1 . The Clean Meat Revolution Is Coming

"If we can grow meat without the animal, why wouldn't we?"

This _______ wasn't from a science fiction writer or the head of The Humane Society of the United States. _______, this came from Tom Hayes toward the end of his tenure (任期) as the CEO of Tyson Foods. Yes, that Tyson. Synonymous with "chicken," Tyson is by far the largest producer of meat in the U. S.

Why would the CEO of Tyson want to _______ the animal from meat production? In part because meat production will be more _______ that way — by growing meat without bones, feathers, or hair, we can get more meat with the same resources. And good things too, as United Nations scientists say that raising and killing animals for food is "one of the major _______ of the world's most pressing environmental problems, including global warming, land degradation, air and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity." With a growing world population, there are simply not enough resources to _______ current meat production to feed everyone.

Companies around the world are rapidly _______ the cost of animal-free meat — meat grown directly in facility _______ to a brewery (啤酒厂), rather than as part of an animal. This "cell-based meat" is the meat everyone is used to, right down to the DNA. In addition to being more efficient, there will be no waste pollution. And because the meat will be grown in clean conditions, it won't _______ the use of antibiotics.

With all these ________, the answer to "why wouldn't we?" becomes even more obvious. Although there are technical challenges to increase production to be cost-competitive with ________ meat, no scientific breakthroughs are necessary to bring meat without the animal to our plates.

Perhaps the main question now is which country will lead the way. The governments of Japan, the Netherlands and Israel have already invested in research and startups ________ producing this kind of meat. Given the magnitude of the global problems that clean meat can help address, those efforts abroad deserve to be ________.

And then just a few weeks ago, the U. S. Food and Drug Administration and the U. S. Department of Agriculture formally announced their plan for joint oversight of clean meat production within their current regulatory framework.

This announcement ended months of ________ and speculation (猜测), giving leading clean meat companies like Memphis Meats and JUST a clear signal that they will have a straightforward and fair path to market in the U. S. Given the many challenges humanity faces, it is, ________ to know we have an incredibly beneficial innovation within reach — one that won't require anyone to give up the foods they love.

1.

A．issue

B．question

C．comment

D．choice

2.

A．Rather

B．Besides

C．Moreover

D．Therefore

3.

A．remove

B．release

C．kill

D．protect

4.

A．beneficial

B．popular

C．common

D．efficient

5.

A．purposes

B．confusions

C．causes

D．consequences

6.

A．cease

B．increase

C．control

D．maintain

7.

A．refunding

B．sharing

C．lowering

D．splitting

8.

A．relative

B．superior

C．available

D．similar

9.

A．abandon

B．limit

C．involve

D．promote

10.

A．resources

B．benefits

C．efforts

D．duties

11.

A．raw

B．tender

C．fresh

D．conventional

12.

A．separated from

B．opposed to

C．focusing on

D．appealing to

13.

A．applauded

B．discouraged

C．planned

D．undermined

14.

A．ignorance

B．sympathy

C．uncertainty

D．practice

15.

A．relaxing

B．horrifying

C．surprising

D．thrilling

2 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passages coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Craftsmen enjoy their brush with success

NANCHANG — Zhou Pengcheng, 76, has dedicated his life       1     the centuries-old intangible cultural heritage of making writing brushes.

Zhou, who hails from Wengang township in East China's Jiangxi province, has been engaged in this ancient handicraft for more than six decades.

Wengang's long-standing tryst with brush pens dates back to 1979. Over the decades, the town has grown into one of the country's biggest brush-pen markets,     2     (attract) tens of thousands of buyers from across China.

In Chinese culture, writing brushes     3     (count) among the "four treasures of study", and Wengang is known as the "hometown of China's writing brush".

More than 400 brush-making enterprises and over 2,200 brush workshops are located in     4     township. And almost every family in the town makes     5     living through the brush manufacturing industry.

Zhou     6     (work) in the sector since he was 8 years old. "In the 1970s, writing brushes made in Jiangxi were not so well recognized by people in China and the rest of the world,     7     spurred me on to improve and adjust brush-making techniques according to the needs of customers," says Zhou, adding that he finally succeeded after about eight years of hard work.

The craft of making writing brushes in Wengang involves 128 steps. The local brushes have proved popular in overseas markets, such as Asia, Europe, and the United States, and particularly in Japan and the Republic of Korea.

"I found calligraphy     8     (fascinate), especially the power and visual impact of Chinese calligraphy," says Alister Inglis, professor of Chinese language and literature at Simmons University. The foreign teacher takes an interest in     9     the shape, length and bristles of the brush reflect the type of written characters.

In June, Wengang's brush-making skills were listed as a national intangible cultural heritage, says Wu Shaoyun, Party chief of the town.

"Since the beginning of this year, we have mainly focused on how     10     (transform) the brush-making industry into a cultural industry. We have been working hard to improve the techniques and further inherit this craft," says Wu.

Currently, the town is eyeing a new boom in the digital era. It has launched tailored services to better meet customer needs in areas of culture, tourism and e-commeice.

3 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. contact；B. consulting；C. revealed；D. remove；E. based；F. professional G. launched；H. shivering；I. requesting；J. unwilling；K. reminded

Su Xiao, 49, and Xu Guangchun, 42, are like-minded souls on the streets of Beijing, checking surveillance cameras and     1     passersby, with a near-constant barrage of calls on their phones.

They are on the lookout for senior citizens with Alzheimer's disease, a hard-hitting disease that can easily     2     a patient's memory and other major mental functions.

Seven years ago, Su and Xu co-founded the Beijing Voluntary Emergency Rescue Service Center, which     3     a public welfare campaign to help families find their lost elders in 2016.

Su, an outdoor sports lover, is a seasoned mountain rescue     4    . On New Year's Day of 2016, he was on his way to a nearby ski resort where he ran into a listless and pale elderly woman who was holding a sack and     5     in the cold under a bridge.

She was mumbling, saying that she was about to buy noodles for her son, and this    6     Su of his grandmother, an Alzheimer's patient.

Su reported the situation to the police and they found a scrap of paper with a     7     number in her pocket. It turned out that days had passed since she lost contact with her her family and she had traveled more than 40 kilometers from her home in southwestern Beijing to an unfamiliar neighborhood in the east of the city.

According to statistics     8     by a white paper released in 2016 by the Zhongmin Social Assistance Institute, about 500,000 senior citizens get lost each year, with about 80 percent over the age of 65. Alzheimer's disease is one of the top reasons for them going missing.

Su and his rescue team watch surveillance videos first to sort out clues before further rescue efforts, and rely on the elderly person's experiences in their childhood and youth as clues when looking for them.

He once managed to find an 80-year-old along a river in a suburb of Beijing,     9     on the elderly person's childhood life experience of living on a riverboat.

The youngest person they have found was in their late 40s, Su said, adding that patients aged under 60 are difficult for family members and other people to spot, not to mention those who dismiss the illness as ominous and are     10     to confide in their neighbors, relatives or friends.

Su and Xu's "lost and found" service has sent more than 320 elderly back home safe and sound. More than 500 volunteers, including some family members of people they have found, have joined the rescue team.

"The farther we walk, the closer the lost elders get to their homes," Su said.

4 . Directions: Read the following three passages. Summarize the main idea and the main point（s） of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.

Ann Grand: a visual thinker

Ann Grand is a visual thinker. When somebody speaks to her, the words are instantly translated into pictures. like a video in her head. Unlike most people, her thoughts move from ideo-like images to generalizations and concepts. Furthermore, her memories usually appear in her imagination in order of time. and the image visualized are always specific. For example. if she thinks about a chimney, she sees detailed pictures. like the one in her old house. and then those in her hometown. That one word can turn into a full-length video in her head. Grand's mind works like the Internet search engine which produces dozens of images of an object a user is searching for.

Visual thinking has enabled Grand to build entire systems in her imagination, which works similarly to a computer program because it can produce three-dimensional design simulations. This was important to her as an equipment designer for the livestock industry. Before she started construction on her designs, she would test-run the equipment in her mind. She formed mental pictures of her designs in every possible situation, with different sizes and breeds of cattle and in different weather conditions. This process made it possible for her to correct mistakes before construction started.

Grand's mind is also sensitive to details, which was important in her work with cattle. Her sharp awareness of the visual world led to noteworthy observations about animals. She noticed many little things that most people would not consider that scared the cattle. For example, a coat on a fence or a pipe on the floor would frighten them away. Grand's visualization abilities have also helped her understand the animals she has worked with. This led her to create designs ranging from sweeping, curved fences intended to reduce the stress experienced by animals that were going to be killed to systems for handling sick cattle and pigs.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

5 . If you enjoy American stories, you'll have noticed that quite a few of them take place on the road. The United States is a vast country whose long highways connect very distant places. Many famous American novels and films are about stories that occur while their characters are traveling along these highways. These novels are often celebrations of American life.

Jesmyn Ward's National Book Award winner Sing, Unburied, Sing is a road novel, but not a celebration. The road journey here is through Mississippi as an African-American mother and her two children travel to collect her white husband -the children's father -as he's released from jail.

Nether the mother Leonie, nor the father Michael, are ideal parents. Leonie in particular is so full of anger and regret that she takes out her unhappiness on her children, the 13-year-old Jojo and his little sister Kayla. And the pain of lacking proper financial support makes the journey even harder.

The telling of the story is divided between various narrators. Jojo, the boy, is the most sympathetic of them. But it is worrying to read about how he experiences the world. Even though he's young. he's already experienced the dark side of life. The opening sentence of the book gives a sense of Jojo's unnatural maturity. "I like to think I know what death is. I like to think that I could look at it straight. "This maturity is tested when a white policeman pulls a gun on him when Jojo puts his hand in his pocket.

But who, or what, is to blame for these sad circumstances? For Ward, it's clearly the past. She admires the work of fellow novelist William Faulkner. When she thinks about the past, she's of the same mind as him.

Faulkner famously wrote: “The past is never dead. It's not even past.” At one point. Ward says that her characters are “pulling the past with them,” like a too-heavy trailer coupled to the car as they journey on through Mississippi to the jailhouse. The biggest part of this past, of course, is racism -the remains of slavery -which is always there, and ruining life.

This is probably why The Washington Post listed Sing, Unburied, Sing as one of its 10 choices of 2017's Best Books. “The plight of this one family is tired to crimes that stretch over decades.” wrote the newspaper. “These are people pulling all the weight of history.”

1. What can we learn about Sing, Unburied, Sing from the article?

A．It was recently adapted as a film.	B．It's a celebration of American life
C．It's one of 2017's best-selling American novels.	D．It is a story of a road trip through Mississippi.

2. According to the text, the character Jojo _________.

A．is the main narrator of the novel	B．is the youngest child in the family
C．fights with a white policeman on the road	D．shows an unusually mature mind of a child

3. What is the root cause of the family's difficulty according to the article?

A．The unhappy marriage of the parents	B．The lack of educational opportunities
C．The remaining slavery and racism.	D．The lack of financial support from the government.

6 . America has long been opposing adequate poverty policies because of its strong worry of thinking that the poor are responsible for their own situations, but a child poverty is too harmful and punishing to ignore. I, and a growing number of scholars, believe there is a solution: the government should give monthly cash allowances(津贴), without conditions, to every family with kids. (Higher-income families would have much of the money taxed away.)

A mountain of evidence now shows that poverty can lead to cognitive(认知的) and emotional damage in children. Despite policies that have expanded access to insurance, poor kids are still less healthy than the rest of the young population. They also drop out of school at higher rates, earn less money over time and are incarcerated(监禁) far more often than their better-off peers. That should be enough for us to recognize the moral tragedy that is child poverty, but we should note the broad effect too: reliable analyses show that the nation’s GDP is up to $1 trillion lower because of child poverty.

Poor children have many needs, but research shows that money may matter most. For example, a 2013 review of dozens of studies by London School of Economics researchers found that “Poorer children have worse cognitive, social-behavioral and health outcomes in part because they are poorer, and not just because poverty is related to other household and parental characteristics”.

It can also help reduce family stress and help parents provide a psychologically raising environment in which learning and social development can breed.

The historian Michael Katz correctly notes, “One of the odd aspects of the history of writing about poverty is the avoidance of the simple view that people are poor because they lack money,” yet both the left and the right defamed(诽谤) direct cash aid as a waste and a cause of laziness and abuse. It is good that Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang has stressed the benefits of a universal basic income, quoting studies that show such cash allowances do not cause the avoidance of work, but his plan could cost $2.8 trillion a year and the poor would have to return welfare assistance like food stamps to receive the money. For far less money—about $100 billion—the number of children living in official poverty could be cut in half. Such a policy would be a humane(人道的), practical, efficient victory for a nation too willing to neglect its poor.

1. According to the author, what is the best approach to declare war on poverty?

A．Big tax reduction.	B．Unconditional cash aid.
C．Reemployment project.	D．Shifting attitude among people.

2. Why is child poverty described as a “moral tragedy” in paragraph 2?

A．There is a causal impact of childhood poverty on a country’s GDP performance.

B．It forces a burden on the family and prevents a positive family environment.

C．Children brought up in poverty are likely to suffer from disorders in brain.

D．Most poor children achieve less and exhibit more problem behaviors later.

3. What can we infer from the last paragraph?

A．Andrew Yang is highly thought of for the $2.8 billion plan for the poor.

B．Much importance has been placed on child poverty across the America.

C．Politicians are afraid that government relief will decrease labor motivation.

D．The traditional wisdom holds people have themselves to blame for poverty.

4. What is the passage mainly about?

A．The historical suffering of the poor.

B．Push for the poor to save themselves.

C．An appeal for child poverty approach.

D．A positive new deal to help poor children.

7 .

To: "The Shoe People" <inquiries@shoepeople.com> From: "John Trimbald" jtconstruction@img.com To Whom it May Concern, I have trusted the Shoe People to protect the feet of my employees for over then years now. I recently purchased a few pairs of boots from your company for my crew. Though my men were initially satisfied with the boots, the soles（鞋底）began to fall apart on them after just twelve weeks. This was extremely surprising considering they came with a six year warranty（担保）. The boots are unsafe to wear because my men are pouring hot concrete（混凝土）. Please respond as soon as possible with instructions on how I can return the boots and receive a refund（退款）. Thank you, John Trimbald, Foreman, JT Construction

To: John Trimbald" <jtconstruction@img.com> From: "The Shoe People" <inquiries@shoepeople.com>" Dear Mr. Trimbald, Thank you for your e-mail concerning the poor quality of our rubber soled black work-boots. A representative will be by your office next week to pick up the damaged boots. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you and your crew. Along with five new pairs of work-boots for your crew (we included one extra pair), we have enclosed a free year's supply of spray（喷雾）. In our retail stores, this spray is always recommended to buyers who work on heated floors. This should have been brought to your attention at the time of your initial order (received by telephone on October 12, 2007). Please excuse our oversight. To date we have had no complaints about these work-boots from customers who have used the protector spray. However, should you use the spray and find that you are still unsatisfied with the boots, please return the boots and spray for a full refund. Thank you for supporting The Shoe People. Have a Happy New Year. Sincerely, Stan Mason, President

1. According to the passage, John Trimbald is holding a(n) ________ attitude.

A．apologetic

B．sympathetic

C．appreciating

D．complaining

2. Both sides are communicating with each other through ________.

A．social media

B．text messages

C．e-mail

D．letters

3. What is the "spray" used for according to the passage?

A．To repair the damaged boots.	B．To protect the soles from heat
C．To prevent the crew from danger.	D．To protect the boots from concrete.

4. According to the president of The Shoe People, John Trimbald ________.

A．can exchange the damaged boots with new ones at any time

B．must return the damaged boots to any of the retail stores

C．will get new pairs of boots and a free year's supply of spray

D．can return the damaged boots and spray for a full refund now

8 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. idea       B. understanding       C. learning       D. surrounding       E. design       F. develop G. creative       H. solutions       I. technology       J. relatively        K. rethink

Technology in higher education: learning with it instead of from it.

Now, researchers at the University of Missouri have found that activity - based learning, rather than lecture - based, imporves student creativity and learning by allowing students to use technology to     1     their own original ideas.

Isa Jahnke, associate professor in the MU College of Education's school of Information Science and Learning Technologies, collaborated with former doctoral student Julia Liebscher to study how higher education professors in Europe use mobile     2     in their classes. She found that student creativity was most enhanced by professors who allowed their students to use technology in a team setting to come up with an unusual product or     3    .

For example, one group of students in a history class developed an app that virtually teaches users about the history     4     the Berlin Wall. Rather than simply lecturing the material to the students, Jahnke found that allowing them to use technology in a collaborative way enhanced the students' creativity and     5     of the content.

"This research is useful for professors to rethink how they     6     their existing courses," Jahnke said. "We need to shift away from purely lecture-based learning where students are just consumers of information toward a more meaningful     7     approach with technology where students are able to come up with creative and new solutions in a team setting."

Jahnke added that there are resources at MU, such as the Teaching For Learning Center, to help professors     8     their course designs in the ever-changing educational landscape.

"If we have universities that are producing more creative-thinking students, then we have more people who can help come up with     9     for all of society's grand challenges," Jahnke said. "Creativity will lead to better inventors, managers and business owners, but first we need to ask ourselves as educators if we are using technology to put our students in positions to be     10     in the first place."

9 . Eating a handful of walnuts each day might help keep the doctor away, at least for some people who are at risk of developing diabetes, a U.S. study suggests. When people in the study added 56 grams of walnuts to their daily diet for six months, they had improvements in blood vessel function and reductions in “bad” LDL cholesterol, which builds up in blood vessels and can lead to blood clots (堵塞) and heart attacks.

Walnuts, which are rich in fatty acids and other nutrients like vitamin E, weren’t linked to weight gain in the study even though they are a high-calorie food. “ Adding walnuts tk your diet will improve your diet quality and health, and you can add walnuts without fear of weight gain because they are very satiating (有饱腹感的) and appear to bump our other calories quite reliably and make room for themselves.” said study author Dr.David L. Katz of the Yale University Prevention Research Center in Derby, Connecticut.

For the study, the researchers randomly assigned 31 men and 81 women at high risk of diabetes to follow a reduced calorie diet with or without nutrition counseling. Within these groups, half of the participants were assigned at random to add walnuts to their diet for six months. After a three-month break from the experiment, researchers then switched the groups and assigned walnuts to the participants who were previously asked to stop from eating them. After taking into account factors such as age, exercise habits, calorie consumption add fatty acid intake, the study found walnuts were linked to improved diet quality.

One limitation of the researchers is that participants weren’t given specific foods to consume and diets were assessed based on self-reported surveys asking people at several points to recall what they ate in the previous 24 hours, the authors acknowledge. The study also wasn’t designed to show whether walnuts could prevent diabetes, which makes the results less reliable. Even though the data from the study suggest that adding walnuts to the diet can help maintain overall healthy eating habits, more research from larger and longer-term studies is still needed to fully understand the potential benefits of walnuts, said Roberta Holt, a nutrition researcher at the University of California, Davis, who wasn’t involved in the study. Results from the periodic diet   surveys aren’t enough to prove walnuts caused the changes in LDL cholesterol or blood vessel function, Holt added by email.

Even so, there is plenty of previous research linking consumption of walnuts to improved markets of heart health and lower risks of diabetes and heat disease, noted Deirdre Tobias, an epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston.

1. According to the passage, what is responsible for the occurrence of blockage in blood vessel?

A．an increase in in LDL cholesterol	B．heat attacks
C．diabetes	D．increased walnuts in the diets

2. It can be learned from the passage that________.

A．walnuts are not linked to weight gain because they are rich in vitamin C.

B．eating walnuts will not result in weight gain because they burn calories effectively.

C．fatty acids are similar to vitamin E in that they are only found in high-calorie food.

D．adding walnuts to your diet will not fuel your weight problem.

3. The following are the limitations of the study EXCEPT________.

A．The study was not meant to prove whether walnuts have an effect on preventing diabetes.

B．The study was conducted in a relatively short period of time.

C．The participants could freely choose the food they wanted to consume.

D．All participants were at high rick of diabetes.

4. What is the author’s attitude towards the results from the study?

A．Supportive

B．Indifferent

C．Neutral

D．Opposed

10 . Nipponex Eletuics
Tokyo， Japan
27 December 1996
Amperlite Ltd
146 O'Leary St
Dublin， Ireland
Dear Sirs，

Improved ways of production make us able to offer you our change of Drilite batteries at a reduced price for large quantities.

Further information of the new prices for your market are sent to you together with the letter， and you will see that the price has already reduced 5 per cent. As c.i.f (成本，保险加 运费)to Dublin is included in our prices， you will agree that they are clearly lower than those of producers of the same batteries， both here in Japan and elsewhere. The quality of our producers remains the same —— only the finest chemicals are used. The new prices are for the least orders of 1，000 pounds and will begin from January 1. Immediate sending off is guaranteed because enough can be made whenever you require it.

We appreciate your past dealing and co-operstion (合作) with us， and look forward to supplying you in the new year at the new prices.

Yours Truly

Nipponex Electrics

1. The underlined word “guaranteed” in the passage. Probably means ________.

A．in our charge

B．of a little problem

C．difficulty

D．quite sure

2. From the passage we know the quality of the products ________.

A．is as high as before

B．is lower

C．is improved

D．is reduced

3. If the Irish expect to enjoy the 5% of reduction at prices， they should ________.

A．pay the Japanese at least ￡1，000

B．order 1，000 pounds of batteries in weight

C．order￡1，000 worth batteries at least

D．pay the Japanese ￡1，000 ahead