1 . A Japanese company has announced the successful test drive of a flying car. SkyDrive Inc. conducted the public demonstration on August 25. The company said in a news release at the Toyota Test Field, one of the largest in Japan, “This is the first time the flying car was exhibited to the public.”
“We are extremely excited to have achieved Japan’s first-ever manned flight of a flying car in the two dozen months since we founded SkyDrive...” CEO Tomohiro Fukuzawa said in a statement. “We want to realize a society where flying cars are an accessible and convenient means of transportation in the skies and people are able to experience a secure, and comfortable new way of life.”
The car, named SD-03, manned with a pilot, took off and circled the field for about four minutes. It is the world’s smallest electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle and takes up the space of about two parked cars, according to the company. It has eight motors to ensure “safety in emergency situations”.
“We wanted this vehicle to be futuristic, charismatic and desirable for all future customers, while fully incorporating the high technology of SkyDrive,” Design Director Takumi Yamamot said. The company hopes to make the flying car a part of normal life and not just a commodity. More test flights will occur in the future under different conditions to make sure the safety and technology of the vehicle meet industry standards.
The success of this flight means that it is likely the car will be tested outside of the Toyota Test Field by the end of the year. “The company will continue to develop technologies to safely and securely launch the flying car in 2024,” the news release said, “No price has been announced.”
1. What does the underlined word “demonstration” mean in the first paragraph?| A．Announcement. | B．Exhibition. | C．Experiment. | D．Statement. |
| A．Convenient and safe. | B．High-speed and splendid. |
| C．Comfortable and large-sized. | D．Space saving and economical. |
| A．It is similar to plane. | B．It is self-driving. |
| C．It is bigger than a common car. | D．It is energy saving. |
| A．To make it safer. | B．To reduce its price. |
| C．To test it in the laboratory. | D．To put it to the market at once. |
2 . Someone has put forward a dream home which is so advanced that its kitchen can suggest what to make with certain things. Also, a Microsoft home doesn’t just warn you when you’re out of milk — it can send you a fresh gallon.
But are these innovations just magic, or are they really coming soon to a neighborhood near you? To find out, US News asked some experts to get their opinions about the home of the not-so-distant future. Here’s a look at the innovations.
The housing boom was marked by mass-produced buildings filled with units which look the same. The coming years, however, will give way to a personalized approach to home construction, with houses as more of an instrument of self-expression. “The successful builders will be the ones that figure out how to change their production model enough to make the buyers feel like they are really getting something that is designed for them, not just a model,” says Kermit Baker, the chief economist at the American Institute of Architects.
Future homes will probably become smaller. “We will be building smaller but smarter houses,” says Ed MeMahon, a senior resident fellow at the Urban Land Institute. “Instead of having a room for just one use, consumers will demand homes that make better use of space,” says Susanka, whose best-selling book, The Not So Big House, has become increasingly influential in home design. Seldom-used quarters, such as dining and living rooms, will be replaced with space that can serve both functions. “The goal of his ‘right-size’ home is to fit its owners like a specially cut suit rather than a jacket you buy in a store,” says Susanka.
1. What is the function of the first paragraph?| A．To present the main idea the passage. | B．To present what the future house is like. |
| C．To lead to the topic of the passage. | D．To show the history the housing. |
| A．Almost all the houses had no their own features. |
| B．The houses were designed according to owners’ idea. |
| C．The houses were smaller but smarter than before. |
| D．The houses could change production model easily. |
| A．Those that are much bigger and brighter. | B．Those that are much smaller but smarter. |
| C．Those that are much bigger and smarter. | D．Those that are environmental and energy saving. |
| A．Smart houses have a room for every use. | B．Smart houses can make better use of space. |
| C．Smart houses have very advanced furniture. | D．Smart houses can warn you when you’re out of milk. |
3 . Around the world, almost 50 million children are suffering from acute malnutrition(营养不良), which is the deadliest form of hunger. Sadly, 45% of children die before the age of 5 do so from malnutrition that is treatable and preventable.
Support organizations that distribute food. Food banks(救济食品发放中心)and charities need funding to stay open. They often rely on help from volunteers.
Take food directly to those in need.
Research to find out what type of help is needed. Solving a big problem like world hunger can feel overwhelming, but there are a lot of resources to help you get started. Learn more about agencies and nonprofits who are already helping people in need.
| A．Get your employer involved. |
| B．Donate food items to local organizations. |
| C．This will help you understand the best way for you to help. |
| D．Some measures can be taken to help world get rid of hunger. |
| E．Additionally, they can typically buy more food at a lower cost than you can. |
| F．You don’t need to wait for a food shelter to distribute food items to people in need. |
| G．This means these people will have more money to buy things like food for their families. |
4 . Greenhouse gas emissions would rise if all farms in England and Wales went organic. Though the emissions of each farm would go down, much more food would have to be imported, as the amount they would produce would decrease greatly.
“The key message from my perspective is that you can’t really have your cake and eat it,” says Laurence Smith, now at the Royal Agricultural University in the UK, who was part of the team that ran the numbers. Smith is a supporter of organic farming and says “there are a lot of merits of the organic approach”, but his analysis shows that organic farming has downsides too.
Farming and changes in land use, such as cutting down forests, are responsible for a third of all greenhouse gas emissions. That means reducing farming emissions and the land needed for farming is required to limit further global warming.
Smith and his colleagues found that emissions per unit of food are, on average, 20 per cent lower for organic crops and 4 per cent lower for organic animal products. However, organic harvests per hectare (公顷) are also lower on average. For wheat and barley, for instance, harvests are just half of those of conventional farms. This means 1.5 times as much land would be needed to grow the same amount of these foods.
The estimated increase in emissions varies greatly, depending on where the extra farmland comes from. If only half comes from turning grassland into farms, the increase could be as low as 20 per cent. If grassland that would otherwise have been reforested is turned into farmland, emissions could nearly double.
This doesn’t necessarily mean people should stop eating organic produce, says Smith. People might choose organic food for other reasons, such as to reduce their pesticide exposure (though contrary to popular belief, organic farmers do use pesticides) or for the sake of wildlife.
Going 100 per cent organic could also harm global biodiversity. The extra land used for farming would mean the land available for wildlife would be smaller and more fragmented (碎片化的).
Smith says the best option may be to use some organic and conventional farming methods at the same time.
1. What would be the result if England went organic farming EXCEPT?| A．Greenhouse gas emissions would go up quickly. |
| B．The emissions of each farm would decrease greatly. |
| C．The amount each farm produce would not change. |
| D．More food would depend on importation. |
| A．Objective. | B．Favorable. | C．Indifferent. | D．Pessimistic. |
| A．Through experts’ introduction. | B．Through the research in the lab. |
| C．Through listing a lot of examples. | D．Through data comparison. |
| A．Stopping Organic Farming | B．Mixing Organic and Traditional Farming |
| C．Turning Back to Traditional Farming | D．Forbidding Cutting Down Forests |
5 . For many people, bookstores are wonderful places. That’s because the books on the shelves can take you away to magical lands, help you learn a foreign language, or cook a delicious meal. But when your community is too small to house a brick bookstore, you have to come up with another idea. A mobile bookstore was the result. That is the case for Rita Collins, 70, who dreamed of opening a used bookstore after retiring from teaching.
A business planning class from the American Booksellers Association convinced Collins to give up her idea of opening a bookstore in the small town where she lives. Her town, Eureka, Montana, only has a population of 1,517. Collins asked her instructors about a traveling bookstore on wheels and they doubted her idea. But she insisted on it.
Collins was inspired by Dylans Mobile Bookstore, a traveling bookstore in Wales run by Jeff Towns. She contacted Jeff for advice but she was largely on her own when it came to building her bookstore. First, she had to find a vehicle large enough to stand in. Then she had to have it refitted with shelves that would hold the books at a 15-degree angle so that they would stay in place while traveling. Collins named her bookstore St. Rita’s Traveling Bookstore, which has been on the road since 2015.
At first, she drove through Montana and then she made her first cross-country trip in 2016. After she retired in 2017, it became a full-time job. Collins and her bookstore have visited 30 states, stopping at festivals and events along the way. Collins loves meeting people and making connections. While she loves what she does, Collins doesn’t think she can keep doing it. In several years, she hopes to pass her traveling bookstore onto another book lover who shares the same interest and will keep it on the road.
1. According to the passage, what’s the basic requirement for opening a bookstore?| A．There must be a community with a popularity of 1517. |
| B．The American Booksellers Association should support the store. |
| C．A bookstore must store enough books. |
| D．The bookstore must offer delicious meals. |
| A．With a large vehicle. | B．At a 15-degree angle. | C．On the wheels. | D．On the road. |
| A．Nobody supported Collins at first. | B．Jeff helped Collins a lot in building her bookstore. |
| C．Collins made the bookshelves by herself. | D．Collins would devote all her life to her bookstore. |
| A．How to make her bookstore popular. | B．How to raise more money to support her store. |
| C．How to choose more suitable books. | D．How to choose a man who can inherit her bookshop. |
6 . A trip to the capital wouldn’t be complete without seeing the following attractions in London.
The London Eye (Tickets from £ 24.50)
Explore London from above on the London Eye. Your ticket includes a 30-minute flight with breathtaking views over London as well as an amazing 4D experience. Book ahead to save money and skip most of the queues with a fast-track entry ticket.
Tower of London (Tickets from £ 25)
Hear the many stories of the Tower of London on a Yeoman Warder (Beefeater) tour. See the famous Crown Jewels, the White Tower and find out what it was like to be a prisoner in the Tower of London.
Kidzania London (Tickets from £ 18.50)
Test out a range of professions and activities including journalism, animal care, cabin crew and tour guiding at KidZania London. Work to earn KidZos and save them for next time or spend them in the Airport Shop. Great for kids to learn and have fun.
The Royal Observatory Greenwich (Tickets from £ 16)
Visit the home of time and explore outer space at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. See and stand astride the Prime Meridian line(子午线), the reference point for Greenwich Mean Time. Learn about the history of longitude(经线), touch a piece of rock from outer space, and enjoy amazing views over London.
Coronavirus information: London is currently subject to a four-week national lockdown from 5 November, which means attractions are temporarily closed. You can still book tickets in advance ready for when they reopen with social distancing and other safety measures in place. Cycle or walk to these attractions where possible.
1. Which trip can you experience London in the high air?| A．The London Eye. | B．Tower of London. |
| C．Kidzania London. | D．The Royal Observatory Greenwich. |
| A．Booking ahead The London Eye is a waste of time to enter. |
| B．A prisoner once died in Tower of London. |
| C．There are many jobs in Kidzania London. |
| D．The Royal Observatory Greenwich offers chances to experience an alien rock. |
| A．You can visit London at any time. | B．Keeping a safety distance is a must. |
| C．Driving is not allowed here. | D．Avoid booking tickets in advance. |
7 . Electrical devices (仪器) could soon use power made by human energy. Scientists say they have developed an experimental device that produces electricity from the physical movement of a person walking. British scientist Max Donelan and other scientists in Canada and the United States developed the device.
The device connects to a person’s knee. As the person walks, the device captures energy each time the person slows down. To do this, the device helps with the slowing down movement of the leg. The movements of the walking person push parts of a small machine that produces electricity. Using the device, an adult walking quickly could produce thirteen watts of electricity in just a minute. Donelan says walking at that speed could produce enough power to operate a laptop computer for six minutes.
There are several possible uses for the device. Developers say it could help people who work in areas without electricity to operate small computers. The device could also be used in hospitals to operate heart pacemakers (起博器). It could even be used to assist in the movement of robotic arms and legs.
The experimental version of the device weighs about one and a half kilograms, but it is too costly for most people to buy. But the researchers hope to make a lighter, less costly version. An improved version should be ready in one year.
The developers hope the device will one day help developing countries. Nearly twenty five percent of people around the world live without electric power.
A similar product was invented in 2005 by Larry Rome of the University of Pennsylvania. He created a bag carried on a person’s back that also produces power from walking. The knee device does not produce as much electricity as the bag, but the bag requires the walker to carry a load of twenty to thirty kilograms.
1. What does the second paragraph tell us?| A．How the device works. |
| B．How the device connects to a person’s knee. |
| C．What the device can do to help a person slowing down. |
| D．What the device can do to help people’s physical movements. |
| A．It is enough to operate a computer for a long time. |
| B．It can satisfy those working in areas without electricity. |
| C．It can be used in hospitals to operate heart pacemakers. |
| D．It has been used to move robotic arms and legs. |
| A．The device has been widely used. |
| B．The device needs some improvement. |
| C．The majority of people can afford the device. |
| D．It has brought benefits to the developing countries. |
| A．New Device Has Been Invented |
| B．The Knee Device Produce Energy |
| C．Device Helps Capturing Physical Energy |
| D．Device Gives New Meaning to the Idea of Power Walking |
8 . The major drivers of climate change are collective enterprises such as power grids (电力公司), industry, large-scale agriculture and transportation systems. About half of all greenhouse gas emissions comes from electricity generation and industrial fossil-fuel use. Substantial (大量的) emissions reductions in these settings most likely will not come from personal actions; they will come from laws and policies such as carbon-pricing systems, revised building codes and supports for green investment. But one effective act is to consume less meat.
Cutting meat consumption is a powerful and personal thing most Americans can do to tackle (解决)the climate crisis, and they can do it immediately. About 40 percent of greenhouse gases come from agriculture, deforestation and other land-use changes. Meat-particularly beef-drives climate change in two ways: first, through cows’ emission of methane(甲烷), a strong greenhouse gas, and second, by destroying forests as they are changed into grass land.Despite the economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic (流行病), atmospheric greenhouse gas levels continued to rise in 2020, in large part because of an emissions increase in the Amazon as rain forests were changed into land for cattle to satisfy the global demand for beef. By eating less beef, we can start to decrease that demand.
You do not have to become a vegan (素食主义者) to do this. According to one recent study, if every person in the U.S. cut their meat consumption by 25 percent, it would reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by 1 percent. That might not sound like a lot, but it would help protect the rain forest, so the positive effects-including reduced water and fertilizer use, improved biodiversity and safeguarded rights of local peoples-would be amplified (放大).
Perhaps, social action is kind of infectious (有感染力的) in a good way. If lots of us begin to eat less meat and if we talk about it constructively, we will likely influence others. Pretty soon the 1 percent reduction becomes 2 percent or more. Reduced demand for meat could motivate my local supermarket to carry better produce, making it easier for me and my neighbours to prepare a few more satisfying meat-free meals. Ultimately changes in demand will influence industry. Forty years ago few mainstream supermarkets carried organic (有机的) products; now nearly all do. Consumer demand did that.
Above all, cutting back on red meat also has the added benefit of being good for your health.
1. What may substantially reduce greenhouse gas emission?| A．Encouraging personal efforts. |
| B．Making favourable laws and policies. |
| C．Reducing various power plants. |
| D．Investing large transportation systems. |
| A．The effects of COVID-19 pandemic. |
| B．The slow pace of economy. |
| C．The destruction of forests for cattle. |
| D．The quick development of agriculture. |
| A．remind people to buy organic food |
| B．prove one’s action can influence others |
| C．call on supermarkets to sell organic products |
| D．show demand has impact on production |
| A．Less Beef, Much Healthier |
| B．To Eat Less Meat for Climate |
| C．Small Personal Actions Have a Big Impact |
| D．Cattle Are Partly Responsible for Climate Crisis |
9 . Core strength is important: we use it when we carry a bag of groceries, get up from the floor, push open a door and so like. But too often, we think of “core” training as something done specifically with sit-ups or planks(平板支撑).
If you do nothing but sit-ups, you’re being just as short—sighted as somebody who never does any core work because it’s boring or they “forget”.
Treat your core like any other muscle. When we train our arms, we get stronger and progress to heavier dumbbells. When we train our legs, we end up squatting (蹲) with more weight over time.
Another thing we can learn from other types of strength training is that your core work doesn’t have to be an everyday thing. If you try a more challenging core move and find yourself ache afterward, you may be thinking “How can I do this every day? It’s too hard.”
| A．And that’s a shame. |
| B．But the core isn’t just one muscle. |
| C．If you’d like to do more, you can! |
| D．So why would we train our core any differently? |
| E．So how can you make sure you’re hitting them all? |
| F．And there’s no reason you have to do it every day. |
| G．To become stronger, try thinking about it a little differently. |
10 . A researcher at Ben-Gurion University conducted the first study of hand-clapping songs, uncovering a direct link between those activities and the development of important skills in children and young adults, including university students.
“We found that children in the first, second and third grades who sing these songs prove skills absent in children who don’t take part in similar activities,” explains Dr. Idit Sulkin. “We also found that children who naturally perform hand-clapping songs in the yard during break have neater handwriting, write better and make fewer spelling errors.” As part of the study, Sulkin went to several elementary school classrooms and engaged the children in either a board of education conducting music appreciation program or hand-clapping songs training — each lasting a period of 10 weeks.
“Within a very short period of time, the children who until then hadn’t taken part in such activities caught up in their cognitive abilities to those who did,” she said. But this finding only surfaced for the group of children undergoing hand-clapping songs training. The result led Sulkin to conclude that hand-clapping songs should be made a necessary part of education for children aged 6 to 10, for the purpose of motor and cognitive training.
During the study, Dr. Sulkin interviewed school and kindergarten teachers, visited their classrooms and joined the children in singing. Her goal was to figure out why children are fascinated by singing and clapping up until the end of third grade, when these entertainments are abruptly abandoned and replaced with sports. “This fact explains a developmental process the children are going through,” Dr. Sulkin observes. “The hand-clapping songs appear naturally in children’s lives at the age of 7, and disappear at the age of 10.”
Sulkin says that no in-depth, long-term study has been conducted on the effects that hand-clapping songs have on children’s motor and cognitive skills. However, the relationship between music and intellectual development in children has been studied extensively, causing countless parents to obtain a “Baby Mozart” CD for their children.
1. What conclusion does Dr. Sulkin make?| A．Hand-clapping songs training is short. |
| B．Kids with hand-clapping songs training write well. |
| C．Kids with hand-clapping songs training are smarter. |
| D．Hand-clapping songs should be part of kid education. |
| A．At the age of 6. | B．At the age of 7. |
| C．At the age of 8. | D．At the age of 10. |
| A．To help their kids develop better. | B．To support their kids’ dream. |
| C．To satisfy their kids’ hobby. | D．To let their kids sleep well. |
| A．Hand-clapping songs’ effect on adults. | B．Shortcomings on hand-clapping songs. |
| C．Sulkin’s growth in the musical home. | D．Songs from “Baby Mozart” CDs. |
