1 . Every Saturday morning, as the clock strikes 9 am, over 50,000 eager runners set off on a 5km journey around their local park. The Parkrun phenomenon, which originally began as a small gathering among a group of friends, has now boosted 400 events across the UK and numerous others globally. These events, fueled by the dedication of thousands of volunteers, offer a free and inclusive opportunity for individuals of all ages and abilities to participate. Runners range from four-year-olds to grandparents whose finishing times vary greatly, spanning from Andrew Baddeley’s world record of 13 minutes and 48 seconds to leisurely strolls lasting over an hour.
Parkru n is succeeding where London’s Olympic “legacy” has failed. Ten years ago on Monday, it was announced that the Games of the 30th Olympics would be held in London. Planning documents promised that the lasting legacy of the Games would be to move a nation of sport lovers away from their couches. The population would be fitter, healthier and produce more winners. This obviously has not happened. The number of adults doing weekly sport did rise, by nearly 2 million in the run-up to 2012, but the general population had already been growing faster than this number. Worse yet, the numbers are now falling at an accelerating rate. The opposition claims primary school pupils doing at least two hours of sport a week have been nearly halved. Obesity has risen among adults and children alike. Official retrospections (回顾) continue to speculate as to why London 2012 failed to “inspire a generation”. The success of Parkrun can offer us some answers.
Parkrun is not a race but a time trial: Your only competitor is the clock. Its concept welcomes everybody. There is as much joy for a puffed-out (上气不接下气) first-timer being clapped over the line as there is for the sport’s top talent. The Olympic bidders, by contrast, wanted to get more people doing sports and to produce more elite athletes. The dual aim was mixed up: The stress on success over taking part was off-putting to newcomers.
Indeed, there is something a little weird in the state getting involved in the planning of such a fundamentally “grassroots” concept as community sports associations. If there is a role for government, it should really be in getting involved in providing common public goods — making sure that there is space for playing fields and the money to pave tennis and netball courts, and encouraging the provision of all these activities in schools. But successive governments are to blame for selling green spaces, squeezing money from local authorities and declining attention on sport in education. Instead of wordy, worthy strategies, future governments need to do more to provide the conditions for sport to thrive. Or at least not make them worse.
1. What does the first paragraph reveal about Parkrun?| A．It has created numerous employment opportunities. |
| B．It has gained increasing popularity worldwide. |
| C．It has promoted stronger community ties. |
| D．It has gained official recognition as an official festival. |
| A．stimulate population growth | B．promote engagement in sports |
| C．improve the city’s reputation | D．extend sport hours in schools |
| A．aims to discover new talent |
| B．prioritizes mass competition |
| C．doesn’t stress athletic excellence |
| D．isn’t intended for first-timers |
| A．organize “grassroots” sporting events |
| B．supervise local sports associations |
| C．increase the funding for sports clubs |
| D．invest in public sports facilities |
2 .
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| B．has its professional services advertised in the newspaper |
| C．provides voice samples and estimated prices on its website |
| D．fills orders in three days’time to meet customers’ specific needs |
① Professional voice talent ② On-hold messages
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| C．A sales assistant. | D．A customer service specialist. |
3 .
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| A．Cairns and the Ghan |
| B．Uluru and Melbourne |
| C．Melbourne and the Ghan |
| D．Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef |
| A．You may be charged an extra £349 in total for daily breakfasts. |
| B．You will enjoy a day trip to Daintree Rainforest, a world heritage. |
| C．You may choose to stop in both Singapore and Dubai at no extra cost. |
| D．You will be offered a meal with drinks when heading north by train in the Ghan. |
| A．£17,791 | B．£18,822 | C．£18,841 | D．£19,572 |
4 . A new technique to work out a corpse’s time of death
In fiction, forensic (法医的) experts presented with a corpse are able to take a bite of their sandwich and instantly pronounce a time of death. Reality is, of course, a lot messier, and the results--or lack of them—can make or break a case.
Now artificial intelligence is offering a helping hand. By analyzing thousands of deaths and what follows, the technology can offer the best estimates so far of PMI, Post-Mortem Interval (尸体死后间隔).
Forensis-science journals are full of such cases while the potentially useful details of thousands more investigations are buried in case files around the world.
Developed by a research team led by Katherine Weisensee at Clemson University in South Carolina, the model is based on data pooled from more than 2,500 death investigations, with more added each week. About 1,800 of these are real-world cases involving the discovery of a body.
The results could be used to check alibis and help solve crimes, but they have other uses too. Madeline Atwell, a forensic anthropologist at Clemson University who works on the project, says the model has already helped close several missing-person cases.
| A．With more cases and examples added to the database, the results will be more reliable. |
| B．Entering the location allows the AI model to take local weather conditions into consideration. |
| C．The rest are drawn from forensic experiments at so-called “body farms” in Texas and Tennessee. |
| D．Combining time of death with when people were last seen alive is very useful in identifying human remains. |
| E．Working out when a person has died is the most basic but frustratingly imprecise part of a forensic investigator’s work. |
| F．Now forensic researchers in America are working to collect and access these valuable papers, and to use machine learning to analyze them. |
5 . On average, cars sit, doing nothing, 96 percent of the time. That makes them ideal candidates for the sharing economy. The potential to reduce traffic jams is enormous. A handful of car-sharing systems are already having a major impact on the total number of vehicles in our cities. Scholars have estimated that every shared vehicle removes nine to 13 privately owned cars from the streets.
The benefits will grow greatly as autonomous vehicles, that is, self-driving cars, currently available in experimental forms, gain a notable portion of the market. “Your” car could give you a lift to work in the morning and then, rather than sitting in a parking lot, give a lift to someone else in your family—or to anyone else in your neighborhood or social media community.
As a result, a single vehicle could go from one to 24 hours of use a day. A recent paper by our colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology report s that, under such conditions, the mobility demand of a city like Singapore could be met with only 30 percent of its existing vehicles. In addition to vehicle sharing, autonomy could open up a new wave of ride sharing. Already applications such as Via, uberPOOL and Lyft Line allow different people to share the same ride, cutting operating costs and individual fares. Autonomy could boost ride sharing even more because all trips could be managed online. In cities, the potential for ride sharing is significant, based on analyses by our Sense able City Lab at M. IT.
New York City, for example, is obviously shareable. Our lab’s HubCab project gathered data from 170 million taxi trips involving 13,500 taxis in the city—specifically, the GPS coordinates (协调) for all pickup and drop-off points and corresponding times between the two. We then developed a mathematical model to determine the potential effect of ride sharing applied to those journeys. The project introduced the concept quantitative results revealed how taxi sharing could reduce the number of cars by 40 percent with only rainimal delays for passengers.
Combine car sharing and ride sharing, and a city might get by with just 20 percent the number of cars now in use, with its residents traveling on-demand. Of course, such reductions are theoretical. In real life, they would depend on how willing people are to share rides and adopt self-driving technology. But any drop in the number of vehicles could lower the costs and energy associated with building and maintaining our mobility infrastructure (基础建设). Fewer cars might also mean shorter travel times, fewer traffic jams and a smaller environmental impact.
1. What does the author imply in the first paragraph?| A．Car-sharing is still in its infancy. |
| B．Cars aren’t made full use of at present. |
| C．Privately-owned cars have decreased by 13%. |
| D．There have been fewer traffic jams in big cities. |
| A．They can reduce the mobility demand of big cities. |
| B．They will account for a large portion of the market. |
| C．They can make it convenient for people to share the same ride. |
| D．They will raise people’s awareness of environmental protection. |
| A．how trip-sharing has helped the city |
| B．how ride-sharing can be put into practice |
| C．why people are worried about taxi sharing |
| D．why mathematical models matter in making a city shareable |
| A．We should share not only cars but also rides. |
| B．People have no confidence in self-driving technology. |
| C．The estimated reductions of cars on streets are theoretically groundless. |
| D．Our mobility infrastructure cannot support the development of autonomy. |
6 . A postcard is a lovely way to share your thoughts and greetings with someone while you’re traveling of simply want to reach out and connect. Below is a detailed set of instructions outlining the process of composing a postcard:
(1) Select a postcard: Choose a postcard that represents the place you’re visiting or one that has a design that agrees with your message.
(2) Address the recipient: Start by writing the recipient’s name on the left side of the postcard. You can include their full name or just their first name, depending on your relationship with them.
(3) Add an opening greeting: Begin the message with a friendly greeting, such as “Dear”, “Hi”, or “Hello”. Use the recipient’s name if you have a close relationship with them.
(4) Write a concise message: Keep your message brief and focus on the highlights of your trip or the purpose of your communication. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Describe the sights and experiences: Share a few interesting details about the places you’ve visited, the activities you’ve enjoyed, or any unique experiences you’ve had.
Express your thoughts and feelings: Share your impressions, emotions, or reflections about the location, the people you’ve met, or the overall atmosphere.
Share a funny or memorable events: If something amusing or noteworthy happened during your trip, include it to make the postcard more engaging.
Extend warm wishes: Convey your best wishes or send greetings for a specific occasion like a birthday or holiday. Show the recipient that you’re thinking of them.
(5) Sign off: End your postcard with a closing remark and your name. You can use phrases like “Best regards”, “Warm wishes”, or “Thinking of you”. Remember to sign your name below the closing.
(6) Optional: Add a postscript (P. S.): If you have any additional thoughts, trivia, or recommendations, you can include a P. S. below your signature. It’s a great way to add a personal touch to your postcard.
Remember, the charm of a postcard lies in its simplicity and personal touch. Enjoy the process of writing and sharing your message, and let the recipient know they are in your thoughts wherever you may be.
1. The passage is mainly intended to ______.| A．tell readers how to write a postcard |
| B．comment on the value of postcards |
| C．give an example of a charming postcard |
| D．encourage readers to compose more postcards |
| A．A postscript. |
| B．A future plan. |
| C．What you like most about the trip. |
| D．What you regret in the trip. |
| A．It is recommended to sign off a postcard with your initials. |
| B．It should include the recipient’s full name in the opening greeting. |
| C．It is encouraged to choose a design that is in line with the message. |
| D．Adding a postscript is considered compulsory to provide additional details. |
7 . There is a country — I read about it once — where the local custom is that if you go to a house and praise some small possession, the owners feel obliged to offer it to you as a gift. The only other place I know of with such a custom is my mother’s apartment.
Knowing Mama, I have always been careful with my compliments, but that doesn’t stop her. If she catches me staring at anything small enough to put in a grocery bag, she hands it to me as I leave. It would do no good to protest. “I was merely staring at that photograph of Mount Hood because I have one exactly like it in my living room.” Mama would only nod and say, “Of course. You were thinking how nice it would be to have a set. If a mother doesn’t understand, who does?”
As far as I can remember, Mama was telling people they were in the wrong line of work and suggesting alternative careers. My turn came when I grew up and became a housewife. “You missed your calling,” Mama sighs, examining the doodles (涂鸦) on my phone book. “You should have been an artist.” Later, I tell her how I returned rancid fish to the supermarket and demanded a refund, and she links this to lawyer. I know it’s horsefathers, but I like it.
I have been worrying for weeks now about what to give my mother for Mother’s Day. There is always the danger that a gift given to Mama will bounce swiftly back to the giver. If I buy her something wearable, she perceives in an instant that it could be let in here, let out there, and it would fit me perfectly. If I give her a plant, she cuts off the top for me to take home and root in a glass of water. If I give her something edible, she wants me to stay for lunch and cat it.
Papa, a sensible man, long ago stopped trying to shop for Mama. Instead, on Mother’s Day, her birthday, and other appropriate occasions, he composes a short poem in which he tells of their life. After nearly 30 years of poems, Papa sometimes worries that the edge of his inspiration has dulled, but Mama doesn’t complain. She comes into the room while he is struggling over a gift poem and says, “It doesn’t have to rhyme (押韵) as long as it’s from the heart.”
This year, finally, I think, too, have found a painless gift for Mama. I am going to give her a magazine article, in which I wish her “Happy Mother’s Day” and tell her there’s nothing Papa or I could ever buy, find, or make her that would be half good enough anyway.
1. What can be learned about the “my” mum from Paragraph 2?| A．She doesn’t like “my” complements. |
| B．She doesn’t think I am careful enough. |
| C．She will give “me” whatever she thinks “I” like. |
| D．She takes it for granted that “I” love what she has. |
| A．being an artist has always been “my” dream |
| B．what “my” mother says makes no sense |
| C．“my” mother knows well about “me” |
| D．“my” mother is too involved in “my” choices of job |
| A．It may well end up in a dustbin. |
| B．It will hardly satisfy “my” mother. |
| C．It may be returned to “me” in some way. |
| D．It will be given to someone else in the neighbourhood. |
| A．“I” love “my” mother very much. |
| B．Being sensible is important for an adult. |
| C．“My” mother dreams of becoming a poet. |
| D．“My” father no longer gives “my” mother any gift. |
8 . Tiredness May Lead to Snacking
Staying up late doing homework is always tiring. Perhaps when we are tired, we feel the need to eat unhealthy snack food. Recently scientists have been investigating tiredness and snack food.
According to a study in the Journal of Neuroscience, people are more likely to crave snacks when they don’t get enough sleep.
For the study, researchers from University of Cologne in Germany gave the same dinner to 32 healthy men aged between 19 and 33. Half of the men were then sent home to bed, and the other half were kept aware in the laboratory all night.
The next morning, the participants were asked to consider how much they would be willing to pay for snack food items shown to them in pictures.
According to the researchers, all were similarly hungry in the morning, and had similar levels of most hormones and blood sugar.
However, brain scans showed that when the sleep-deprived participants looked at the pictures of junk food, they released more of the “hunger hormone”. This is the hormone responsible for increasing the appetite, and making us consume more.
Asked about how much they would pay for snacks, “participants with sleep deprivation were more willing to overspend on food items than those with a good night’s sleep,” researchers said.
Researchers also observed that among the people who hadn’t slept, there was greater activity in the part of the brain where food rewards are processed.
Scientists think that sleep-deprived people experience changes to the hunger hormone and the brain’s reward system that leads to a stronger desire to eat snacks with high fat and calories.
“This brings us a little closer to understanding the mechanism behind how sleep deprivation changes food valuation,” Professor Jan Peters, a co-author of the study from the University of Cologne, told The Independent.
Kill the cravingListen to some soft music to relieve your tiredness.
Do some slight exercise for a short time when you’re tired.
Eat yogurt or fruits to replace snacks with high fat and calories.
Distance yourself from the craving.
1. People are more likely to crave snacks if they don’t get enough sleep because they ______.| A．have high levels of most hormones and blood sugar |
| B．release more of the “hunger hormone”, making them consumer more |
| C．are extremely hungry in the morning |
| D．are attracted by the snack food items in the pictures |
| A．Hunger hormone can increase people’s appetite and let them eat more food. |
| B．Participants without sleep deprivation may spend less on food items. |
| C．The brain’s reward system will lead to craving snack food. |
| D．Greater activity will appear in certain part of the brain among those who sleep well. |
| A．Listening to Rock & Roll. | B．Walking out for while. |
| C．Ordering a McDonald’s Big Mac. | D．Drinking black coffee. |
9 . The first official tests of driverless cars were carried out in the UK today, as the country roars ahead with plans to become a world leader in driverless technology. The UK government is providing £19 million worth of funding for the Lutz Pathfinder prototype pod, designed and built by Coventry-based engineering firm RDM Group. Today’s tests were carried out with four driverless cars in four separate UK locations: Coventry, Greenwich, Milton Keynes and Bristol. It is an initiative that the government hopes will eventually result in safer and less-congested roads and keep the UK at the cutting edge of automotive technology.
David Cameron tweeted his satisfaction with the unveilings:
The vehicle works by the passenger selecting a programmed route on a touchpad, which the car then travels using radar, cameras, light detection and ultrasonic sensors.
But while the cars, some patriotically emblazoned with the Union Jack flag, may look impressive, the UK government will have to review its road regulations before the robot cars can be let loose on Britain’s highways.
The UK has signed the 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Traffic, which states that drivers “shall at all times control their vehicles.” Germany, Italy and France in particular are currently attempting to abolish the legislation.
While the UK government argues that there is no legislative barrier to testing the cars, it has come under pressure from motoring groups like the RAC to provide robust safety regulations, particularly concerning the question of who would be responsible in the instance of a car crash if a driverless vehicle’s computer failed.
Professor Stephen Glaister, director of the RAC Foundation said:“Alongside the high-tech innovation you need policy decisions on long-term, low-tech matters such as who takes responsibility if things go wrong. As and when these vehicles become common place there is likely to be a shift from personal to product liability and that is a whole new ball game for insurers and manufacturers.”
Other European countries could be quick to follow in the UK’s footsteps. The German transport minister said earlier this month that driverless cars would be a common sight on the country’s roads in the next few years, although it too will have to tighten up legal regulations first.
However, as governments grapple with complex laws and regulations, not everyone is convinced that these robot cars will be a welcome addition on European roads. A survey conducted by Uswitch found that 43% of UKadults do not trust driverless cars to ensure the safety of passengers, while 16% said they were“horrified”by the entire concept of not having a human at the helm.
1. According to the first two paragraphs, the motives for testing driverless cars do not include______.| A．road safety | B．fewer traffic-jams |
| C．advanced technology | D．good national image |
| A．build a specific road | B．select a certain route |
| C．adjust road regulations | D．launch specific satellites |
| A．laws and policy-decisions haven’t stated responsibilities clearly |
| B．the technology in others countries haven’t developed as well as the UK |
| C．most people would not like the idea of having no human control the car |
| D．the problem of how to prevent car crash hasn’t been solved |
| A．cars driven by human beings would be washed out gradually |
| B．insurers would not take responsibility of car crashes |
| C．automotive technology would make travelling safer and more convenient |
| D．guidance system in cars would be well developed and more intelligent |
10 . Now let us look at how we read. When we read a printed text, our eyes move across a page in short, jerky movement. We recognize words usually when our eyes are still when they fixate (固定). Each time we fixate, we see a group of words, this is known as the recognition span or the visual span. The length of time for which the eyes stop — the duration of the fixation — varies considerably from person to person. It also varies within one person according to his purpose in reading and his familiarity with the text. Furthermore, it can be affected by such factors as lighting and tiredness.
Unfortunately, in the past, many reading improvement courses have concentrated too much on how our eyes move across the printed page. As a result of this misleading emphasis on the purely visual aspects of reading, numerous exercises have been devised to train the eyes to see more words at one fixation. For instance, in some exercises, words are flashed on to a screen for, say, a tenth or a twentieth of a second. One of the exercises has required students to fix their eyes on some central point, taking in the words on either side. Such word patterns are often constructed in the shape of rather steep pyramids so the reader takes in more and more words at a successive fixation. All these exercises are very clever, but it is one thing to improve a person’s ability to see words and quite another thing to improve his ability to read a text efficiently. Reading requires the ability to understand the relationship between words. Consequently, for these reasons, many experts have now begun to question the usefulness of eye training, especially since any approach which trains a person to read isolated words and phrases would seem unlikely to help him in reading a continuous text.
1. The time of recognition span can be affected by the following facts except .| A．lighting and tiredness | B．one’s purpose in reading |
| C．the length of a group of words | D．one’s familiarity with the text |
| A．demands more mind than eyes |
| B．demands a deeply-participating mind |
| C．requires a reader to see words more quickly |
| D．requires a reader to take in more words at each fixation |
| A．The ability to see words is not needed when an efficient reading is conducted. |
| B．The reading exercises mentioned can’t help to improve one’s ability of efficient reading. |
| C．The reading exercises mentioned have done a great job to improve a person’s ability to see words. |
| D．The reading exercises mentioned can’t help to improve both ability to see and to comprehend words. |
| A．The emphasis on the purely visual aspects is misleading. |
| B．Many experts begun to question the efficiency of eye training. |
| C．The visual span is a word or a group of words we see each time. |
| D．The eye training will help readers in reading a continuous text. |
