Over the past several decades, many different benefits of humor
2 . The need for clarity extends beyond how we communicate science to how we evaluate it. Who can really define stock phrases such as ‘a significant contribution to research’? Or understand what ‘high impact’ or ‘world-class’ mean? Scientists demand that institutions should be clear about their criteria and consider all scholarly outputs—preprints, code, data, peer review, teaching, mentoring and so on.
My view about the practices in research assessment is that most assessment guidelines permit sliding standards: instead of clearly defined terms, they give us feel-good slogans that lack any fixed meaning. Facing the problem will get us much of the way towards a solution.
Broad language increases room for misunderstanding. ‘High impact’ can be code for where research is published. Or it can mean the effect that research has had on its field, or on society locally or globally—often very different things. Yet confusion is the least of the problems. Words such as ‘world-class’ and ‘excellent’ allow assessors to vary comparisons depending on whose work they are assessing. Academia(学术界) cannot be a fair and reasonable system if standards change depending on whom we are evaluating. Unconscious bias(偏见) associated with factors such as a researcher’s gender, ethnic origin and social background helps the academic injustice continue. It was only with double-blind review of research proposals that women finally got fair access to the Hubble Space Telescope.
Many strategies exist to improve fairness in academia, but conceptual clarity is paramount. Being clear about how specific qualities are valued leads assessors to think critically about whether those qualities are truly being considered. Achieving that conceptual clarity requires discussion with faculties, staff and students: hours and hours of it. The University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands, for example, held a series of conversations, each involving 20-60 researchers, and then spent another year revising its research assessment policies to recognize social impacts.
Frank conversations about what is valued in a particular context, or at a specific institution, are an essential first step in developing concrete recommendations. Although ambiguous(模棱两可的) terms, for instance ‘world-class’ and ‘significant’, are a barrier when performing assessments, university administrators have said that they rely on flexible language to make room to reward a variety of contributions. So it makes sense that more specific language in review and promotion must be able to accommodate varied outputs, outcomes and impacts of scholarly work.
Setting specific standards will be tough. It will be inviting to fall back on the misleading standards such as impact factors, or on ambiguous terms that can be agreed to by everyone but applied wisely by no one. It is too early to know what those standards will be or how much they will vary, but the right discussions are starting to happen. They must continue.
1. Regarding the current practices in research assessment, the author is ________.| A．supportive | B．puzzled |
| C．unconcerned | D．disapproving |
| A．Bias on assessors can cause inequality. | B．Frank conversations harm scholarly work. |
| C．Specific qualities need to be clearly stated. | D．Broad language ensures academic fairness. |
| A．primary. | B．recognized. |
| C．optional. | D．accomplished. |
| A．Fix research assessment. Change slogans for clear standards. |
| B．Fix research assessment. Change evaluations for conversations. |
| C．Define research assessment. Change simplicity for specification. |
| D．Define research assessment. Change broad language for flexible one. |
3 . Bingo has been a beloved game for generations, and for good reason.
Once you have your supplies, it’s time to invite your guests. You can invite your friends and family over for a fun night of bingo, or you can even host a virtual bingo party over video chat.
Once everyone has arrived, it’s time to start the game!
The caller is responsible for drawing the numbers and calling them out to the players. Players keep marking the numbers on their cards until someone achieves a winning pattern. There are various winning patterns in bingo, such as completing a row, column, or diagonal line, or achieving a specific shape or design on the bingo card.
The goal here is to have fun. While some organization is required, try not to tun it into a military operation. After all, bingo is the type of game that can bring people together and create a fun and exciting atmosphere.
| A．Hand out the bingo cards to each player. |
| B．You can ask your guests to bring their favourite bingo balls, cards and markers. |
| C．It should be decided before the game starts, and known to all players. |
| D．To host your own bingo party, you’ll need a few supplies. |
| E．Instead of using traditional bingo numbers and letters, mix it up with different themes. |
| F．If you’re hosting an in-person party, make sure to let your guests know what time to arrive. |
| G．It’s a fun, exciting game and can be enjoyed by people of all ages. |
4 . A 12-year-old girl from Miller Middle School in San Jose has won the top prize with $25, 000 in a science fair. Her invention is a new fire detection system that can faster detect(探测) the heat sources. It’s also cheaper and more reliable than smoke detectors.
In the summer of 2022, a restaurant behind Shanya’s house was burned to the ground. Since then, Shanya’s mother became increasingly cautious about the stove in the kitchen. It wasn’t that the restaurant didn’t have smoke detectors, but they require there is a significant amount of smoke first, which can sometimes mean a fire has already started and gotten out of control. This incident inspired her to create a fire detection system to help people suffer less loss from fires.
One day, Shanya discovered that thermal cameras can detect heat loss in homes during winter months. She wondered if these cameras could also spot house fires more quickly than traditional smoke detectors.
Shanya connected an affordable thermal camera to a tiny computer. She programmed her system to differentiate between people—which were identified as warm moving objects—and heat sources, such as a turned-on gas burner, which were identified as hot objects that remained still.
The system can send a text message when it detects a fire but no human presence for a continuous 10-minute period. Shanya conducted multiple trials at various times of day and with people entering the camera’s view from different directions. In the end, Shanya’s system accurately detected human presence 98% of the time and heat sources 97% of the time.
Shanya determined that the best place for the detector would be on the wall above the stove but under the stove range—this allowed its sensors to have clear access to the most likely locations where a fire might start in a kitchen.
After her victory, the 12-year-old has said she wants to refine the device by combining it with a smartphone app. The app will allow users to quickly switch over to a camera after receiving a text message so they can see if the alert is correct.
1. Why did Shanya invent the new fire detection system?| A．To compete in the science fair. | B．To relieve her anxiety about fire. |
| C．To help reduce people’s fire loss. | D．To market it for mass production. |
| A．find out heat sources | B．give a fire alarm |
| C．record the burning process | D．identify different people |
| A．tested all kinds of sensors | B．placed it on the ceiling |
| C．conducted some experiments | D．combined it with an app |
| A．Outgoing and smart. | B．Helpful and generous. |
| C．Modest and determined. | D．Creative and hardworking. |
Go to kindergarten, elementary school, high school, and finally, college. Most American kids
6 . For some it is the sound of a bouncing basketball. For others the clearing of a throat. For Dr. Jane Gregory the list includes pigeons, ticking clocks and the sound of popcorn being eaten. “I cried on the plane the other day because I couldn’t figure out the volume on my new headphones and so I couldn’t block out the sound of a guy sniffing,” she says. Gregory is among those who experience misophonia, a phenomenon in which particular sounds can prove unbearable, triggering(引起)emotions from anxiety and panic to shame and anger. Now in her book, Sounds Like Misophonia, the academic is on a mission to explore what’s behind it, and to help those affected cope.
Gregory, a clinical psychologist at the University of Oxford, suggests misophonia is far from being a simple sensitivity to sound. It can be fed by a complex interplay of factors, including a lower ability to filter out certain noises, the association of negative meanings with particular sounds, and the burden of feelings associated with an emotional response to them.
Yet, the phenomenon was largely unknown until the 2010s. In one study, researchers asked people with high and low traits of misophonia to listen out for a “trigger” sound in the presence of a masking sound. Both groups detected the trigger just as easily. “The person with misophonia had a more intense reaction, but only after they identified what the sound was,” adds Gregory. Those results, she says, suggest that people with misophonia are not inherently better at detecting particular sounds, such as a sniff or a rustle—rather they might be listening out for them more, or not be as good as others at tuning them out. This is a trait, Gregory speculates, that might have offered our ancestors an evolutionary advantage, such as helping them to detect hiding predators. Another implication of the research, Gregory says, is that it is not just the auditory features of the sounds that cause negative reactions but the meaning attached to them. An example would be a reaction to the jingling of a dog’s collar after being frightened by an aggressive dog.
Gregory hopes her book will support those too often told to ignore sounds. She says: “The emotional reaction is much more complex than just being annoyed... They feel trapped and helpless when they encounter these sounds. If you think it’s nothing, then you’re not experiencing what this person is experiencing.”
1. Misophonia is a phenomenon where ________.| A．people fail to recognize particular sounds | B．specific sounds cause negative emotions |
| C．different feelings are mixed up together | D．people lose control of their emotions |
| A．Trigger sounds of similar origins. | B．Disability to ignore certain sounds. |
| C．Understanding of particular sounds. | D．Inborn ability to tell certain sounds. |
| A．To detect certain sounds is a solution to misophonia. |
| B．People with misophonia are well understood by others. |
| C．People can benefit from misophonia in some situations. |
| D．Objects related to sounds may trigger negative reactions. |
Nowadays, a lot of young people seem to spend much of their free time either watching television or playing computer games. Certainly, these things are entertaining, but they don’t contribute much to developing their brains. Many believe that reading books, and especially fiction, is a much more effective way of achieving this. The most obvious benefit we get from reading a good story is a growing vocabulary. We come across new words in reading and try to understand these words through context. Gradually, we become more confident with complex words. In addition, we improve in other areas such as speaking and writing just by reading regularly.
It has also been established that reading fiction is a good way of developing a good self-image. Non-readers or poor readers often have low opinions of themselves. Besides, they may perform poorly in other subjects because they cannot read and understand the material.
Most importantly, however, reading fiction helps us to develop our brains. The human brain can work well when we just do regular things, like driving or walking. However, learning expert Dr. Brian E. Walsh suggested that it can perform more effectively when an element of surprise is added, because this helps to build connections in the brain. In this respect, the positive effects of reading may be much stronger than previously thought.
Recent research has shown that the brain reacts more strongly to unpredictable than to predictable things. This may explain why people enjoy reading fiction, which generally contains lots of unpredictable things. Reading fiction enables us to experience fresh scenarios(情节) and identify with the people we are reading about. When we mentally create the scenes, the look of the characters, the smells, and the sounds in the book, we are exercising our brain. The brain is challenged. This is a positive thing because it will continue to grow and develop if properly stimulated. The more it is used, the better it becomes.
1. How does reading help us improve vocabulary?2. What are the problems for people who seldom read according to the passage?
3. Please decide which part is false in the following statement, then underline it and explain why.
> Reading fiction has more positive effects on our brain since fiction shows more predictable things in our daily life.
4. Apart from what are mentioned in the passage, what other benefit(s) have you gained from reading fiction?
8 . The Ultimate Guide to STEM Competitions & Events
STEM competitions allow individuals or student teams to solve a specific challenge or problem through science, technology, engineering, or mathematics. The followings are different events at this time.
Congressional App ChallengeWhat: Students must code and build an app by themselves. The apps are judged in district-wide competitions.
Who: High school students.
When: From June 15 to November 1, 2023.
Where: Online.
Prize: Winners receive a free trip to display their work in the Capitol Building.
Regeneron Science Talent Search
What: Entrants must conduct an original independent research project. Besides application letters, recommendation letters and transcripts(成绩单) are also needed.
Who: Any student in their senior year of high school.
When: From June 1 to November 8, 2023.
Where: Selected finalists will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington D. C. for in-depth judging.
Prize: Over $2 million in awards are given; first-place prize is $ 250,000.
THINK Challenges
What: This competition is for high school students who are in the early stages of an original research project, rather than being fully completed.
Who: High school students.
When: 2023 registration is closed; 2024 details are to be decided and will likely open in November 2023.
Where: Online.
Prize: Selected finalists are invited to a 4-day all-expenses-paid trip to MIT’s campus to meet professors in their field of research! $1000 will be given.
Source America Design Challenge
What: Student teams are to use STEM concepts to create a totally new product that empowers people with disabilities.
Who: High school and collegiate-level students.
When: Registration for Design Challenge 2022 is still live!
Where: The finals take place in Washington D. C.
Prize: Grand prize is $ 8,000 per team and $ 6,000 to the affiliated school.
1. In the STEM competitions, participants can ________.
| A．design an app based on judges’ choices | B．create an invention to help the disabled |
| C．present a fully completed research project | D．get recommendation letters from professors |
| A．THINK Challenges | B．Congressional App Challenge |
| C．Regeneron Science Talent Search | D．Source America Design Challenge |
| A．They must be available for an outing trip. | B．They must register 2023 competitions. |
| C．They must be high school seniors. | D．They must submit original works. |
Parrots usually live in large groups and they like to eat fruit. They
