1 . When I was a young postdoctoral researcher at Cambridge, I met a bearded professor at a fancy dinner. He asked me, “So young man, what do you do?” I told him I was working on the genetics (遗传学) of childhood obesity (肥胖症). “Ha! Do you know what your problem is?” he replied. “You give fat people an excuse.”
The professor’s reply threw me. I was about to push back, when it occurred to me that this view was shared by much of society. Obesity is seen as a problem of physics; people just need to eat less and move more. But although how we get to our body weight is reliant on physics, the real question is why? Why do some people love food, while for others it’s simply fuel? Besides powerful societal and cultural influences, there are equally powerful genetic factors that influence our eating, and hence our body weight.
Large population-based studies, such as UK Biobank, a survey of nearly half a million adults, have helped to reveal the genetic architecture underlying differences in body size. Butthe childhood obesity data do not exist. And that’s a problem, because we know that children with obesity probably will grow into adults with obesity. Thus, understanding the genetics and natural history of childhood obesity will play a key role in its treatment and prevention.
Luckily, there is hope. D-CYPHR, a genetics research programme, is open to every child. It aims to create a truly inclusive research sample and investigate a range of conditions, for which obesity is a major contributing factor. D-CYPHR is ambitious and will face challenges in creating a truly inclusive research sample. But if it does, it will circumvent many of the problems in adult health research by building inclusivity in from the beginning.
You can help pioneer new treatments for millions of people by helping unlock the power hiding in your DNA. Now, a nationwide movement for ages 0—15 is being held and all you need to do is spit (吐) in a tube and complete a short health and lifestyle questionnaire.
1. What’s the tone carried in the professor’s reply?| A．Dismissive. |
| B．Sympathetic. |
| C．Delighted. |
| D．Admiring |
| A．Limited size of participants. | B．Inaccurate sample analysis. |
| C．Lack of data on childhood obesity. | D．Failure to map adults’ genetic code. |
| A．Discuss. |
| B．Face. |
| C．Avoid. |
| D．Create. |
| A．To call for action. |
| B．To draw a conclusion. |
| C．To sum up the text. |
| D．To criticize misconduct. |
2 . Moon dust is the absolute worst. Not only does electrostatics (静电) cause it to stick to virtually everything, but it also has the consistency and feel of finely ground fiberglass. It was a genuine problem for the six Apollo crews who visited the moon’s surface — moon dust covered their suits, worked their way into engines and electronics, and even ruined a few of their extremely expensive spacesuits.
These are all serious issues to consider ahead of NASA’S planned return to the moon’s surface in 2025, but a team of college undergraduates at Washington State University just developed a solution to moon dust — spraying liquid nitrogen (氮) onto moon dust. The team developed a new spray that takes advantage of the Leidenfrost effect. Named after its discoverer, an 18th-century German doctor Johann Gottlob Leidenfrost, it occurs when a liquid comes into close contact with a significantly hotter surface, causing it to quickly form a protective layer of vapor (蒸汽) that briefly keeps it from evaporating, such as when water forms into drops and runs across a very hot frying nan. The same principle works similarly in space. In this case, a liquid nitrogen spray (typically around -320℉) comes into contact with a surface’s relatively warmer lunar dust coating, causing the particles to turn into things like drops and float away on the nitrogen vapors.
To test their spray, the research team first dressed a Barbie doll wrapped with a material used to make spacesuits. They then sprayed it with liquid nitrogen in a normal atmospheric condition as well as the circumstances similar to outer space. Not only did the liquid nitrogen spray perform better in the latter circumstances, but also it only resulted in minimal damage to the spacesuit material. In past lunar missions, astronauts’ specialized brushes for the moon dust task often caused damage to spacesuits after a single use. In comparison, the liquid nitrogen spray took 75 uses before similar issues occurred.
Going forward, the team hopes to further research the complexity that makes the cleaning process so effective, as well as secure funding to construct testing rooms more closely resembling the lunar surface’s gravity. With any luck, maybe a can of their Moon-Dust-Gone will be aboard a future Artemis mission, ready to help astronauts avoid one of the lunar surface’s annoying things.
1. Why does the author mention “Apollo” in the first paragraph?| A．To prove moon dust is a real headache. |
| B．To compare past and present moon programs. |
| C．To show the achievements in moon exploration. |
| D．To offer readers insights into the Apollo program. |
| A．Liquid waste. | B．Moon dust. | C．Nitrogen spray. | D．Protective coating. |
| A．It belonged to single-use items for astronauts. |
| B．It performed better in normal atmospheric conditions. |
| C．It increased the strength of the material of spacesuits. |
| D．It protected spacesuits better compared with the brush. |
| A．Test subjects. | B．Complex lunar surface. |
| C．Other applications. | D．Reasons for efficient cleaning. |
1. Who needs a babysitter now?
| A．The speaker’s relative. | B．The speaker’s neighbors. | C．The speaker’s friend. |
| A．At a hospital. | B．At a bank. | C．At a restaurant. |
| A．In the morning. | B．In the afternoon. | C．In the evening. |
| A．Easy-going. | B．Serious. | C．Bad-tempered. |
4 . Going for a picnic is a good experience to be in nature, but it’s terrible to have a picnic that will do harm to the environment. Here are some ways to keep your picnic green.
Use reusable plates and cups. You don’t need to wash disposable (—次性的) plates and cups because they pollute the environment. It’s greener and cheaper to bring metal plates and cups from home. After the picnic, you can take them home and wash them.
Try to buy food from local farmers’ markets. In general, if you bring less food for your picnic, you’ll create less pollution.
Try to have an all-vegetarian picnic. Modern production of meat uses lots of energy and creates lots of pollution.
Instead of driving, ride a bike or walk to the park. If the park you want to visit is too far from your home, you can take public transportation like buses or subways.
After your picnic, remember to pick up all your trash. Try to keep the picnic area clean. If possible, try not to create any trash at all and reuse whatever you can.
1. It’s ________ to have a picnic that will do harm to the environment.| A．good | B．useful | C．bad | D．possible |
| A．Three. | B．Four. | C．Five. | D．Six. |
| A．Because they are very hard. |
| B．Because we can bring them home to reuse them after washing them. |
| C．Because they are cheap. |
| D．Because they look nice. |
| A．buy the food from the big shop in the city |
| B．buy the food from local farmers’ markets |
| C．buy the food from the supermarket near your house |
| D．buy the food from the restaurants in the city |
| A．pick up all your trash |
| B．try to keep the picnic area clean, if possible |
| C．try not to create any trash at all |
| D．Above all. |
— No problem! I think he ________ to think twice before starting.
| A．should be told | B．shouldn’t be told | C．should tell | D．shouldn’t tell |
6 . Carl Wieman, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist at Stanford University, excelled in the lab, where he created the Bose-Einstein condensate (玻色-爱因斯坦凝聚态). However, his mastery in the lab did not extend to the classroom. For years, he wrestled with what seemed to be a straightforward task: making undergraduates comprehend physics as he did. Laying it out for them—explaining, even demonstrating the core concepts of the discipline—was not working. Despite his clear explanations, his students’ capacity to solve the problems he posed to them remained inadequate.
It was in an unexpected place that he found the key to the problem: not in his classrooms but among the graduate students (研究生) who came to work in his lab. When his PH. D. candidates entered the lab, Wieman noticed, their habits of thought were no less narrow and rigid than the undergraduates. Within a year or two, however, these same graduate students transformed into the flexible thinkers he was trying so earnestly, and unsuccessfully, to cultivate. “Some kind of intellectual process must have been missing from the traditional education,” Wieman recounts.
A major factor in the graduate students’ transformation. Wieman concluded, was their experience of intense social engagement around a body of knowledge — the hours they spent advising, debating with, and recounting anecdotes to one another. In 2019, a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences backed this idea. Tracking the intellectual advancement of several hundred graduate students in the sciences over the course of four years, its authors found that the development of crucial skills such as generating hypotheses (假设), designing experiments, and analyzing data was closely related to the students’ engagement with their peers in the lab, rather than the guidance they received from their faculty mentors (导师).
Wieman is one of a growing number of Stanford professors who are bringing this “active learning” approach to their courses. His aspiration is to move science education away from the lecture format, toward a model that is more active and more engaged.
1. What problem did Carl Wieman have with his undergraduates?| A．Making them excel in the lab. | B．Demonstrating lab experiments. |
| C．Facilitating their all-round development. | D．Enhancing their physics problem-solving. |
| A．Limited in thinking. | B．Resistant to new ideas. |
| C．Flexible and earnest. | D．Experienced and cooperative. |
| A．Intense lab work. | B．Peer pressure and evaluation. |
| C．Academic interaction with fellows. | D．Engagement with external society. |
| A．Transforming Graduates’ Habits | B．Carl Wieman’s Nobel Prize Journey |
| C．The Nobel-Prize Winner’s Struggles | D．Carl Wieman’s Education Innovation |
7 . Michael and his wife, new residents in a San Francisco apartment, learned about their neighbor Jeff Dunan’s volunteer work for Bangladesh Relief, an organization that provides food, clothing and essential supplies for disadvantaged people in northern Bangladesh. Inspired, Michael donated $150 to Dunan’s GoFundMe campaign. However, a credit card notification alerted him to an unintended $15,041 charge.
When he saw the five-figure number, he was confused. Soon, it all made sense. Michael’s credit card number started with four and one. Clearly, he accidentally began typing his credit card information while his cursor (光标) was still in the donation box.
Michael planned to call Dunan to explain, but before he had the chance to do that, he started receiving Facebook messages from Shohag Chandra, the charity’s Bangladesh-based program manager, thanking him for his generous donation. After he looked through the photos of people holding thank-you signs that read his name, Michael’s heart sank. He felt terrible that he had to withdraw his handsome donation. Once his original contribution was refunded, he decided to donate $1,500.
Although Michael had told his family and friends about the tale, he decided to share it publicly on social media, after Dunan told him the organization was desperately in need of funds. “The least I could do was take the time to post this story online and see if I could inspire other people to donate to the cause,” Michael said.
Little did he know, though, that the story would be seen far and wide, ending up raising more than $120,000 for Bangladesh Relief in the span of only a few weeks—about eight times Michael’s mistaken donation. According to Dunan, more than 3,700 people have contributed because of Michael’s post. Michael has been stunned (震惊) by the ongoing outpouring of support. “Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine this reaction,” he said. “People can be amazing when they come together for something like this.”
1. How did Michael make the large donation?| A．He input an incorrect amount. | B．He encountered a system error. |
| C．He was greatly inspired by Dunan. | D．He entered wrong credit card details. |
| A．He saw people in despair. | B．He failed to offer enough money. |
| C．He didn’t receive the full refund. | D．He realized the scale of his mistake. |
| A．Dunan’s request for publicity. | B．A desire for personal recognition. |
| C．The organization’s urgent need for funds. | D．Pressure from his family and friends. |
| A．Actions speak louder than words. | B．Many hands make light work. |
| C．Always prepare for a rainy day. | D．A good beginning is half of victory. |
8 . Atomic shapes are so simple that they can’t be broken down any further. Mathematicians are trying to turn to artificial intelligence (AI) for help to build a periodic table of these shapes, hoping it will assist in finding yet-unknown atomic shapes.
Tom Coates at Imperial College London and his colleagues are working to classify atomic shapes known as Fano varieties, which are so simple that they can’t be broken down into smaller components. Just as chemists arranged element s in the periodic table by their atomic weight and group to reveal new insights, the researchers hope that organizing these atomic shapes by their various properties will help in understanding them.
The team has given each atomic shape a sequence of numbers based on its features such as the number of holes it has or the extent to which it bends around itself. This acts as a bar code (条形码) to identify it. Coates and his colleagues have now created an AI that can predict certain properties of these shapes from their bar code numbers alone, with an accuracy of 98 percent.
The team member Alexander Kasprzyk at the University of Nottingham, UK, says that the AI has let the team organize atomic shapes in a way that begins to follow the periodic table, so that when you read from left to right, or up and down, there seem to be general patterns in the geometry (几何) of the shapes.
Graham Nib lo at the University of Southampton, UK, stresses that humans will still need to understand the results provided by AI and create proofs of these ideas. “AI has definitely got unbelievable abilities. But in the same way that telescopes (望远镜) don’t put astronomers out of work, AI doesn’t put mathematicians out of work,” he says. “It just gives us new backing that allows us to explore parts of the mathematical landscape that are out of reach.”
The team hopes to improve the model to the point where missing spaces in its periodic table could point to the existence of unknown shapes.
1. What is the purpose of building a periodic table of shapes?| A．To gain deeper insights into the atomic shapes. |
| B．To create an AI to predict the unknown shapes. |
| C．To break down atomic shapes into smaller parts. |
| D．To arrange chemical elements in the periodic table. |
| A．Its holes. | B．Its bends. |
| C．Its atomic weight. | D．Its properties. |
| A．Design. | B．Help. | C．Duty. | D．Threat. |
| A．Thanks to AI, new atomic shapes have been discovered. |
| B．Mathematicians turn to AI to create more atomic shapes. |
| C．AI helps build a relationship between chemistry and maths. |
| D．A periodic table of shapes can be built with the help of AI. |
9 . Strawberry picking is a popular and enjoyable activity in Pennsylvania. The state’s favorable weather and long growing season make it a favorite pastime for both locals and tourists.
Bricker’s Strawberries
It is a family-owned farm in Carlisle, PA, offering pre-picked and pick-your-own berries throughout the year. Prices range from $2/pound for pick-your-own berries to $4.25/quart for pre-picked berries. Opening hours may vary depending on the weather, so it’s best to check their website before heading out to the farm.
Oak Grove Farms
Oak Grove Farms in Mechanicsburg, PA, has been a family-owned farm since the 1960s. They offer a variety of fruits, and delicious baked goods, with strawberries being their specialty. Prices start at $15 for a 4-quart container. The farm store is open Monday to Saturday from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. for visitors to make a purchase.
Honey Bear Orchards
Located in Lebanon, PA, it is a family-owned orchard providing fresh fruits to the community since 1980. With their fun and safe atmosphere, you can pick your quality fruit with your friends. U-pick strawberries cost $2/pound. They also offer pre-picked strawberries for a slightly higher cost. You can pay through cash or check only in their shop.
Brecknock Orchard
Brecknock Orchard in Mohnton, PA, is a family-friendly farm where you can pick strawberries and enjoy other activities on the farm. Wagon (马车) ride orchard tours cost $8 per person and include beautiful toys for kids. The cost of strawberry picking starts at $4/pound, and they accept cash and credit cards.
1. What deserves your special attention if you are going to Bricker’s Strawberries?| A．Its opening hours. | B．Its location. |
| C．Its fruit prices. | D．Its berry types. |
| A．Providing shopping services. | B．Sharing an equally long history. |
| C．Being owned by the same family. | D．Having the same business hours. |
| A．Bricker’s Strawberries. | B．Oak Grove Farms. |
| C．Honey Bear Orchards. | D．Brecknock Orchard. |
