1 . Who is a genius? This question has greatly interested humankind for centuries.
Let’s state clearly: Einstein was a genius. His face is almost the international symbol for genius. But we want to go beyond one man and explore the nature of genius itself. Why is it that some people are so much more intelligent or creative than the rest of us? And who are they?
In the sciences and arts, those praised as geniuses were most often white men, of European origin. Perhaps this is not a surprise. It’s said that history is written by the victors, and those victors set the standards for admission to the genius club. When contributions were made by geniuses outside the club—women, or people of a different color or belief—they were unacknowledged and rejected by others.
A study recently published by Science found that as young as age six, girls are less likely than boys to say that members of their gender(性别)are “really, really smart.” Even worse, the study found that girls act on that belief: Around age six they start to avoid activities said to be for children who are “really, really smart.” Can our planet afford to have any great thinkers become discouraged and give up? It doesn’t take a genius to know the answer: absolutely not.
Here’s the good news. In a wired world with constant global communication, we’re all positioned to see flashes of genius wherever they appear. And the more we look, the more we will see that social factors(因素)like gender, race, and class do not determine the appearance of genius. As a writer says, future geniuses come from those with “intelligence, creativity, perseverance(毅力), and simple good fortune, who are able to change the world.”
1. What does the author think of victors’ standards for joining the genius club?| A．They’re unfair. | B．They’re conservative. |
| C．They’re objective. | D．They’re strict. |
| A．They think themselves smart. |
| B．They look up to great thinkers. |
| C．They see gender differences earlier than boys. |
| D．They are likely to be influenced by social beliefs |
| A．Improved global communication. |
| B．Less discrimination against women. |
| C．Acceptance of victors’ concepts. |
| D．Changes in people’s social positions. |
| A．Geniuses Think Alike | B．Genius Takes Many Forms |
| C．Genius and Intelligence | D．Genius and Luck |
2 . With climate change continuing to worsen, our situation is beginning to feel increasingly serious.
Techno-optimism is one of the greatest misconceptions when it comes to solutions to ensure our future. It can be defined as a belief that future technologies will solve all of our current problems. This definition reinforces (强化) the idea that there’s no reason to panic or change our current energy-intensive lifestyle. All society needs to do is look to green technology to work its magic.
One of the best examples of this optimistic misconception is the electric car. Despite being highly regarded as an eco-friendly way to get around, electric cars are not the end for the future of transport. Batteries in electric cars use chemical elements which we could be seeing a shortage of by the midcentury.
Techno-optimism puts too much emphasis on technology and not enough on what we can do right this minute. Unfortunately, people seem to like the picture that techno-optimism paints.
| A．So where should we look for answers instead? |
| B．The modern world’s simple solution is technology. |
| C．Moreover, they are more energy intensive to produce. |
| D．Is it a trap that many people have fallen into in recent years? |
| E．Unfortunately, this is an incredibly dangerous opinion to hold. |
| F．Despite any technology, we as a whole are not living sustainably. |
| G．Nevertheless, the truth is, we need a widespread change in our lifestyles. |
3 . Arguably, the biggest science development of the year to date has been the images of the very depths of the universe taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Those images beg a comparison between the external and internal universes that science is bent on observing and understanding.
Decades ago, astrophysicist Carl Sagan famously said, “The universe is also within is. We’re made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself. ” He was commenting then on the reality that our internal universe was as complex and as fantastic as the outer space.
There are many similarities between the progress we’ve made in understanding the universe and in piecing together life’s inner workings. Like the technological developments that took us from Galileo’s telescope to the Hubble to the JWST, life science tools have also improved rapidly. From early light microscopes to modern super-resolution ones, these developments have afforded researchers a deep look into biology’s infinitesimal (无限小的) landscape. Learning that living things were composed of cells was, not a terribly long time ago, a revolutionary observation. Since then, scientists have been able to dive ever deeper into the components of life.
Going beyond merely observing the complicated makeup of organisms, life scientists can now discover the workings of molecules (分子). And that is where scanning the universe differs from peering into biology. Understanding the universe, especially from a functional standpoint, is not necessarily an immediate urgency. Understanding biology on that level is. Simply observing the amazing internal structure of cells is not enough. Biologists must also characterize how all those parts interact and change in different environments and when faced with various challenges. Being able to image a virus or bacterium is nice at the level of basic science. But knowing how viruses gain entry into cells and spread, infect, and disable can literally save lives. Through time, biology has risen to this mechanistic challenge. Not only can life science tools produce images of cell components, even more importantly, they can help predict the effects of drugs on receptors, of immune cells on foreign invaders (入侵者), and of genetic perturbations (基因干扰) on development and aging.
This is not to belittle the work of scientists researching into universe. They should rightly be praised for delivering views of impossibly distant, impossibly massive phenomena. My aim is to celebrate these accomplishments while at the same time recognizing that science’s inward search for detail and insight is equally impressive and, in my view, more urgent. The output of both the outward and inward explorations should stimulate wonder in everyone. After all, it’s all star-stuff.
1. Why does the author quote Carl Sagan’s comment in Paragraph 2?| A．To introduce the background. | B．To prove an assumption. |
| C．To make a comparison. | D．To present an idea. |
| A．study approaches | B．system management |
| C．research facilities | D．technology integration |
| A．practical | B．risky | C．flexible | D．popular |
| A．It has received universal recognition. | B．It should enjoy priority in development. |
| C．It can be applied in the majority of areas. | D．It is more complicated than space science. |
4 . The 24 solar terms were created thousands of years ago in China to guide agricultural production. They also reflect China’s rich history through the seasonal festivals, special foods, cultural ceremonies, family gatherings and even healthy living tips that correspond with each solar term.
Rain Water signals the increase in rainfall and rise in temperature. With its arrival, lively spring-like scenery starts blossoming: the river water defreezes, wild geese move from south to north and trees and grass turn green again.
During Rain Water period, extra care is needed to deal with a returning cold spell and humidity, which is the amount of water in the air.
The wet and humid weather during Rain Water period is considered harmful for people’s spleen and stomach according to Chinese medical practice.
| A．With Rain Water coming, insects become more active. |
| B．A bowl of nutritious porridge is the best choice to nourish the body. |
| C．Therefore, Rain Water is considered as a key period to water the fields. |
| D．According to an old Chinese saying, the rainfall in spring is as precious as oil. |
| E．The temperature in most of the basin areas increases quickly during Rain Water. |
| F．One of the 24 solar terms, which is very important in spring, is called Rain Water. |
| G．The fast increase in air humidity due to rainfall can result in lower temperature and wet weather. |
5 . Hiring processes can be thought of as a battle between integrity and dishonesty. You might imagine this is a simple fight between truth-seeking firms and self-promoting candidates, and to a certain extent it is. But companies themselves are prone (有倾向的) to bend reality out of shape in ways that are self-defeating.
Start with the obvious wrongdoers: job applicants. When it comes to writing the resume (简历), they tend to massage (美化) reality into the most appealing shape possible. Everyone beyond a certain level of experience is a transformational leader personally responsible for generating millions income; the world economy would be about 15 times bigger than it actually is if all such claims were true. The average British spends four and a half hours a day watching TV and online videos. But each average job candidate is an enthusiast for public welfare, using their spare time only for worthy purposes, like volunteering in soup kitchens.
But the tendency to stretch the truth infects companies as well as applicants. The typical firm will write a job description that invariably describes the work environment as fast-paced and innovative, and then lays out a set of improbable requirements for the “ideal candidate”, someone who almost by definition does not exist. Sometimes, the requirements include an ability to go back and change the course of history.
Too few firms offer an accurate account of what a position actually involves in their job previews, which are supposed to give prospective employees a genuine sense of the negatives and positives of the job, as well as a clear idea of the company’s corporate culture. One effective strategy is to lay out in text or video, what a typical day in the role would look like.
Such honesty can be its own reward. Research has long suggested that realistic job previews lead to lower turnover and higher employee satisfaction. A paper in 2011 by David Eamest of Towson University and his co-authors concluded that favourable perceptions of the organisation’s honesty are the best explanation for why. So a process designed to uncover the truth about job applicants would run a lot more smoothly if firms were also honest about themselves.
1. Why are “leader” and “enthusiast” mentioned in paragraph 2?| A．To present a rule. | B．To clarify a fact. |
| C．To make a comparison. | D．To explain a phenomenon. |
| A．Overstate. | B．Overturn. | C．Overlook. | D．Overestimate. |
| A．They show a position as it is. | B．They are made either in text or video. |
| C．They are favorable for bigger firms. | D．They mainly contain negatives of a job. |
| A．Pains and gains of employees. | B．How to get the lying out of hiring. |
| C．How to be more appealing in hiring. | D．A wrestle between applicants and companies. |
6 . Cancer-fighting genes in elephants could help tackle one of the biggest killers of people, according to research. Despite their large bodies and long lifespans, elephants are much less likely to die from cancer than humans, with death rates of less than 5 percent.
The paradox has puzzled scientists because more cells lead to greater replications (复制), which increases the possibility of the body failing to detect damaged DNA or a faulty cell that can result in tumors(肿瘤). Elephants live for almost as long as humans and weigh up to five tons.
However, a group of British and European scientists say they have taken a big step towards solving Peto’s paradox, named after the British epidemiologist Sir Richard Peto. Elephants, they say, carry a much larger more diverse group of tumor-fighting proteins.
The findings, published last week in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, raise hopes that the cancer fighting genes in elephants could be the key to tackling cancer, which kills about 167, 000 Britons yearly. Cells keep dividing throughout an organism’s life, each carrying the risk of producing a tumor. One of the body’s weapons is a gene called p53 known as the “guardian of the genome”, which hunts cells with faulty DNA. It encourages the cell to repair itself or self-destruct, keeping the cell from combining with others and producing tumors.
Humans have two versions of p53 but elephants have 40, said the researchers. Biochemical analysis and computer simulations also showed that an elephant’s p53 genes are structurally slightly different, providing a much larger anti-cancer toolkit. The researchers suspect that while faulty cells might be able to skirt two p53 versions, they cannot combine with other cells as easily in the face of dozens.
The findings will open the way for research on how p53 genes of elephants are activated and on medical treatment for humans.
1. What has puzzled scientists?| A．Few elephants end up dying from cancer. | B．Elephants live long and weigh enormously. |
| C．More cells lead to higher chances of tumors. | D．A larger body is less likely to discover faulty cells. |
| A．How many Britons die each year. | B．How the anti-cancer gene works. |
| C．How the research was carried out. | D．What the findings have been applied to. |
| A．Strengthen. | B．Detect. | C．Escaped. | D．Cure. |
| A．Scientists find elephants live longer than humans. | B．P53 genes play essential role in preventing cancer. |
| C．Elephant genes could be key to fighting cancer. | D．Groundbreaking treatment for cancer is on the way. |
7 . Until recently, gravitational waves could have been the stuff of Einstein’s imagination. Before they were detected, these waves in space time existed only in the physicist’s general theory of relativity, as far as scientists knew. Now, researchers are on the hunt for more ways to detect the waves. “The study of gravitational waves is booming,” says astrophysicist Karan Jani of Vanderbilt University in Nashville. “This is just remarkable. No field I can think of in fundamental physics has seen progress this fast.”
Just as light comes in a variety of wavelengths, so do gravitational waves. Different wave lengths point to different types of origins of the universe and require different kinds of detectors. Gravitational waves with wavelengths of a few thousand kilometers—like those detected by the United States, Italy and Japan—come mostly from pairs of black holes 10 or so times the mass of the sun, or from collisions of dense cosmic blocks called neutron stars (中子星). These detectors could also spot waves from certain types of exploding stars and rapidly moving neutron stars.
In contrast, huge waves that span light-years are thought to be created by orbiting pairs of bigger black holes with masses billions of times that of the sun. In June, scientists reported the first strong evidence of these types of waves by turning the entire galaxy (星系) into a detector, watching how the waves make slight changes to the timing of regular blinks from neutron stars throughout the Milky Way.
Physicists now hope to dive into a vast, cosmic ocean of gravitational waves of all sorts of sizes. These waves could reveal new details about the secret lives of exotic objects such as black holes and unknown parts of the universe.
Physicist Jason Hogan of Stanford University thinks there are still a lot of gaps in the coverage of wavelengths. “But it makes sense to cover all the bases. Who knows what else we may find?” he says. The search for capturing the full complement of the universe’s gravitational waves exactly could take observatories out into the moon, to the atomic area and elsewhere.
1. What does Karan Jani think of the current study on gravitational waves?| A．It is rapid and pioneering. |
| B．It is slow but steadily increasing. |
| C．It is interrupted due to limited detectors. |
| D．It is progressing as fast as any other field. |
| A．The creation of different kinds of detectors. |
| B．Collisions of planets outside the solar system. |
| C．The presence of light in different wavelengths. |
| D．Activities involving black holes and neutron stars. |
| A．By analyzing sunlight. |
| B．By locating the new galaxy. |
| C．By using the whole galaxy as a tool. |
| D．By observing the sun’s regular movement. |
| A．It’ll exclude the atomic field. |
| B．It’ll focus exactly on the mapping of the galaxy. |
| C．It’ll require prioritizing certain wavelengths on the moon. |
| D．It’ll explore potential places to detect gravitational waves. |
8 . While socializing comes naturally for some, it can be a struggle for others. Shyness is a normal, common personality trait (特征).
Get Excited About A New Adventure
You may have been shy most of your life.
Pay Attention To Your Words
Practice Mindfulness (正念)
Mindfulness involves drawing your attention to the present and being aware of your thoughts, feelings, and surroundings.
Take Small Steps
Getting started can be the hardest part of learning how to be more social for those who are shy.
| A．If so, that’s a part of you that you’re used to |
| B．Sometimes the best path toward addressing a fear is exposure |
| C．Mindfulness can help reduce symptoms of social anxiety disorder |
| D．Taking time to tend to your appearance can make a big difference |
| E．How we communicate and characterize ourselves can be powerful |
| F．However, shyness can make it hard for people to connect with others and achieve their goals |
| G．But engaging with people doesn’t have to be practiced as an important work presentation |
9 . A good gift is one that is more valuable for the recipient than it is for the giver. But most gifts destroy value rather than create it. Think of the Christmas-tree-shaped cookie jar that cost your aunt 530 but is worth considerably less than zero to you, posing a moral conundrum (难题): Do you throw it right into the trash or wait a couple of months? The economist Joel Waldfogel calls this discrepancy the “deadweight loss” of gifts, and estimates that, on average, it is from 10 percent to a third of a gift’s price.
One explanation for the deadweight loss is a mismatch between desirability and feasibility. Consider n gadget that is useful (high disability) but difficult to set up and time-consuming to use (low feasibility). Scholars have found that givers usually focus on desirability, and receivers are more aware of feasibility. Your friend who bought you a fancy wearable fitness tracker probably thought it was a really cool and helpful gift; to you, it seems like a massive headache to figure out, requires an app download and a monthly fee, and offers data that will either make you feel terrible about yourself or turn into a life-ruining obsession. That’s why it is still sitting in your drawer in its original package.
Another happiness-killing mismatch can occur between the receiver’s initial reaction and their long-term satisfaction. As Anna Goldfarb noted in The Atlantic a few weeks ago, givers tend to look for “reaction-maximizing gifts” (such as the wife’s over-the-top response to the car) as opposed to “satisfaction-maximizing gifts.” Once the giver is not present to see the receiver’s reaction, the receiver might not actually be that excited about socks with her best friend’s face on them.
Someone looking for a big reaction might be tempted to buy a wildly expensive gift, which poses its own emotional problems. In the worst cases, they may even be trying to exert dominance over you, or manipulate you into doing them a favor later. Either way, receiving a gift that’s too nice might make you feel guilty. According to one 2019 survey from CompareCards, 46 percent of respondents felt guilty for being unable to give a gift worth as much as the one they received.
In truth, the biggest benefit to most gift giving is to the giver herself. Generosity is truly a way to buy happiness. As my colleague Michael Norton and his co-authors showed in the journal Science in 2008, although spending money on oneself is weakly related to happiness, spending money on others significantly rises the giver’s well-being. Neuroscientists have shown that charitable giving to others engages the reward system, inducing pleasure in one of the same ways that alcohol and certain drugs do. (Maybe this is the real reason Santa is so jolly.)
1. What does “deadweight loss” of gifts in para.1 refer to?| A．The value the gift creates rather than destroys. |
| B．The money the giver spends on a meaningful gift |
| C．The good-will and thoughtfulness of the gift giver. |
| D．The loss of the gift value in the eyes of the receiver. |
| A．Fashionable and practical. | B．Unfriendly and upsetting. |
| C．Desirable and satisfactory. | D．Expensive and unworthy. |
| A．That the giver is not present to see the receiver’s reaction. |
| B．That the receiver was expecting something wildly expensive. |
| C．Thot the giver is confused about what gift brings satisfaction. |
| D．That the receiver was expecting something he/she truly wants. |
| A．It is in giving that givers receive. |
| B．Gift-giving is in most cases a win-win situation. |
| C．The greatest gift you can give is your time and attention. |
| D．Presents are generally terrible, but they can still bring you joy. |
10 . The power of modern electronic media-the net, mobile phones and video games to capture the attention of the human mind particularly the young mind and then distract it, has lately become a subject of concern. We are, say the worriers, losing the ability to apply ourselves properly to a single task, like reading a book in its entirety or mastering a piece of music on an instrument with the result that our thinking is becoming shallower
Nicholas Carr, the American writer, has explored this theme for his new book The Shallows, in which he argues that new media are not just changing our habits but our brain too. It turns out that the mature human brain is not an immutable seat of personality and intellect but a changeable thing, subject to “neuroplasticity” (神经可塑性). When our activities alter so does the architecture of our brain “I’m not thinking the way I used to think,” writes Carr. “I feel it most strongly when I’m reading.” Years of internet use have, he suspects, dented his ability to read deeply to absorb himself in books: “My brain wasn’t just drifting. It was hungry. It was demanding to be fed the way the net fed it.” He describes getting fidgety when faced with a long text: “When we go online, we enter an environment that promotes cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking, and superficial learning.”
Carr cites research by Gary Small, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA, who concluded that constant exposure to modern media strengthens new neural pathways while weakening older ones. Just five hours of internet use is enough to awaken previously dormant parts of the brain’s prefrontal cortex (前额叶皮层), concluded Small. For Carr, this is proof that the net can rewire the mind. He sees dangers. Deep thought, the ability to immerse oneself in an area of study, to follow a narrative, to understand an argument and develop a critique, is giving way to skimming. Young users of the Internet are good at drawing together information for a school project, for example, but that does not mean they have digested it.
1. The underlined word “dented” in paragraph 2 means ______.| A．strengthened | B．exhausted | C．stimulated | D．damaged |
| A．five hours of net use can rewire the mind |
| B．modern electronic media help focus users attention on the task |
| C．electronic media have affected his fulfillment of reading books |
| D．our brain evolves when fed with information and knowledge from the net |
| A．The sharper the attention, the sharper the memory. |
| B．Nicholas Carr’s book on the subject is a bestseller. |
| C．Superficial thinking and learning are associated with the new media. |
| D．Years of internet use do harm to people’s management over multi-tasking. |
| A．Young users cannot digest information from the Internet. |
| B．Using the Internet will cause damage to our prefrontal cortex. |
| C．Constant internet use will impair our intensive reading ability |
| D．The Internet can waste young users’ time to an alarming extent |
