1 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in each blank with a proper word given in the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one more word than you need.

A.aboard     B. alarmed   C. eventually     D. apparently   E. houses     F. launching G. leading     H. missions   I. rush       J. speedy          K. split

The history of space exploration in China stretches back to 900 A.D., when innovators in the country pioneered the first simple rockets. The China National Space Administration (CNSA) sent the first Chinese astronaut into space in 2003. Today, China is a(n)     1     player in the worldwide space exploration effort. 

In the mid-20th century, China watched as the U.S. and Soviet Union began their     2     to become the first nation on the moon. Both the U.S. and the Soviet Union demonstrated progress towards putting weapons into orbit, which naturally     3     China and other countries. In response to these concerns, China began to pursue space travel in the late 1950s. At first, China had a joint cooperation agreement with the Soviet Union and later China began to chart its own path to space,     4     its first rockets in September 1960. 

Starting in the late 1960s, China began working on space vehicle capable of carrying humans into space. However, the process was not a(n)     5     one. In 1988, China created the Ministry of Aerospace Industry. After a few years, the ministry was     6     up to establish the China National Space Administration and the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.

The first Chinese astronaut to travel to space, Yang Liwei, was sent by the CNSA. In 2003, he rode to orbit     7     a Shenzhou 5 capsule on top of a Long March family rocket. The flight was short – just 21 hours long – but it granted China title of the third country to ever send a human into space and safely return them to Earth.

Today, China’s space program is aimed at     8     sending astronauts to the Moon and beyond. In addition to those types of launches, China has built two space stations: Tiangong 1 and Tiangong 2. Tiangong 1 has been de-orbited, but the second station, Tiangong 2, is still in use and currently     9     a variety of science experiments. A third Chinese space station is planned for launch in the early 2020s. If all goes as planned, the new space station will bring astronauts to orbit for long-term     10     in research stations.

2 . 阅读下面小短文，根据上下文语境，选择合适的单词填入空白处，每个单词只使用一次，每个方框里有一个是多余的单词。

A. advanced     B. build   C. leap   D. determination   E. launch     F. intelligent

Recently, countries around the globe are keen on figuring out unsolved mysteries of the universe and are carrying on projects including sending astronauts into space who are selected and required to do a lot of mental training and     1     enough to get a related college degree. What’s more, they make efforts to     2     satellites orbiting around Earth to transmit data back and make more     3     vehicles for exploration like rockets and spacecrafts. These procedures signal a giant     4     for mankind, resulting in the increasing     5     for NASA space agency to explore space independently even beyond the solar system. At present, the ongoing work is building the International Space Station with astronauts on board.

3 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. conquered   B. crossing   C. embarrass   D. fooling   E. hugely   F. independent G. licensed   H. set     I. subconsciously     J. tripping   K. typical

What makes a problem “hard”?

There is a saying in the filed of artificial intelligence: “Hard things are easy; easy things are hard.” Activities that most people find very hard, such as playing chess or doing highest mathematics, have given way fairly readily to computation, yet many tasks that humans find easy or even trivial resist being     1     by machines.

Twenty-five years ago Garry Kasparov became the first chess grand master to lose to computer. Today computer programs can beat the world’s best players at poker and Go, what music and even pass the famous Turing test     2     people into thinking they are talking another human. Yet computers still struggle to do things most of us human beings find easy, what can     3     even the most advanced machines, such as learning to speak our native tongue or predicting from body language whether a pedestrian is about to cross the street - something that human drivers do     4    .

AI researchers will tell you that chess turned out to be comparatively easy because it follows     5     rules that create a finite number of possible plays. Predicting the intentions of a pedestrian, however, is a more complex and fluid task that is had to reduce to rules. No doubt that is true, but I think there is a bigger lesson in the AI experience that applies to more urgent problems. Let’s call it the vaccine-vaccination paradox.

Anyone familiar with biology is     6     impressed by the scientific work that in under a year yielded astonishingly effective vaccines to fight COVID-19. Yet even several months after the vaccines were     7     for use, it is extremely hard to get all the countries fully vaccinated, especially in some part of the western world. The hard task of creating a vaccine proved relatively easy; the easy task of vaccination has proved very hard.

Maybe it is time to rethink our categories. We call the physical sciences “hard” because they deal with issues that are mostly     8     of the changes of human nature; they often laws that (at least in the right circumstances) yield exact answers. But physics and chemistry will never tell us how to design an effective vaccination program or solve the problem of the     9     pedestrian, in part because they do not help us comprehend human behavior. The social sciences rarely yield exact answers. But that does not make them easy. When it comes to solving real-life problems, it is the supposedly straightforward ones that seem to be     10     us. The vaccine-vaccination paradox suggests that the truly hard sciences are those that involve human behavior.

4 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. administered        B. bumpy             C. declared       D. extremely       AB. issue       AC. limited AD. mass        BC. minimize       BD. pace       CD. rarely       ABC. received

Challenges Ahead With Vaccines Rolled Out

Less than a year after the World Health Organization     1     COVID-19 A global pandemic, people are already rolling up their sleeves for the needle. This is record time for a new vaccine

On December 14, the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID - 19 vaccine made its debut in the United States.

“It signifies hope, healing, restoration of public health and public safety,” said Sarah Lindsay, a nurse in New York who     2     the very first shot.

But that road has proved to be     3    . The reality is that rolling out a new vaccine is logistically (在后勤方面)    4     difficult. A complex distribution system has to be put is place. Coordination between states and the federal government has already been a(n)     5    in the United States.

“If the     6     of the vaccination program continues to move as it is now, it’s going to take years, not months, to vaccinate the American people,” said President-Elect Joe Biden.

Globally, nine vaccines, including four from China, have been approved for either widespread or     7     use in some countries. The European Union has begun a     8     vaccination campaign. Israel and Bahrain have     9     the most doses per 100 people so far.

“It’s really important that we do everything that we can to    10     the spread now with the tools we have,” said Dr. Maria van Kerkhove, the technical lead of COVID - 19 response at the WHO.