1 . The world’s coral reefs do more for the planet than provide underwater beauty. They protect shorelines from the effects of hurricanes. An estimated 500 million people earn their livelihood from the fishing stocks and tourism opportunities reefs provide. The tiny animals that give rise to reefs are even offering hope for new drugs to treat cancer and other diseases.
Despite their importance, warming waters, pollution, ocean acidification, overfishing, and physical destruction are killing coral reefs around the world. So now scientists around the world are looking for all kinds of ways to protect and maybe even revive(复苏) corals. In the Bahamas, Ross Cunning, a research biologist at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium, is focusing on corals with genes that could make them natural candidates for restoration projects. He recently published a study of two Bahamian reefs, one that seemed to survive an intense 2015 heat wave, and one that didn’t.“It sets the stage to find out which genes are responsible for thermal tolerance,” says Cunning, adding that he hopes discovering those genes will help scientists one day breed more heat-tolerant coral.
In Massachusetts, Cohen’s research has found two key elements that seem to protect corals. The first: internal(内部的) waves beneath the ocean’s surface that bring cooler currents to heat-struck corals, essentially air-conditioning them as temperatures rise. The second: adaptation, a quality that corals found in Palau’s warm lagoons(环礁湖) seem to display.On average, these lagoons submerge(淹没) coral in water that is two degrees Celsius warmer than the water outside the lagoons. “We think the fact that they can deal with these higher temperatures is built into their genetics and allows them to deal with the heat waves.”
She’s also found evidence of corals evolving more quickly in the past two decades to withstand rapidly warming temperatures. The big question scientists are now enquiring into, says Cohen, is whether there’s a cap on how much more heat corals can adapt to. Cohen calls these regions with heat-adapted corals as “super reefs,” and like Friendlander, advocates for using marine reserves to protect them.
1. What is the first paragraph mainly about?| A．The protection for coral reefs |
| B．The great value of coral reefs. |
| C．The benefits for tourism from coral reefs. |
| D．The relationship between animals and coral reefs. |
| A．Cooling down the waters is the key to their success. |
| B．Some corals have been genetically improved successfully. |
| C．He expects to identify the genes of the heat-tolerant corals. |
| D．Some corals that survived 2015 heat wave surprised people. |
| A．How corals survive in the warm lagoons. |
| B．What are the key elements to protect corals. |
| C．How they can use natural reserves to protect corals. |
| D．What is the high temperature limit of the surviving corals. |
| A．Science. | B．Environment. | C．Animal. | D．Climate. |
2 . Even if we’ve never laid eyes on a certain person, the sound of their voice can relay a lot of information: whether they are male or female, old or young, or perhaps an accent indicating which nation they might come from. While it is possible for us to randomly deduce someone’s facial features, it’s likely that we won’t be able to clearly piece together what someone’s face looks like based on the sound of their voice alone. However, it’s a different matter when machines are put to the task, as researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) have discovered in developing an AI that can vividly reconstruct people’s faces with relatively impressive detail, using only short audio clips(音频片段) of their voices as reference.
Named Speech2Face, the neural(神经的) network — a computer that “thinks” in a manner similar to the human brain — was trained by scientists on millions of educational videos from the Internet that showed over 100,000 different people talking. From this dataset, Speech2Face learned associations between vocal cues(声带) and certain physical features in a human face, researchers wrote in a new study. The AI then used an audio clip to model a photorealistic face matching the voice.
However, the tool was far from perfect. Speech2Face turned out “mixed performance” when confronted with language variations. For example, when the AI listened to an audio clip of an Asian man speaking Chinese, the program produced an image of an Asian face. However, when the same man spoke in English in a different audio clip, the AI generated the face of a white man, the scientists reported.
Thankfully, AI doesn’t know exactly what a specific individual looks like based on their voice alone. Voice privacy otherwise would be a concern like face recognition for us. The neural network recognized certain markers in speech that pointed to gender(性别), age and ethnicity(种族), features that are shared by many people, the study authors reported.“As such, the model will only produce average-looking faces,” the scientists wrote. “It will not produce images of specific individuals.”
1. What can best replace the underlined word “deduce” in Paragraph1?| A．Mistake. | B．Guess. | C．Record. | D．Search. |
| A．It produces the results with great accuracy. |
| B．It allows thousands of people to talk at the same time. |
| C．It has learnt the connection between speech and appearance. |
| D．It can tell the differences between the Chinese and the Europeans. |
| A．Skeptical. | B．Confused. | C．Favorable. | D．Worried. |
| A．MIT’s New Discovery Give a Surprise to People. |
| B．AI Generated Your Faces by Listening to Your Voices. |
| C．Your Voice Could Give Away Your Nationality with the AI Tool. |
| D．Speech2Face: Neural Network Recognized You Behind a Picture. |
3 . Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden
Hidden amongst the shops and cafes of colorful Chinatown at 578 Carrall Street, the walled Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden is a little oasis(乐土) in the city of Vancouver, BC. Popular with locals looking for a quiet walk, tourists looking for an interesting attraction, and film crews searching for locations that look like China, the Chinese Garden is top of most people’s lists for a shot of nature in the heart of the city. Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Park is a public garden that features a lily pond, pagoda(佛塔) and winding pathways — it’s open to the public during daylight hours and has no admission fee. The museum part of the park has an admission fee of $12 from October to April ($14 from May to September) and is open daily, apart from Mondays and Fridays from November 1 to April 30. Explore independently or take one of the 45-minute guided tours that are included in your admission fee to find out more about symbolism in the garden.
Entrance to the garden is at 578 Carrall Street — the public entrance is via the gate in the courtyard and the museum entrance is through the door next to it. Chinatown is within walking distance of most downtown hotels and is served by TransLink buses and the SkyTrain system, which stops at the nearby Chinatown-Stadium station.
Educational events run throughout the year and the garden hosts musical events, art exhibits and author talks, as well as festivals, Halloween celebrations and special one-off concerts. Traditional tea service, and calligraphy(书法) workshops take place all year round, but the garden’s biggest celebration comes during the Chinese Lunar New Year in February. Lanterns light up the garden for three weekends of fun, when the garden is magically transformed for this traditional Chinese festival.
1. How much should a visitor pay for visiting Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Park in Vancouver in October?| A．$26. | B．$14. | C．$12. | D．$0. |
| A．Mondays in December. |
| B．Fridays in February. |
| C．Mondays in September. |
| D．Fridays in March. |
| A．Educational events and author talks. |
| B．Calligraphy workshops and art exhibits |
| C．Traditional tea service and the lit lanterns. |
| D．Traditional tea service and calligraphy workshops. |
4 . When my experiments didn’t produce the exciting results they were supposed to, I thought I just needed to work more, for the idea that I would be
Those comments planted the seed of a new
During my Ph.D., the penny
| A．rewarded | B．served | C．abandoned | D．misunderstood |
| A．respected | B．noticed | C．accepted | D．declined |
| A．faith | B．thoughts | C．intelligence | D．struggles |
| A．experiment | B．invitation | C．approach | D．assistance |
| A．abstract | B．consistent | C．common | D．cautious |
| A．brushed off | B．took on | C．turned down | D．made up |
| A．realized | B．checked | C．assessed | D．stressed |
| A．stricter | B．purer | C．hotter | D．easier |
| A．accident | B．dilemma | C．normal | D．procedure |
| A．attempt | B．growth | C．request | D．belief |
| A．quality | B．project | C．burden | D．prejudice |
| A．risked | B．slipped | C．prayed | D．exited |
| A．refreshed | B．lonely | C．guilty | D．dizzy |
| A．hopefully | B．fully | C．carefully | D．silently |
| A．promise | B．contribute | C．write | D．convey |
| A．cost | B．dropped | C．benefited | D．ended |
| A．take no notice of | B．show interest in | C．make sense of | D．find fault with |
| A．control | B．darkness | C．guard | D．pressure |
| A．wander | B．relax | C．forget | D．recover |
| A．break | B．turn | C．walk | D．test |
1. Which school is the university most famous for?
| A．Social Science. | B．Medicine. | C．Law. |
| A．The visitors. | B．The receptionists. | C．The lecturers. |
| A．Informal lectures. | B．One group discussion. | C．A long essay. |
| A．Students at high school. |
| B．Teachers at university. |
| C．Teachers at high school. |
1. What is the man?
| A．A teacher. | B．A host. | C．A doctor. |
| A．How to save money. |
| B．How to spend money. |
| C．How to be a good housewife. |
| A．In supermarkets. | B．In department stores. | C．In outdoor markets. |
| A．Fixing things by ourselves. |
| B．Hiring someone to repair things. |
| C．Asking friends to help with the repairs. |
1. How does Joanna feel?
| A．Tired. | B．Happy. | C．Anxious. |
| A．To look after her sick mum. |
| B．To pay back her mum. |
| C．To practise cooking. |
| A．She has got married. |
| B．She can get up early every day. |
| C．She loves her father more than her mother. |
8 . Scientists regularly make vital new discoveries, but few can claim to have invented an entirely new field of science. Chemist Carolyn Bertozzi is one of them. Her discovery of biorthogonal chemistry (生物正交化学) in 2003 created a brand-new discipline of scientific investigation, which has enabled countless advances in medical science and led to a far greater understanding of biology at a molecular (分子的) level. On October 5, Bertozzi was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, jointly with two other professors. She is also the only woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize in science this year, after an all-male line-up in 2021.
Bertozzi was the middle daughter of an MIT physics professor and a secretary. Few predicted that Bertozzi would be the most famous person in the family. While her academic performance was not bad in high school, she was fond of playing soccer. She end ed up being admitted to Harvard University. Despite her talent in soccer, she found it too time-consuming and quit the sport to devote herself to academics.
But before becoming a rock star scientist, Bertozzi almost became an actual rock star. When she started at Harvard, she was tempted to major in music. That idea was “unpopular” with her parents, and she was timid about defying them. Instead, she chose the premed (医学预科的) track that included classes in math and sciences, and declared herself a biology major at the end of her first year of college.
Her interest in music did not completely fall by the wayside, however. Bertozzi played keyboards and sang backup vocals for a hair metal band. Bertozzi, however, did not play with the band for long. Once the band’s practices and performances conflicted with her labs and classes, there was only one outcome.
Plus, she’d soon have organic chemistry to think about a course which is infamous for weeding out pre-meds. Without any clear career ambitions up to that point, Bertozzi had been thinking about possibly becoming a doctor when, in her sophomore year (大二学年), she suddenly fell so head over heels in love with her chemistry course that she couldn’t tear herself away from her textbooks long enough to go out on Saturday nights. A torture to many was pure pleasure for her. Bertozzi changed her major from biology to chemistry a year later.
Bertozzi has sometimes joked about her having missed out on her chance to follow Morello to LosAngeles. “I didn’t get on that bus, and my playing is now limited to ‘The Wheel's on the Bus Go Round,’ I’m waiting for my sons to get old enough to appreciate 1980s heavy metal!”
1. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?| A．Bertozzi is one of those scientists who made significant new discoveries. |
| B．Bertozzi was the only female to win a Nobel Prize in science in 2021. |
| C．Bertozzi played keyboards and sang backup vocals throughout her college years. |
| D．Bertozzi initially planned to become a doctor. |
| A．tell | B．disobey | C．approach | D．threaten |
| A．easy and enjoyable |
| B．difficult to pass for pre-med students |
| C．popular among hair metal band players |
| D．a required course for all college students |
| A．Brave and sympathetic. |
| B．Athletic and critical. |
| C．Humble and passionate. |
| D．Talented and creative. |
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