1 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

No Filming at Concerts and Movie Theaters on Phones

“Please, no flash photography.”

Polite requests like this can be found in museums all over the world, but they generally don’t discourage people from taking photos of     1     they feel like. The same goes for concerts, movie theaters and other places     2     people routinely ignore filming restrictions. A new patent from Apple may block that rule-breaking feature—on phones at least.

The patent,     3     (award) to Apple today, outlines a system which would allow venues, like concert halls or theaters, to use an infrared emitter (红外发射器) to remotely disable the camera function on smartphones. According to the patent, infrared beams could be picked up by the camera, and interpreted by the smartphone as a command     4     (block) the user from taking any photos or videos.

Many musicians and performers have banned cellphones from their shows     5     they object to the free footage circulating around the web.     6     this, images still manage to leak out. Prince’s last concert before he passed away in April was supposed to be cellphone-free—it apparently wasn’t. If Apple’s patent     7     (introduce) into iPhone software, with venues putting infrared emitters around their stage, leaks like this could potentially stop happening.

But the patent also raises questions about the sort of power that this technology would be handing over to     8     with more immoral intentions.

Given the company’s rigid support of personal privacy when it comes to police requests to break into users’ devices, it’s possible that Apple just     9     (patent) the technology so that no one else will use it. But who knows, if it does intend to introduce this feature to future operating systems, sales of camcorders, or even GoPros, could get a much-needed boost, as people try to avoid     10     (use) the prohibitive software.

2 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Venice, one of Europe’s most historical, romantic, and unique cities, is in danger of drowning — not in one of its famed canals but under the weight of people. Since 1980, there have been more tourists than residents in Venice and right at present the number     1     (climb) rapidly. As tourists arrive, so do businesses to support them. Small, local stores are being replaced by souvenir shops and fast-food joints; Lately, accommodations     2     (transform) to Airbnbs, driving the cost of living here forever upwards. As locals leave the city, the vacuum (真空) is filled with yet     3     (much) tourist investment and before you know it, the charm and culture of old Venice that attracted us here in the first place has been transformed and lost. It’s no wonder that     4     World Heritage Committee has made a plan to add “Venice and its Lagoon” to its World Heritage in Danger list.

Venice is not alone. Croatian favourite Dubrovnik, with history and cultural excellence, is suffering the same fate. There were 5,000 residents in 1991, but in 2017 only 1,157 people were living in the Old Town     5     it became overcrowded with tourists and businesses flooding to them. Dubrovnik is a convenient stop for cruise ships moving around the waters of the Adriatic and its popularity has grown further following the success of Game of Thrones,     6     was filmed there.

Many popular locations have started to apply strategies     7     (fight) the rising tide of tourism using a combination of legislation and financial instruments. Barcelona is limiting the number of licenses for tourist accommodation     8     reducing the number of cruise ships allowed to dock (停泊). A smaller number of tourists are allowed to visit the Old Town and     9     will need to pay a city entry fee. The tourist tax is being increased to a price higher than     10     (expect). Venice has recently introduced a tourist fee to discourage day-trippers.

3 . Directions: After reading the passage below,fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Your Cat Might Not Be Ignoring You When You Speak

Every cat owner has a story to tell of being blanked by their cat. We call to our cat, it turns away, and some of us might be left     1     (wonder) why we didn’t get a dog. But your cat may be listening after all. More than that, it     2     (care) more than you may think.

A study by French researchers     3     (publish) last month in the journal Animal Cognition found that not only do cats react to what scientists call cat-directed speech — a high-pitched (高音的) voice similar to     4     we talk to babies — they react to who is doing the talking.

“We found that hearing their owners using a high-pitched voice, cats reacted more than when hearing their owner speaking normally to another human adult,” said Charlotte de Mouzon, an author of the study. “But it actually didn’t work when it came from a stranger’s voice.”

    5     studies involving dogs, analyzing cat behavior is difficult, which is part of why humans understand them less. Cats are often so stressed by being in a lab     6     meaningful behavioral observations become impossible. And forget about trying to get a cat     7     (sit) still for an M.R.I. scan (核磁共振扫描) to study its brain function.

So the researchers for the latest study went to the cats’ homes and played recordings of different types of speech and different speakers. At first, there was concern from Dr. de Mouzon and her team for lack of reaction from the cats, but upon analysis of the film recordings, delicate reactions     8     (notice). “It could be just moving an ear or turning the head to the speaker or even freezing what     9     were doing,” Dr. de Mouzon said.

In the study, there were a few cases     10     cats would approach the speaker playing a voice and meow. “In the end, we had really clear gains in the cat’s attention when the owner was using cat-directed speech,” Dr. de Mouzon said.

4 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Why we should record travel moments

Throughout my travels, I have come in search of a sound, not a sight.

Just as some travellers take photos of landscapes or their food, I started collecting sound recordings as an unusual and artistic way to help me remember some of the most stimulating details of my trips. I’ve found that     1     (listen) back to these recordings, I’m able to recall each place and moment in a different way than I can by scrolling through images. It turns out that this may be     2     our brains remember sound differently than other types of senses.

According to Dr James Giordano, a professor at Georgetown University Medical Center, our brains process information and turn it into memories by receiving it     3     our senses, encoding it and storing it — much like a computer. When we receive information and encode it, it is fairly short-term in nature; but when     4     (store), it becomes long-term memory. The information we receive and process with our ears     5     (call) echoic memory (回声记忆). “Think of the brain as a space and time machine. It allows us     6     (transport) ourselves back and forward in time, across spaces,” Giordano said. “Echoic memory is exactly as the name would imply: it is, in fact, an echo of something that     7     (occur).”

According to a study at the University of Iowa named In one ear and out the other, a group of students participated in two experiments in     8     they listened to sounds, looked at images and held objects. In the first experiment, students were asked to recall     9     various stimuli (刺激物) were the same or different after a set period of time. In the second, they were asked to recall the sounds, images and objects after an hour, a day and then a week. In     10     of the instances, students’ recollection of sound was far worse than their visual memories, and the longer the time passed by, the greater the gap became.

5 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Runners and Cyclists Use GPS Mapping to Make Art

Fitness apps and the power of live satellite tracking have allowed runners, cyclists and others to draw hearts, animals, birthday wishes — and even homages to Vermeer — across their local landscapes.

In 1665, Johannes Vermeer dabbed (轻涂) the last drop of paint onto a canvas (帆布) in his Dutch studio,     1     (complete) his masterpiece “Girl with a Pearl Earring.” On an April day 357 years later, Janine Strong slowed her bike to stop, paused her fitness app, and watched as the snaking line of her cycling route     2     (draw) the shape of Vermeer’s masterpiece over the streets of Brooklyn.

Ms. Strong creates     3     has come to be known as “GPS art” — a practice     4     uses the Global Positioning System mapping capabilities of modern phone apps like Strava to create digital drawings using an athlete’s route across the landscape.     5     of biking on a straight path or in circles around a park, Ms. Strong plans her rides in the shapes of birthday cakes, stars, birds, lions — and the occasional Vermeer.

The hobby has grown with the widespread availability of satellite tracking for use by ordinary people, in fitness apps like Nike Run Club or MapMyRide. It is now a popularity on Strava often     6     (refer) to as “Strava art.”

Strava art has existed since that app’s release in 2009, but it experienced a sudden increase in use during the pandemic (疫情). According to Michael Joseph, a senior communications manager at the company, more than three billion activities     7     (upload) to Strava since the beginning of 2020.

To complete her digital vision of “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” Ms. Strong biked almost 50 miles around southern Brooklyn, carefully checking Strava     8     (make) sure that each turn, circle, and straightaway was achieving the iconic earring and head covering of Vermeer’s original. “I always have a big smile on my face     9     it works out and I upload it and it’s done,” she said. “It’s a far     10     (satisfying) feeling.”

6 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

The Office of the Future

The office used to be a place which people went to because they had to. Now the pandemic has exposed the office to competition from remote working, and brought up a host of questions about     1     it should be designed in the future.

Start with what the office is for. In the past,     2     form it took, it was a place for employees to get their work done. Now other conceptions of its role compete for attention. Some think of the office as the new offsite, the purpose of     3     is to get people together so they can do the things that remote working makes harder: establishing deeper relationships or cooperating in real time on specific projects.     4     talk of the office as a destination, a place that has to make the idea of getting out of bed earlier seem attractive. With fewer people coming in and more emphasis on cooperation, fewer desks     5     (assign) to individuals. Instead, there will be more shared areas, or “neighbourhoods”, where people in a team can work together flexibly.     6     (bridge) gaps between teams, one method is to set aside more of the office to display the work of each department, so that people never     7     (encounter) each other on Zoom can see examples of what their colleagues do.

Variety will be another theme, implying the need for flexibility. A best-known furniture firm compares the difference between the pre- and post-pandemic office to that between a hotel and a home. Hotels are largely given over to rooms for individuals,     8     “Home is thought of as a place for a family over years, hosting lots of different activities.”And meeting rooms are likely to be more flexible, too, with desks sliding and walls     9     (remove).

Another theme is data. Managers alike will want more data in order to understand how facilities are being used, and the question of who owns data and what data are needed is about to become     10     (pressing).

Whatever happens, the office won’t be what it was.

7 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper from of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Yang Nan, who was a KTV operation manager, has recently gained a new identity. He has become a temporary workers at a local Hema Fresh, Alibaba’s Retail grocery chain in     1     has become a new trend: workers sharing among companies to offset (抵消) labor shortages caused by coronavirus outbreak.

China’s e-commerce platforms are seeing booming sales     2     more people choose to stay at home and shop online under the impact of the epidemic. Worker’s     3     (delay) return from virus-affected regions and growing orders were leading to labor shortages.

    4     (address) this mismatch in the labor force, Hema has taken the initiative to offer part-time jobs to laid-off employees from other companies. As of February 14, around 2,700 employees from over 40 companies in different industries had joined Hema’s temporary job-sharing plan     5     some quick training.

While job-sharing has helped fill the labor gap for online retailers, jobs requiring experience still lack people. In a statement on February 12, Hema said surging orders made the demand for couriers (快递员) especially urgent even     6       80 percent of its delivery force had returned to work after the holiday.

The participation of employees from car rental companies has partially addressed the problem. Car rental and car-hailing companies such as Shanghai-based Dazhong Chuxing     7     (send) experienced drivers to assist Hema’s delivery services in several cities. This has improved the delivery efficiency since cars can carry more than the motorcycles commonly used by deliverymen.

The labor gap during this special period has made flexible employment a rising star. Among the over 5,000 domestic enterprises investigated, nearly 70 percent were planning to adopt the model. Couriers and salespeople are     8     (common) position in flexible employment.

Flexible employment will bring a major change in China’s human resources supply. Through digital economic platforms, domestic enterprises     9     develop partnerships more efficiently and promote mutually beneficial flows of the labor force, one of the directors in Hema Fresh said, suggesting that third-party service platforms     10     (provide) enterprise and employee information be developed to simplify recruitment.

8 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Something to Boast about

Are your information data safe and reliable?

In an ideal world such data, however informative and exploratory they are,     1    a scientific study is based on should be, if not publicly available, then at least available to other researchers. Sadly, this is not always the case.

Many scientists are still quite unwilling to have their data revealed though attitudes are changing. This attitude,     2    selfish, is understandable.

But sometimes it can cover a darker secret. The statistics presented in a paper may have been controlled to achieve a desired result. The author may, in other words, have cheated. If he releases the data, that cheating will be obvious.

Now Sean Wilner and his colleagues     3    (come) up with a way of reconstructing all the possible data sets that could have given rise to that result, which includes       4     (release) the data. And they call the way CORVIDS (Complete Recovery of Values in Diophantine Systems).

    5     (simplify) the task of spotting abnormal data, CORVIDS turns the possible data sets into a three-dimensional (三维的) chart. This makes any unusual patterns apparent. For example, every     6    (reconstruct) data set may be missing values at one end of the scale. That might make sense occasionally. Generally, though, such a gap would be a red flag. It would suggest either that the statistics were reported incorrectly or     7    there were problems with the fundamental data.

CORVIDS is likely to be     8    immediate value to editors and reviewers at academic journals, who will be able to spot problems with papers early, and so discuss them with the authors. If an unresolvable problem     9    show up, then the technique can be applied to previous work by the author in question, to see if anything systematic is going on.

But its speed makes it a useful first step. If the data sets     10    finds do not show any strange patterns, CORVIDS is unlikely to show oddness, either.

Anyway, the trustworthiness of scientific papers will take a step up with CORVIDS.

10 . Directions: After reading the passage below, foll in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form. For the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.
THE EAGLE
This is the kind of story you need when it seems like the world is out of control

Freedom and Jeff

Freedom and I have been together 10 years this summer. She came in as a baby in 2011 with two     1     (break) wings, thin and dirty. We made the decision to give her a chance at life, so I took her to the vet's office. From then on, I was always around her. We had her in a huge dog carrier with the top off, and it was loaded up with shredded newspaper for her to lay in. I used to sit and talk to her, urging her to live, to fight and she would lay there looking at me with those big brown eyes. We also had to tube feed her for weeks. This went on for 4-6 weeks, and by then she still couldn't stand. It got to the point     2     the decision was made to euthanize (安乐死) her if she couldn't stand in a week.

She was going to be put down that Friday, and I was supposed to come in on that Thursday afternoon. I didn't want to go to the center that Thursday,     3     I couldn't bear the thought of her being euthanized, but I went anyway and when I walked in everyone was grinning from ear to ear. I went immediately back to her cage; and there she was, standing on her own, a big beautiful eagle. She was ready to live. I was just about in tears by then. That was a very good day. We knew she could never fly, so the director asked me to glove train her.

In the spring of 2013, I was diagnosed     4     non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (淋巴瘤). I had stage 3, which is not good, so I wound up doing eight months of chemo (化疗). Lost the hair- the whole bit. I missed a lot of work.     5     I felt good enough, I would go to Sarvey and take Freedom out for walks. Freedom would also come to me in my dreams and help me fight the cancer. This happened time and time again.

Fast forward to November 2013, I went in for my last checkup. I was told that if the cancer was not all gone after eight rounds of chemo, then my last option was     6     stem cell transplant. I went in Monday, and 1 was told that all the cancer was gone. Amazing!

So the first thing I did was     7     (get) up to Sarvey and take the big girl out for a walk. It was misty and cold. I went to her flight, and we went out front to the top of the hill. I hadn’t said a word to Freedom, but somehow she knew. She looked at me and wrapped both her wings around me to where I could feel them     8     (press) in on my back, and she touched my nose with her mouth and     9     (stare) into my eyes, and we just stood there like that for I didn't know how long. That was a magic moment. We     10     (be) soulmates since she came in. This is a very special bird.