1 . The Mona Lisa is the famous Leonardo da Vinci painting of a woman with a mysterious smile. This week, the painting gave up a secret.

Scientists using X-rays to examine the chemical structure of a small part of the painting discovered a technique Leonardo used in the work. An oil paint used for it was a special, new chemical mixture, which suggests that the Italian artist was in an experimental mood when he worked on the painting in the 16th century.

“He loved to experiment, and each of his paintings is completely different technically,”said Victor Gonzalez, a chemist who has studied the chemical element (成分) of several works by Leonardo and other artists. The researchers found a rare lead compound (铅化合物) — plumbonacrite, in Leonardo’s first layer of paint. The discovery proved that da Vinci most likely used lead oxide to thicken and help dry his paint. The paint in the study is about the thickness of a human hair, lying in the top right area of the painting.

The scientists looked into its atomic structure using X-rays, moving particles at the speed of light, permitting researchers to look deeper into the paint structure. “ Plumbonacrite is really a fingerprint of his recipe, as it’s the first time we can chemically confirm it,” Gonzalez said.

Dutch artist Rembrandt may have used a similar mixture when he was painting in the 17th century. Gonzalez and other researchers have found plumbonacrite in his work, too. Leonardo is thought to have put lead oxide powder, which has an orange color, in the oil to make it thicker and dry faster. “What you will get is an oil that has a very nice golden color,” Gonzalez said. “It flows more like honey.”

But the Mona Lisa — said by the Louvre to be a portrait (肖像) of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine silk businessman — and additional works by Leonardo still have other secrets to tell. “What we are saying is just a little brick in the knowledge,” Gonzalez said.

1. What’s the new discovery about the Mona Lisa?

A．A new explanation of the secret smile.

B．A new chemical element used in the painting.

C．The secret of the woman in the painting.

D．The structure of the paint da Vinci used.

2. Which best explains the underlined word “fingerprint” in paragraph 4?

A．Open secret.

B．Widespread use.

C．Hidden element.

D．Long-term dream.

3. How does Gonzalez view the use of lead oxide powder in paintings?

A．It helps to make many things into paints.

B．It helps to make paints easy to deal with.

C．It helps to keep the paintings last long.

D．It helps to make paintings rich in color.

4. What can we learn about the Mona Lisa from the last paragraph?

A．It has more secrets to tell the world.

B．It’s the portrait of a silk businessman.

C．It’s well kept in bricks in the Louvre.

D．It has a mixture of different art styles.

2 . 阅读下面材料，根据其内容和所给段落开头语续写两段，使之构成一篇完整的短文。

Carlos and Maya dreamed of becoming space explorers.

On their way home, Carlos and Maya saw a spaceship in the window of a toy store. They went inside the store to see how much it cost. They saw the price and it was too expensive. They tried to pool their money together but it still wasn’t enough.

They left the store sad and disappointed. Carlos suddenly realized that his birthday was coming up. Maybe he could ask their parents to buy the spaceship as a gift for his birthday.

When they got home, Carlos ran straight to their mother and told her what he wanted for his birthday.

Their family didn’t have much when it came to money. So, when their dad stopped by the store to see the toy that Carlos wanted, he found it was too expensive. They couldn’t afford it.

On the day of his birthday, Carlos got up early, excited to see his gift. But when he got to the living room, he saw a spaceship that was made out of a cardboard box. His dad had made it for him.   It had wings on each side and had enough space to ride in. It was a spaceship but it wasn’t what he wanted.

Tears flowed (流) from Carlos’ eyes and he ran back to his room. Maya had just woken up and saw their mom knocking on the door and asking Carlos to come out. But he didn’t want to.

Maya got to the living room but couldn’t see the spaceship they had seen, only the cardboard box. She saw their dad beside it, bent down (弯着腰) on one knee with his head down.

Maya didn’t want her brother to be sad on his birthday. So she tried to think of a way to cheer her brother up. She looked at the cardboard spaceship and got an idea.

Carlos didn’t have breakfast and now he was hungry. He was about to get out of bed when he heard a knock on the door. It was Maya. She said that they had a surprise for him.
注意：
1.续写词数应为150左右；
2，请按如下格式在相应位置作答。
Carlos opened the door and just saw Maya was sitting in the cardboard spaceship.
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A moment later, they stopped at the dinner table where there was a card that said “Best Restaurant in Space”.
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7 . You improve your robot’s software by improving its software. Agrim Gupta of Stanford University, however, begs to differ. He thinks you can also improve a robot’s software by improving its hardware. He and his colleagues have invented a way of testing this idea.

They brought to their robots, unimals, the principles of evolution (进化) by natural selection. Unimals, with globes for heads and sticks for arms and legs, are software beings interacting with a virtual environment. The environments where they wandered were in three varieties: flat grounds, grounds with hills and steps, and ones that had the complexities of the second sort, but with added objects.

To begin with, the unimals were randomly assigned various shapes, but with identical software— derl. Newly created unimals learned to face the challenges in a virtual bootcamp. They were then entered into tournaments in groups. Each group winner was awarded one mutation (变异) —one extra arm or leg, or one extra turning in a joint. The new replaced the oldest unimal and then was assigned to a new group, and the process repeated. About 4,000 varieties of them underwent training.

The team were surprised by the diversity of shapes that evolved. Crucially, though, the researchers found the most successful unimals learned tasks in half the time their oldest ancestors had taken, and that those evolving in the toughest grounds were the most successful.

In this evolution of unimals’ morphology (形态) to promote the ability to learn, Dr Gupta sees a version of something called the Baldwin effect. In 1896 James Baldwin, a psychologist, argued that minds evolve to make the best use of the morphologies of the bodies. What Dr Gupta has shown, though in software, is that the opposite can also be true — changes in body morphology can improve the way minds work. Even though he held the software constant, it became more efficient at learning as the unimals’ bodies evolved.

Whether that discovery can be turned to account in the way robots are developed remains to be seen. But the way of testing is certainly an out-of-the-box idea.

1. How was the test conducted?

A．By promoting Unimals’ learning.	B．By adjusting the environments.
C．By proving the evolution theory.	D．By stimulating unimals’ mutation.

2. What turned out to be surprising in the test?

A．The number of trained unimals.	B．The decline in time for learning tasks.
C．The variety of evolved shapes.	D．The replacement of old unimals.

3. What can be concluded from the test?

A．Mind evolution affects body shaping.

B．Body changes better mind work.

C．Hardware changes do not impact software.

D．The discovery is useful in robot development.

4. What’s the author’s attitude to the finding?

A．Negative.	B．Objective.
C．Indifferent.	D．Approving.

10 . In the deepest dive in a manned submersible(潜水器), US explorer Victor Vescovo spotted and video-recorded a plastic bag and a pile of candy wrappers on the seabed.

His _________ of plastic waste 11.2 kilometers below sea level in the Challenger Deep in the Pacific Ocean, the deepest known point in the Earth’s oceans, means there is _________ on this planet plastic waste cannot reach, _________ it has been found on Mount Qomolangma and in both Arctic and Antarctic waters.

Since the patent(专利) for plastics was _________ in 1907, 8.3 billion tons of plastic products have already been produced, of which 6.3 billion have been poured into oceans _________ processing.

Most of the discarded(丢弃) plastic products _________ in the ocean. In the Pacific Ocean, plastic garbage and other waste have already formed a(n) _________ that’s 1.6 million square kilometers in size. That is the size of Mongolia.

Every year, about 8 million tons of plastic waste flow into the ocean. It is _________ that the total weight of plastic waste will reach 12 _________ tons by 2050, more than the total weight of oceanic fish.

This plastic waste __________ life in the oceans and on the land alike by filling in their stomachs so they cannot eat, or __________ around their bodies so they cannot breathe. It pollutes the __________ and prevents plants’ roots from digging deep into the ground. Plastic micro-particles(微粒) also join the water __________ and enter the bodies of animals, including humans. As humans are at the top of the food __________ , plastic micro-particles accumulate inside our bodies.

We must do something to __________ the situation. Don’t get plastic bags at the supermarket and take your own reusable one __________ . Give up fast delivery lunches and instead cook or go to the restaurant. Get into the __________ of sorting your garbage.

But that’s so much __________ said than done. Environmentalists have been __________ behavioral changes for at least three decades, yet we __________ to use a growing amount of plastic products.

1.

A．report

B．discovery

C．record

D．accumulation

2.

A．everywhere

B．anywhere

C．somewhere

D．nowhere

3.

A．as

B．although

C．but

D．so

4.

A．abolished

B．acquired

C．registered

D．advertised

5.

A．with

B．without

C．off

D．above

6.

A．end up

B．wake up

C．grow up

D．walk up

7.

A．continent

B．park

C．island

D．garden

8.

A．suggested

B．estimated

C．weighed

D．congratulated

9.

A．thousand

B．hundred

C．million

D．billion

10.

A．feeds

B．saves

C．cares

D．kills

11.

A．looking

B．winding

C．floating

D．jumping

12.

A．earth

B．air

C．water

D．environment

13.

A．pollution

B．existence

C．temperature

D．cycle

14.

A．production

B．supply

C．pyramid

D．trade

15.

A．change

B．clean

C．satisfy

D．realize

16.

A．otherwise

B．instead

C．therefore

D．meanwhile

17.

A．exercise

B．activity

C．fact

D．habit

18.

A．harder

B．more effective

C．more courageous

D．easier

19.

A．calling for

B．looking for

C．sending for

D．waiting for

20.

A．start

B．refuse

C．continue

D．hope