1 . Farmers have long relied on things that work without their involvement — bees to pollinate (授粉) flowers, earthworms (蚯蚓) to turn the soil, swallows to eat pests — to make sure that crops grow the right way. Now a team of British researchers is trying to take this hands-off thinking in a high-tech direction. Last October, scientists at Harper Adams University started a farm called the Hands Free Hectare to make the entire process of farming — from sowing and fertilizing to harvest — fully automatic. The project has just succeeded with five tons of robot-grown barley (大麦).

“We believe the best idea is that in the future, farmers will manage groups of smaller, autonomous machines, ” the researchers explained. “They will go out and work in the fields, allowing the farmer to use their time more effectively instead of having to drive up and down the fields.”

At the moment, agricultural machines — very large and heavy — can cover a lot of space quickly. But there are shortcomings. “Fertilizer gets sprayed over entire farms, regardless of the different needs of different crops. They’re also so heavy that they’re damaging farmers’ soils,” researcher Jonathan Gill said.

Gill and his colleagues went smaller: a tractor, a combine and a harvester, which followed a programmed route, using GPS. Altogether, they spent less than ￡200, 000 on equipment, and used open-source technology and a drone (无人机). Eventually the system will be complex enough to treat different parts of a field, or even individual plants, differently.

The team is quick to caution that they don’t want to put farmers out of work. They said, “Instead of being busy in the fields, the farmer will manage the machines and monitor their crops.” The next stop for the barley will be a brewery. That’s not going to be completely automatic. At least not yet.

1. What feature of bees, earthworms and swallows inspired scientists?

A．Their dependence on nature.	B．Their special way of survival.
C．Their selfless love for the earth.	D．Their natural involvement in farming.

2. What advantage of Gill’s equipment is introduced in Para. 4?

A．Freeing workers totally.	B．Reducing the cost of harvest.
C．Improving the accuracy of farming.	D．Increasing the output of different crops.

3. What can we infer from the last paragraph?

A．Gill’s project is still at the design stage.	B．Unemployment wouldn’t be a concern.
C．The brewery will realize automation soon.	D．Complete automatic farming is unrealistic.

4. Which of the following would be the best title for the text?

A．The future of hands-free farming	B．The functions of agricultural machines
C．The development of automatic harvest	D．The shortcomings of traditional farming

2 . As home gardeners in the US page through seed catalogs (目录册) and pick out their favorite plants this week, there’s a new seed that has never been available to them before: a purple tomato. It is the first genetically engineered food crop to be directly marketed to home gardeners and the seeds went on sale Saturday.

The lending scientist behind the tomato is Cathie Martin. About 20 years ago, she set out to create a transgenic (转基因的) tomato, using DNA from a purple snapdragon, which is an unrelated eatable flower. Her goal was to develop a tomato with high levels of anthocyanins, chemicals that give blueberries, blackberries, eggplant and purple cabbage their color. Research has shown that anthocyanins also have anti-cancer and anti-aging effects.

“It’s normal for tomatoes to make these healthy chemicals. But they typically don’t make them very much in the fruit,” Martin told reporters in an interview. “They normally appear in the leaves and stems.”

So she started with, separating the DNA in the snapdragon flower that turns on and off the purple color. Next, she used a basic technique that was figured out by scientists in the 1980s to introduce it into a certain bacteria so that the tomato could then take in the foreign genetic material and express this new gene.

The result? In a paper published in Nature, Martin found that the purple tomato had, per weight, as much anthocyanin as a blueberry or eggplant, and that the mice who ate a diet mixed with purple tomatoes lived 30% longer than those who didn’t.

“Americans eat more tomatoes annually, so it makes the nutritional benefits more accessible,” Martin said.

Of course, some people have raised health concerns about eating genetically engineered foods. But these foods were introduced three decades ago and studies have not shown any harm.

“The purple potato is another great example of how the outcomes and applications of such biotechnologies can improve our life,” Martin said.

1. What can be inferred from the second paragraph?

A．Tomatoes usually do not produce anthocyanins.

B．The wild purple snapdragon might be poisonous.

C．Many purple fruits may postpone the aging process.

D．The purple tomato was widely available 20 years ago.

2. What can we know about the technique used to produce the purple tomato?

A．It is a relatively old method.	B．It was invented by Cathie Martin.
C．It puts the DNA directly into the potato.	D．It was used to separate the DNA in the flower.

3. What does Cathie Martin think of the genetically engineered foods?

A．Unprofitable.

B．Safe.

C．Expensive.

D．Unreliable.

4. From which is the text probably taken?

A．An advertisement.

B．A handbook.

C．A short story.

D．A science report.

3 . Several times a month, you can find Doctor Daniel Nadeau in the Ralph’s market in Huntington Beach, California, wearing a white coat and helping people learn about food. He notices the pre-made macaroni (通心粉) and cheese boxes in am other’s shopping cart and suggests she switch to wholegrain macaroni and real cheese.

Nadeau says sugar and processed foods are big contributors to the rising diabetes (糖尿病) rates among children. “In America, over 50 percent of our food is processed food,” Nadeau tells her. “And only 5 percent of our food is plant-based food. I think we should try to reverse that.” This mother agrees to try more fruit juices for the kids and to make real macaroni and cheese. Score one point for the doctor, zero for diabetes.

Research findings increasingly show the power of food to treat or reverse diseases, but that does not mean that diet alone is always the solution, or that every illness can benefit substantially from dietary changes. Nevertheless, physicians say that they look at the collective data and a clear picture emerges: that the salt, sugar, fat and processed foods in the American diet contribute to the nation’s high rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

By prescribing (开处方) nutritional changes or launching programs such as “Shop with your Doc”, they are trying to prevent, limit or even reverse disease by changing what patients eat. The program will offer patients several bags of food prescribed for their condition, along with intensive training in how to cook it. They believe teaching people about which foods are healthy and how to prepare them can actually transform a patient’s life. And beyond that, it might transform the health and lives of that patient’s family.

1. Why does Doctor Nadeau advise buying wholegrain macaroni and real cheese?

A．They’re easy to make.	B．They’re plant-based.
C．They’re delicious to eat.	D．They’re processed food.

2. What does the underlined word “reverse” in paragraph 2 mean?

A．Try out.

B．Pick up.

C．Take in.

D．Turn around.

3. What is the author’s attitude toward the power of food?

A．Neutral.

B．Dismissive.

C．Doubtful.

D．Positive.

4. What is the text mainly about?

A．A good cure for diabetes.	B．A new attempt on cooking.
C．A food-as-medicine program.	D．A simple tip on doing shopping.

4 . Science is always seen as hard-core and hard to understand. But could you imagine hundreds of people being attracted by the cover of a science magazine?

The achievement was completed after Wang Yixi and his team made the cover of an October issue of Structure, a US-based Cell Press journal. The cover shows a Chinese ink painting that vividly shows the process in which a special enzyme (酶) involved in the biosynthesis (生物合成) of an important organic compound is activated―the latest breakthrough by a Chinese scientific research team. Another one of his popular works that carries distinctive Chinese elements is a composite image, describing a scientist as the folk goddess Nyuwa, carrying her newly discovered compound to fill a crack in the sky.

While studying chemistry at university, Wang Yixi often came across an experimental preparation process that he had to explain, but the amount of text was too large and abstract. A she had been interested in drawing, and related software like Photoshop, he decided to turn his graphics into a fine art. He went on to study 3D graphics software in order to better display the microscopic structures in his field and improve the presentation of his papers.

It didn’t take long before his classmates and professors noticed his talents and asked him to help them with their papers. By word of mouth, more people beat a path to Wang’s door and were willing to pay for his service. Over the past four years, Wang and his team have come up with more than 10,000 visual works for academic papers across a variety of fields, many of which have made their way to the world’s top academic journals, including Nature, Science and Cell.

“Every scientific paper is innovative, and graphics are an essential part of scientific papers,” Wang says, adding that what he tries to achieve is an explanation of models or methods, to showcase experimental results, visually process data or compare differences among experiments.

1. What play a special role in Wang’s works?

A．Fairytales.

B．Chinese elements.

C．Rich colors.

D．Complex structures.

2. What can we learn about Wang Yixi from paragraph 3?

A．He preferred painting to Chemistry.	B．He developed useful mapping software.
C．He had an active mind to solve problem.	D．He had trouble conducting his experiment.

3. How does Wang make abstract papers easily understood?

A．By visualizing them vividly.	B．By showing them accurately.
C．By explaining them in detail.	D．By constructing them uniquely

4. Which is the best title for the text?

A．The power of art	B．Dilemmas of science
C．Mysteries of Chemistry	D．Inspiration from science

5 . Top-down processing is the process of using context or general knowledge to understand what we perceive (感知). In 1970, psychologist Richard Gregory introduced the concept. He claimed that perception is constructive.

The processing plays an important role in our interactions with our environment. Our five senses are constantly taking in information. At any given time, we are experiencing different sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and ways things feel when we touch them. If we paid attention to each one of our senses all the time, we’d never do anything else. It enables us to simplify the process by relying on context and our pre-existing knowledge to understand what we notice. If our brains didn’t employ top-down processing our senses would overwhelm us.

Top-down processing helps us understand what our senses are perceiving in our daily lives. For example, suppose you receive an important letter but a few drops of water have ruined part of the text. A few letters in different words are now just smudges (污迹). Yet, you’re still able to read the letter in its entirety using top-down processing. You use the context of the words and sentences in which the smudges appear and your knowledge of reading to comprehend the meaning of the letter’s message. See a word LO*E, with one letter knocked down, yet you are still able to quickly recognize the word as LOVE.

On the one hand, top-down processing serves a positive function by simplifying the way we comprehend our sensory perceptions. It enables us to shortcut the cognitive path between our perceptions and their meaning. On the other hand, patterns can also prevent us from perceiving things in unique ways. So we may understand the pattern of how to use a mobile phone, but if the manufacturer comes out with a new phone that employs completely unique interaction patterns, we may not be able to figure out how to use it. Besides, as our knowledge is limited and biased (片面的) in certain ways, it can lead to perceptual errors.

1. What is the author’s purpose in writing paragraph 2?

A．To explain main reasons.	B．To give practical examples.
C．To draw specific conclusions.	D．To analyse theoretical frameworks.

2. What maybe the key to understanding a text with missing letters?

A．Pre-existing knowledge.	B．Active interactions.
C．Five physical senses.	D．Lessons from mistakes

3. What can we learn from the last paragraph?

A．Seeing is believing.	B．Practice makes perfect.
C．Every coin has two sides.	D．Experience is the best teacher.

4. What does the author intend to do according to the text?

A．Introduce a reading method.	B．Deepen underlying meanings.
C．Illustrate a cognitive strategy.	D．Clarify a producing process.

6 . Teachers work hard to care equally about each of the students they teach. For most of us, however, some students stand out because they have greatly influenced our lives. Years ago, I had a young boy named Juan in my first-year class who I will never forget. Our experiences together impressed upon me the huge influence that just a few minutes of kindness can have on a young life.

Juan came from a very poor, single parent home. His mother showed little interest in his education and in his life in general. Throughout the year, I noticed that Juan had an unusual ability to solve questions and he picked up new ideas fast. I was surprised when he approached me to tell me that he did not think he was smart enough to attend college.

I explained to Juan that he was one of my best students. His face lit up with excitement, and he looked at me delightedly. I went on to explain to him that he could apply for scholarships (奖学金) to pay for college. I continued by telling Juan that it would be a waste of talent if he did not go to college. Juan looked as though he would need to re-think his whole life. It was not surprising that he was finally awarded enough scholarship that he was able to attend the local university.

My love for my students and for the subject I teach has continued to grow over the years. I consider myself lucky to be a teacher, and to have been a part of so many young lives, hopes, and dreams! I may not drive the nicest car on the block, but I am very rich in the things that count the most.

1. Why do some students stand out according to the author?

A．They gain high scores.

B．They are from poor families.

C．They make a difference in teachers’ lives.

D．They work hard to get the attention of the teachers.

2. What can we know from Juan?

A．He does very well in studies.	B．He had a quarrel with his mother.
C．He was abused (虐待) by his mother as a child.	D．He is not smart enough to catch up with others.

3. What is Paragraph 3 mainly about?

A．My encouragement for Juan.	B．Juan’s response to my words.
C．The relationship between Juan and me.	D．Juan’s puzzlement of life and stress from studies.

4. What is the author’s opinion of teaching?

A．It is well-paid.	B．It is energy-consuming.
C．It saves many young lives.	D．It enriches the spiritual life.

7 . Five Tips to Boost Your Self-Confidence

The following tips might help boost your self-confidence so you can feel more comfortable with whom you are.

    1     Sometimes people’s criticism can be severe, but our criticism of ourselves is likely the hardest. We all know that no one is perfect, yet most people tend to expect more from themselves than is realistic. To stop this habit, it may help to write down all your strengths and remind yourself of them each time you begin to criticize yourself.

Think about what makes you feel attractive. Make a list of things that make you attractive. You might begin with qualities that make you a good friend, parent, or co-worker.     2    

Set goals for yourself.     3     You don’t have to set large goals; you might begin with small goals that you can easily achieve. It may be helpful to keep a list of the accomplishments (成绩，成就) that have made you feel proud. You can use this list as a motivation to get you to achieve your bigger goals.

Be grateful and helpful. Doing good things for others can make us feel good about ourselves. The smallest gestures, like smiling or holding the door for someone, can make a big difference to someone.     4     Being able to make a positive difference for someone may make you feel good and improve your self-image.

Do something brave once a week. It can be frightening to put ourselves out there, but sometimes the risk can be worth the reward.     5     You can simply do something to step out of your comfort zone. Perhaps you might talk to that person you’re interested in.

A．Avoid criticizing others.

B．Focus on strengths, not self-criticism.

C．Take small steps to boost your confidence.

D．You can also consider taking an active role in volunteering.

E．Achieving goals is one way to feel accomplished and confident.

F．Then, you might list some of the physical features that make you unique.

G．Taking risks doesn’t necessarily mean going bungee(蹦极) jumping or mountain climbing.

8 . English in Action

Kingswood Camps leads the way in integrated (综合的) language and activity camps. Set in holiday locations that UK young people love to visit, all our camps combine quality English teaching with an action-packed programme of sports and activities.

Through mini projects using research and thinking skills, we aim to build confidence and develop the language skills needed in real-life situations.

The programme is filled with fun, excitement and activities. You never have time to be bored at Kingswood Camps!

Our activities are great chances for international students to make new friends from Britain and around the world. You can speak English all day while you swim, surf, go climbing or horse riding.

Our teachers are hand-picked for their teaching ability and friendly, outgoing personalities. They always take the time to explain things carefully and to bring the language to life. Whether you are at beginner level or already quite fluent, the daily English lessons help you to understand the kind of practical language that is used in everyday situations.

Experience even more by upgrading (升级) your stay with a Specialist Holiday. Pick a favourite hobby or try something completely new and spend a minimum of 15 hours a week focusing on your chosen activity, sharing your hobby with like-minded friends. Choose from Surf Schools, Water Sports, Football Academy, and Dance.

From trips to historic cities and the bright lights of London, to famous museums and a spot of shopping, we have exciting short journeys covered. One full day and one half day short journeys are included in your programme.

Whether you are travelling al one or in a group, you can choose to be met or arrival in the UK. We will then transport you safely to your camp.

1. What is special about Kingswood Camps?

A．It is the world's leading indoor camp.

B．It aims to help children know the UK.

C．It offers educational and exciting activities.

D．It requires students to speak perfect English.

2. Who is the target group of Kingswood Camps?

A．UK young people.

B．International students.

C．New friends.

D．Teachers.

3. What's Paragraph 5 mainly about?

A．What Kingswood Camps' aim is.

B．What activities Kingswood Camps has.

C．What the teachers and lessons are like.

D．How you can get to your camp.

4. What can you do at a Specialist Holiday?

A．Get language training.

B．Enjoy your favourite hobby.

C．Develop your teaching ability.

D．Make a journey to historic cities.

5. What is the purpose of this text?

A．To introduce a camp.

B．To invite people to visit Britain.

C．To advertise several trips to London.

D．To present interesting activities in the UK.

9 . My mom is one of the least wasteful people I know. She always brings her own metal containers to buy basic foods like rice and flour.     1     The key is to be creative about reducing plastic and other waste — just like my mom does at home.

One effective way is to conduct a review of household rubbish. List the rubbish by room or by activity.     2     This examination will help you assess your waste output and identify the ways to reduce it. For example, use reusable bags if you find a lot of plastic bags piling up under your sink.

    3     A lot of low-waste solutions might seem like they require buying special containers like silicone (硅胶) replacements for your Ziplock (带封口的) bags. But you don’t need to spend money on those items. Instead, figure out a way to repurpose the waste. Use empty cans, boxes and other food containers to store leftovers.

Reyond repurposing food containers, explore ways to save household items before throwing them away. Maybe you can mend an old pair of jeans instead of buying a new pair. Or maybe you can cut up old T-shirts into rags, which is what my mom used to do with my dad’s old T-shirts.     4     I don’t feel bad about getting grease (油脂) on them.

Remember: Lowering the amount of waste you create doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing pursuit.     5    

A．You can try reusing your containers.

B．You can live a low-waste lifestyle too.

C．She used to bring reusable bags to the market.

D．You might write “used wipes and paper towels” under “nursery.”

E．I do this now too and the rags are perfect for household cleaning.

F．Find changes that work for you and you’ll be more likely to stick with them.

G．You can try sourcing your own food by growing a garden in your community.