1 . A new study finds that less than seven percent of the adult population in the US have what health experts consider good cardiometabolic (心脏代谢) health.
Using information on roughly 55,000 people over the age of 20, the results show just 6.8 percent of American adults reached optimal (最佳的) levels of health in 2018. Moreover, the study found American health has been in sharp decline over the last 20 years. In 1999, one in three adults had a healthy weight. By 2018, that number fell to just one in four Americans. At the same time, three in five people were free of diabetes in 1999. By 2018, however, more than six in ten adults had the condition!
“These numbers are striking. It’s deeply problematic that in the United States, fewer than 1 in 15 adults have optimal cardiometabolic health,” says Meghan O’Hearn, one of the researchers from Tufts University. “We need a complete overhaul (革新) of our healthcare system, food system, and living conditions, because this is a crisis for everyone.”
Instead of just looking for signs of disease, the team focused their study on the signs of good, moderate, and poor cardiometabolic health. “Disease is not the only problem,” O’Hearn explains. “We don’t just want to be free of disease. We want to achieve optimal health and well-being.”
Researchers also found large health gaps between US adults of different genders, ages, and education levels. Specifically, the study found Americans with less education were half as likely to be in peak cardiometabolic health.
O’Hearn adds, “Identifying these individuals and addressing their health conditions and lifestyle early is critical to reducing growing healthcare burdens. Its impacts on national healthcare spending and the financial health of the entire economy are enormous. And these conditions are largely preventable. We have the public health and clinical interventions and policies to be able to address these problems.”
1. What percentage of American adults had optimal cardiometabolic health in 2018?| A．Over 7 percent. | B．Just 6.8 percent. |
| C．Around 33 percent. | D．About 60 percent. |
| A．They’re unreal. | B．They’re acceptable. |
| C．They’re expected. | D．They’re shocking. |
| A．To find the big age gap. | B．To help people keep fit. |
| C．To develop new drugs. | D．To earn lots of profits. |
| A．Joint effort is needed to improve public health. |
| B．Economic growth affects personal health condition. |
| C．America saw a slow decrease in healthcare costs. |
| D．Rich people tend to suffer from health problems. |
2 . Research among 2,000 adults showed that about four out of five find small talk with colleagues in the office annoying, especially if it involves football or children. Talking about the weather, or asking someone how their weekend was, was also listed among annoying subjects, according to the study by Hyper Recruitment Solutions.
Most of those surveyed said they had experienced rudeness at work, including being reprimanded（训斥）in front of colleagues or personal remarks about their clothes or possessions.
Half of those asked admitted to avoiding making coffee for themselves at work so they didn’t have to make one for colleagues. A report said, “While employees are direct on some issues, they’d rather avoid the situation completely than feel it is a duty to make coffee for others.”
The report also suggested most employees found that physical contact in the workplace was acceptable, including a kiss on the cheek, high fives or hugs. Ricky Martin, founder of Hyper Recruitment Solutions, said, “We often hear and read in the media how physical contact at work isn’t acceptable, yet the results suggest otherwise. Of course, physical contact isn’t always appropriate or well received, so I would advise it should be essential to be aware of factors such as personality, religion and culture.”
What might be regarded as friendly in one culture may be considered as deeply offensive in another. However, as the results suggest, should the relationship be there and requited（回报）, it shouldn’t be frowned upon（反对）for colleagues to hug, give high fives or give one another a pat on the back.
1. Among 2,000 adults, how many are unwilling to make small talk？| A．About 1,600. | B．About 2,000. |
| C．About half of them. | D．About one third of them. |
| A．They find it is meaningless. |
| B．They are not warmhearted enough. |
| C．They have some unpleasant experiences. |
| D．They want to defend themselves from any risk. |
| A．It shows people are always straightforward. |
| B．It indicates peoples rude behavior in the office. |
| C．It suggests peoples relationship always gets no return. |
| D．It shows physical contact isn’t always favorable. |
| A．Continue to avoid it. |
| B．Hug the colleagues. |
| C．Accept it regardless of the results. |
| D．Learn to accept it lightheartedly. |
3 . Most online fraud(诈骗) involves identity theft Passwords help. But many can be guessed. Newer phones, tablets, laptops and desktop computers often have strengthened security with fingerprint and facial recognition. But these can be imitated. That is why a new approach, behavioural biometrics(行为生物识别) is gaining ground.
It relies on the wealth of measurements made by today’s devices. These include data from sensors that reveal how people hold their phones when using them, how they carry them and even the way they walk. Touchscreens, keyboards and mice can be monitored(监测) to show the distinctive ways in which someone’s fingers and hands move. These features can then be used to determine whether someone attempting to make a deal is likely to be the device’s habitual user.
“Behavioural biometrics make it possible to identify an individual’s unique motion fingerprint”, says John Whaley, head of Unifyid, a firm in Silicon Valley that is involved in the field. When coupled with information about a user’s finger pressure and speed on the touchscreen, as well as a device’s regular places of use—as revealed by its GPS unit—that user’s identity can be pretty well determined.
Used wisely, behavioural biometrics could be a great benefit. In fact, Unifyid and an unnamed car company are even developing a system that unlocks the doors of a vehicle once the pace of the driver, as measured by his phone, is recognized. Used unwisely, however, the system would become yet another electronic spy on people’s privacy, permitting complete strangers to monitor your every action, from the moment you reach for your phone in the morning, to when you throw it on the floor at night.
1. What is behavioural biometrics for?| A．To identify network crime | B．To ensure network security. |
| C．To track online fraud. | D．To gather online data. |
| A．By limiting and discovering users’ passwords. |
| B．By spotting and revealing where a device is regularly used. |
| C．By offering and analyzing users’ facial features. |
| D．By monitoring and comparing how users interact with devices. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Concerned | C．Favorable. | D．Objective. |
| A．Science and technology. | B．Health and wealth. |
| C．Finance and economics | D．Books and arts |
4 . Japan’s biggest airline is betting that the future of travel isn’t traveling at all. For the last month, a married couple has been interacting with a robot—called an Avatar—that’s controlled by their daughter hundreds of miles away. Made by ANA Holdings Inc., it looks like a vacuum cleaner with an iPad attached. But the screen displays the daughter’s face as they chat, and its wheels let her move about the house as though she’s really there.
“Virtual travel” is nothing new, of course. Storytellers, travel writers and artists have been stimulating the senses of armchair tourists for centuries. It’s only in recent decades that frequent, safe travel has become available to the non- wealthy.
Yet even as the world’s middle classes climb out of the armchair and into economy-class seat, there are signs of a post-travel society emerging. Concerns about environmental sustainability cause loss to airlines which release much carbon. And the aging of abundant societies is both restricting physical travel and creating demand for alternative ways to experience the world. For the travel industry, virtual reality offers an attractive response to these trends.
Of course, new technologies encourage far-out claims. ANA doesn’t plan to start selling Avatars until next year. Profits, too, will probably be difficult to make: By one estimate, the global market for this kind of technology will be worth only about $300 million by 2023. By contrast, ANA’s traditional travel business brought in more than $19 billion last year.
But if the business value for virtual vacations is still weak, the market for technologies that bridge physical distances between families and coworkers seems likely to only expand. ANA’s robots may not replace its airplanes any time soon, but they’ll almost certainly be a part of travel’s high-tech future.
1. Why does the author use the example of a couple interacting with a robot?| A．To show the Japanese are crazy about travel. |
| B．To indicate virtual travel begins to enter people’s real life. |
| C．To show the couple are very enthusiastic over robots. |
| D．To express the close relationship between the couple and their daughter. |
| A．Storytellers, travel writers and artists have been using it for centuries. |
| B．Frequent and safe travel has become available to the ordinary people. |
| C．People are worried about the air pollution caused by airlines. |
| D．More and more people lose interest in travel. |
| A．Visibility. | B．Availability. |
| C．insignificance. | D．Continuousness |
| A．Your Next Travel May Be Virtual. |
| B．Easy Travel in the Future. |
| C．Virtual Travel Benefits. |
| D．Air Travel Disappearing. |
5 . When I set out to drop my dad at the airport, it was dark and dull. It started to rain on the way. When I left the airport, the visibility wasn’t clear because of the drops of rain. It was before 6 am.
Even though the road conditions were poor, I drove at my normal speed. I was angry with the more cautious drivers ahead of me that were delaying my drive. The exit ramp (坡道) to the highway was a tight spiral (急盘旋). It is a dangerous spot in good weather and totally scary when the weather is miserable or it is dark. But I didn’t want to slow down and arrive home any later than necessary. I drove down the ramp too fast. The road was wet and my car slid, landing face down on the ramp.
I didn’t like to drive by myself at the time and had insisted on taking my husband and son with me on the trip. Thankfully, I was alone in the car. My accident was slight. In fact, I was lucky enough not to have a single scratch. I started to shake when thinking the injuries my son would have suffered had he been in the backseat of that car with no seatbelt when it rolled. After the car rolled three times, I found my mobile phone was lost in a pile of small things that were all lying in the bottom of the car. A lady was kind enough to let me borrow her mobile phone, but without the numbers pre-programmed (预编的), who could I call? I was lucky enough to remember my father’s mobile phone number, and fortunate that he hadn’t yet got on his plane.
You never know when an accident will happen. As a driver, I will keep safety in mind by obeying all traffic laws and have safe-driving habits, especially in bad weather. Insist your children always wear their seatbelts. Life is a journey and everyone should value it and enjoy the ride.
1. What happened to the author’s car?| A．It crashed into another one. |
| B．It lay upside down after the slide |
| C．It slid and stopped in the middle or the highway. |
| D．It was out of control and struck a tree by the side of the ramp. |
| A．The author. | B．The author’s son. |
| C．The author’s husband. | D．The author’s father. |
| A．She knew her father hadn’t got on the plane. |
| B．Her husband was too busy to answer her phone. |
| C．Her husband’s mobile phone was out of service at that time. |
| D．She only brought her father’s phone number back to her mind. |
| A．To summarize her bad driving habits. |
| B．To analyze the cause of the accident. |
| C．To put forward some advice for others. |
| D．To make some comments on traffic laws. |
6 . Seaweed farming, which has a long history in Asia, is spreading around the globe. Over the past 30 years, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, world production of seaweed has boomed more than six times to over 35 million tonnes, with emerging markets in the Americas, Europe and Africa. The most recent numbers, from 2019, show that North America produces some 23,000 tonnes of wet seaweed per year.
Cascadia, which was founded in 2019, claims to be the largest cultivator in North America, with a harvest of 200 wet tonnes so far this year. Farms, small and large, are popping up fast. Many see this expansion as a good news story. The Global Seaweed Coalition (GSC)—a research and industry group—says humanity could, and should, be harvesting 15 times more seaweed by 2050. Coalition member Vincent Doumeizel is a senior adviser on oceans to a United Nations program working toward corporate sustainability. He talks about a “seaweed revolution” to feed the growing global population—a transformation as dramatic as the ancient shift to land-based agriculture. “In the ocean, we are still hunter-gatherers,” he says.
The Global Seaweed Coalition estimates that seaweed (high in protein and other nutrients) could add 10 percent to the world’s food supply using just 0.03 percent of the ocean surface. One recent study concluded that substituting 10 percent of human food with seaweed by 2050 could spare 110 million hectares of land for purposes other than agriculture. That’s about two percent of all farmland today.
Advocates like Doumeizel cast seaweed as the solution to many social and environmental problems: The industry requires no fresh water, pesticides or fertilizers; it doesn’t take up any land; it can overlap (重叠) with other uses of the ocean like offshore wind farms; it can help to decrease poverty in the developing world; and some companies, including Cascadia, are collaborating with local communities.
Seaweed creates a rich habitat for sea life, soaks up carbon dioxide, counter-acts acid and absorbs run-off nutrients, although evidence quantifying how farms, specifically, help with such things remains scarce.
1. What can we learn from paragraph 1?| A．New seaweed farming markets increase in Africa. |
| B．Seaweed farming in Europe is earlier than in Asia. |
| C．Seaweed production is over 35 million in North America annually. |
| D．Seaweed production of Asia was about 6 million tonnes 30 years ago. |
| A．Saving two percent of agricultural land for other applications. |
| B．Adding 15 percent to the world’s food supply by 2050. |
| C．Bringing more nutritious food and greater profits to GSC. |
| D．Providing human beings with more high-fat food. |
| A．It helps increase the diversity of sea plants. |
| B．It solves the pollution problems of the ocean. |
| C．It prevents ocean plant species from dying out. |
| D．It can be combined with other uses of the ocean. |
| A．Obvious. | B．Insufficient. | C．Ambiguous. | D．Invalid. |
In the era of rapid technological development, we may see such a picture almost every- where. While a man just focuses
As we know, nowadays the usefulness of cellphones tends
However, everything has two
8 . There is a popular saying in the English language: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Well, that is not true. Unkind words, name-calling or even the so-called “the silent treatment” can hurt children as much as being physically hit, sometimes even more so. A recent study of middle school children showed that verbal (言语的) abuse by other children can harm, the development in the brain. The study was a project of researchers at Harvard Medical School in Massachusetts. Researcher Martin Teicher and his team studied young adults, aged 18 to 25. These young men and women had not ever been treated in a cruel or violent way by their parents. The researchers asked the young people to rate their childhood exposure to verbal abuse from both parents and other children. Then the researchers performed imaging tests on the brains of the subjects.
The images showed that the people who reported suffering verbal abuse from peers in middle school had underdeveloped connections between the left and right side of the brain. The two sides of the brain are connected by a large bundle of connecting fibers called the corpus callosum. This was the area that was underdeveloped.
The middle school years are a time when these brain connections are developing. So, unkind, hurtful comments from children or adults during this period have the greatest effect. The researchers tested the mental and emotional condition of all the young people in the study. The tests showed that this same group of people had higher levels of fear, depression, anger and drug abuse than others in the study.
The researchers published their findings online on the American Journal of Psychiatry's website.
Parents cannot control what other people say to their children, but they can prepare their children.
1. Why does the author use the popular saying at the beginning?| A．To show the power of words. |
| B．To introduce an opposite view. |
| C．To prove the author's argument. |
| D．To show ancient people's wisdom. |
| A．They were hurt by unkind words. |
| B．They performed poorly in imaging tests. |
| C．They had their brain slightly damaged. |
| D．They experienced no physical abuse at home. |
| A．Comments on the findings. |
| B．Approaches to further studies. |
| C．Suggestions to parents. |
| D．Different opinions on the matter. |
| A．Unkind words hurt the brain. |
| B．Verbal violence should be stopped. |
| C．The way we speak matters. |
| D．Words are worse than sticks and stones. |
9 . A new trend called “praise groups” or “in-need-of-praise” chat groups has become popular on Chinese social media. In Chinese culture, where modesty (谦逊) is valued, openly seeking and giving praise is uncommon. These chat groups provide a platform for people to receive compliments (赞扬) and encouragement, which are often lacking in their daily lives.
To join a praise group, users can pay a fee on e-commerce sites, starting at 50 yuan for five minutes of compliments. The group members will then show the person with praises and kind words. The compliments can be designed for a friend or loved one as well. Participants have found that being praised by strangers can help lift their spirits and improve their self-confidence.
For example, Meng Zha, a student at Shanghai’s Tongji University, tried the service and found it amusing and uplifting. She received compliments on her appearance and even quotes (引用) from popular songs. Ms Meng couldn’t help but laugh at the compliments and expressed her desire to post such high-quality praises in the future.
Praise groups have appeared as a way for people in China to seek and receive compliments and encouragement that may be lacking in their daily lives. It provides a positive and uplifting experience for participants, improving a sense of happiness and self-worth.
Those who support the groups, see them as an antidote to extremely bad moods (情绪) which are often associated with things happening on the Internet. “At first, the purpose of this group is to make us learn to praise others and accept others’ praises confidently. Here we can drop everything, and use our heart to praise and support others,” one member said. But the life journey is long and there are some unexpected situations that we can only count on ourselves to face when there is no one out there to offer help.
1. What is the purpose of praise groups?| A．To make praise popular. | B．To have everyone supported. |
| C．To share common interests. | D．To give people hope and happiness. |
| A．She was not strong enough. | B．She was under working stress. |
| C．She was satisfied with the service. | D．She was a gifted singer in her area. |
| A．A way of making new friends. | B．A kind of medicine. |
| C．A method of being confident. | D．The wisdom of solving problems. |
| A．Objective. | B．Critical. | C．Supportive. | D．Unclear. |
10 . In order to help cope with the vast number of student questions in the online class, Knowledge-Based Artificial Intelligence, Professor Ashok Goel of Georgia Tech developed an artificially intelligent teaching assistant. This online course is a core requirement of Georgia Tech’s online Master of Science in Computer Science program. Professor Goel already had eight teaching assistants, but that wasn’t enough to handle the vast number of daily questions from students.
Many students drop out of online courses because of the lack of teaching support. When students feel isolated or confused and reach out with questions that go unanswered, their motivation to continue begins to fade. Professor Goel decided to do something to remedy this situation and his solution was to create a virtual assistant named Jill Watson, which is based on the IBM Watson platform.
Goel and his team developed several versions of Jill Watson before releasing her to the online forums. At first, the virtual assistant wasn’t too great. But Goel and his team sourced the online discussion forum to find all the 40,000 questions that had ever been asked since the class was launched. Then they began to feed Jill with the questions and answers. After some adjustment and ample time, Jill was able to answer the students’ questions correctly 97% of the time. The virtual assistant became so advanced and realistic that the students didn’t know she was a computer. The students, who were studying artificial intelligence, were interacting with the virtual assistant and couldn’t tell it from a real human being. Goel didn’t inform them about Jill’s true identity until April 26. The students were actually very positive about the experience.
The goal of Professor Goel’s virtual assistant next year is to take over answering 40% of all the questions posed by students on the online forum. The name Jill Watson will, of course, change to something else next semester. Professor Goel has a much rosier forecast on the future of artificial intelligence than, say, Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates or Steve Wozniak.
1. What do we learn about Knowledge-Based Artificial Intelligence?| A．It is a robot that can answer students’ questions. |
| B．It is a high-tech device that revolutionizes teaching. |
| C．It is a course designed for students to learn online. |
| D．It is a computer program that aids student learning. |
| A．Boycott. | B．Improve. | C．Evaluate. | D．Corrupt. |
| A．She was unwelcome to students at first. |
| B．She got along pretty well with students. |
| C．She turned out to be a great success. |
| D．She was released online as an experiment. |
| A．Assign her to answer more of students’ questions. |
| B．Upgrade her intelligence to the level of top scientists. |
| C．Launch different versions of her online. |
| D．Encourage students to interact with her more freely. |
