1 . Fitness Magazine recently ran an article titled “Five Reasons to Thank Your Workout Partner.” One reason was: “You’ll actually show up if you know someone is waiting for you at the gym, ” while another read: “
So, how do you find a workout partner?
First of all, decide what you want from that person.
You might think about posting what you are looking for on social media, but it probably won’t result in a useful response.
My partner posted her request on the notice board of a local park. Her notice included what kind of training she wanted to do, how many days a week and how many hours she wanted to spend on each session, and her age. It also listed her favorite sports and activities, and provided her phone number.
You and your partner will probably have different skills.
A.Your first meeting may be a little awkward. |
B.A workout partner usually needs to live close by. |
C.You’ll work harder if you train with someone else. |
D.Do you want to be a better athlete in your favorite sport? |
E.How can you write a good “seeking training partner” notice? |
F.Just accept your differences and learn to work with each other. |
G.Any notice for a training partner should include such information. |
2 . Human speech contains more than 2,000 different sounds, from the common “m” and “a” to the rare clicks of some southern African languages. But why are certain sounds more common than others? A ground-breaking, five-year study shows that diet-related changes in human bite led to new speech sounds that are now found in half the world’s languages.
More than 30 years ago, the scholar Charles Hockett noted that speech sounds called labiodentals, such as “f” and “v”, were more common in the languages of societies that ate softer foods. Now a team of researchers led by Damián Blasi at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, has found how and why this trend arose.
They discovered that the upper and lower front teeth of ancient human adults were aligned (对齐), making it hard to produce labiodentals, which are formed by touching the lower lip to the upper teeth. Later, our jaws changed to an overbite structure (结构), making it easier to produce such sounds.
The team showed that this change in bite was connected with the development of agriculture in the Neolithic period. Food became easier to chew at this point. The jawbone didn’t have to do as much work and so didn’t grow to be so large.
Analyses of a language database also confirmed that there was a global change in the sound of world languages after the Neolithic age, with the use of “f” and “v” increasing remarkably during the last few thousand years. These sounds are still not found in the languages of many hunter-gatherer people today.
This research overturns the popular view that all human speech sounds were present when human beings evolved around 300,000 years ago. “The set of speech sounds we use has not necessarily remained stable since the appearance of human beings, but rather the huge variety of speech sounds that we find today is the product of a complex interplay of things like biological change and cultural evolution,” said Steven Moran, a member of the research team.
1. Which aspect of the human speech sound does Damián Blasi’s research focus on?A.Its variety. | B.Its distribution. | C.Its quantity. | D.Its development. |
A.They had fewer upper teeth than lower teeth. |
B.They could not open and close their lips easily. |
C.Their jaws were not conveniently structured. |
D.Their lower front teeth were not large enough. |
A.Supporting evidence for the research results. |
B.Potential application of the research findings. |
C.A further explanation of the research methods. |
D.A reasonable doubt about the research process. |
A.It is key to effective communication. | B.It contributes much to cultural diversity. |
C.It is a complex and dynamic system. | D.It drives the evolution of human beings. |
3 . Sitting in the garden for my friend’s birthday. I felt a buzz (振动) in my pocket. My heart raced when I saw the email sender’s name. The email started off: “Dear Mr Green, thank you for your interest” and “the review process took longer than expected.” It ended with “We are sorry to inform you…” and my vision blurred (模糊). The position—measuring soil quality in the Sahara Desert as part of an undergraduate research programme — had felt like the answer I had spent years looking for.
I had put so much time and emotional energy into applying, and I thought the rejection meant the end of the road for my science career.
So I was shocked when, not long after the email, Professor Mary Devon, who was running the programme, invited me to observe the work being done in her lab. I jumped at the chance, and a few weeks later I was equally shocked—and overjoyed—when she invited me to talk with her about potential projects I could pursue in her lab. What she proposed didn’t seem as exciting as the original project I had applied to, but I was going to give it my all.
I found myself working with a robotics professor on techniques for collecting data from the desert remotely. That project, which I could complete from my sofa instead of in the burning heat of the desert, not only survived the lockdown but worked where traditional methods didn’t. In the end, I had a new scientific interest to pursue.
When I applied to graduate school, I found three programmes promising to allow me to follow my desired research direction. And I applied with the same anxious excitement as before. When I was rejected from one that had seemed like a perfect fit, it was undoubtedly difficult. But this time I had the perspective (视角) to keep it from sending me into panic. It helped that in the end I was accepted into one of the other programmes I was also excited about.
Rather than setting plans in stone, I’ve learned that sometimes I need to take the opportunities that are offered, even if they don’t sound perfect at the time, and make the most of them.
1. How did the author feel upon seeing the email sender’s name?A.Anxious. | B.Angry. | C.Surprised. | D.Settled. |
A.criticise the review process | B.stay longer in the Sahara Desert |
C.apply to the original project again | D.put his heart and soul into the lab work |
A.demanding | B.inspiring | C.misleading | D.amusing |
A.An invitation is a reputation. | B.An innovation is a resolution. |
C.A rejection can be a redirection. | D.A reflection can be a restriction. |
4 . It’s a joyful and stressful time of year in the United States for students and their families as they make decisions about where to attend college. Families often turn to rankings systems to help make a decision.
When I talk to families as a scholar of higher education, they’re often surprised that teaching excellence is not counted in rankings.
Emerging research suggests that courses in lower-ranked universities, on average, scored higher on teaching than courses in higher-ranked universities.
Rankings, however, are only one reason why a low value is placed on teaching in higher education. Administrators often don’t view teaching excellence as a way to increase enrolment (注册) or funding.
What should students and their families do? They should give strong consideration to universities where high-quality teaching is valued, even though the schools may be ranked lower.
A.Higher education has achieved its true potential. |
B.Therefore, it’s not highly valued in hiring or promotion. |
C.Quality teaching has been an important reputation-building factor. |
D.However, the rankings ignore a critical factor: the quality of teaching. |
E.Efforts to improve teaching at the university level have recently emerged. |
F.They’re even more surprised at how teaching is undervalued by universities. |
G.In fact, universities often shift emphasis from teaching to other ranking factors. |
5 . What is life? Like most great questions, this one is easy to ask but difficult to answer. The reason is simple: we know of just one type of life and it’s challenging to do science with a sample size of one. The field of artificial life-called ALife for short — is the systematic attempt to spell out life’s fundamental principles. Many of these practitioners, so-called ALifers, think that somehow making life is the surest way to really understand what life is.
So far no one has convincingly made artificial life. This track record makes ALife a ripe target for criticism, such as declarations of the field’s doubtful scientific value. Alan Smith, a complexity scientist, is tired of such complaints. Asking about “the point” of ALife might be, well, missing the point entirely, he says. “The existence of a living system is not about the use of anything.” Alan says. “Some people ask me, ‘So what’s the worth of artificial life?’ Do you ever think, ‘What is the worth of your grandmother?’”
As much as many ALifers hate emphasizing their research’s applications, the attempts to create artificial life could have practical payoffs. Artificial intelligence may be considered ALife’s cousin in that researchers in both fields are enamored by a concept called open-ended evolution (演化). This is the capacity for a system to create essentially endless complexity, to be a sort of “novelty generator”. The only system known to exhibit this is Earth’s biosphere. If the field of ALife manages to reproduce life’s endless “creativity” in some virtual model, those same principles could give rise to truly inventive machines.
Compared with the developments of Al, advances in ALife are harder to recognize. One reason is that ALife is a field in which the central concept — life itself — is undefined. The lack of agreement among ALifers doesn’t help either. The result is a diverse line of projects that each advance along their unique paths. For better or worse, ALife mirrors the very subject it studies. Its muddled (混乱的) progression is a striking parallel (平行线) to the evolutionary struggles that have shaped Earth biosphere.
Undefined and uncontrolled, ALife drives its followers to repurpose old ideas and generated novelty. It may be, of course, that these characteristics aren’t in any way surprising or singular. They may apply universally to all acts of evolution. Ultimately ALife may be nothing special. But even this dismissal suggests something:perhaps, just like life itself throughout the universe, the rise of ALife will prove unavoidable.
1. Regarding Alan Smith’s defence of ALife, the author is .A.supportive | B.puzzled | C.unconcerned | D.doubtful |
A.Shocked. | B.Protected. | C.Attracted. | D.Challenged. |
A.ALife holds the key to human future. | B.ALife and AI share a common feature. |
C.AI mirrors the developments of ALife. | D.AI speeds up the process of human evolution. |
A.Life Is Undefined. Can AI Be a Way Out? |
B.Life Evolves. Can AI Help ALife Evolve, Too? |
C.Life Is Undefined. Can ALife Be Defined One Day? |
D.Life Evolves. Can Attempts to Create ALife Evolve, Too? |
6 . In recent years, researchers from diverse fields have agreed that short-termism is now a significant problem in industrialised societies. The inability to engage with longer-term causes and consequences leads to some of the world’s most serious problems: climate change, biodiversity collapse, and more. The historian Francis Cole argues that the West has entered a period where “only the present exists, a present characterised at once by the cruelty of the instant and by the boredom of an unending now”.
It has been proved that people have a bias (偏向) towards the present, focusing on loud attractions in the moment at the expense of the health, well-being and financial stability of their future selves or community. In business, this bias surfaces as short-sighted decisions. And on slow-burning problems like climate change, it translates into the unwillingness to make small sacrifices (牺牲) today that could make a major difference tomorrow. Instead, all that matters is next quarter’s profit, or satisfying some other near-term desires.
These biased perspectives cannot be blamed on one single cause. It is fair to say, though, that our psychological biases play a major role. People’s hesitancy to delay satisfaction is the most obvious example, but there are others. One of them is about how the most accessible information in the present affects decisions about the future. For instance, you might hear someone say: “It’s cold this winter, so I needn’t worry about global warming.”Another is that loud and urgent matters are given too much importance, making people ignore longer-term trends that arguably matter more. This is when a pop star draws far more attention than, say, gradual biodiversity decline.
As a psychologist once joked, if aliens (外星人) wanted to weaken humanity, they wouldn’t send ships; they would invent climate change. Indeed, when it comes to environmental transformations, we can develop a form of collective “poor memory”, and each new generation can believe the state of affairs they encounter is nothing out of the ordinary. Older people today, for example, can remember a time with insect-covered car windscreens after long drives. Children, on the other hand, have no idea that insect population has dropped dramatically.
1. The author quotes Francis Cole mainly to ________.A.draw a comparison |
B.introduce a topic |
C.evaluate a statement |
D.highlight a problem |
A.Climate change has been forgotten. |
B.Lessons of history are highly valued. |
C.The human mind is bad at noting slow change. |
D.Humans are unwilling to admit their shortcomings. |
A.Far-sighted thinking matters to humans. |
B.Humans tend to make long-term sacrifices. |
C.Current policies facilitate future decision-making. |
D.Bias towards the present helps reduce near-term desires. |
7 . I was always timid (羞怯的). Being new to the school made me even
After I got home, though. I took my time petting the cat-postponing the pain.
When I finally sat down to
Talking kept me and my neighbours from
But when mum got home from work, I was still
“Well, you’d better get back to work,” she said. “and I want to read it when you’re through.”
Soon after dinner, I handed the essay to mum. I half expected a
The next day, when Ms. Black read the essay to the class, everyone laughed. I could
A.freer | B.shyer | C.calmer | D.happier |
A.nod | B.point | C.listen | D.chat |
A.weep | B.rest | C.write | D.read |
A.learning | B.playing | C.planning | D.laughing |
A.standing out | B.flying by | C.breaking up | D.checking in |
A.celebrating | B.longing | C.complaining | D.warning |
A.lecture | B.reason | C.reward | D.solution |
A.Therefore | B.Moreover | C.Meanwhile | D.Instead |
A.hope | B.imagine | C.tell | D.predict |
A.patience | B.confidence | C.tolerance | D.independence |
8 . The International Olympic Committee(IOC)Young Leaders programme empowers talents to make a positive difference in their communities through sport. Twenty-five Young Leaders are being selected every two years for a four-year period. They promote the Olympic values, spreading the message of sport for good.
To be an IOC Young Leader, you need to first complete the 4-Week Learning Sprint (冲刺).
4-Week Learning Sprint
The 4-Week Learning Sprint, which will take place during November 2023, is a virtual learning programme. The sessions can be attended live or watched back after they are made available on the IOC channel. Each week, participants will be asked to complete a topic﹣specific reflection task.
The 4-Week Learning Sprint is open to anyone, with the target audience aged between 20 and 28.
After successfully completing the 4-Week Learning Sprint, you will need to submit a plan for a sport﹣based project, which you will work on if selected as an IOC Young Leader.
Requirements for the Applicants
•You have successfully completed the 4-Week Learning Sprint.
•You have completed your high school studies.
•You have at least one year of work experience.
•You have strong public speaking skills.
•You are self-motivated and committed.
•You are passionate about creating positive change in your community.
•You are open to being coached and advised by experts and peers (同伴).
•You are able to work with people from different backgrounds.
1. In the 4-Week Learning Sprint, participants will ________.A.create change in their community | B.attend a virtual learning programme |
C.meet people from different backgrounds | D.promote the IOC Young Leaders project |
A.complete a reflection task each week | B.watch sports on the IOC channel |
C.work on a sport-based project | D.coach and advise their peers |
A.Spreading the message of sport for good. | B.Having at least one-year work experience. |
C.Showing great passion for project planning. | D.Committing themselves to becoming an expert. |
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