Hettie’s eyes fell on a magazine she hadn’t noticed before in her bag. She took it out and read the Post-it note her mom had stuck to the cover.
Page 8! So Cool!
Love, Mom
Hettie smiled. Mom always slipped a little surprise into her bag. Hettie jumped onto her bed and wrapped herself in the blanket, opening the magazine to page eight straight. There was a huge ad: “DO YOU WANNA BE CALIFORNIA LEE’S BEST FRIEND FOREVER? Make a video telling us how much you love her and you could win a day with Pop Teen’s rising star CALIFORNIA LEE!”
Hettie tried to see the Cally she had known through the makeup and the fancy clothes. Her eyes sparkled (闪烁) the same emerald green as they had in Hettie’s backyard when Cally told her the big news. “I got the part!” She sang out as she bounced up and down on the swing. Hettie had been excited, too. Cally had really wanted this part. It was in Rock Club, a TV musical on Pop Teen. It was, she said, how all of Pop Teen Channel’s stars started out.
Then the musical came out and Cally, now California Lee, was busy all the time. The last time the two girls had seen each other was at Cally’s birthday party. Even in her best dress and new shoes, Hettie felt out of place. Most of the kids at the party were actors. Big boxes with massive bows covered the birthday present table. Overwhelmed and feeling shy, Hettie took her gift—a flashlight, and sat in a corner. No one came to look for her until her mom arrived to pick her up. Soon after, Cally moved to Los Angeles with her family.
The next day, Hettie arrived at school earlier than usual, with the magazine under her arm, her book bag over her shoulder. After making sure that no one in the schoolyard was watching, Hettie dropped her bag on the ground and pulled out her phone.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
She held the phone as far as she could from her face and pressed record.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Hettie’s heart sank as she realized that she wasn’t the winner.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________2 . When you try a new restaurant or book a hotel, do you consider the online reviews? Do you submit online reviews yourself? Do you pay attention if they are filtered (过滤)? Does that impact your own online review submissions?
In 2010, Yelp shared a video to help users understand how its review filter works and why it was necessary. In recently published research, T. Ravichandran, Ph. D. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and his team compared reviews of over 1,000 restaurants on Yelp to those same restaurants on TripAdvisor, which did not openly share its review filter policies. They found that the number of reviews submitted to Yelp decreased. Those submissions were increasingly negative and shorter in length compared to TripAdvisor. Also, the more positive a review, the shorter it was.
“Platforms are pressured to have content guidelines and take measures to prevent fraud (欺诈) and ensure that reviews are reliable and helpful,” said Ravichandran. Platforms use advanced software to flag and filter reviews. Once a review is flagged, it is filtered out and not displayed, and it is not factored into the overall rating for a business. “However, most platforms do not openly disclose their policies, leading consumers to suspect that reviews are controlled to increase profit by filtering so-called dishonest content,” Ravichandran added.
Whether or not to disclose review filters is a critical decision for platforms with many considerations. Users may put less time and effort into their reviews if they suspect that they have a significant chance of being filtered, or they may do the opposite to make their reviews less likely to be filtered. Since most false reviews are overly positive, users may assume that positive reviews are most likely to be filtered and act accordingly.
“Review moderation(审核) openness comes at a cost,”said Ravichandran. “Although openness helps to position a platform as fair toward advertisers, the resultant decrease in the number of reviews submitted impacts the platform’s usefulness to consumers.” Online reviews pose great opportunity for firms, but also raise complex questions. Platforms must earn the trust of users without sacrificing engagement.
1. What did Ravichandran’s research find?| A．Positive submissions to Yelp went up. |
| B．TripAdvisor adopted better filter policies. |
| C．Reviews on TripAdvisor dropped in number. |
| D．Yelp’s practice discouraged longer reviews. |
| A．To increase net profit. | B．To protect user privacy. |
| C．To guarantee review reliability. | D．To improve business reputation. |
| A．Users. | B．Reviews. | C．Considerations. | D．Platforms. |
| A．Enhance User Trust Through Review Moderation |
| B．To Filter Online Reviews? Think Before You Start |
| C．How Review Moderation Openness Shapes User Conduct |
| D．Online Reviews: Filter the Fraud, But Don’t Tell Us How |
3 . I was 10 when I saw my first total solar eclipse (日食). It was 1979 and we were staying in Canada, where my dad worked for a time as a welder (焊工). He was a great science enthusiast and had been talking about this eclipse for what seemed like years. He just didn’t tell me and my brother that we would have to get up at daybreak and head out into the freezing February weather to experience this event.
Dad told us we were lucky even to be near the path of totality, and noted that unless we were prepared to travel extensively, our next chance to see a total solar eclipse likely wouldn’t happen until the 21st century. So, we rode in moody silence out to some field where loads of other people were wandering about, waiting in the cold for their moment in the sun’s absence.
My brother complained that we wouldn’t really be able to look at the eclipse without being blinded. But my dad, who generally thought of everything, produced two awkward welding masks (面罩), which he fitted to our heads. The masks preserved our eyesight, and also quietened our grousing. It’s hard to know which feature of the masks my dad appreciated more.
Soon, it didn’t matter. The moon passed between us and the sun. The lights of the world dimmed, then went dark. There was a collective “Oooooh!” from the crowd. Some people even screamed. My brother simply said, “Whoa.” And he spoke for all of us down through the ages who have been struck by the awe and wonder of a total solar eclipse. You can read more about humanity’s encounters with some of the great eclipses in history with our story on page 40.
My dad did not live to see another eclipse, but he’ll be with me in spirit when I view the next one this April, right around the time you’re reading this. I hope you get to see it, too.
Stephen C. George, Editorial Director
Feel free to send comments and questions to editorial@discovermagazine.com.
1. How did the author probably feel about watching the eclipse at first?| A．Unwilling. | B．Enthusiastic. | C．Worried. | D．Nervous. |
| A．Fear. | B．Doubts. | C．Complaining. | D．Screaming. |
| A．By using the setting. | B．By adding sensory details. |
| C．By stating a point of view. | D．By drawing a comparison. |
| A．A blog. | B．An editor’s note. | C．A travel journal. . | D．A report. |
On the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau (高原), the Sanjiangyuan Region, which has the
Little known to the outsiders, Jianzuo Village, located near the headwaters of the Lancang River, is the first community on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau to lead a zero-waste life. People gave up using plastic products
5 . The Surprising Strength of “Weak” Social Ties
It’s long been known that a community of supportive relationships improves our quality of life and can even help us recover from illness.
Claire gets cheered up by going to the library and chatting with her favorite librarian every week. Sherry gets great joy from her Sunday breakfasts at a local diner because the manager and her favorite waitress are nice to her.
When we feel blue or lonely, we tend to turn down social engagements, either to avoid the imagined embarrassment of being the only sad person in a group or because socializing with people we don’t know well can be awkward at first.
| A．All of those connections matter — and so do you |
| B．Harvard researcher Hanne Collins discovered something new |
| C．Even those we meet only once can leave a lasting impression |
| D．Our shared kindness and familiarity offer me a sense of community |
| E．Interacting with the weak ties encourages us to behave more professionally |
| F．But saying yes, despite the hesitation, offers an opportunity to feel less lonely |
| G．So notice, pay attention to, and be grateful for your big, wide world of loose social ties |
6 . Scientists looking to uncover the mysteries of the underwater world have more valuable information thanks to an international team that has produced a list of species confirmed or expected to produce sounds underwater.
Led by Audrey Looby from the University of Florida, the Global Library of Underwater Biological Sounds working group collaborated with the World Register of Marine Species to document 729 mammals (哺乳动物), fishes, and invertebrates (无脊椎动物) that produce active or passive sounds. In addition, the list includes another 21,911 species that are considered to likely produce sounds.
“With more than 70% of the Earth’s surface covered by water, most of the planet’s habitats are aquatic, and there is a misconception that most aquatic organisms are silent. The newly published comprehensive digital database on what animals are known to make sounds is the first of its kind and can revolutionize marine and aquatic science,” the researchers said.
“Listening to underwater sounds can reveal a lot of information about the species that produce them and is useful for a variety of applications, ranging from fisheries management, invasive species detection to assessing human environmental impacts,” said Looby, who also co-created FishSounds, which offers a collection of fish sound production research records.
The team’s research was published in Scientific Data and involved 19 authors from six countries. “Understanding how marine species interact with their environments is of global importance, and this data being freely available is a major step toward that goal,” said Kieran Cox, a member of the research team.
“Most people are familiar with whale or dolphin sounds but are often surprised to learn that many fishes and invertebrates use sounds to communicate, too,” Looby said. “Our database helps demonstrate how widespread underwater sound production really is across a variety of animals, but we still have a lot to learn.”
1. Why is the data listed in paragraph 2?| A．To show the types of biological sounds. |
| B．To show the sum of documents on animals. |
| C．To show the species of underwater animals. |
| D．To show the number of the sound-producing species. |
| A．Many mammals can live in water. | B．Most fishes cannot make sounds. |
| C．Different species can communicate. | D．Ocean animals can’t get onto the land. |
| A．To document ocean animals’ sounds. |
| B．To set up a free database for scientists. |
| C．To learn how ocean animals communicate. |
| D．To publish the team’s research in Scientific Data. |
| A．To call on people to protect ocean animals. |
| B．To introduce the finding of a research team. |
| C．To list the animals that can produce sounds. |
| D．To describe the mysterious underwater world. |
7 . Next time you’re with a loved one, consider trying an awkward experiment: Take a moment of silence and gaze into each others eyes. By the time you reach about four seconds, things will probably start to feel uncomfortable. Yet the precise reason why is tricky to pin down with a scientific lens.
“There’s something in that looking that has meaning, sustainable meaning,” says Joy Hirsch, a neuroscientist at Yale School of Medicine, “The mechanism for connection has never really been understood.”
Several years ago, her team figured out how to adapt an existing neuroimaging (神经成像) tool called functional near-infrared spectroscopy(fNIRS), for the purpose of analyzing the brains of two people during natural interactions. With these brain imaging tools, Hirsch is expanding the social neuroscience field into what she refers to as “the neuroscience of two.”
In the research, her teams have revealed a powerful region of the brain that is associated with eye contact. Specifically, fNIRS experiments have demonstrated that in-person eye contact seems to be connected to a brain part associated with language production and reception, as well as the primary sensory cortex (额叶), which is fundamental to processing sensations like physical touch, pain and temperature. In simple terms: “The eyes have privileged access to large parts of the brain,” says Hirsch.
Hirsch’s experiments have also revealed the unique tendency for two brains to synchronize (同步) during eye contact and communication. A research of Dartmouth College has similarly highlighted how expansion of pupils (瞳孔) can synchronize during a conversation to indicate “shared attention” between two people, according to a 2021 study. Interestingly, those researchers found that precise moments of shared eye contact actually decrease the pupil synchrony between two people, perhaps in a beneficial way.
Ultimately, each of these studies sparks just as many new questions as it answers - a reality that is perfectly fine with Hirsch.“Yes indeed, the old philosophers were right.” she says. “Faces and brains work together like locks and keys.”
1. What do we know about the awkward experiment from the first two paragraphs?| A．It will be a long time before you feel comfortable. | B．You can sense something from each other’s eyes. |
| C．Scientists have explained the reason for it clearly. | D．There is no link between eye contact and feelings. |
| A．Why the brain responds to eye contact easily. | B．How the language is produced in the brain. |
| C．What the function of primary sensory cortex is. | D．How the regions of the brain are shaped. |
| A．The interaction is fun. | B．The conversation is interrupted. |
| C．The two feel connected. | D．A new conversations to start. |
| A．To further prove her findings are quite true. | B．To emphasize the importance of their research. |
| C．To show the complexity of the phenomenon. | D．To stimulate people’s interest in further study. |
Have you ever been so depressed that you can’t sleep? You also can’t eat. You can’t read. You have no friends to call up and nothing is good on TV. So you sigh, press your face down harder into your pillow, and shed a few tears.
This was my life two years ago. I had just turned 14 but already found life a struggle. As I lay in my bed one Saturday, Mom peeked (瞄) into my room to make her regular “Is Emily still alive” check. I knew that if I spent more time like this, she would begin dusting me. After suggesting a few things for me to do that I immediately rejected, Mom made her move, “Emily! Get dressed! I’m taking the dog out for a walk, and you’re coming with me!” “Why?” I protested. “Because it’ll make you feel better.”
The thought of moving was unbearable. I felt as if all of my body parts were weighed down by tons of bricks I couldn’t remember the last time I had gone outside. Somehow I found the strength to slip on a pair of jeans and a black sweatshirt. Mom was waiting at the door, leash (狗绳) in hand and dog at her side.
Then, we stepped outside. It was a warm March day and it had been a long time since the warmth of the sun had touched my cheeks. Mom led the dog and me down some dirt paths, through a big field and reached Halsey Pond. But the signs of spring had yet to appear and the scene was rather colorless throughout the entire journey.
“I’m tired! It’s boring, Mom! When can we go home?” “Not yet,” she’d say. Mom stopped to say hi to every jogger, dog walker, runner, and bicyclist who passed us. Sometimes she would get into a conversation. They would talk about weather, dogs, and all small talk topics. She seemed happy, and was literally glowing (容光焕发). After walking for what seemed an age, Mom finally said it was time to go back.
注意：1.续写词数应为150左右；
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Paragraph 1: When I got home, a new feeling seemed to be awakened.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Paragraph 2: A new Saturday found me asking Mom if I could take the dog out.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________9 . While most of us work hard to shine at the presentations and speeches we can prepare for, we may find impromptu (即兴的) communication scary. Actually, you just need to learn specific skills to communicate effectively when put on the spot. Here are a few pointers.
Organize Your Thoughts. When making formal presentations, most people give a logical structure that audiences can easily follow. But few of us adequately organize thoughts in impromptu situations.
Listen as well as you talk.
Dare to be dull. Don’t feel you need to give a standout performance. One popular saying applies here, “
The real problem in impromptu communication isn’t an inability to communicate.
| A．Identify a communication goal. |
| B．He knows most who speaks least. |
| C．Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. |
| D．It’s being so nervous that we struggle with the talks. |
| E．We may assume that it’s impossible to do so on the fly. |
| F．A clear structure enhances comprehension and engagement. |
| G．Most people obsess over what to say during impromptu encounters. |
Mr. Thompson dragged his feet slowly down the hallway, burdened with the weight of a hundred ungraded papers on his shoulders. It was Teacher’s Day, and colorful posters were pasted around. Despite scattered (零散的) “Happy Teacher’s Day” greetings from some students along the way, Mr. Thompson felt a familiar emptiness settle in his heart. Teacher’s Day usually meant an apple and a chorus of “thank yous” from his own class. Today, he expected nothing different.
The morning had been quite tough, filled with a host of math problems and forgotten homework excuses. One troublemaker in the class had again “accidentally” set his biology project on fire(thankfully contained). By the time the lunch bell rang sharply in the air, Mr. Thompson felt like a deflated (泄气的) balloon, the air of enthusiasm slowly leaking out of him.
After lunch, he entered his classroom. The whole class was in chaos. The usual pre-class chatter sounded like a dull roar in his ears. All of a sudden, a scream cut through the air. Mr. Thompson’s heart was in his mouth. Fights were a rare, but terrifying occurrence in his classroom. He cast his worn leather briefcase onto his desk, the forgotten pack of papers scattering like frightened pigeons.
“What in the world is going on here?”
His voice hoarse (嘶哑的) from shouting, Mr. Thompson rushed forward, envisioning images of black eyes and bloody noses. He struggled to make his way through the desks, the classroom suddenly deathly quiet.
“Break it up! Now!” he shouted, trying to control the situation.
Finally, he reached the center of the apparent fight, only to find himself staring at...a far more delicate, fragrant affair. Ethan, the class clown, was on one knee with a bunch of sunflowers and smiling at him.
Para 1: The whole class looked at Mr. Thompson excitedly.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Para 2: By the end of the day, Mr. Thompson’s voice was hoarse from laughter.
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