1 . A new study shows that female academics are significantly underrepresented in winning academic prizes and having awards named after them. Analysis of nearly 9,000 awardees and 346 scientific prizes and medals published in Nature Human Behaviour has found that men win eight prizes for every one won by a woman if the award is named after a man. These awards represent almost two-thirds of all scientific prizes. Female academics are, however, more likely to win awards that have been named after other notable female scientists, with 47% of those awards going to women and 53% to men.
Dr Katja Gehmlich, Associate Professor in the Institute of Cardiovascular Science at the University of Birmingham and joint lead author of the study, said, “The gender gap between awardees in scientific prizes is sadly a product of a long, systematic issue of poor representation of women in sciences. Despite decades of efforts to rebalance this issue, our study shows that women are still poorly recognized for their scientific contributions, and men are far more likely to win prizes and awards, in particular, if those awards are named after other men.
“It seems particularly shocking to me that awards named after women still see more than half of prizes going to men. We further propose a list of actions to address and overcome these issues but are aware this will be a long process. The Nominate Her movement is one way that the scientific community can begin to address this,” said Dr Gehmlich.
Prof Stefan Krause from the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham and joint lead author of the study said, “Our data is indicative of much wider issues of gender inequality within sciences. Our current publication is an initial attempt to understand the causes of such striking gender inequality and to promote discussion on the subject within our scientific communities.”
“Research culture has a lot to do to improve the gender prize gap, as well as efforts to address the inequality that sees almost two-thirds of prizes currently named after men. More pathways may also be needed, such as renaming or getting rid of gender names associated with some awards,” added Prof Krause.
1. How are awards named after female scientists distributed between genders?| A．Males are in the majority. |
| B．Females take up a bit more than half. |
| C．They are almost entirely awarded to females. |
| D．They are evenly distributed between males and females. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Tolerant. |
| C．Uncaring. | D．Disappointed. |
| A．Establishing gender rates for awards. |
| B．Increasing the number of female judges. |
| C．Encouraging more women to enter scientific fields. |
| D．Renaming or removing gender names from awards. |
| A．Achievements of women in science |
| B．The role of men in the scientific world |
| C．Gender inequality in scientific awards |
| D．Future of gender equality in academia |
2 . “You like pottery (陶艺) more than you like science,” a family member said. I knew the comment was made lightly, but I felt frustrated and disappointed. I had worked so hard to achieve a balance between my scientific and artistic pursuits. Why was my creative side still seen as a weakness and a disturbance, in opposition to my science?
As a little girl, I created art by breaking up eggshells, dying them, and gluing them to a cloth. I also conducted science experiments with my mom, a high school science teacher, on the back porch. In college, I loved my chemistry courses and research work, and I regarded cooking as my creative outlet, hosting weekly dinner parties for friends.
Yet I heard time and again that creative expression and science were not possible together. When my college roommate concluded with a personality test that I was the “creative” type, the rest of my friends said that couldn’t be right, because “I was a scientist and therefore was not creative.” As I was preparing for graduate school and studying for the chemistry GRE test, I realized I talked about science the same way I would paint a picture, explaining concepts in broad strokes (粗线条地) — in part because I struggled to remember technical scientific terminology. I worried my way of thinking wouldn’t fit in with “proper” scientists. In the end, though, my desire to pursue a scientific career won out. I figured I would continue to find a way to balance my research with my creative pursuits, regardless of what others thought.
When in graduate school I found pottery, which I could pursue on evenings and weekends. After my first class, I was attracted. It has inspired me to more intentionally mix my art with my science. I keep a notebook at my lab table filled with words of mug (马克杯) designs inspired by my experiments. Through the challenge of getting my paper into its core concepts in such a way that it could be displayed on a mug, I gained a better understanding of my project. Pottery has now turned into a way for me to train my brain to be creative and think outside the box.
1. What did the family member think of the author’s pottery?| A．It still had room for improvement. |
| B．It would relax the author in her work. |
| C．It made up for the author’s weakness. |
| D．It did no good to the author’s career. |
| A．By dying eggshells. |
| B．By performing science experiments. |
| C．By doing some cooking. |
| D．By attending social parties. |
| A．She didn’t get along well with her classmates in college. |
| B．She nearly gave up her pursuit of art. |
| C．She once doubted her way of understanding science. |
| D．She was angry about being misunderstood by friends. |
| A．The notebook. | B．The design of the mug. |
| C．The challenge of the paper. | D．The author’s science research. |
3 . You may have noticed a phenomenon among students today. Although there are exceptions, this generation is advanced intellectually, but behind emotionally. They are missing many of the marks of maturity they should have.
From an intellectual perspective, students today have been exposed to so much more than I was growing up —and far sooner. They’ve consumed information on everything before they graduate from middle school. Everything is coming at them sooner.
On the other hand, students have been delayed in their emotional growth. They seem to require more time to actually “grow up” and prepare for the responsibility that comes with adulthood. This is a result of many factors, including well-intentioned parents who always keep their eyes on their children, not allowing them to experience the pain of maturation.
There is another reason why teens struggle with maturation. Scientists are gaining new insights into remarkable changes in the brain that may explain why the teen years are so hard on young people and their parents. From ages 11-14, kids lose some of the connections between cells in the part of their brain that enables them to think clearly and make good decisions.
What happens is that the brain reshapes itself, going through changes that will allow a young person to move into adult life effectively. Teens experiencing these brain changes can react emotionally, according to Ian Campbell, an expert at the U. C. Davis Sleep Research Laboratory. Mood swings and uncooperative and irresponsible attitudes can all be the result of these changes. Sometimes, students can’t explain why they feel the way they do. Their brain is changing from a child brain to an adult brain.
Regions that specialize in language, for example, grow rapidly until about age 13 and then stop. The part of the brain responsible for high-level reasoning and decision-making aren’t fully mature until the early 20s, according to Deborah Yurgelun-Todd, a neuroscientist at Harvard’s Brain Imaging Centre. There’s a period of time when the child part of the brain has been reshaped, but the adult part is not fully formed. They are “in-between” —informed but not prepared.
1. What causes the mismatch between teenagers’ intellectual and emotional maturity?| A．They don’t get enough information. | B．Their parents are too strict with them. |
| C．They have harder teen years than their parents. | D．Their certain brain regions aren’t fully mature. |
| A．They are very emotional. | B．They are weak in communication. |
| C．They behave like adults. | D．They have great reasoning ability. |
| A．Students know exactly why they have mood swings. |
| B．Emotional development causes changes in the brain. |
| C．The brain areas for different functions grow at different rates. |
| D．Parents are unaware of adolescents’ emotional changes. |
| A．Teens today experience a series of changes to become adults. |
| B．Teens now have slower maturity emotionally than intellectually. |
| C．Parents’ attitudes delay teenage emotional growth. |
| D．Scientists have found new evidence on teenager’s brain changes. |
4 . A British man is excited but exhausted after becoming the tenth Briton to reach the summit (顶点) of K2, the world’s second-highest mountain.
Jake Meyer 34, a mountaineer and army reserve officer, reached the 28,251 ft (8.611 m) summit at 8 am local time on Saturday after a five-day climb from base camp. He had to spend two nights at a camp on the way to the summit to allow a snowstorm to pass.
“This has been a journey more than ten years in the making, and my third attempt at this extraordinary mountain,” he told The Times. “While we were lucky with a weather window for our summit day, the conditions were still incredibly challenging at times, I’m happy to be back at base camp and I know my family and friends will be relieved that K2 is in the bag.
Mr Meyer, from Gloucestershire, who reached the summit of Qomolangma at the age of 21. has been chronicling (按时序记载) his climb on social media, sending out a picture from the summit. After a two-day journey to base camp, he said,“I’m just looking forward to getting home to my incredibly supportive wife.”
K2 was first summitted in 1954 by two Italian climbers, Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni. It is the tallest mountain in the Karakoram range on the border of China and Pakistan. And it is the second most dangerous mountain in the world, killing every one climber out of four. Climbs are generally attempted in the summer due to the mountain’s severe weather.
This was Mr Meyer’s third attempt, after journeys in 2009 and 2016 were abandoned due to bad weather. Poor conditions also forced him to turn back last week in his attempt to reach the summit of Broad Peak, the 12th highest mountain in the world and another of the “eight thousanders” — the 14 mountains in the world above 8,000 meters. He came within 150 meters of the top, which he was attempting to reach alone in preparation for his K2 climb.
1. What does the underlined phrase “a weather window” in paragraph 3 probably mean?| A．A piece of equipment for forecasting weather. | B．A window through which people look out. |
| C．A machine to protect against bad weather. | D．A period of suitable weather conditions. |
| A．The first attempt to climb it was made in 1954. |
| B．Climbing it is dangerous with a high death rate. |
| C．It is the most difficult to climb due to its poor weather. |
| D．None of the attempts to climb it were made in winter. |
| A．He spent five days climbing K2. | B．He was the third man to reach the top of K2. |
| C．He failed twice in his attempt to climb K2. | D．He reached the summit of Broad Peak last week. |
| A．A story collection. | B．A newspaper report. |
| C．A research paper. | D．A personal diary. |
5 . The first four years of human life are critical for language development, and yet the speed at which children learn to talk is highly variable. Most kids are saying single words by 18 months and progressing to phrases and sentences around two or three, but others are chatting away far earlier.
For years now, psychologist Elika Bergelson from Harvard University has wondered what lead to the individual differences. Her recent observational study on the subject has now turned up surprising results. Enrolling 1,001 children under the age of four, she and an international team of psychologists were surprised to find no link between how much a kid vocalized during the day and their gender, socioeconomic status, or level of exposure to multiple languages. Instead, they found that the chattiest children in the global study were those that tended to hear more adult talk in turn, along with age and clinical factors.
“Slower language development has often been blamed on lower-socioeconomic backgrounds providing less input to their children, leading to calls for behavioral interventions aiming to increase it,” write Bergelson. “Supporters of such interventions might highlight our correlation between adult talk and child speech; critics might instead underline our finding that socioeconomic status was not significant in our main analyses nor in every other reanalysis we attempted.”
The results of the study cannot uncover why child speech and adult talk are so correlated, but there are a few possible explanations. Children who produce more speech may draw out more talk from adults, or it may be that more talkative environments promote more speech among children. The latter cause would suggest that getting adults to talk more around their children may prove beneficial.
Bergelson’s research spans 12 countries and 43 languages, and covers both regional and urban areas. The audio for the study was collected via wearable recorders, which were placed on children of various stages of development and abilities aged two months to four years. Using machine learning to survey through more than 40,000 hours of recordings, Bergelson tested a variety of factors that might influence how often and how early a child says words or sentences.
1. Who may be the chattiest according to the study?| A．A 3-year girl with a talkative mother. | B．An 18-month girl living with a clinical factor. |
| C．A 2-year boy in a multi-language environment. | D．A 30-month boy in a high-socioeconomic status. |
| A．To alter the family background. | B．To sharpen their language skills. |
| C．To acquire new parenting techniques | D．To increase language input on parenting. |
| A．Limit | B．Approach. | C．Application. | D．Prospect. |
| A．Talk More to Your Kids | B．Forget about the Socioeconomic Status |
| C．Three Factors for Language Development | D．Significance of Behavioral Intervention |
6 . Winter seems to drag on endlessly this time of year, so it’s only natural to start thinking about getting away, and the sunny south of France is calling your name!
Avignon
If you’re looking for history, then visit the town center of Avignon, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. If you want to learn even more about this attractive town, then take a tour— it is often guided by a local expert. Hear the history first-hand and come away with a greater understanding as to how the town came to be.
Chateau
Nothing says French countryside more than a chateau surrounded by acres of vineyards. There are wines to choose from. You can also explore the surrounding natural beauty on a horse ride, and they even run vineyard tours on horseback for a truly unique experience. Be sure to bring back a bottle or two of the Chateau des Bertrands wine so you can share a glass with friends as you tell them all about your trip.
Magnificent Marseille
The oldest city in France, starting out as an ancient Greek colony (殖民地), with its rich history, can keep every holidaymaker happy. A unique way to see as much as possible of what this great city has to offer is to book onto a segway tour. See the sights of the Museum Marseilles, Cathédrale La Major, and the historic Le Panier, while you walk around the streets.
Cannes
With amazing blue waters, fresh seafood, and mild winters, it’s an attractive destination to visit all year round. If you want a beach day, we’d recommend the Plage du Midi, easily accessible from the center of town. If you want to make the most of the Mediterranean Sea, don’t just look at it — sail on it!
1. What makes Avignon different from the other three places?| A．Its beautiful scene. | B．Its mild weather. | C．Its rich history. | D．Its guided expert. |
| A．Ride a horse. | B．Take local wines. | C．Buy a gift. | D．Taste some snacks. |
| A．Beach lovers. | B．Museum goers. | C．Enthusiastic hikers. | D．Sports players. |
7 . Do Animals Have Friends?
When you see little animals playing together around a tree, or a cat and dog sleeping together in the living room, do you ever think — are they friends? One expert, Mike, believes that many animals do have friends. If they’re in the same group, they greet one another, travel together, play together and even share food with each other.
Playing together helps animals keep them close to the group. Wild dogs who don’t play much are more likely to leave the group on their own.
Sharing is another important part of friendship. For all animals, finding food is a matter of life and death. For some bats in Central and South America, if they don’t get a blood meal every three days, they die of hunger.
But sometimes members of a group also compete for food and mates, which can lead to fights. So making up after fights is a key skill. Sometimes after two male monkeys have a fight, they will sit apart, avoiding each other.
| A．Each wants the other to make the first move. |
| B．Young animals often team up for protection. |
| C．But hungry bats don’t need to worry if they have friends. |
| D．And leaving the protection of the group can be dangerous. |
| E．These friendly behaviors can be important for an animal to survive. |
| F．The friend helps to find food and water, and avoid dangerous animals. |
| G．Bats take blood from sleeping animals, but they are surprisingly good friends. |
8 . On September 17, 2022, a father and son set out to begin the first of three legs of the Ironman competition in Oxford. David, 59, and his son, John, 28, weren’t the typical competitors. Despite difficulty in walking, John has his dream of being an athlete. His father would act as his arms and legs, carrying the weight of his son throughout the race.
To qualify as having finished, competitors must complete a hard 140 miles of swimming, bicycling and running in under 17 hours. David and John had participated together in five Ironman competitions, but they had yet to finish in the required time.
The race began with a 2.4-mile swim in the Choptank River. With one end of a rope tied to a belt around his back and the other end to a boat with his son inside, the father eased himself into the water. Swimming while carrying another person is tough enough — David also had to fight with jellyfish (水母).
The pair completed the swim in 90 minutes, and went through with the 112-mile bicycle ride in about nine hours, then set their sights on the final leg of the 26.2-mile marathon with David pushing John in the racing chair.
With minutes left and 200 feet to the finish line, his mom, on the sidelines, handed him the rolling walker. Not that long ago, John could hardly walk 23 steps. But after years of painful training, he increased his step count and was determined to finish the race on his own. He knew time was almost running out and worried they wouldn’t make the cutoff. “Not because I wouldn’t get my moment,” he says, “but because dad had worked so hard.”
After 16 hours, 55 minutes and 35 seconds — with just four minutes and 25 seconds to spare — father and son crossed the finish line together.
As the crowd flooded and cheered on John, the weary father kept a low profile. “He didn’t want his finish line moment,” says John. “He wanted it to be mine.”
1. How did David help his son in the swimming part?| A．By pulling a rope tied to a boat. | B．By swimming beside his son. |
| C．By pushing his son’s lifebelt. | D．By carrying his son on his back. |
| A．He wouldn’t get his moment. |
| B．His mom would be disappointed. |
| C．His father had put in lots of effort. |
| D．The audience had high expectations. |
| A．Responsible and selfless. | B．Brave and honest. |
| C．Committed and friendly. | D．Gentle and determined. |
9 . Young babies make many short and word-like sounds such as “ba” or “aga”. Those early sounds are later replaced with words and, eventually, sentences. While some of them are born to be more talkative than others, a new study confirms that male babies make more sounds than female babies in the first year.
While the research confirms earlier findings from a much smaller study by the same team, they still come as a surprise. That’s because there’s a common and long-held belief that females have an advantage over males in language.
In the study, Dr Kim and his team included more than 450,000 hours of all-day recordings of 5,899 babies, using a device about the size of an iPod. Those recordings were processed to count the number of words spoken by babies and adults across the first two years of life.
Generally, the data showed that male babies made 10% more sounds in the first year compared to females. In the second year, the difference turned directions, with female babies making about 7% more sounds than males. Those differences were observed even though the number of words spoken by adults caring for those babies was higher for female babies in both years compared to males.
Why, then, would male babies be more talkative than females in the first year and not later? “We think it may be because boys are more likely to die in the first year than girls. Given that so many male deaths happen in the first year, boys may have been under especially high selection pressure to produce fitness signals to express their wellness and improve their chances of surviving,” says Kim. By the second year of life, as death rates drop sharply across the board, he added, “the pressure on special fitness signaling is lower for both boys and girls.”
1. Why are the findings of the new study surprising?| A．They are similar to earlier ones. |
| B．They show males are more talkative. |
| C．They go against people’s common belief. |
| D．They show babies learn language differently |
| A．They received more language input. |
| B．They showed better language abilities. |
| C．They communicated more with adults. |
| D．They made less sounds than female babies. |
| A．Improved language skills. | B．Change in living environment. |
| C．Less need for fitness signaling. | D．Increase in social communication. |
10 . Every morning in graduate school, Christy would wave to the woman selling hot dogs outside her building. “If she wasn’t there on a given day, things didn’t feel right. I missed her,” says Christy, now a psychology (心理学) expert at a university in the U.K. “It was this huge source of comfort and safety, and it was with someone I never talked to.”
That connection satisfied a deep, bodily need for Christy, just like water relieves thirst. Humans are intensely social animals, and research increasingly suggests that losing our connections to others can negatively impact our health. A 2023 report called widespread loneliness in the U.S. a deadly health risk comparable to smoking up to15 cigarettes (香烟) a day. On the other hand, a Harvard study found that having strong relationships is key to living a long and happy life. The study also showed that people between 80 and 89 years old in happy marriages reported that their happiness remained stable even on days when they were in greater physical pain.
But close relationships aren’t the only social ties that matter. Chatting with a stranger, giving a smile of recognition to the waiter in your local coffee shop, or waving to the people you see every day at the park creates a much-needed sense of community. “We can’t achieve happiness by ourselves. We simply cannot survive or live well without feeling like we are accepted,” says Christy.
These “weak tie” relationships aren’t a replacement for the deeper, more meaningful connections we also need. But Christy says we should recognize and celebrate their importance, and push ourselves to engage in them because they’re so beneficial to our sense of well-being. “I am not outgoing,” she says. “And, at the same time, I love talking to strangers. I believe that anyone can do it.”
1. How did Christy feel when she couldn’t see the woman as usual?| A．Safe. | B．Disappointed. | C．Angry. | D．Satisfied. |
| A．Older adults feel happier in marriages. |
| B．Physical pain negatively affects happiness. |
| C．Close relationships lead to long-term well-being. |
| D．Happiness has little to do with social connections. |
| A．They contribute to our happiness. | B．They help us to be outgoing. |
| C．They replace close relationships. | D．They push us to communicate. |
| A．Advantages of Being Lonely | B．Influence of Meeting New People |
| C．Value of Strong Social Connections | D．Importance of “Weak Tie” Relationships |
