1 . When almost everyone has a mobile phone, why are more than half of Australian homes still paying for a landline (座机)?

These days you’d be hard pressed to find anyone in Australia over the age of 15 who doesn’t own a mobile phone. In fact plenty of younger kids have one in their pocket. Practically everyone can make and receive calls anywhere, anytime.

Still, 55 percent of Australians have a landline phone at home and only just over a quarter (29%) rely only on their smartphones according to a survey (调查). Of those Australians who still have a landline, a third concede that it’s not really necessary and they’re keeping it as a security blanket — 19 percent say they never use it while a further 13 percent keep it in case of emergencies. I think my home falls into that category.

More than half of Australian homes are still choosing to stick with their home phone. Age is naturally a factor (因素)— only 58 percent of Generation Ys still use landlines now and then, compared to 84 percent of Baby Boomers who’ve perhaps had the same home number for 50 years. Age isn’t the only factor; I’d say it’s also to do with the makeup of your household.

Generation Xers with young families, like my wife and I, can still find it convenient to have a home phone rather than providing a mobile phone for every family member. That said, to be honest the only people who ever ring our home phone are our Baby Boomers parents, to the point where we play a game and guess who is calling before we pick up the phone (using Caller ID would take the fun out of it).

How attached are you to your landline? How long until they go the way of gas street lamps and morning milk deliveries?

1. What does paragraph 2 mainly tell us about mobile phones?

A．Their target users.	B．Their wide popularity.
C．Their major functions.	D．Their complex design.

2. What does the underlined word “concede” in paragraph 3 mean?

A．Admit.	B．Argue.
C．Remember.	D．Remark.

3. What can we say about Baby Boomers?

A．They like smartphone games.	B．They enjoy guessing callers’ identity.
C．They keep using landline phones.	D．They are attached to their family.

4. What can be inferred about the landline from the last paragraph?

A．It remains a family necessity.

B．It will fall out of use some day.

C．It may increase daily expenses.

D．It is as important as the gas light.

4 . Future City Competition

Future City starts with a question—how can we make the world a better place? To answer it, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade students imagine, research, design, and build cities of the future that showcase their solution to a citywide sustainability issue. Past topics include Urban Agriculture, Public spaces, and Green energy while the topic of this year is Living on the Moon. Teams will design a futuristic lunar city and provide examples of how the city uses Moon resources to keep its residents safe and healthy.

Participants complete five deliverables: a 1,500-word city essay: a scale model; a project plan; a presentation video; and a virtual/online Q&A session with /judges. Regional winners represent their region at the international Finals. After completing Future City, student participants are not only prepared to be citizens of today’s complex and technical world, but also ready to become the drivers of tomorrow.

What you can learn

This flexible, cross-curricular(跨课程的) educational program gives students an opportunity to do the things that engineers do-identify problems: brainstorm ideas; design solutions; test, retest and build; and share their results. With this at its center, Future City is an engaging way to build students’ 21st century skills. Students participating in Future City also learn how their communities work and become better citizens and develop strong time management and project management skills.

What you need

Future City costs just $25 per organization—and you can register I team or 100. The price always stays the same.

We keep the price affordable so everyone can participate. Not only that, we limit the budget for materials for the City Model and City Presentation to $100 and encourage teams to use recycled materials. You don’t need expensive equipment to excel. Creativity, hard work, and commitment are all you need to get ahead.

Please note: Some regions limit the number of teams an organization can bring to the Regional Competition. Please check with your Regional Coordinator to find out the guidelines in your region.

1. In Future City Competition 2021, students need to ________.

A．complete more than five taskes

B．design a city with green energy

C．address problems on the moon

D．make use of lunar resources

2. What lies at the core of Future City Competition?

A．Designing cities.

B．Identifying problems.

C．Training better citizens

D．Engineering design process

3. If you want to succeed in the competition, you need ________.

A．to be creative and devoted.

B．to use the recycled materials.

C．to buy some expensive equipment.

D．to ask more people to join in your team.

5 . Sixty percent of Americans play video games daily, according to Techjury. In order to escape from the reality of quarantine (隔离), more people have turned to video games and VR (virtual reality) has become more popular than ever.

The world of VR isn't new to the gaming industry. It has been an ongoing concept for years, dating back to the 1800s. NASA popularized VR technology in 1989, bringing light to advancements that had never been seen before, and in 1991, SEGA introduced VR to gamers.

Gaming companies such as Oculus and HTC have redefined gaming by allowing players to involve themselves deeply in the world of VR through personal headsets. VR users are able to socialize through chat rooms, create 3D art and exercise through heart-pumping gameplay. Once a user puts on a headset, they are immediately transported into a virtual world. This allows the player to have a better experience compared to simply staring at a TV with a game controller.

Although VR has many positive aspects, using virtual reality too much can cause health problems among users. When using VR, it is common for people to lose spatial (空间的) awareness. Therefore, users are encouraged to play in an area that is clear of furniture and other objects causing potential danger. Eye strain can also be caused by using VR too much, so it is important to limit your time playing in virtual reality and take breaks in order to minimize the possibility of experiencing negative health effects.

How VR will develop in the future is unknown to us. However, new advancements for it are on the way. Teslasuit, a company specializing in VR equipment, is creating haptic (触觉的) suits for VR gameplay. These suits will allow users to feel aspects of VR while in game and will increase involvement, build 360-degree awareness and engage muscle memory. There are an endless number of possibilities that users                                               can experience and create in VR, and the boundaries of the virtual world are limitless.

1. The second paragraph is mainly concerned with _______.

A．the function of VR

B．the origin of VR games

C．the history of online games

D．the future of the gaming industry

2. Compared with playing games on TV, playing VR games enables players to______.

A．do physical exercise together in nature

B．have a more realistic gaming experience

C．enjoy better-quality pictures and sounds

D．play games without disturbing others

3. What does the underlined word “strain” in Paragraph 4 probably mean?

A．contact.

B．Movement.

C．Opening.

D．Damage.

4. What attitude does the writer hold towards the future of VR?

A．Negative.

B．Objective.

C．Confident.

D．Suspicious.

6 . Brain aneurysms (脑动脉瘤) affect about one in every 50 Americans and can lead to serious medical emergencies, including stroke, brain damage and death if they burst. Existing treatment options are limited and often invasive(扩散), and surgical outcomes can vary widely from person to person.

Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have become the first team to produce a living, bioprinted aneurysm outside of the human body, perform a medical procedure on it and observe it respond and heal as it would in an actual human brain.

“While there are a lot of promising treatment options, some still have a long way to go,” said Moya, the project’s principal investigator. One common treatment is “clipping”-attaching a metal clip to the base of the aneurysm to redirect blood flow away and keep it from bursting. The procedure is highly invasive, requiring surgeons to open up the skull and expose the brain. A more common and less invasive treatment is the metal coiling (缠绕) approach. The downside to “coiling” is that success is highly dependent on a variety of factors, including the geometry of the patient’s blood vessels, which differ from one person to the next, researchers said.

Animal models aren't necessarily the best way to try out these options, as they lack direct observation of treatment effects and have uncontrollable aneurysm geometries. Unlike animal models, LLNL’s platform allows scientists to directly measure the liquid.

To take some of the guesswork out of aneurysm treatments, Hynes, the original principal investigator, realized researchers would need a way to validate more predictive 3D models that take patient geometry into account by bioprinting with human cells.

By combining the 3D-printed platform with computational models, researchers said they've developed a potential tool for surgeons to pre-select the best coil types, and perform “testruns” of procedures before attempting them on the human patient “What’s exciting is that this platform copies the actual blood vessels and also is strong enough to handle a coiling procedure. This makes it ideal to be used as a training platform for surgeons.” Moya said.

In addition to a testbed for surgical training, researchers said the platform has potential for improving the understanding of basic biology and the post-surgery healing response. While early results are promising, the researchers cautioned there's a long way to go before the platform sees application in the clinical environment.

1. What is the living, bioprinted aneurysm?

A．It’s a set of surgical instrument.

B．It’s a tissue transplanted in human body.

C．It’s a training platform for surgeons.

D．It’s a treatment option for brain aneurysms.

2. What’s the disadvantage of the “coiling” treatment option?

A．The procedure is highly invasive.

B．It may lead to serious medical emergencies.

C．Surgical outcomes vary widely from person to person.

D．It completely depends on the geometry of the patient’s blood vessels.

3. What makes animal models imperfect to try out the treatment options?

A．It’s difficult to observe and gather data on them.

B．They are not strong enough to handle a coiling procedure.

C．Their aneurysm geometries are totally-different from human's.

D．The potential response to the treatment options are uncontrollable.

4. What can we learn from the last paragraph?

A．The previous experiments have been in vain.

B．The platform has improved the understanding of basic biology.

C．Brain aneurysms can be cured without any risk with the platform.

D．More needs to be done before applying the platform in the clinical environment.

7 . In the past few decades, great progress has been made in the field of space exploration, which has enabled mankind to have a deeper understanding of the Solar System, our place in it and in the universe. “We sent probes(探测器) to every planet in the Solar System. This is by far the best one,” said Clayton, vice president of Blue Origin. “Let's focus right now on protecting the Earth environment, and then we'll go from there. Space science and technology should be people-centric and application-centric, and focus on improving human life. We need to have a strong footing on the Earth, learn to solve the day-to-day problems of the society.”

“Space technology can help achieve the 17 sustainable development goals to be achieved by 2030 set by the United Nations. Satellite monitoring can really help with agriculture. ” said Victoria, CEO of a company working on sustainable development, “Through Global Navigation Satellite System, animals' movement information recorded on self-recharging devices can be transmitted to the company server. Farmers can be alerted in real time if anomalies(异常现象）are detected. We can use it to ensure the traceability of the entire meat chain. As a result, it enables consumers to know that the beef they are eating does not come from protected areas or the cattle don't contribute to deforestation. ”

As early as 2007, Michael Griffin, former Administrator of NASA, put forward the concept of the “space economy” in a speech. He is very optimistic about the market prospect of commercial space and said, “According to the latest data, the global space industry could reach $1 trillion in 2040, up from $ 378 billion currently. I believe more business models and space activities will be created in the future to achieve the economic scale of $1 trillion. ”

As an entrepreneur(创业者）herself, Victoria thinks the thriving space market will bring countless opportunities for entrepreneurs. She mentioned future settlements on Mars or on the Moon. “If we are going to develop a new society outside the Earth, we will need all types of applications and all types of startups. But coming back to the Earth, there are so many problems that need to be solved, and space technology can really help with that.”

1. What does the underlined word “This” in Paragraph 1 refer to ?

A．A successful space exploration.

B．A probe sent to other planets.

C．The planet people are living on now.

D．The solar system people are exploring.

2. In Clayton's opinion, what should be the first concern about space technology?

A．Providing more financial support.

B．Improving people's life on earth.

C．Sending more probes in the universe.

D．The development of related technology.

3. How does Victoria support her statement about satellite monitoring in Paragraph 2?

A．By making reasoning.

B．By providing accurate figures.

C．By making comparison.

D．By illustrating from different aspects.

4. What does the text mainly talk about?

A．Necessities of space exploration.

B．Breakthroughs in space exploration.

C．Possible application of space technology.

D．Controversial issues about space technology.

8 . Fancy a holiday to the moon? Sounds crazy? Not really. A Japanese company has been working on how to organize holidays to the moon for several years now.    1    

Trying to make the holiday possible will not be an easy task, and the Japanese company plans to make it in stages.    2    A transport system, like the space shuttle ( 航天飞机) used by NASA at the moment is likely to be developed for this purpose.

The next stage is to build a big hotel orbiting 500 km above the earth. The hotel will orbit the earth once every four or five hours, which will offer visitors some fascinating views of the earth.     3    While this may not seem very exciting at first, think about new sports that can be designed for people to play in zero gravity.

The final stage in the plan is the construction of a hotel on the surface of the moon itself. As solar energy would be used to provide power, it would be important to build the hotel near one of the poles of the moon in order to gather as much solar energy as possible.    4    It is also important to find a part of the moon which is flat, as a long runway will need to be built for the space shuttle to land on. Meanwhile, the company has already developed ways to make cement (水泥) on the moon.     5    The company plans to produce water from oxygen elements, which can be found in moon rocks and hydrogen, which will have to be imported from earth.

So perhaps in a few years you might be enjoying yourselves on the moon.

A．Next, the hotel will have a wide range of sporting activities.

B．Tourists who want to travel into space can stay at a big hotel.

C．The first thing to do is to organize trips around the earth for a few hours.

D．There would probably be holidays to a moon hotel within the next ten years.

E．There is plenty of sand, but the big problem will come with producing water.

F．This part of the development plan does not seem to be too difficult to carry out.

G．This is because a lunar day, which is 14 earth days long, is followed by 14 days of darkness.

9 . “Human activity has wiped out two-thirds of the world’s wildlife since 1970,” CNN reported on September 10, 2020. Later that month, the Guardian reported that “40 percent of the world’s plant species are at risk of extinction”. Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich and his colleagues argued that “the ongoing sixth mass extinction may be the most serious environmental threat to the persistence of civilization”. Around the same time, the Daily Mail warned that “human civilization stands a 90 percent chance of collapse within decades due to deforestation”.

These horrible calculations and projections come from authoritative-sounding reports issued by international agencies, conservation groups, and peer-reviewed scientific journals. But is the future of wild nature and human civilization really so poor?

Data from uncontroversial mainstream sources strongly indicate that both humanity and the natural world are likely to be flourishing rather than collapsing at the end of this century. Humanity is becoming an urban species, and that’s good for the environment, since urban dwellers generally use less electricity, produce less globe-warming carbon dioxide, and have smaller land footprints than people living in the countryside. By 2100, it is estimated that 85 percent of people will be city dwellers, which would leave only 1.2 billion still living in the countryside. That means more space for the wildlife and less pollution from the agriculture.

The global tree-covering area increased by 865,000 square miles between 1982 and 2016. The researchers found that gains in forest area in the mild, subtropical and northern climatic zones are offsetting declines in the tropics. The Maryland researchers owe much of that increase to “natural afforestation on abandoned agricultural land”. “Furthermore, forests in mountainous regions are expanding as climate warming enables trees to grow at higher altitudes,” they added.

Humanity does face big environmental challenges in the coming century. But the scientific and economic evidence shows that most of the trends are positive or can be turned in positive direction by human wisdom. Rather than an age of extinction, the 21st century promises to be an era of environmental renewal.

1. Why does the author mention the reports in Paragraph 1?

A．To give examples.	B．To introduce the topic.
C．To make a contrast.	D．To support his opinion.

2. What will happen according to Paragraph 3?

A．No one will choose to live in the countryside.

B．More space will be available for the wildlife.

C．Neither humanity nor the natural world will develop quickly.

D．Urban residents will do more walking than those in the countryside.

3. Which of the following statements will the researchers agree with about forest area?

A．The expanding and disappearance in forest area aren’t evenly matched.

B．The forest area in the mild, tropic and northern zones is increasing.

C．There are more forests in mountainous regions due to the climate warming.

D．The plan of “natural afforestation on abandoned agricultural land” is unfavorable.

4. What might be the best title of the passage?

A．The Bright Future of Humanity

B．The Challenges in the Coming Century

C．Better Environment, Better Future of Human

D．21st Century: An Era of Environmental Renewal