1 . Over the past 50 years, scientists have been attempting to understand one of the most pressing iss ues in biology — understanding how proteins fold. Recently, DeepMind, a leader in AI, demonstrated their project AlphaFold which won first place in a contest that encourages teams to accurately predict protein structures.

Proteins are one of the main building blocks of life — they help us maintain our health and fuel our bodies with energy. Each protein is made up of one-dimensional-strings of amino acids (氨基酸), and the folding process occurs when the chains fold into a three-dimensional shape to create an active protein. Protein folding is important as the structure of the protein determines its function. However, issues may arise during the folding process as proteins can become unfolded or misfolded, resulting in diseases and life-threatening conditions, such as Parkinsons disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and more.

Being able to predict a proteins shape is incredibly important. It will allow scientists to develop the right medicines and drug molecules (分子) that can join to the protein and possibly fix, or alleviate the consequences. Fixing damaged proteins is the key to solving a wide variety of diseases

DeepMind takes inspiration from the human brain and its pattern-matching abilities, known as neural networks. To train the algorithm (算法), scientists feed it several amino acid chains and the final protein structure. The machine gradually learns by observing the patterns, until it is ready to start making predictions.

Andrei Lupas, an evolutionary biologist in Germany, had been trying to understand a protein structure for a decade. Alpha Fold solved the problem in just thirty minutes!

There are some who question AlphaFold’s abilities, claiming that the algorithm may not work as well in real-life settings where amino acid strings are more complex. But despite this DeepMind’s achievement is definitely a milestone in biology. Not only is DeepMind in the process of applying this to the current COVID-19 pandemic and what proteins are affected but future pandemics and viruses could also be fought with ease!

1. What can we infer from the second paragraph？

A．Unfolded proteins are incredibly active.

B．Some diseases result from damaged proteins.

C．All proteins have the similar shapes.

D．The function of proteins decides their structures.

2. What does the underlined word “alleviate” in paragraph 3 mean？

A．Suffer

B．Cause

C．Bear

D．Ease

3. Why does the author mention Andrei Lupas？

A．To stress the drawback of AlphaFold.

B．To analyze the barriers for AlphaFold

C．To explain the learning process of AlphaFold.

D．To prove the efficiency of AlphaFold.

4. What might be the best title for the text？

A．AI solves the biggest problem in biology

B．AI helps fix damaged proteins

C．AI makes proteins change their shapes

D．AI finds the cause of the illnesses

2 . On Thursday, a Chinese astronaut returned a science class from a space station under construction in the country. The lecture mainly explained how weightlessness affects buoyancy (浮力) and the movement of objects and optics (光学). Primary students from five cities, including Beijing and Hong Kong, interacted with the astronaut. The event was also open to the public through the live stream.

Wang Yaping, the only woman on the station, served as the main instructor, with the support of Ye Guangfu, and the commander-in-chief, Zhai Zhigang, who operated the camera. Wang taught similar lessons while riding one of China’s early experimental stations in 2013.

The three arrived at the station in October with a six-month stay, preparing the main Tianhe module (舱) for the arrival of two additional modules named Mengtian and Wentian, primarily before completion by the end of next year. Wang became the first Chinese female to do EVA last month. She and Zhai spent six hours outside the module installing the equipment and testing it with the robot service arm at the station.

Their mission, Shenzhou 13, has been China’s longest and China's become the third country after Russia and the United States since it first introduced humans into space in 2003. The three are the second crew members of the permanent station, which weighs about 66 tons when completed, much smaller than the International Space Station, which launched the first module in 1998, and weighs about 450 tons. The crew is evaluating the living conditions of Tianhe while installing equipment in preparation for the expansion of the station.

1. What subject did the lecture from the space station focus on?

A．Medicine.

B．Chemistry.

C．Language.

D．Physics.

2. Who had experience in teaching lesson in space station?

A．Ye Guangfu.

B．Wang Yaping.

C．Zhai Zhigang.

D．Mengtian.

3. The underlined word “EVA” in the third paragraph may refer to _______.

A．the robot service arm at the station	B．two additional modules sent to space
C．the movement of objects and optics	D．activities outside Tianhe module

4. Which of the following is a task of the crew in the space station?

A．Fixing the International Space Station.	B．Taking apart some equipment.
C．Getting ready for expanding the station.	D．Measuring the weight of module.

3 . December has already arrived, and here is a list of films recommended by Nicholas Barber, from BBC News.

Don’t Look Up

People are often slow to react to a disaster, whether it’s a climate emergency or a global pandemic—and it was this tendency that prompted Adam McKay (The Big Short, Vice) to make his new film, Don’t Look Up. Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio play two astronomers who have calculated that a “planet killer” comet is going to crash into the Earth, killing everyone. But the US president (Meryl Streep) is just one of the many people who refuse to face the facts. “It’s the idea of a disaster movie in which people don’t necessarily believe that the disaster is coming. I call it a dark comedy,” McKay told The New York Times.

West Side Story

The original 1961 film of West Side Story, directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, is honoured as one of the finest Hollywood musicals ever made. A New York-set movie version of Romeo and Juliet, it was the biggest box-office hit of the year, and went on to win 10 Oscars, including best picture. Why, then, should anyone watch a new take on the same material? Well, one answer is that this West Side Story is directed by Steven Spielberg. Another answer is that Stephen Sondheim has given it his approval. “It’s really terrific,” he said. “And for those of you who know the show, there are going to be some real surprises in it...”

Flee

In this heart-breaking Danish documentary, Jonas Poher Rasmussen interviews his friend Amin about his miserable experiences as an Afghan refugee. Amin remembers his years as a child in Kabul(the capital of Afghan), his family’s flight from the Taliban, his deeply painful life in Moscow... It’s hard to imagine a more important film, but Flee doesn’t just do the vital job of humanising(使人性化) refugees, it also breaks new ground as a documentary.

Other recommended films include: The Matrix Resurrections, Being The Ricardos, Red Rocket, The Lost Daughter, The Tragedy of Macbeth, Nightmare Alley, Spider-Man: No Way Home. Just choose one or several to enjoy with your friends!

1. What does the underlined part “this tendency” refer to?

A．A global pandemic.	B．A climate emergency.
C．People’s slow reaction to disasters.	D．Adam McKay’s new film.

2. Which of the following films is Steven Spielberg in charge of?

A．Don’t Look Up.	B．Romeo and Juliet.
C．West Side Story.	D．Flee.

3. What’s the film Flee based on?

A．A true story.	B．A dark comedy.
C．A natural disaster.	D．A Hollywood musical.

6 . 语法填空

One of the biggest Internet    1    (succeed) is a website called Friends Reunited. Friends Reunited brings together—that is, unites—old friends,    2    used to be close, but have not seen each other for a long time. The website was begun in 1999 by a London couple called Stephen and Julie Pankhurst. Julie wanted to know what her old school friends were doing. Did they all have families    3    their own? Did they still live in the same area?......

Stephen and his business partner, Jason Porter, built    4    website. Slowly, people heard about the site and became interested. By the end of 2000 the site had 3,000 members. Then the website    5    (mention) on a radio programme and afterwards the site became    6    (increase) popular.

How can you find old friends    7    (use) Friends Reunited? It's very easy. People join the website and give information about    8    —the name of their old school, the neighbourhood they lived in, the college they went to, etc. To find an old friend, you type in their name, school …. You may find that your friend is a member of the website, and you can then contact him or her through the website. Most people are very happy    9    (reply) , and people often become friends again as a result. Thanks to Friends United, millions of people    10    (find) each other again to date.

7 . Self-disciplined people are not all outstanding people.    1    Some of them read every day. Some of them never run late. The real difference between an elite person and an ordinary person is that an elite person can manage his or her time well.    2    

What people call self-discipline is in fact self-management. One example is staying fit. Never underestimate someone who is in good shape. Anyone who has ever tried to lose weight knows that it’s not easy.    3    If someone is in good shape, it shows that he knows the principles of staying fit and is able to stick to a plan that uses these principles.

If someone is in good shape, it means that this person is good at managing themselves and their time.    4    It also shows that this person is able to keep persevering and can balance long-term goals with short-term goals. So if someone is in good shape, he or she is more than just healthy.

    5    First of all, set a goal and write down your reasons for wanting to achieve it. Create a list of all the things you need to do to achieve this goal and start to work on them one at a time. With self-discipline, small things in life will no longer trouble you. Only through self-discipline can you truly own your future.

A．How do you learn self-management?

B．That’s where their success comes from.

C．This skill gives you the power to stick to your decisions.

D．But nearly all outstanding people are self-disciplined people.

E．Whether it is natural or acquired, it is a great skill.

F．It’s even harder to avoid putting weight back on.

G．Self-discipline means self control, which is a sign of inner strength.

9 . My favorite thing about autumn is that I have an excuse to make my mom apple cake again. So, I always thought, once my first child was in primary school, I would enjoy taking part in bake sale fundraisers.

Instead, I fear them. I do not imagine that funds for football uniforms appear out of thin air. So I dutifully show up to each bake sale with home-made cakes.

Still, bake sales trouble me. They feel like a holdover from a time when many moms didn’t work and it was supposed they had a lot of time to bake cookies for children. Women who don't have the time to bake at home and who bring packaged cookies are seen as breaking a great American tradition.

What are we selling at bake sales, anyway? Are we advertising our baking skills? Or is the goal to raise money? Children happily buy cupcakes from a store, so why do we care that nobody in a home kitchen worked late into the night to make them?

Actually, if you look closely at the economics, they just don’t add up. We might spend $10 on ingredients to make 18 cupcakes that sell for $2 each. Think of this $26 as profit supposing that the hours spent shopping and baking and packing things up and taking them to school, and possibly selling and cleaning up afterward, don’t have value. Volunteering your time and energy to something important is worth praising. But neither the ingredients nor the work is “free”, and many parents can't afford to give them away.

This is not an attack against people who love to make banana bread and have the time to do so. But most people do not. Most parents struggle to get even the most basic parenting tasks finished in the limited time between the end of the workday and children’s bedtimes. It feels crazy to take time away from helping with homework, or actually making dinner, to spend hours on a fundraiser.

1. What can we learn about the author?

A．She loves baking.	B．She is active at school.
C．She likes home-made food.	D．She is against fundraising.

2. Why do bake sales trouble the author?

A．She has to buy cakes in stores.	B．Home-made baking is a burden.
C．Some moms don’t attend bake sales.	D．Moms are showing off their baking skills.

3. What does the example in Paragraph 5 show?

A．Ingredients are too expensive.	B．It is uneconomical to bake at home.
C．It is hard to raise money at bake sales.	D．Ready-made cakes are popular at school.

4. What does the author think of the time involved in baking?

A．It is increasing.	B．It is rewarding.
C．It is highly valued.	D．It is unavailable for many.