in all the pots of lunar dirt, but none grew as well as those planted in earthly material. “The healthiest ones were just smaller,” Paul says. The moon-grown plants were tiny. Faced with that, explorers need to do more research to let plants grow strongly on the moon. I believe we will succeed in time.
1. What does the research on plants grown in the lunar dirt show?| A．Growing foods on the moon is necessary. |
| B．Skills are the key to farming on the moon. |
| C．Farming’ on the moon needs many factors. |
| D．Astronauts want to grow food on their own. |
| A．Some plants need planting in special soils. |
| B．Botanists are interested in studying new things. |
| C．It is a selfish action for NASA to keep the secret. |
| D．The samples brought from the moon are valuable. |
| A．It is practical. | B．It is hopeful. |
| C．It only attracts astronauts. | D．It challenges most experts. |
| A．The First Plant Has Been Grown in Moon Dirt |
| B．Astronauts Have Brought Things Worth Spreading |
| C．Botanists Have Found a New Kind of Plant Lately |
| D．Farming on the Moon Has Been Accepted by People |
10 . Many people, some even at a very young age, set the goal of graduating from college. One American woman in Texas waited a long time for her chance to reach that goal. The woman, 85-year-old Janet Fein, received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Dallas in December, 2018.
Fein has had a full life. She has raised five children and then had a career as a secretary until she retired at age 77. But even then, she was not ready to take it easy and rest during a well-earned retirement.
“I didn’t have anything to do in retirement and I didn’t think that playing bingo was up to my speed,” Fein told the Associated Press. She said she decided to major in sociology because she felt it was “substantial”.
Fein grew up in New York City. She said that in high school, she just wanted to finish and get a job. After graduating early, at the age of 16, she went to work as a secretary at a dress manufacturer.
After getting married, she spent 18 years staying home with her children. She held several jobs throughout her life, including 20 years as a secretary at a Dallas hospital. That is the job she retired from. She also worked for 20 years on earning an associate degree, which she received in 1995. But Fein told the AP she also wanted to earn a bachelor’s degree “with all of my heart”.
Fein took part in a state program that lets people who are 65 and older take free classes at public universities in Texas. Estimates show that nationwide, people 65 and older make up less than one percent of U. S. college students.
1. When did Janet Fein retire?| A．In 2008. | B．In 2010. | C．In 2015. | D．In 2020. |
| A．Fein still works as a secretary currently. | B．Fein always lives a full and busy life. |
| C．The old woman is crazy about playing bingo. | D．Fein wanted to live an easy life after retirement. |
a. She earned an associate degree.
b. She retired from a Dallas hospital.
c. She worked at a dress manufacturer.
d. She received her bachelor’s degree.
| A．a→b→c→d | B．a→d→c→b | C．c→a→b→d | D．c→b→a→d |
| A．Different Ways of Realizing Goals |
| B．The Retirement Life of the Old Is Colorful. |
| C．The Process of Receiving a Bachelor’s Degree. |
| D．Woman Reaches Lifelong Goal of College Degree |
