2 . Most people know that Marie Curie was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize, and the first person to win it twice. However, few people know that she was also the mother of a Nobel Prize winner.

Born in September, 1897, Irene Curie was the first of the Curies’ two daughters. Along with nine other children whose parents were also famous scholars, Irene studied in their own school, and her mother was one of the teachers. She finished her high school education at the College of Sévigné in Paris.

Irene entered the University of Paris in 1914 to prepare for a degree in mathematics and physics. When World War I began, Irene went to help her mother, who was using X-ray facilities (设备) to help save the lives of wounded soldiers. Irene continued the work by developing X-ray facilities in military hospitals in France and Belgium. Her services were recognised in the form of a Military Medal by the French government.

In 1918, Irene became her mother’s assistant at the Curie Institute. In December 1924, Frederic Joliot joined the Institute, and Irene taught him the techniques required for his work. They soon fell in love and were married in 1926. Their daughter Helene was born in 1927 and their son Pierre five years later.

Like her mother, Irene combined family and career. Like her mother, Irene was awarded a Nobel Prize, along with her husband, in 1935. Unfortunately, also like her mother, she developed leukemia because of her work with radioactivity (辐射能). Irene Joliot-Curie died from leukemia on March 17, 1956.

1. Why was Irene Curie awarded a Military Medal?

A．Because she received a degree in mathematics.

B．Because she contributed to saving the wounded.

C．Because she won the Nobel Prize with Frederic.

D．Because she worked as a helper to her mother.

2. Where did Irene Curie meet her husband Frederic Joliot?

A．At the Curie Institute.

B．At the University of Paris.

C．At a military hospital.

D．At the College of Sévigné.

3. When was the second child of Irene Curie and Frederic Joliot born?

A．In 1932.	B．In 1927.
C．In 1897.	D．In 1926.

4. In which of the following aspects was Irene Curie different from her mother?

A．Irene worked with radioactivity.

B．Irene combined family and career.

C．Irene won the Nobel Prize once.

D．Irene died from leukemia.

3 . Directions: After reading the passage below, choose the best answers from the six statements according to what you have just read.

The price of a piece of history

A fresh lemon can be purchased for less than $1. But in 2008, Cowan's Auctions in Cincinnati sold a lemon blackened with age for $2,350.

What was so special about this lemon?     1     According to a handwritten note in ink attached to a partly sealed bottle containing the lemon, the fruit was picked in May 1842 by Washington's "old gardener" some 43 years after the first president's death

Two thousand dollars is a lot to pay for produce, even from the estate of a founding father. This sale, however, just might be considered a bargain compared with prices paid for other historical collectibles in recent years.     2    

Collecting a piece of history, or an object associated with a famous person, is not brand new. Ordinary objects with extraordinary stories have increasingly been coming to auction and achieving high prices, says Thomas Venning, director of Christie's department of books and manuscripts in London. Prices are being driven up, he says, by collectors in the U.S. and, increasingly, in Asia. The Hawking wheelchair, for example, was purchased by a private museum in China.

    3     For one thing, their history of ownership is both crucial and sometimes difficult to prove. Photographs of the famous person with the object, as well as documentation (such as letters, diaries or recollections by acquaintances referring to the object) can also help.       4     To evaluate the value of a Picasso painting, one can look at recent prices paid for other Picasso paintings of the same period, similar size or style. Finding another recent sale of a lemon planted by George Washington is a different matter.

Katie Horstman, head of Cowan's American History department, says she could find no comparable items for the lemon as she prepared the piece for its auction. Ms. Horstman nevertheless eventually arrived at the estimated value at $3,000 to $4,000, she says, by researching auction records for objects somehow associated with Washington that had appeared on the market.

Cowans ended up estimating the value of the lemon at $3,000 to $4,000, according to description on its website. Objects associated with Washington these days, Ms. Horstman says, can sell for anywhere from 1,000 up to tens of thousands of dollars.

A．Stephen Hawking’s wheelchair fetched 296, 750 at a sale at Christie's in London last November.

B．Yet determining potential values of such objects isn't easy.

C．It was said to be from a tree planted by George Washington at Mount Vernon.

D．The auction result surely drew the attention from both the business and economics worlds.

E．The uniqueness of many of these objects further complicates efforts to put a value on them.

F．Therefore the unique value of many objects proved the worth of collection.

4 . When Elinor Ostrom won the Nobel Prize for her research on economic governance in 2009, it was the first (and so far, the only) time a woman won a Nobel for Economics. That prize has ____ for nearly 50 years. We don’t do a great job of recognizing women’s contributions to science and innovation. My colleagues and I wondered: Is one of the reasons why women are more likely to ____ science than men because they don’t receive the same recognition?

To understand how ____ shapes women’s motivation to remain in science, we first had to get a good measure of the motivations. We sought to first study a highly visible ____, prizes, because large prizes tend to be understood and appreciated by the broader public, and they also influence those who make decisions about scientific ____ and other financial support.

Our study focused on prizes in the biomedical sciences. If we’re going to find ___ anywhere in science, it would be in this field. Women have entered biomedicine in equal numbers to men since the early 2000s. ____ this, of all Nobels awarded to women, a full two-thirds have been for biomedical research. Our ____ was simple: we documented all biomedical research prizes we could find over the past five decades. We also considered the financial awards and importance associated with the prizes, as indicators of their ____. Then we measured the percentage of prizes won by women and the association between gender and prize quality.

Our initial results highlighted overall____ news: the proportion of biomedical prizes awarded to women has risen steadily. But when we looked at the association between gender and quality of prizes awarded, we observed a major difference: on average, women scientists win prizes associated with less money and importance than men do. Importantly, our further research suggests that there’s no ____ that the quality or value of women-led research is any lower than that of men, as measured by citations (引用) per article, productivity, or width of research topics studied. ___, women are catching up in terms of number of prizes won, but still fall significantly behind in regard to the importance and monetary awards associated with the prizes.

The bottom line: while on the surface it may appear that the gender gap has somewhat____ when it comes to science prizes, great injustice is hidden just below. The problem likely ____ beyond the borders of science. In business, for example, prizes and funding for new technology and innovation may follow a similar pattern, helping to explain the phenomenon observed for female entrepreneurs, again ____ by research. This is something worth examining in greater depth.

1.

A．remained

B．awarded

C．existed

D．established

2.

A．leave

B．doubt

C．question

D．suspect

3.

A．contribution

B．recognition

C．resolution

D．promotion

4.

A．indicator

B．substance

C．confirmation

D．compliment

5.

A．experiments

B．innovation

C．study

D．grants

6.

A．gender equality	B．research prospects
C．innovation patterns	D．government control

7.

A．In line with

B．Contrary to

C．Compared with

D．In case of

8.

A．concept

B．outcome

C．requirement

D．approach

9.

A．improvement

B．quality

C．accomplishment

D．reputation

10.

A．vague

B．sudden

C．good

D．fundamental

11.

A．description

B．evidence

C．document

D．comparison

12.

A．Therefore

B．However

C．Instead

D．Nevertheless

13.

A．highlighted

B．eliminated

C．strengthened

D．narrowed

14.

A．dominates

B．extends

C．overtakes

D．justifies

15.

A．turned out

B．taken on

C．backed up

D．held up

5 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

Founding Father of China’s Nuclear Program

Under the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Tready（不扩散核武器条约）, only five countries are considered to be “nuclear - weapon states.” China is one of them. This military achievement would have been     1     without the contribution of Deng Jiaxian, a leading organizer of China’s nuclear weapon programs.

Deng went to the United States in 1948 for further study, and received a doctorate in physics two years later. Just nine days after graduation, the then 26-year-old returned to the newly - founded People’s Republic of China with     2     physics knowledge. He became a research fellow under the leadership of Qian Sanqiang and started his theoretical nuclear research in cooperation with Yu Min.

From 1958 on, Deng spent over 20 years working     3     with a team of young scientists on the development of China’s first atomic and hydrogen bombs. Originally, they were prepared to receive training by experts from the Soviet Union. Soon after, however, the Soviet government tore up its     4     with China and removed all its experts. Deng had to lead the team of 28 members with an average age of 23 on a mission to     5     the mysterious power   of atomic physics.

There was ridicule（嘲笑）following the     6     of the Soviet experts that China wouldn’t be able to build an atomic bomb within 20 years. Deng said to his colleagues, “It is in the interest of the Chinese people to develop nuclear weapons. We must be willing to be unknown heroes for our lifetime. It is worth the risk of suffering, and it is worth our     7     to this cause.”

As the leader of China’s atomic bomb design, Deng gave lessons himself and organized a team to translate and study the     8     foreign language materials. In the meantime, he never stopped thinking about the direction of atomic bomb development.

Following the successful test of the first atomic bomb in 1964, Deng joined the research group led by Yu Min. They immediately started the design of the hydrogen bomb, which was     9     in 1967. From the first atomic bomb to the first hydrogen bomb, China spent only two years and eight months on development.

Deng passed away in 1986 because of cancer. In the last month of his life, the 28-year secret experience of this great scientist was     10    , and his reputation began to spread throughout China. In 1999, along with 22 other scientists, he was awarded the special prize of “Two Bombs, One Satellite Meritorious Medal” for his contribution to Chinese military science.

6 . Directions: Write an English composition in 120-150 words. The composition must be based on the information given below.
人工智能的发展在带来诸多可预见的益处的同时，也会产生相应的潜在威胁。很多人担忧未来如果计算机能够像人一样思考，那么人类是否还能控制计算机，或甚至人类是否会被替代？但已故物理学家霍金却说：“真正的危险不在于计算机将开始像人类一样思考，而是人类将开始像计算机一样思考”。
请结合霍金的评论写一篇短文，短文内容需包括；
1. 你对霍金评论的个人看法或理解
2. 人工智能对人类可能产生的危害及相应措施。
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

8 . It was in the archives (档案室) of the Archbishop of York that Matthew Collins had a sudden insight: He was surrounded by millions of animal skins.

Another person might say they were surrounded by books and manuscripts written on parchment, which is made from skins, usually of cows and sheep. Collins, however, had been trying to make sense of animal-bone fragments from archaeological digs, and he began to think about the advantages of studying animal skins, already cut into rectangles and arranged neatly on a shelf. Archaeologists consider themselves lucky to get a few dozen samples, and here were millions of skins just sitting there.

In recent years, archaeologists and historians have awakened to the potential of ancient DNA extracted from human bones and teeth. DNA evidence has enriched — and complicated — stories of prehistoric human migrations. It has provided tantalizing clues to epidemics such as the black death. It has identified the remains of King Richard III, found under a parking lot. But Collins isn’t just interested in human remains. He’s interested in the things these humans made; the animals they bred, slaughtered, and ate; and the economies they created.

That’s why he was studying DNA from the bones of livestock — and why his lab is now at the forefront of studying DNA from objects such as parchment and beeswax. These objects can fill in gaps in the written record, revealing new aspects of historical production and trade. How much beeswax came from North Africa, for example?

Collins splits his time between Cambridge and the University of Copenhagen, and it’s hard to nail down exactly what kind of — ologist he is. He has a knack for gathering experts as diverse as parchment specialists, veterinarians, geneticists, archivists, economic historians, and protein scientists (his own background). “All I do is connect people together,” he said. “I’m just the ignorant one in the middle.”

However, it didn’t take long for his group to hit their first culture conflict. In science and archaeology, destructive sampling is at least tolerated, if not encouraged. But book conservators were not going to let people in white coats come in and cut up their books. Instead of giving up or fighting through it, Sarah Fiddyment, a postdoctoral research fellow working with Collins, shadowed conservationists for several weeks. She saw that they used white Staedtler erasers to clean the manuscripts, and wondered whether that rubbed off enough DNA to do the trick. It did; the team found a way to extract DNA and proteins from eraser pieces, a compromise that satisfied the team found a way to extract DNA and proteins from eraser pieces, a compromise that satisfied everyone. The team has since sampled 5,000 animals from parchment this way.

Collins is not the first person to think of getting DNA from parchment, but he’s been the first to do it at scale. Studying the DNA in artifacts is still a relatively new field, with many prospects that remain unexplored. But in our own modern world, we’ve already started to change the biological record, and future archaeologists will not find the same treasure of hidden information in our petroleum-laden material culture. Collins pointed out that we no longer rely as much on natural materials to create the objects we need. What might have once been leather or wood or wool is now all plastic.

1. How is Collin’s study different from the study of other archaeologists?

A．He studies human skins and bones.

B．He is the first person to study animal skins.

C．He studies objects related to humans and their lives.

D．His study can provide clues to previous epidemics.

2. Collin thinks of himself as ignorant because _____.

A．his major doesn’t help his research

B．he can’t connect experts of different fields

C．he finds it hard to identify what kind of — ologist he is

D．his study covers a wide range of subjects beyond his knowledge

3. What can be inferred form the passage?

A．Destructive sampling is not allowed in the field of science and archeology.

B．Collin made a compromise by only studying copies of books made of animal skins.

C．Book protectors were opposed to Collin’s study because his group tracked them for several weeks.

D．It is difficult for future archeologists to study what society is like today due to plastic objects.

4. What may be the appropriate title of this passage?

A．A new discovery in archaeology

B．A lab discovering DNA in old books

C．Archaeology on animals seeing a breakthrough

D．Collin’s contributions to the identification of old books

9 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage 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.

Mistakes that work

The best way to learn something is to make mistakes first. Thomas Edison,     1     invented the light bulb, told his colleagues: “Of the 200 light bulbs that didn’t work, every failure told me something was able to incorporate (融入) into the next attempt.” Benjamin Franklin, the US statesman and scientist once said: “I haven’t failed. I have had 10,000 ideas that didn’t work.”

    2     of these people understood that failures and false starts are the condition of success. In fact,     3     surprising number of everyday objects had their beginnings in a mistake or a misunderstanding. Post-it notes, packets of crisps and even bread are all unexpected inventions. In 2600 BC, a tired Egyptian slave invented     4     is now called bread when the dough (面团) rose during his sleep. And crisps were first cooked by a cook in the USA when a customer suggested his fried potatoes be     5     (thin) than they were.

In 1968 Spencer Silver was trying to develop a strong glue when he accidentally invented a very weak glue instead. His colleague, Art Fry decided to use it six years later, in1974, to have his bookmarks     6     (hold) in his books and the post-it note was invented.

Successful businesspeople have often made big, expensive mistakes in their past. When an employee of IBM made a mistake that cost the company $600,000, Thomas Watson, the chairman,     7     (ask) if he would fire the man. “No,” he replied. “I have just spent $600,000     8     (train) him. I won’t let another company     9     (benefit) from the experience.

The important thing to remember is that you need to learn from your mistakes.     10     you don’t, then there is no point making them.

10 . Directions: Read the passage carefully. Fill in each blank with a proper sentence given in the box. Each sentence can be used only once. Note that there are two more sentences than you need.

Einstein's Opinions on Creative Thinking

“The greatest scientists are artists as well,” said Albert Einstein, one of the greatest physicists and an amateur pianist and violinist.

For Einstein, insight did not come from logic or mathematics.     1     As he told one friend, “When I examine myself and my methods of thought. I find that the gift of imagination has meant more to me than any talent for absorbing absolute knowledge. All great achievements of science must start from intuitive knowledge. Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

But how did art differ from science for Einstein? Surprisingly, it wasn't the content of an idea, or its subject, that determined whether something was art or science, but how the idea was expressed. If what is seen and experienced is described in the language of logic, then it is science. If it is communicated and recognized intuitively, then it is art.     2     That's why he said that great scientists were also artists. Einstein first described his intuitive thought processes at a physics conference in Kyoto in 1922 when he indicated that he used images and feelings to solve his problems and found words, logical symbols or mathematical equations later.

    3     “If I were not a physicist,” he once said, “I would probably be a musician. I often think in music and I see my life in terms of music. I get most joy in life out of music. Whenever I feel that I have come to the end of the road or into a difficult situation in my work. I would bury myself in music, and that would usually solve all my difficulties.”

Music provided Einstein with a connection between time and space which both combine spatial and structural aspects. “The theory of relativity occurred to me my intuition and music is the driving force behind this intuition”, said Einstein. “My parents had me study the violin from the time I was six.     4    .”

A．There is no doubt that my theory was a great breakthrough then.

B．Instead, it came from intuition and inspiration

C．For Einstein, it was the humanities that mainly contributed to his achieve-ments.

D．Einstein also owed his scientific insight and intuition mainly to music.

E．My new discovery is the result of musical perception.

F．Einstein himself worked intuitively and expressed himself logically.