1 . Last weekend, I said goodbye to another dear old friend. We had 12 fine years together, but our relationship was becoming dysfunctional(不正常的). Unwanted emissions and serious health problems were the final straw, leaving me with no choice but to make a trip to the knacker’s(收废汽车者的)yard.
I am now car-free for the first time in 20 years, and it feels strange. When I gave up meat, I did so mainly for environmental reasons, and I didn’t miss it at all. I would like to say the same about my car, but I can’t. It was first and foremost a financial decision: keeping the old car on the road was getting too expensive.
But doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is still doing the right thing — I now have a chance to rethink how I move myself and my family around, and can try to find a more environmentally friendly means of transport.
Going car-free is, I think, a lifestyle change that many of us are going to make over the next few years, as car ownership becomes increasingly unnecessary, expensive and socially unacceptable. However, it is easier said than done. Now my car is gone. I still need to get around. But how? I already cycle to work and use public transport when appropriate. But there are some occasions when a car seems to be the only way.
I won’t buy one: I have joined a car-share program and will use taxis more often. I will hire a car if I need to drive a long distance. But then I am still travelling in fossil-fuelled cars(燃油汽车), like when I quit meat and ended up eating more cheese. I fear I may have swapped one environmental problem for another.
I am also afraid to think about the ultimate fate of my car. I have just offloaded more than a ton of metal, plastic, rubber, fabric, electronics, oil and petrol that will end up in a landfill. There are millions of similar vehicles in the UK alone that will have to go somewhere.
Maybe I am overthinking it. According to Charlie Wilson, a climate scientist at the UK’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, getting rid of a private car is no doubt a positive step to reduce CO2 emissions.
He points to research by the OECD’s International Transport Forum. “They showed that moving from a private vehicle fleet(车队)to a shared vehicle fleet can greatly cut the number of vehicles you need to deliver the mobility that we need and want. If that vehicle fleet is electrified, you can also bring CO2 emissions close to zero.”
So in other words, just get rid of your car.
1. What do we know about the author’s car?| A．It was old. | B．It was green. |
| C．It was his first car. | D．It was a second-hand car. |
| A．He did both for the wrong reasons. | B．He thinks both help him save money. |
| C．He considers both are right decisions. | D．He did both out of concern for the environment. |
| A．He may have to spend more on travel. |
| B．His lifestyle might be changed completely. |
| C．He might get bored with public transportation. |
| D．His decision may fail to help the environment. |
| A．It is wise to do away with old private cars. |
| B．It is very easy to deal with old private cars. |
| C．Electric cars are the solution to traffic problems. |
| D．The OECD plays a key role in promoting car-sharing. |
2 . It is likely that anyone who pays attention to fitness trends has heard the term “muscle confusion”. It was invented and popularized in the past decade by the creators of various weight-training programs, particularly P90X.
P90X advises participants to adjust their routines all the time, threading in different combinations of exercises and rarely, if ever, repeating any particular workout. The theory for the inconstancy is that unfamiliar routines should perplex our bodies and muscles and prevent them from getting into a settled state or reaching a training plateau (a time of little change after a period of progress). Instead, our muscles supposedly will respond to the unfamiliar demands of the workouts by continuing to adapt.
That idea has some appeal and many supporters but little independent scientific backing. So, for a new study, which was published in PLOS One, a group of of researchers from Spain and the United States who long had been interested in the impacts and specifics of resistance training decided to try to confuse a few muscles and see what would happen.
They divided 19 healthy young men who already lifted weights into two groups, after testing their muscles’ size and strength and completing an online questionnaire about their interest in and motivation for exercise.
Then one group began a standard, weight-training routine, performing the same exercises in the same order each week. The other group, though, did a different workout each session, picking exercises randomly from a database of 80. These routines continued for eight weeks at a university gym, after which the men returned to the lab for new muscle tests and a repeat of the online questionnaire.
The researchers then compared results and, quite unexpectedly, found that it is no easy job to make muscles feel confused since overall the men’s gains in muscular size and strength were almost exactly the same. Our muscles are not discouraged or bored by unvarying routines, says Brad Schoenfeld, a co-author of the study.
There was one notable difference between the groups, however. Those men completing the ever-changing workouts reported showing more enthusiasm for exercise at the study’s end than the other group. “The differences in drive scores at the end were significant,” he says, suggesting that “from a purely motivational standpoint, variety matters.”
1. The underlined word “perplex” can be replaced by ______.| A．pull | B．relax | C．strengthen. | D．confuse. |
| A．Whether their workouts varied. |
| B．Whether they received two muscle tests. |
| C．Whether exercises were completed at a gym. |
| D．Whether they lifted the same amount of weight. |
| A．It is simple to confuse our muscles. |
| B．Men dislike ever-changing workouts. |
| C．Regular exercise makes one feel enthusiastic. |
| D．Changing workouts helps improve motivation. |
| A．Will P90X benefit health? | B．How can muscles be built? |
| C．Will muscle confusion work? | D．How should workouts be done? |
3 . I have been the senior digital producer at News Corp since August 2018. At the completion of my Bachelor’s degree in Journalism at the University of Queensland, I joined the Sunshine Coast Daily as a journalist. After five years with the paper, I moved to Yahoo7 as a news producer. In 2017, I took up a new role at SBS as its evening news editor. Then I joined News Corp.
As a content producer at News Corp, not a day is the same, which is something I love about my job as it’s never boring. It’s certainly taught me to be flexible as it includes a constant mix of reporting and producing news stories. One minute I’ll be reporting on the national or world issue of the hour, and the next I’ll be focused on making our print stories sing online.
While working hard as a digital producer, I’m sad to see readers’ unwillingness to pay for quality journalism online. There are plenty of fantastic Australian journalists working hard to bring issues to the surface, and many put their reputations on the line to do so. It’s sad that the attitude now is that news should always be free.
Of course among all the resources there’s some fake news. Fake news keeps me on my toes! I always fact-check everything — for my own work and when doing others’ job for a short time. I always take the extra five minutes to do the proper research I need. It will save me time and trouble in the long run.
Finally, a great story must be easy to read and without errors from start to finish, and have the strongest possible headline and photo to sell it. If you’ve worked hard on a story and want to make sure it’s read, think smart and spend time building it properly for online publication. If you spend hours on a story and then rush the last step, you’re wasting your time as no one will see it.
1. What was the author’s first job after graduation like?| A．It required lots of nighttime work. | B．It lasted for only a couple of months. |
| C．It fitted in with her major at university. | D．It was concerned with digital production. |
| A．She has quite flexible working hours. |
| B．She has to move between different tasks. |
| C．She has to report the same issues over and over. |
| D．She focuses more on print stories than online stories. |
| A．They should be more polite. | B．They should be more patient. |
| C．They should be more thankful. | D．They should be more generous. |
| A．Lets me get mad. | B．Makes me watchful. |
| C．Gets myself into trouble. | D．Lets me work with others. |
4 . Molecular gastronomy is nothing new. The art of breaking down a dish into its individual parts has been around for many years. You see it most commonly on cooking shows as the “deconstructed forms of popular meals. For example, a deconstructed Lasagna might consist of tomato soup, cheese curds, and tiny pieces of pasta — they’re all the parts that make up a lasagna, separated and presented on their own. As a cooking method, molecular gastronomy’s meant to take familiar tastes and present them in a new and adventurous way using special equipment and techniques. It’s expensive and time-consuming, but does present a unique dining experience that is impossible to recreate at home. Some ingredients are prepared through freeze-drying or dehydration — it’s very different from baking a loaf of bread or a cake.
French chemist Herve This believes instead of using traditional ingredients to add flavors, we’ll use their chemical compounds to recreate those flavors in other foods. “In 2050,” he said, “there will be many more people on Earth. This means getting enough protein will become a problem and the solution will probably be plant or insect proteins. We need expertise to cook these new ingredients. We are slowly introducing them so the public can use them. This is note by note cooking.”
His argument causes concern: most people, used to proteins from meat or plants, are going to feel uneasy about the new sources. He also shows that the “clean label” movement is harmful to our diets. The idea behind it is a move towards shorter ingredient lists with familiar ingredients. While there are chemical compounds in food that can do us harm, it has led to the public fearing unfamiliar terms on the back of the package. “Take citric acid for example. It is in lemon, so what’s the problem?” he asks.
Whether you agree or disagree, it will take molecular gastronomy some time to truly take over the entire world. Cooking, no matter the method, is a form of chemistry. It makes sense to advance it alongside the other sciences. So, while pizza won’t be delivered flash-frozen or dehydrated any time soon, it may one day in the not-too-distant future.
1. Why is the deconstructed lasagna mentioned in paragraph 1?| A．To encourage people to cook at home. |
| B．To make molecular gastronomy easy to understand. |
| C．To show how people can have a pleasant dining experience. |
| D．To explain how molecular gastronomy is applied in practice. |
| A．The serious lack of expert cooks. |
| B．The growing population of the world. |
| C．The public’s easy acceptance of plant proteins. |
| D．The public’s reduced interest in traditional ingredients. |
| A．It is environment-friendly. | B．It leads to people going on a diet. |
| C．It can mislead people sometimes. | D．It has caused people lots of trouble. |
| A．Carefree. | B．Doubtful. | C．Worried. | D．Positive. |
5 . When I zipped through elementary school way back in the 1950s, in English class we were encouraged to express ourselves through creative writing, public speaking or perhaps taking part in some form of drama. And as we shared our creativity we were improving our communication skills. The emphasis here was how best to convey our thoughts and talents as clearly as possible. Yet it seemed that all spoken word exercises were being taught only from the speaker’s point of view, with little or no time spent teaching the fine art of listening.
And that was a missed opportunity because young children are remarkable listeners. They take in words, ideas and speech patterns, quite often without our awareness. Yet somewhere along the way, we teach them to stop listening. Perhaps they would benefit from lessons in selective silence, concentration, while focusing on knowing how to process all incoming information. Sadly, to the best of my knowledge, no such programs are offered.
We seem to allocate less time to actually listening to one another. There is no question that we are a nation of bad listeners. One reason might be the fact that we have become a much more visual society as result of exposure to television, the Internet and all manner of hand-held wireless devices. We tend to be more self-absorbed and primarily focused on hearing ourselves talk rather than listening to others.
I attended a small family gathering a few years ago and almost everyone except my 86-year-old aunt was constantly texting or checking email on their iPhone. It made me wonder why we had bothered get together in the first place as we were paying so little attention to one another. We could just as easily have had an online get-together.
Listening is indeed a rare and special talent. And one that takes a lot of practice. But once you have gotten comfortable with the technique, you might find your next tete-a-tete a whole lot more meaningful. Simply listening for nuances in conversation will provide so much more context and substance for the words you are hearing. Remember, in order to be interesting, you must first be interested. And in conversation, you are supposed to be listening, not waiting to talk.
1. What is the author’s attitude toward the English class in the 1950s?| A．Carefree. | B．Tolerant. | C．Favorable. | D．Objective. |
| A．We have less time to communicate. | B．We have a sense of self-importance. |
| C．The rapid development of technology. | D．The lack of care and understanding for others. |
| A．His aunt wasn’t good at listening. |
| B．His aunt didn’t like attending family gatherings. |
| C．His family members were engaged in hot discussions. |
| D．His family members showed little interest in one another. |
| A．To lead discussions. | B．To give suggestions. |
| C．To create expectations. | D．To make comparisons. |
6 . 2021-2022 Haynes Bridge Middle School Talent Show
Important Information:
Audition（试演）will be held on Friday 10/29, Saturday 10/30, Sunday 10/31.
Dates for rehearsals（排练）and performances:
1st Rehearsal --- Monday, November 15th 4:15-5:45
Dress Rehearsal --- Wednesday, November 17th 4:15-6:00
Talent Show Performance --- Thursday, November 18th at 6:00-7:30
All participants must be available to attend all dates!
Rules & Regulations:
1. Auditions are open to all HBMS students. Students may enter the talent show as a solo act or a group. (Group can be no more than 6 students.)
2. Acts must be no more than 3 minutes in length. An act that runs longer may be selected under the condition that it be cut down to the 3-minute maximum.
3. The show will be about 1.5 hours long. There will be about 25 acts selected, possibly a few more if some run under the 3-minute maximum.
4. Tryouts（选拔赛）are closed to anyone other than students who are auditioning and the judges. This includes relatives, friends, and other students.
5. Students must be in attendance at school in order to participate in an extracurricular activity. This includes all talent show events.
6. Failure to attend your scheduled audition and any of the scheduled rehearsals --- except in the case of illness or extreme emergency --- will result in you being excluded from the show.
7. If the act has been changed from its original audition without permission, or, if it is not well prepared, it will be dropped from the show.
1. When will the first rehearsal be held?| A．On October 29th. | B．On October 31st. |
| C．On November 15th. | D．On November 18th. |
| A．3 minutes. | B．6 minutes. |
| C．25 minutes. | D．1.5 hours. |
| A．Lucy who will become a member of HBMS next year. |
| B．Frank who changes his program without permission. |
| C．Lisa who has been absent from HBMS recently. |
| D．Bruce who misses the rehearsals due to a cold. |
7 . Trees can benefit the environment in a vast number of ways. Not only do they turn carbon dioxide into oxygen, thus providing the basis of the environment which sustains all life on Earth, but they can also clear the air of pollutants and dangerous substances. Due to this, they are often used by urban planners to reduce air and noise pollution, as well as beautify areas. However, when it comes to their role as pollution-fighters in cities, trees also have some downsides. Firstly, they take a long time to grow and secondly, dense (密集的) urban areas are also not ideal for planting large numbers of trees, and it is often these areas that are most in need of pollution reduction.
That’s why a Mexican startup, BiomiTech, has created an artificial tree called “BioUrban” that can do the work of an entire small forest. The tree, which uses a special microalgae (微藻) developed by BiomiTech to carry out the processes of natural trees, could be one way of improving air quality in areas lacking in green spaces.
Measuring 4.2 meters tall and nearly 3 meters wide, the BioUrban looks something like a cross between a tree and a post-modernist high-rise, with a steel trunk that radiates rising bands of concentric metal. After polluted air has entered the BioUrban, the algae gets to work, using natural processes to turn the pollutants into clean oxygen. The company claims that a single BioUrban could do the work of around 368 real trees —pumping out 2,890 clean breathfuls of air a day.
Mexico is certainly no stranger to air pollution. On average, Mexico City often has a suspended air pollutant density twice the World Health Organization’s maximum recommended amount. It is not uncommon in Mexico City for schools to be closed, and people urged to stay indoors, due to the levels of pollution in the city.
The vast majority of this pollution comes from the city’s estimated 3 million cars. The dense urban nature of the city also means it is often difficult to create meaningfully sized parks in certain areas. It is BiomiTech’s goal to provide viable(切实可行的) solutions for these locations, and to reduce air pollution in certain targeted areas, such as around schools, hospitals and homes for the elderly, as well as places frequented by pedestrians.
Currently, BiomiTech has installed three BioUrban trees across Central and South America One has been “planted” in Puebla, Mexico -- the home of BiomiTech, while the others have been sent to Colombia and Peru. Turkey has recently put in an order for two BioUrbans, while Mexico City and Monterrey in northern Mexico are also eyeing up the project.
Despite the claims of efficiency of the BioUrban, Jaime Ferrier, a founding partner in BiomiTech, is also eager to insist BiomiTech isn’t out to supersede trees in urban areas, only to provide solutions for areas where planting trees is not viable.
1. What does the author mainly want to show in Paragraph 1?| A．Growing trees isn’t that helpful today. | B．Dense urban areas lack trees for a reason. |
| C．Trees are really beneficial to the environment. | D．Using trees to fight pollution in cities has limitations |
| A．It looks exactly like a real tree. | B．It can handle air pollutants efficiently. |
| C．It can root out the urban air pollution. | D．It can’t produce much oxygen at present. |
| A．To tell us about the harm of air pollution. | B．To show such cities really need the BioUrban. |
| C．To draw attention to the city’s pollution problem | D．To explain why BiomiTech invented the BioUrban. |
| A．Involve. | B．Reduce. | C．Replace. | D．Violate. |
8 . Most of us control our technology using our fingers and hands. But for years, people with disabilities have used their eyes as a way to control digital interfaces (界面). Some tablets give disabled people the ability to use the Internet, communicate and even play games using just their eyes as a mouse.
Now, researchers are experimenting with ways to bring eye-tracking technology to general users. At a conference last week scholars presented two new methods for able-bodied people to take advantage of a user interface that has mostly stayed within the field of assistive technology.
One of the most annoying things about writing is mistakes. Researchers at the university of Auckland and the university of Bath suggest using your gaze (凝视) to fix those little mistakes. First, you look at the wrong word you want to fix. Then you start typing the program called Re-Type, identifies the word you’re trying to change based on your gaze and replaces it with whatever you type. Then you just have to press ENTER to continue. It turns your eyeballs into a mouse. The research team has patented Re-Type and wants to turn it into a product.
It has been found that developers spend about 35% of their time looking through their code while they’re working. When they’re removing mistakes from a computer program, they spend about 50% of their time looking for information—something that slows them down greatly. To solve this problem, Weber and his workmates at media design school in New Zealand and the University of Bath used eye-gaze technology to look into whether using their eyes would save developers’ time. The researchers found that relying on one’s gaze was similar in speed to using a keyboard, though it was slower than using a mouse. However, they also found that when given the choice, most developers chose to use their gaze.
Both studies show that eye tracking could be used to increase productivity and one’s gaze could become a compliment (补充物) to the mouse or even replace it altogether.
1. Why does the author mention “disabled people” in Paragraph 1?| A．To help introduce the topic. |
| B．To call on us to help the disabled. |
| C．To inform us of their different abilities. |
| D．To show their ability to use the technology. |
| A．You needn’t type the word you want. |
| B．It prevents you from making mistakes. |
| C．The patent has benefited general users. |
| D．You can replace the mouse with your gaze. |
| A．Consuming time. | B．Developing programs. |
| C．Removing mistakes. | D．Seeking information. |
| A．Eye tracking will help the disabled. |
| B．Your eyeballs will work as a mouse. |
| C．The technology will free us of mistakes. |
| D．Assistive technology will determine our future. |
9 . Artificial intelligence is one of the most concentrated industries in the world, which influences education, criminal justice, hiring and welfare, But so far the industry has escapedregulation (管理), despite affecting the lives of billions of people, even when its products are potentially harmful.
The COVID-19 pandemic has sped this up. Many Al companies are now promoting emotion recognition tools (ERTs) for monitoring remote workers. These systems map the “micro-expressions”in people’s faces from their video cameras. Then they predict internal emotional states drawn from a list of supposedly universal categories: happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, surprise and fear. However, there is scientific doubt whether emotional states are accurately detected at all. “It is not possible to confidently infer happiness from a smile, or sadness from a frown,” a 2019 review stated.
Resistance to this highly controversial (有争议的) technology is growing; the influential.
Brookings Institute suggested ERTs be banned completely from use by law. The European Union becomes the first to attempt a proposal to regulate AI, but the draft AI act has its problems. It would ban most “real-time” biometric ID (生物识别) systems — but fails to define what exactly real-time means.
Clearly, we need far stronger protections and controls that address such harmful effects on society. However, too many policymakers fall into the trap of “enchanted determinism”: the belief that AI systems are magical and superhuman — beyond what we can understand or regulate, yet decisive and reliable enough to make predictions about life-changing decisions. This effect drives a kind of techno-optimism that can directly endanger people’s lives. For example, a review in the British Medical Journal looked at 232 machine-learning algorithms (算法) for predicting outcomes for COVID-19 patients. It found that none of them were fit for clinical use. “I fear that they may have harmed patients,” said one of the authors.
Many countries have strict regulations and thorough testing when developing medicines and vaccines. The same should be true for AI systems, especially those having a direct impact on people’s lives.
1. What can be inferred from paragraph 2?| A．The COVTD-19 pandemic has sped up the regulation of AI. |
| B．The internal emotional states are only limited to six basic categories. |
| C．There is no reliable link between facial expressions and true feelings. |
| D．People’s micro-expressions accurately reveal their internal emotions. |
| A．To show EU’s resistance to AI technology. |
| B．To show the difficulty in regulating AI. |
| C．To prove AI technology should be banned. |
| D．To prove the act is completely ineffective. |
| A．It shakes people’s confidence in technology. |
| B．It enables people to correctly predict future. |
| C．It misleads policymakers in making decisions. |
| D．It helps predict outcomes for COVID-19 patients. |
| A．AI: Products in Demand |
| B．AI: Strict Rules in Place |
| C．AI: Tight Control in Need |
| D．AI: Technology in Danger |
10 . In a weightless, microgravity environment like space, how can someone with sight or mobility problems navigate in the space station? As scientists continue to push the boundaries of spaceflight and the possibility of human life on other planets, how can we build space infrastructure (基础设施) friendly to all humans？
The Mission AstroAccess project aims to answer these questions, starting with a historic parabolic (抛物线的) flight that took off from Long Bench on Oct. 17, 2021. A group of 12 disabled scientists, students, athletes and artists launched into a zero-gravity environment as a first step. To get a better idea of what is needed for more inclusive (包容的) space travel, AstroAccess plans to conduct a series of follow-on parabolic flights after the first launch. On these flights, a plane flies up to an altitude of around 32, 000 feet and then begins a descent at about 4 miles per second. This quick descent creates a microgravity, weightless effect lasting roughly 30 seconds. Afterwards, the plane climbs back up to a stable altitude, and repeats the process again.
The 12 AstroAccess Ambassadors selected for this first microgravity flight included four blind or low-vision Ambassadors; two deaf or hard-of-hearing Ambassadors；and six with mobility disabilities, all carrying out various tasks in the weightless environment. One of the challenges was seeing whether all members could perform basic safety and operational tasks. The crew also tested whether sound beacons (声信标) could be used for blind members to direst themselves, They are also investigating how American Sign Language will be impacted by microgravity.
“My whole career goal is to make the average person able to go to cuter space, where you don’t have to be a crazy trained astronaut with perfect physical abilities and health to visit cuter space,” said Brenda Williamson, head of the AstroAccess logistics committee. “I grew up on Star Trek, so the idea of exploration is really important.”
1. Why is the Mission AstroAccess project carried out？| A．To expose the disabled to zero gravity. |
| B．To train a group of disabled astronauts. |
| C．To involve all humans in spaceflight. |
| D．To build mobile space infrastructure. |
| A．Going down. | B．Going up. | C．Taking off. | D．Touching down. |
| A．They all have mobility problems. |
| B．They communicate by sign language. |
| C．They do scientific research in the lab. |
| D．They perform tasks in weightlessness. |
| A．Meaningful. | B．Successful. |
| C．Unrealistic. | D．Challenging. |
