1 . For years, doctors have given blood to patients who need it to survive. These transfusions (输血) usually include giving red blood cells to patients.
Blood transfusions aren’t as simple as taking blood from one person and giving it to someone else. There’re several different blood types that don’t all mix well. If someone gets a transfusion of the wrong kind of blood, their body will reject the blood cells, causing problems. For the first time ever, scientists from the University of Bristol, Britain, are carrying out a new trail: testing red blood cells grown in a laboratory on human volunteers. The scientists have used stem cells (干细胞) from a blood sample to grow billions of brand new red blood cells.
This could be even better than a regular blood transfusion. For one thing they can be adjusted for people with different blood types. That’ll be extremely helpful for people with rare blood types. Also, a normal transfusion has red blood cells of all different ages, which means only a small part of them are brand new. The red blood cells grown in the lab are brand new, and this means they last longer and that patients will need fewer transfusions.
To test its safety, researchers have given a couple of teaspoons of the blood to two healthy people, both of whom seem to be doing just fine after the transfusions. In all, they’ll be tested on 10 people, and compared to normal transfusions. The new process doesn’t indicate that normal blood transfusions will disappear. Meanwhile, growing red blood cells in a lab is extremely expensive. And a lot of work and testing still need to be done. But if it’s successful, the process could make life much easier for patients who often need transfusions-even those with rare blood types.
1. What is special about the red blood cells in the experiment?| A．They’re given by those with rare blood types. |
| B．They’re collected from seriously ill patients. |
| C．They’re specifically for a single blood type. |
| D．They’ve never existed in any human bodies. |
| A．There is often a shortage of blood. |
| B．It often takes the patient a lot of time. |
| C．Most normal blood cells don’t live long. |
| D．It’s dangerous for those with rare blood types. |
| A．It will have a long way to go. | B．It’ll replace normal transfusions. |
| C．It will separate rare blood types. | D．It’ll reduce blood research costs. |
| A．Blood Transfusions Get Easier | B．Rare Blood Types Are Not Rare |
| C．Scientists Test Lab-created Blood | D．Rare Blood Cells Need Donating |
2 . Of all the changes that have taken place in English-language newspapers during the past quarter-century, perhaps the most far-reaching one has been the inevitable decline in the scope and seriousness of their arts coverage.
It is difficult to the point of impossibility for the average reader under the age of forty to imagine a time when high-quality arts criticism could be found in most big-city newspapers. Yet a considerable number of the most significant collections of criticism published in the 20th century consisted in large part of newspaper reviews. To read such books today is to marvel at the fact that their learned contents were once considered suitable for publication in general-circulation dailies.
We are even farther removed from the unfocused newspaper reviews published in England between the turn of the 20th century and the eve of World War II, at a time when newsprint was dirt-cheap and stylish arts criticism was considered an ornament (装饰) to the publications in which it appeared. In those far-off days, it was taken for granted that the critics of major papers would write in detail and at length about the events they covered. Theirs was a serious business, and even those reviewers who wore their learning lightly, like George Bernard Shaw and Ernest Newman, could be trusted to know what they were about. These men believed in journalism as a calling, and were proud to be published in the daily press. “So few authors have brains enough or literary gift enough to keep their own end up in journalism,” Newman wrote, “that I am tempted to define ‘journalism’ as ‘a term of contempt applied by writers who are not read to writers who are’.”
Unfortunately, these critics are virtually forgotten. Neville Cardus, who wrote for the Manchester Guardian from 1917 until shortly before his death in 1975, is now known solely as a writer of essays on the game of cricket. During his lifetime, though, he was also one of England’s foremost classical-music critics, a stylist so widely admired that his Autobiography (1947) became a best-seller. He was knighted in 1967, the first music critic to be so honored. Yet only one of his books is now in print, and his vast body of writings on music is unknown save to specialists.
Is there any chance that Cardus’s criticism will enjoy a revival? The prospect seems remote. Journalistic tastes had changed long before his death, and postmodern readers have little use for the richly upholstered Vicwardian prose in which he specialized. Moreover, the amateur tradition in music criticism has been in headlong retreat.
1. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the first two paragraphs?| A．English-language newspapers with more arts coverage sell well. |
| B．Young readers nowadays enjoy reading high-quality arts criticism. |
| C．The criticism published in the 20th century lacked learned contents. |
| D．There were more arts reviews in English-language newspapers in the past. |
| A．The newsprint was too cheap to make profits. |
| B．Not all writers were capable of journalistic writing. |
| C．Arts criticism was removed from the print newspapers. |
| D．Writers are likely to be tempted into journalism. |
| A．Because he mainly wrote essays on the game of cricket. |
| B．Because people cast doubt on his reputation as a knight. |
| C．Because his music criticism failed to appeal to readers nowadays. |
| D．Because his works were quite amateur rather than professional. |
| A．The Distinguished Critics in Memory | B．The Lost Horizon in Newspapers |
| C．The Shortage of Literary Geniuses | D．The Newspapers of the Good Old Days |
3 . China’ s booming coffee business has made it the second most important market for global giant Starbucks, behind only its home U.S. market. But it’s also providing fertile ground for new and innovative (勇于创新的) players catering to local preferences. One of the latest in that group is Shanghai-based chain Manner Coffee, which, together with other similar homegrown names, are reshaping the country’s coffee drinking landscape.
This year alone has seen 16 financing events in China’s coffee sector, with more than 5 billion yuan ($784 million ) pouring into the space. Even the infamous Luckin Coffee, which was removed from the Nasdaq last year after being exposed for massive fraud (欺诈), is once again attracting investors’ attention.
Dubbed (被称作) as a seller of “street coffee” priced between 10 yuan and 20 yuan per cup, equal to $ 3 or less, Manner quickly became popular among young office workers for its less expensive price and high quality.
Manner and the other up-and-comers are thriving on a China coffee market that is growing at a healthy 15% per year. After expanding slowly in its first three years, Manner’s store count rose from just eight at the end of 2018 to 194 this year, with 165 in Shanghai and the rest in Beijng, Shenzhen, Chengdu and other cities. It plans to keep expanding outside of Shanghai by opening up to 100 new stores a year.
Meanwhile, Starbucks reported its same-store sales in the Chinese market grew by just 19% in its financial third quarter, down sharply from 91% growth in the previous quarter, due in part to weak year-ago figures from stores affected during early stages of the pandemic in 2020. The company forecast that growth would slow further still in the following years.
1. What does the underlined phrase “fertile ground” in paragraph 1 probably mean here?| A．Limited space. | B．Fat chance. |
| C．Rich soil. | D．Necessary conditions. |
| A．Starbucks is creating the country’s coffee-drinking landscape. |
| B．Starbucks was removed from the Nasdaq last year due to fraud. |
| C．Manner Coffee has a cheaper price and superior quality. |
| D．Manner Coffee plans to expand is overseas market. |
| A．To show that new players are starting to bite into Starbucks’ lunch. |
| B．To prove that Luckin Coffee is an unusually successful hit. |
| C．To explain the fast increase of Starbucks in the Chinese market. |
| D．To present the promising future of the U.S. coffee market. |
| A．Manner Coffee becomes fashionable worldwide “street coffee”. |
| B．Manner Coffee joins hand with Starbucks to develop business. |
| C．Manner Coffee replaces Starbucks both at home and abroad. |
| D．Manner Coffee takes on Starbucks in China with “street coffee”. |
4 . What to Do With a Day Off
If you're fortunate enough to have today off from work, the most important thing on your to-do list is to actually take the day off. Studies have shown that people send only 40 percent less email on holiday Mondays compared with regular Mondays.
Evaluate your career.
When was the last time you were completely honest with yourself about your career and whether you're doing what you want to be doing?
Have a family meal.
“I'll get to it sometime." Yeah, yeah, it's what we all tell ourselves to get out of doing the things on our to-do list that are hanging over our heads. But today is a great day just to get it done! Send that email, finish up that task at home, send that holiday thank-you note you still haven't gotten around to. Whatever it is,just do it.
| A．You'll feel so much better,I promise. |
| B．It might even make you more productive at work this week. |
| C．It can be tough to get the whole family together for a meal. |
| D．Besides, taking time to let your brain rest and recover makes you better at problem-solving. |
| E．Spend more quality time with your family by having a family meal. |
| F．If you're like most people, probably not recently. |
| G．Do that one thing you've been putting off. |
5 . Artificial—intelligence systems like Grammarly, an automated grammar—checker, are trained with data. for instance, translation software is fed sentences translated by humans, Grammarly's training data involve a large number of standard error—free sentences and human—corrected sentences.
But grammar is the real magic of language, joining words into structures, joining those structures into sentences, and doing so in a way that maps onto meaning.
| A．Grammarly can seem to miss more errors than it marks. |
| B．One Grammarly feature that works fairly well is feeing analysis. |
| C．To correct such writing requires knowing what the writer intended. |
| D．Grammarly has some obvious strengths in understanding meaning or intentions. |
| E．Computers outpace humans at problems that can be solved with pure maths. |
| F．Developers also add certain rules to the patterns Grammarty has taught itself. |
| G．In this decisive structure—meaning connection, machines are no match for humans. |
6 . Few people doubt the value of developing students' thinking skills. A focus on critical thinking is common in education. In the Australian Curriculum, critical thinking and creative thinking are known as “general capabilities”. The US has a similar focus through their “common core".
Many approaches to developing critical thinking are based on Philosophy for Children. One strategy that has a large impact on students' ability to analyse and evaluate arguments is argument mapping, in which a student's reasoning can be visually displayed by capturing the inferential pathway from assumption to conclusion. This type of argument-based intellectual engagement can show high outcomes in terms of the quality of thinking in any classroom. Research also shows deliberate attention to the practice of reasoning in the context of our everyday lives can be significantly improved through targeted teaching.
Teachers at one high school in Australia, who have much training in critical thinking teaching methods, developed a task that asked students to determine Australia's greatest sports person. Students needed to construct their own criteria for greatness. To do so, they had to analyze the Australian sporting context, create possible evaluative standards, explain and justify why some standards would be more acceptable than others and apply these to their candidates. They then needed to argue their case with their classmates to develop criteria that were solid, defensible, widely applicable and produced a choice that seized significant and relevant aspects of Australian sport.
Researchers looking at the gains made in a single term of teaching critical thinking with argument mapping said the critical thinking gains measured are close to those that could be expected to result from three years of undergraduate education. Students who are taught to think well also do better on subject-based exams and standardized tests than those who do not.
In terms of developing 21st century skills, which includes setting up students for lifelong learning, teaching critical thinking should be core business.
1. Which of the following can explain the underlined word “capturing" in Paragraph 2?| A．Describing. | B．Attracting. | C．Designing. | D．Blocking. |
| A．To construct the criteria for being great. |
| B．To acknowledge the teachers' outcomes. |
| C．To present how to teach critical thinking. |
| D．To emphasize the importance of reasoning. |
| A．Objective. | B．Supportive. | C．Doubtful. | D．Cautious. |
| A．Teaching methods should vary among schools. |
| B．Research on education deserves more attention. |
| C．Critical thinking should be valued in education. |
| D．Concepts of critical thinking aren't well received. |
7 . HOW BIG should a business team be?It is an enormously important issue for companies, Teams that are too small may lack the skills required to get the job done:teams that are too big may be impossible to co-ordinate.
Robin Dunbar.an anthropologist at Oxford University,has done a lot of work on primate(灵长目）groups.His argument is that the size of the group is linked to the size of the brain.With their large brains,humans can cope with larger bands,A larger social group has many advantages,allowing for greater protection and specialization.
Whereas 150 is sometimes referred to as the"Dunbar number",the academic himself in fact refers to a range of figures.He observes that humans tend to have five intimate friends,15 or so good friends,around 50 social friends and 150-odd acquaintances.
Running a larger network can be difficult.The armed forces have spent more than 1,000 years experimenting with unit size.A Roman centurion(百天长）oversaw 100.The modern American army company has 180 members.Britain's equivalent numbers 120.These are rough estimates,rather than fixed figures.But it is striking that many group activities seem to be close to a Dunbar number. The Special Air Service of Britain has four-man patrols;when your life depends on it,you need to have absolute trust in your colleagues.As a result,such groups are limited in size.
For much of economic history,work was conducted in small units by peasants,tenant farmers and craftsmen.The coming of powered machinery enabled production at a much larger scale,with workers crowded into factories.These days the rise of the service economy means that workers are no longer concentrated in such large groups.
This may not be a bad thing.It was easy for employees in large factories to regard remote company owners as "them"rather than"us".The modern company may settle on a model with a small group of"core"workers and a larger group of contract workers.The result may be more united within the core staff but the non-core staff may be less well treated.The small core teams may work effectively.The big question will be the effect on morale of those outside those teams.
1. What does the first paragraph serve as in the whole article?| A．An example of the topic, |
| B．An introduction to the topic, |
| C．A guide to the whole article, |
| D．No relation to the passage at all. |
| A．Workers crowded into factories |
| B．'These days the service economy has risen. |
| C．Workers are no longer concentrated in such large groups. |
| D．Employees regard company owners as"them"rather than"us". |
| A．A large group of exact 150 workers. |
| B．A small group of less than 15 core workers. |
| C．A small group of peasants and a large group of factory workers. |
| D．A small group of efficient workers and more contract workers. |
| A．To offer companies some useful advice. |
| B．To introduce us the most suitable size of teams. |
| C．To arouse the readers' interest in Robin Dunbar. |
| D．To persuade companies to adopt the"Dunbar number". |
8 . Your circle of friends may help you get a better reading on your overall health and wellness rather than just using wearable devices such as a Fitbit, according to researchers.
The study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, analyzed what the structure of social networks says about the state of health, happiness and stress.
"We were interested in the topololgy (拓扑学) of the social network — what does my position within my social network predict about my health and well-being said Nitesh V. Chawla, a professor at the University of Notre Dame in the US.
“What we found was the social network structure provides a significant improvement in predictability of wellness states of an individual over just using the data obtained from wearables, like the number of steps or heart rate,” Chawla said.
For the study, participants wore a Fitbit to capture health behavior data about walking, sleeping, heart rate and overall activity level. They also completed surveys and self-assessments of their stress, happiness and positivity.
Cbawla and his team then analyzed the data with a machine learning model, alongside the connections and characteristics of an individual's social network.
The study showed a strong correlation (相关性) between social network structures, heart rate, number of steps and level of activity.
Social network structure provided significant improvement in predicting one's health and well-being compared to just looking at health behavior data from the Fitbit alone.
For example, when social network structure is combined with the data from wearables, the machine learning model achieved a 65 percent improvement in predicting happiness.
The model also achieved a 54 percent improvement in predicting one's self-assessed health prediction, a 55 percent improvement in predicting positive attitude and a 38 percent improvement in predicting success.
This study asserts (断言) that without social network information, we only have an incomplete view of an individual's wellness state, and to be fully predictive or to be able to obtain interventions (干扰). It is critical to be aware of the social network, Chawla said.
1. What did the study find?| A．How people choose their friend circles. |
| B．What factors decide your friend circles. |
| C．How your circle of friends influences you |
| D．What your circle of friends says about your health. |
| A．By comparing data. | B．By giving examples. |
| C．By analyzing cause and effect | D．By describing personal experiences. |
| A．Easy. | B．Common. |
| C．Important. | D．Challenging. |
| A．How fitness devices can connect your circle of friends |
| B．That a person's social network is part of his health picture. |
| C．The best ways to make friends and keep a healthy social circle |
| D．That wearable devices are not useful for understanding someone's health. |
9 . As Shanghai prepared to introduce mandatory(强制的) garbage sorting on July 1, games and toys that examined fun ways to spread information about the garbage sorting were to encourage younger people to take action.
A 15-second video of a game went on Chinese social media. In the video, players wearing VR(虚拟) headsets saw four different types of trash can in front of them, and had to throw different types of garbage into the right buckets(桶) to get points. Although it was not the only VR game in the place, visitors lined up around the booth to explore it because of the garbage-sorting theme.
“As a Shanghai, I am in great need of this game. Maybe I won’t need to check how to categorize(分类) each piece of garbage on my phone while going through all my garbage every day if I play this game more often, ” said ZhouZhou, a young Shanghai. But some social media users in Shanghai have complained about the difficulty of sorting different types of garbage.
Wu Xia, founder and CEO of VitrellaCore, the company that created the game, said the idea was to provide an interesting way of learning about garbage sorting. “It’s simple and easy to understand. People can practice sorting garbage without actually going through their trash, and it is a more effective method than using paper materials when training volunteers,” Wu said.
1. What is the purpose of the VR game?| A．Just for fun. |
| B．Teach students to sort garbage. |
| C．Do exercise. |
| D．Keep fit. |
| A．It is too hard to sort garbage. |
| B．There are too many people lining up. |
| C．The VR game should be more interesting. |
| D．There are more ways to use paper materials. |
| A．successful | B．interesting | C．traditional | D．disappointing |
| A．Young people like VR games more. |
| B．Shanghai performs mandatory garbage sorting. |
| C．Games were used to help young people sort garbage. |
| D．Learning by playing VR games is practical for the young. |
10 . A robot created by Washington State University (WSU) scientists could help elderly people with dementia (痴呆) and other limitations live independently in their own homes.
The Robot Activity Support System, or RAS, uses sensors installed in a WSU smart home to determine where its residents are, what they are doing and when they need assistance with daily activities. It navigates (定位) through rooms and around obstacles to find people on its own, provides video instructions on how to do simple tasks and can even lead its owner to objects like their medication or a snack in the kitchen.
“RAS combines the convenience of a mobile robot with the activity detection technology of a WSU smart home to provide assistance in the moment, as the need for help is detected,” said Bryan Minor, a postdoctoral researcher in the WSU School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Currently, an estimated 50 percent of adults over the age of 85 need assistance with every day activities such as preparing meals and taking medication and the annual cost for this assistance in the US is nearly $2 trillion. With the number of adults over 85 expected to triple by 2050, researchers hope that technologies like RAS and the WSU smart home will relieve some of the financial strain on the healthcare system by making it easier for older adults to live alone.
RAS is the first robot researchers have tried to incorporate into their smart home environment. They recently published a study in the journal Cognitive Systems Research that demonstrates how RAS could make life easier for older adults struggling to live independently.
“While we are still in an early stage of development, our initial results with RAS have been promising,” Minor said. “The next step in the research will be to test RAS’ performance with a group of older adults to get a better idea of what prompts, video reminders and other preferences they have regarding the robot.”
1. How does RAS serve elderly people?| A．Through sensors. | B．Through objects. |
| C．Through a mobile robot. | D．Through their daily activities. |
| A．It is the first robot used in daily life. | B．Its function remains to be tested. |
| C．It can locate people and do any task. | D．It can cook for owners on its own. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Negative. |
| C．Optimistic. | D．Uncertain. |
| A．Elderly people leave the nursing home. |
| B．Smart Home Tests first elder-Care robot. |
| C．RAS, the first robot to make home smart. |
| D．Older adults have benefited from RAS. |
