1 . Maps, number lines, shapes, artwork and other materials tend to cover elementary classroom walls. However, too much of a good thing may end up _______ attention and learning in young children, according to research published in Psychological Science.

Psychology researchers Anna V. Fisher, Karrie E. Godwin and Howard Seltman of Carnegie Mellon University looked at whether classroom displays affected children’s ability to maintain _______ during instruction and to learn the lesson content. They found that children in highly decorated classrooms were more distracted, spent more time off-task and demonstrated smaller learning _______than when the decorations were removed.

“Young children spend a lot of time — usually the whole day — in the same classroom, and we have shown that a classroom’s _______ environment can affect how much children learn,” said Fisher, lead author and associate professor of psychology in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Should teachers _______ their visual displays based on the findings of this study?

“We do not suggest by any means that this is the answer to all _______ problems. Furthermore,_______ research is needed to know what effect the classroom visual environment has on children’s attention and learning in real classrooms,” Fisher said. “_______, I would suggest that instead of removing all decorations, teachers should consider whether some of their visual displays do make it difficult for young children to _______.”

For the study, 24 kindergarten students were placed in ________classrooms for six introductory science lessons on topics they were unfamiliar with. Three lessons were taught in a heavily decorated classroom, and three lessons were given in a sparse (稀疏的) classroom. The results showed that while children learned in both __________ types, they learned more when the room was not heavily decorated. Specifically, children’s __________ on the test questions was higher in the sparse classroom (55% correct) than in the decorated classroom (42% correct).

“We were also interested in finding out if the visual displays were removed, whether the children’s attention would __________ to another distraction, such as talking to their peers, or the total amount of time they were distracted would remain the same,” said Godwin, a Ph.D. candidate in psychology and fellow of the Program in Interdisciplinary Education Research.

However, when the researchers totaled all of the time children spent off-task in both types of classrooms, the rate of off-task __________ was higher in the decorated classroom (38.6% time spent off-task) than in the sparse classroom (28.4% time spent off-task).

The researchers hope these findings will lead to further studies into developing guidelines to help teachers design classrooms __________.

1.

A．attracting

B．distracting

C．holding

D．paying

2.

A．confidence

B．relationship

C．consistency

D．focus

3.

A．gains

B．opportunities

C．needs

D．disabilities

4.

A．social

B．natural

C．physical

D．visual

5.

A．turn over

B．take down

C．try out

D．look into

6.

A．athletic

B．environmental

C．educational

D．communicative

7.

A．additional

B．prior

C．national

D．independent

8.

A．However

B．Besides

C．Therefore

D．Meanwhile

9.

A．stretch

B．adapt

C．concentrate

D．explore

10.

A．decorated

B．empty

C．transitional

D．laboratory

11.

A．teaching

B．classroom

C．school

D．personality

12.

A．accuracy

B．emphasis

C．impact

D．perspective

13.

A．refer

B．listen

C．respond

D．shift

14.

A．questions

B．behaviors

C．incidents

D．tasks

15.

A．originally

B．innovatively

C．appropriately

D．exclusively

2 . Precognitive dreams are dreams that seemingly predict the future which cannot be inferred from actually available information. Former US President Abraham Lincoln once revealed the frightening dream to his law partner and friend Ward Hill Lamon, “…Then I heard people weep… ‘Who is dead in the White House?’ I demanded. ‘The President,’ ‘he was killed!’…” The killing did happen later.

Christopher French, Professor in the Department of Psychology at Goldsmiths, stated the most likely explanation for such a phenomenon was coincidence (巧合). “In addition to pure coincidences we must also consider the unreliability of memory”, he added. Asked what criteria would have to be met for him to accept that precognitive dreams were a reality, he said, “The primary problem with tests of the claim is that the subjects are unable to tell when the event(s)they’ve dreamed about will happen.”

However, some claimed to make such tests practicable. Professor Caroline Watt at the University of Edinburgh, has conducted studies into precognitive dreaming. She stated that knowing future through dreams challenged the basic assumption of science — causality (relationship of cause and effect).

Dick Bierman, a retired physicist and psychologist, who has worked at the Universities of Amsterdam, Utrecht and Groningen, has put forward a theory that may explain precognitive dreams. It is based on the fact that when scientists use certain mathematical descriptions to talk about things like electromagnetism (电磁学), these descriptions favour the belief that time only moves in one direction. However, in practice the wave that is running backwards in time does exist. This concept is called the time symmetry, meaning that the laws of physics look the same when time runs forward or backward. But he believes that time symmetry breaks down due to external conditions. “The key of the theory is that it assumes that there is a special context that restores the broken time-symmetry, if the waves running backwards are ‘absorbed’ by a consistent multi-particle (多粒子) system. The brain under a dream state may be such a system where broken time-symmetry is partially restored. This is still not a full explanation for precognitive dreams but it shows where physics might be adjusted to accommodate the phenomenon,” he explains.

Although Bierman’s explanation is still based on guesses and has not accepted by mainstream science, Watt does think it is worth considering. For now, believing that it’s possible to predict future with dreams remains an act of faith. Yet, it’s possible that one day we’ll wake up to a true understanding of this fascinating phenomenon.

1. According to French, what makes it difficult to test precognitive dreams?

A．Unavailability of people’s dreams.

B．That coincidences happen a lot in reality.

C．That criteria for dream reliability are not trustworthy.

D．People’s inability to tell when dreamt events will happen.

2. Believers in precognitive dreams may question the truth of ________.

A．the assumption of causality	B．the time symmetry
C．memories of ordinary people	D．modern scientific tests

3. We can infer from the passage that ________.

A．Lincoln was warned of the killing by his friend

B．Watt carried out several experiments on causality

C．researches on electromagnetism are based on the time symmetry

D．time’s moving in two directions may justify precognitive dreams

4. Which might be the best title of the passage?

A．Should Dreams Be Assessed?

B．Can Dreams Predict the Future?

C．How Can Physics Be Changed to Explain Dreams?

D．Why Should Scientists Study Precognitive Dreams?

3 . The emergence of black holes undoubtedly marks the beginning of a revolution. Black holes have many peculiar properties, such as the alteration of space and time, the radiation of gravitational waves and so on. Scientists are still trying to study the properties and evolution of black holes in order to better understand the origin and evolution of the universe.

Recently, a team of astronomers may have found a solo-wandering black hole using a strange trick of gravity called microlensing (微透镜效应), but the results still have to be confirmed.

Sometimes it’s tough being an astronomer. Nature likes to hide the most interesting things from easy observation. Take, for example, black holes. Except for the strange quantum (量子) phenomenon of Hawking radiation, black holes are completely black. They don’t emit a single bit of radiation – they only absorb, hence their name.

To date, the only way astronomers have been able to spot black holes is through their influence on their environments. For example, if an orbiting star gets a little too close, the black hole can absorb the gas from that star, causing it to heat up as it falls. We can watch as stars dance around the giant black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

Even the famed pictures of the black holes in the center of the Milky Way and the M87 galaxy(星系) aren’t photographs of the black holes themselves. Instead, they are radio images of everything around them.

But surely not all black holes have other light-emitting objects around them to help us find them. To find these wanderers, astronomers have tried their luck with microlensing. We know that heavy objects can bend the path of light around them. This is a prediction of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, and the slight bending of starlight around our own sun was one of the first successful tests of the theory.

Microlensing is pretty much what the name suggests. When astronomers get extremely lucky, a wandering black hole and pass between us and a random distant star. The light from that star bends around the black hole because of its gravity, and from our point of view, the star will appear to temporarily flare in brightness.

And when I say “extremely lucky” I mean it. Despite trying this technique for over a decade, it is only now that astronomers have found a candidate black hole through microlensing. Two teams used the same data, a microlensing event recorded from both the OGLE (Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment) telescope in Chile and the MOA (Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics) telescope in New Zealand. One team found that the mass was somewhere around seven times the mass of the sun – definitely black hole territory. But the other team estimated a much smaller mass, around 2-4 times the mass of the Sun. If the true mass of the object is at the lower end of that spectrum (光谱), then the wanderer is probably not a black hole.

1. Why does the author say it is hard to be an astronomer?

A．Einstein’s theory is hard to understand.

B．Many things in nature are not easy to observe.

C．Understanding the evolution of the universe is not easy.

D．Whether the black hole has been found remains to be seen.

2. What is the example in Para. 4 trying to prove?

A．Stars’ wandering in black holes.

B．Black holes’ absorbing the star’s gas.

C．The relationship between stars’ heating and black holes.

D．Finding black holes by observing environmental changes.

3. What does the author tell us about the discovery of black holes?

A．People can often find black holes with glowing objects.

B．Research groups can work together to find black holes.

C．Glowing objects around black holes help us find them sometimes.

D．Understanding the properties of black holes helps find them.

4. What conclusion can we draw from the last paragraph?

A．To persevere in the end is to win.

B．Facts speak louder than words.

C．Failure is the mother of success.

D．Things are not always what they seem.

4 . Why Are You Still Coughing?

Have you caught a cold recently — but can’t get rid of the cough? You’re not alone. The symptom can stick around for weeks after our bodies have cleared a virus. Michael Shiloh, a physician specializing in infectious disease research at UT Southwestern Medical Center, says coughing patients often report that they were sick as many as eight weeks prior to seeing him. He says, “    1    ”

The United States saw a sharp rise in cases of influenza in late 2023 that’s dragged on into 2024. And though positive tests for the illness have leveled off or decreased countrywide over the past weeks, the number of people seeking healthcare for respiratory (呼吸的) diseases is still elevated across much of the U.S.     2     But research on how infections affect nerves in the airway is revealing new clues.

Coughing is an important reaction that protects the airway from dangers like water or bits of mis-swallowed food, says doctor and researcher Lorcan McGarvey of Queen’s University Belfast.     3     These nerves are decorated with receptor (受体) proteins that react to everything from cold air to hot pepper. When a stimulus causes those receptors, nerves send signals to the brain that we experience as the urge to cough.

While it may seem obvious that coughing is meant to clear our throats, it’s also possible that viruses cause the reaction to help themselves spread.     4     And if we do ultimately cough to clear out our airway during an infection, that still wouldn’t explain what exactly our nerves sense during an infection that causes a cough.

“We don’t know,” says electrophysiologist Thomas Taylor-Clark of the University of South Florida. “But what we can say is that we do know some things, one being that viruses cause infection.”

A．The reaction is caused by nerves that reach into the airway.

B．Scientists know about many different stimuli that can cause cough.

C．Many infections involve dry coughs that don’t produce phlegm (痰) at all.

D．We can’t really detect virus any more in these individuals, and yet they’re still coughing.

E．But at least temporarily, they can send us into coughing even when we’re no longer sick.

F．Scientists still aren’t sure exactly why otherwise healthy people experience this kind of persistent cough.

5 . 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. emerge          B. absorbing            C. subject          D. defining          E. movement F. originally       G. course            H. universally        I. happens        J. constant       K. corresponds

How Long Is a Second?

The length of a second depends on how you’re measuring it. There are 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour, and 60 seconds in a minute — so surely a second is 1/86400, of a day, right? Well, it turns out that     1     time isn’t that simple.

“The second was     2     based on the length of the day,” Peter Whibberley, a senior scientist at the National Physical Laboratory in the U.K., told Live Science. “People observed the sun passing overhead and started measuring its     3     using sundials (日晷). However, sundials have a few disadvantages. Aside from the obvious problem of not being able to read a sundial when the sun isn’t visible, relying on Earth’s daily turning is surprisingly inaccurate. “The turning is not precisely     4    ,” Whibberley said. “The Earth speeds up and slows down over time.” So how can we precisely measure time if using the length of a day is so unreliable?

In the 16^th century, people turned to technological solutions to this problem, and the first recognizable mechanical clocks began to     5    . The earliest mechanical clocks, which were designed to click at a specific frequency, averaged over the     6     of a year.

By around 1940, quartz crystal clocks (石英钟) had become the new gold standard. However, problems arose, and this was where atomic clocks came in. “Atoms exist only in particular energy states and can only change from one state to another by     7     or giving out a fixed amount of energy,” Whibberley explained. “That energy     8     to a precise frequency, so you can use that frequency as a reference for time keeping.” The astronomical second continued to vary. Every few years, scientists must add a second to allow Earth’s slowing turning to keep up with atomic time.

In fact, scientists are discussing whether it’s time to redefine the second again. But while several important questions still need to be answered before this     9    , it’s clear that the strictly correct definition of a second is     10     to change.

6 . Business innovation is an organization’s process for introducing new ideas, workflows methodologies, services or products. Like IT innovation, which calls for using technology in new ways to create a more efficient and agile organization, business innovation should enable the achievement of goals across the entire organization, with sights set on accomplishing core business aims and initiatives. Innovation often begins with idea generation, wherein ideas are narrowed down during brainstorming sessions, after which leaders consider the business viability, feasibility and desirability of each idea. Business innovation should improve one existing products, services or processes; or it should solve a problem; or it should reach new customers. Recent examples of business innovation include the introduction of the Dyson vacuum cleaner, whose creator and namesake James Dyson declared in advertisements that he set out to build a better product by applying industrial cyclone technologies to the household appliance.

The purpose of the business innovation process is to create value for the organization. That value can come from creating new revenue opportunities or driving more revenue through existing channels; from creating efficiencies that save time, money or both; or from improvements to productivity or performance. In short, innovation should lead to higher profits. Additionally, the results of an organization’s innovation process should yield a competitive advantage; it should help the organization to grow and reach — or, better still, exceed — strategic objectives.

Innovation and invention are closely linked, but the two terms are not interchangeable. An invention is an entirely new creation. The process of business innovation can produce an invention, but the term is broader in scope and includes the application of an existing concept or practice in a new way, or applying new technology to an existing product or process to improve upon it. To better understand the difference, consider this: The telephone is an invention, but the smartphone is an innovation.

Business innovation can also be classified as either revolutionary or evolutionary. Revolutionary business innovation yields a drastic change in a product, service, process, etc., which often destroys or supplants an existing business model. This is also known as radical Evolutionary or incremental innovation involves smaller, more continuous innovation, improvements that, while important, are not drastic enough to shift a company or market into a new paradigm. Disruptive innovation is a category that emphasizes the destructive aspect of revolutionary innovation; this term applies to business innovation that leads to the creation of a new market that displaces an existing one or, similarly, a significant upheaval in a category of products or services.

Business innovation, like most business initiatives, has both benefits and risks. Organizations should recognize on the negative side that the business innovation process can be a costly undertaking that does not always produce a return on investment (ROI); that idea considered likely to succeed could still fail; and that stakeholders could fight the changes required to be successful. On the other hand, organizations need to weigh those risks against the benefits of business innovation.

1. What does the underlined word in the first paragraph mean?

A．Persuasibility.

B．Scarcity.

C．Generality.

D．Practicability.

2. What is the purpose of business innovation?

A．Create value benefits for the enterprise.

B．Reform the management structure of enterprises.

C．Encourage staff to make more inventions.

D．Upgrade the product performance.

3. Which of the following is true about innovation and invention?

A．They are essentially the same concept.

B．They can replace each other in the context.

C．They can bring huge commercial benefits.

D．They are closely related but have different conceptual scopes.

4. What is the main content of this passage?

A．The precautions for brainstorming meetings.

B．The considerations for business innovation.

C．The difference between innovation and invention.

D．The revolutionary change in business innovation.

7 . xMAP Technology allows users to perform a wide range of protein-and nucleic acid-based multiplex assays, which can simultaneously detect up to 500 targets in a single run.

Key Advantages of xMAP Technology:

Test for more biomarkers.

Develop custom assays.

Use less sample.

Save time and reagents.

Gain a better understanding of complex biological systems.

Order from thousands of redesigned kits from our Partners

xMAP Technology: The Science

What is multiplexing? Multiplexing is a method for high-volume biomarker testing — or testing multiple analytes simultaneously within a single run-using a single sample volume. xMAP Technology is best-suited for testing 3-500 targets.

How does xMAP Technology work? xMAP Technology uses labeled micro-spheres or beads, allowing for the simultaneous capture of multiple analytes from a single reaction.Because of their small size and low density, xMAP micro-sphere-based assays exhibit virtual solution-phase kinetics during the reaction. The beads are individually read using an xMAP instrument.

What does xMAP mean? Multi-Analyte Profiling, where the “x” represents the biomarkers (such as proteins, nucleic acids, or polyacrylamides) that are being tested.

xMAP Beads

xMAP beads come in a variety of formats, including magnetic (MagPlex) and nonmagnetic ( MicroPlex) beads.

xMAp beads puss through a red laser, or LED, which excites the internal dyes to distinguish the microsphere set. Then, a green laser or LED excites the fluorescent reporter dye to determine the result of the assay.

xMApDApplications

xMAP in Action

Explore xMAPW Technology and discover some of the many applications used by multiplexing research experts across the globe:

xMAP Assny Automation: Automation can boost productivity, minimize errors, and save on reagents.

Immunogenicity: By using xMAP Technology, researchers can consolidate multiple essays into one for more efficient immune response studies.

Bend-Based Multiplexing vs Electrochemiluminescence: Bead-based multiplexing offers significantly higher plex capacity, requires less hands-on time, and delivers superior results compared to traditional methods.

Generate more data while saving sample, time , and reagents

xMAp beads come in a variety of formats. The MagPlex Microspheres-6.5 micronsuperparamagnetic beads that are dyed with three red and infrared fluorescent dyes, resulting in 500 distinctly colored bead sets are our most versatile and efficient microspheres for high-plex applications. Approximately 10* surface carboxyl groups (COOH) cover the surface of the bead and serve as covalent attachments for capture ligands. A fluorescent reporter is coupled to a target molecule, which allows its detection after specific capture on the microsphere surface.

1. According to the passage, what is xMAP?

A．A mind map.

B．A lest method.

C．A navigation map.

D．An application.

2. All of the following are advantages of xMAP, except_____________.

A．developing custom analysis	B．forming a network structure
C．generating more data	D．saving samples and reagents

3. Which of the following options is correct?

A．The xMAP beads distinguish groups of microspheres by a blue laser.

B．xMAP allows for the capture of a single analyte from multiple reactions.

C．MAP technology is used more in the experimental phase.

D．The “x” in xMAP represents the biomarkers being tested.

8 . Artificially sweetened diet drinks make no difference to weight gain and should not be seen as healthier than their sugar-laden counterparts, according to a team of experts. A review of research evidence concludes there is nothing to support claims that sugar free versions of popular soft drinks can help _________obesity and related diseases such as Type 2 diabetes. Industry sponsored studies reporting “favourable” associations between diet drinks and weight loss may be biased, it claims.

There have been concerns that diet drinks, known as artificially sweetened beverages (ASBs), might lead people to consume more calories by ___________sweet flavour taste buds. The new study found that evidence ___________the healthiness of ASBs was inconclusive with randomized controlled trials (RCTs) producing mixed results. Senor investigator Professor Christopher Millett said: “A common perception, which may be influenced by industry marketing, is that because ‘diet’ drinks have no sugar, they must be healthier and aid weight loss when used as a(n) _________ for full sugar versions.” However, we found no solid evidence to support this.

The researchers pointed out that research supported by food or beverage companies was more likely to find no evidence of links between sugary drink ___________ and obesity than non-industry sponsored research. Similarly, ASB industry-sponsored research was “more likely to report favourable results and _________ regarding ASB effects on weight control”.

In many cases, researchers had failed to disclose ___________of interest relating to links with the food industry, it was claimed. Coauthor Dr Marin Carolina Borges said: “The lack of solid evidence on the health effects of ASBs and the potential influence of bias from industry funded studies should be taken seriously when discussing whether ASBs are ___________ alternatives to SSBs (sugar-sweetened beverages).”

Leading British nutritionist Professor Susan Jebb said despite the mixed evidence, there was no reason to believe that replacing sugary drinks with artificially sweetened ___________ did any harm. She said, “For people seeking to manage their weight, tap water is ______________the best drink to choose, for health and the environment, but for many people who are used to drinking sugary drinks, this will be loo hard a change to ____________. Artificially sweetened drinks are a step in the __________ direction to cut calories.” Dietitian Professor Tom Sanders, was also critical of the research, calling it “an opinion piece rather than a(n) ____________review of the evidence”. He ____________: “The conclusion that reduced sugar or sugar-free drinks should not be promoted or seen as part of a healthy diet seems unwarranted and likely to add to public ____________.”

1.

A．relieve

B．oppose

C．prevent

D．bother

2.

A．inserting

B．stimulating

C．enhancing

D．securing

3.

A．resulting from

B．referring to

C．depending on

D．relating to

4.

A．substitute

B．proposal

C．suspect

D．implication

5.

A．efficiency

B．consumption

C．distribution

D．modernization

6.

A．appointments

B．instructions

C．performances

D．conclusions

7.

A．threats

B．matters

C．conflicts

D．appeals

8.

A．adequate

B．essential

C．available

D．deliberate

9.

A．initiatives

B．alternatives

C．objectives

D．representatives

10.

A．without question

B．beyond description

C．around the corner

D．in consequence

11.

A．settle

B．route

C．mend

D．make

12.

A．wrong

B．right

C．proper

D．opposite

13.

A．democratic

B．automatic

C．systematic

D．dramatic

14.

A．transferred

B．ranged

C．accessed

D．added

15.

A．fascination

B．ambition

C．confusion

D．isolation

9 . Journal editors decide what gets published and what doesn’t, affecting the careers of other academics and influencing the direction that a field takes. You’d hope, then, that journals would do everything they can to establish a diverse editorial board, reflecting a variety of voices, experiences, and identities.

Unfortunately a new study in Nature Neuroscience makes for disheartening reading. The team finds that the majority of editors in top psychology and neuroscience journals are male and based in the United States: a situation that may be amplifying existing gender inequalities in the field and influencing the kind of research that gets published.

Men were found to account for 60% of the editors of psychology journals. There were significantly more male than female editors at each level of seniority, and men made up the majority of editors in over three quarters of the journals. Crucially, the proportion of female editors was significantly lower than the overall proportion of women psychology researchers.

The differences were even starker in the neuroscience journals: 70% of editors were male, and men held the majority of editorial positions in 88% of journals. In this case, the proportion of female editors was not significantly lower than the proportion of female researchers working in neuroscience—a finding that reveals enduring gender disparities in the field more broadly.

Based on their results, the team concludes that “the ideas, values and decision-making biases of men are overrepresented in the editorial positions of the most recognized academic journals in psychology and neuroscience.”

Gender inequality in science is often attributed to the fact that senior academics are more likely to be male, because historically science was male-dominated: it’s argued that as time goes on and more women rise to senior roles, the field will become more equal. Yet this study showed that even the junior roles in psychology journals tended to be held disproportionately by men, despite the fact that there are actually more female than male junior psychology faculty.

This implies that a lack of female academics is not the problem. Instead, there are structural reasons that women are disadvantaged in science. Women receive lower salaries and face greater childcare demands, for instance, which can result in fewer publications and grants—the kinds of things that journals look for when deciding who to appoint. Rather than simply blaming the inequality of editorial boards on tradition, we should be actively breaking down these existing barriers.

A lack of diversity among journal editors also likely contributes to psychology’s WEIRD problem. If journal editors are largely men from the United States, then they will probably place higher value on papers that are relevant to Western, male populations, whether consciously or not.

1. What would we expect an editorial board of an academic journal to exhibit in view of its important responsibilities?

A．Insight	B．Diversity
C．Expertise	D．Integrity

2. What do we learn from the findings of a new study in Nature Neuroscience?

A．The majority of top psychology and neuroscience journals reflect a variety of voices, experiences and identities.

B．The editorial boards of most psychology and neuroscience journals do influence the direction their field takes.

C．The majority of editors in top psychology and neuroscience journals have relevant backgrounds.

D．The editorial boards of the most important journals in psychology and neuroscience are male-dominated.

3. What can we infer from the conclusion drawn by the team of the new study on the basis of their findings?

A．Male researchers have enough representation in the editorial boards to ensure their publications.

B．Male editors of top psychology and neuroscience journals tend to be biased against their female colleagues.

C．Women’s views are underrepresented in the editorial boards of top psychology and neuroscience journals.

D．Female editors have to struggle to get women’s research articles published in academic journals.

4. What does the author suggest we do instead of simply blaming the inequality of editorial boards on tradition?

A．Strike a balance between male and female editors	B．Implement overall structural reforms
C．Increase women’s employment in senior positions	D．Enlarge the body of female academics

10 . Genetic testing companies have a long history of creative attempts to reach the mainstream. An early example was the sequencing of rock star Ozzy Osbourne’s genes in 2010, with accompanying guess about how they might have influenced his drug habits.

Lately, such projects have taken on a new, highly commercialized tendency. In 2017, we got the “Marmite (马麦酱) gene project,” run by London-based genetic testing start-up DNAfit. It claims to show that love or hate for Marmite was in our genes. The project turned into a full-blown marketing campaign, and even sold Marmite-branded DNA testing tools.

DNAfit is now working with Mercedes-Benz to find out whether specific genetic traits are associated with business wisdom. AncestryDNA, the world’s largest consumer genetic testing company, last year teamed up with Spotify to promote “music tailored to your DNA.” Just a few weeks ago, 23andMe, the second largest, announced a partnership with Airbnb to provide genetically tailored travel experiences, also inspired by ancestral DNA.

I have skin in this game. I run a genetic-testing start-up that connects people who want their genome sequenced with researchers who want data to improve their understanding of genetic disease. I believe that broadening access to DNA testing can be a powerful force for good, providing safer, more effective medicines and giving people more power over their healthcare. But these campaigns risk discrediting the industry, by giving a misleading impression of what genetics can and can't say and its role in determining behaviours and personal preferences.

Take the Marmite study. It covered 261 people — tiny, by the standards of the field. It was published not in a journal, but online on bioRxiv, a server where scientists typically put results before peer-review. Shortly after, researchers looked at the genetic data of more than 500 times as many people in the UK Biobank and found no such correlation. A large peer-reviewed study in 2013 found no significant link between genes and business common sense.

We need to inform the public about what this is all about: that is, the gathering of large amounts of genetic data. We need better regulation to ensure that consumers are clear that this may happen with this sensitive personal information. A checkbox on a 20-page web document full of legal terms should not be enough.

Scientists too, need to start asking hard questions about whether the information they are using has been sourced ethically. DNA testing has a great future, but we can't build this future with data acquired by any means.

1. The author mentions DNAfit, AncestryDNA and 23andMe in order to __________.

A．highlight the problems facing genetic testing

B．illustrate the commercial applications of DNA

C．compare what progress the companies have made

D．reveal the link between DNA and a person's character

2. We can learn from “I have skin in this game” in Para. 4 that the author __________.

A．is challenging the available treatment for skin disease

B．has a personal investment in the genetic-testing business

C．hopes to remove people's misunderstanding of the game rules

D．believes that every individual should have access to DNA testing

3. What do the last two paragraphs mainly talk about?

A．The disadvantages of genetic testing.	B．The scientific value of genetic testing.
C．The legal system genetic testing needs.	D．The essentials for proper genetic testing.

4. Which of the following might be the best title for the passage?

A．DNA Is Anything but a Marketing Tool	B．Genetic Testing Campaigns Aren't Legal
C．Creative Marketing Is Key to Genetic Testing	D．DNA Testing Has Become a Booming Industry