1 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Is It Dangerous for Micro plastics to Be in the Body?

A new study suggests invasive medical procedures may be an overlooked route of micro plastics exposure, raising concerns about the potential health risks of plastic     1     (get) in the body.

Based on heart tissue samples collected from 15 people who underwent heart operations, scientists discovered tens to thousands of individual microplastic pieces in most tissue samples analyzed—although the amounts and materials     2    (vary) between participants. According to the analysis, a fraction of the plastic pieces identified had a diameter too large to likely enter the body through inhalation(吸入) or ingestion (食入), which indicated that the heart operation     3    (it) may “permit direct access of micro plastics to the bloodstream and tissues.” The researchers cited previous scientific investigation showing that micro plastics have been detected in the air in operating rooms and could directly enter a patient organs are exposed to the air during surgery. The types of plastics    4    (detect) might also offer evidence that micro plastics could be introduced during surgery.

“Previous studies have shown that micro plastics have been found in a number of human tissue samples — blood, lungs, breast milk, feces — which     5    (believe) to come from food, water supplies, or by inhalation,” says Dr. O'Toole, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Louisville School of Medicine in Kentucky. “The importance of this study seems to be that routine medical procedures may introduce them as well.”

    6    micro plastics get into the body, some scientific evidence has highlighted potential health hazards. An analysis looking at 17 previous reports    7    (involve) the impact of micro plastics on human cells, determined that ingesting micro plastics may contribute to cell death, allergic response, and damage to cell walls.

“Chronic exposure may also lead to health problems associated with inflammation (炎症), such as diabetes or liver disease,” says O’Toole. “The danger to one’s health may depend on    8    long these particles have been in the heart. If just introduced during the procedure, micro plastics are probably not    9    immediate concern, but they may cause long-term problems if not cleared.”

While the health implications are still unknown, and limiting exposure in our modern society maybe difficult, avoiding plastic packaging and plastic products when possible might reduce some risk.

2 . 阅读下面短文，根据其内容写一篇60词左右的内容概要。

Good friendships seem to be especially helpful for the heart. A three-year Swedish study of more than 13,600 men and women found that having few or no close friends increased the risk of having a heart attack by about 50 percent. A two-year study of more than 500 women with suspected coronary artery(冠状动脉) disease showed similar results. Women who reported the lowest levels of social support were twice as likely to die during the study. The women who enjoyed close support were not only more likely to be alive after two years, they also had lower rates of high blood pressure and were less likely to have excessive fat.

As reported in the Journal of the National Medical Association, friendships and other types of social support can help relieve stress, a well-known contributor to heart disease. Among other things, stress can encourage inflammation (炎症) in arteries. The research is still not very mature, but some studies have found that people who enjoy close support from friends and family generally have fewer inflammatory chemicals in their blood. The link between social ties and inflammation seems to be especially marked in older people.

When stress does appear, friends can encourage healthy reactions. People who lack strong social support tend to have dramatic and potentially dangerous reactions to scary situations. Their hearts pound and their blood pressure soars. But friends can help keep the heart on a more even keel. A study published in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine found that young men and women discussing rough patches in their lives had a lower pulse and blood pressure when they had a supportive friend at their side.

Finally, friendships may help encourage a heart-healthy lifestyle. As reported in Current Opinion in Psychiatry, people are more likely to eat fruit and vegetables, exercise regularly and quit smoking if they have a network of friends and family.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3 . The process of decision making is one of the most complex mechanisms of human thinking, as various factors and courses of action intervene in it, with different results.     1    .

There are several steps that must be followed in order to arrive at a decision: one must realize that it is going to be necessary to make a decision, determine the goals to be achieved, generate alternatives that lead to attaining the proposed goals, evaluate whether these alternatives meet one’s expectations and, lastly, select the best alternative, the one that implies an efficient global result.     2     . In effect, individuals may make different decisions depending on whether they feel their bosses are observing them, on the amount of information they have, or if certain motivations play a relevant role in their lives.

Basically, the theories that study decisions can be grouped into two perspectives: normative and descriptive. The normative perspective explains the choice of individuals who are behaving rationally in a task that requires decision making and — using statistical models — predicts the subjects’ responses from the information provided about each alternative.     3     .

One of the basic differences between these viewpoints is the way they consider the decision maker. The normative viewpoint confers an “unlimited” processing capacity on decision makers that allows them to examine exhaustively all the possible alternatives and choose the best. The descriptive perspective grants a “limited” processing capacity that often leads decision makers to make mistakes when considering complex and dynamic tasks, although they tend to choose options that satisfy them.

At present, one of the most important descriptive theories is the naturalistic theory, which investigates decisions that concern people in the real world and the factors that affect them, instead of the daily or irrelevant decisions that are studied by the normative theories in laboratory tasks.     4     . The naturalists attribute eight factors to any important decision in one’s personal, academic, professional, or social life.

A．This entire process is affected by personal and environmental variables.

B．The descriptive perspective explains how individuals actually choose, that is, the psychological processes and the task and environmental characteristics that underlie judgments and choices.

C．Despite this, the variable age should be taken into account, especially when attempting to investigate from a naturalistic perspective.

D．Orasanu and Connolly define it as a series of cognitive operations performed consciously, which include the elements from the environment in a specific time and place.

E．These differences have been interpreted as the result of the incidence of sex-related social norms and stereotypes that are transmitted in the form of values, traditions, and behavioral expectations.

F．This interpretation of the decision process, which is typical of the naturalistic theory, underlines the role of experience and personal competence in this process.

4 . Darwin’s theory has stood the test of time, yet remains a theory. Since the evolutionary time scale is so immense, it’s impossible to provide absolute proof that natural selection is responsible for every life form on this planet.     1     . People are still arguing over Darwin’s theory. Darwinism in itself is evolving. Nevertheless the theory of evolution by natural selection is now acknowledged as being the main thread that holds together every strand of modern biology.     2    

On the other hand, many people have absolute faith in the story of creation, as told in the Bible and other creation myths. It’s not wrong to believe in creation stories. And it’s not wrong to be convinced by Darwin’s theory of evolution. One attitude is based on belief, the other is based on an assessment of evidence.

    3     . However, he couldn’t work out how the differences arose or how they were passed on from parents to their young. In 1865, however, an Australian monk named Gregor Mendel read Darwin’s work and became excited by his theories. Mendel carried out complicated experiments in the monastery garden, crossing different varieties of pea plants and carefully recording his findings. He was able to show the way in which characteristics such as colour, shape and size were passed on from on generation to the next, year after year. For example, he worked out that some characteristics are “dominant” and are likely to appear in up to three-quarters or more of offspring, whereas other characteristics are “recessive” and may occur in only about a quarter of offspring, or may be masked by other characteristics and not appear for generations.     4     .

Darwin and Mendel —who both lived in the 1800s — gave us an understanding of the twin worlds of evolution and genetics.

A．Darwin realized that individuals differ within varieties as species.

B．Charles was sensitive about the feelings of any animal he collected.

C．Mendel is now recognized as the father of the science of genetics.

D．There are countless gaps in the fossil record.

E．It’s also supported by a vast body of scientific evidence.

F．For most species, evolution happens over millions of years.

5 . Visual Symbols and the Blind

From several recent studies, it has become clear that blind people can appreciate the use of outlines and perspectives to describe the arrangement of objects and other surfaces in space. But pictures are more than literal representations.

This fact was drawn to my attention dramatically when a blind woman in one of my investigations decided on her own initiative to draw a wheel as it was spinning. To show this motion, she traced a curve inside the circle(Fig. 1). I was surprised. Lines of motion, such as the one she used, are a very recent invention in the history of illustration.

When I asked several other blind study subjects to draw a spinning wheel, one particularly clever interpretation appeared repeatedly: several subjects showed the wheel’s spokes(把柄)as curved lines. When asked about these curves, they all described them as metaphorical ways of suggesting motion. Majority rule would argue that this device somehow indicated motion very well. But was it a better indicator than, say, broken or wavy lines—or any other kind of line, for that matter? The answer was not clear. So I decided to test whether various lines of motion were liable ways of showing movement or if they were merely specific marks. Moreover, I wanted to discover whether there were differences in how the blind and the sighted interpreted lines of motion.

To search out these answers, I created raised—line drawings of five different wheels, depicting spokes with lines that curved, bent, waved, dotted and extended beyond the perimeter of the wheel. I then asked eighteen blind volunteers to feel the wheels and assign one of the following motions to each wheel: shaky, spinning fast, spinning steadily, jerking or braking. My control group consisted of eighteen sighted undergraduates from the University of Toronto.

All but one of the blind subjects assigned distinctive motions to each wheel. Most guessed that the curved spokes indicated that the wheel was spinning steadily; the wavy spokes, they thought, suggested that the wheel was shaky; and the bent spokes were taken as a sign that the wheel was jerking. Subjects assumed that the spokes extending beyond the wheel’s perimeter signified that the wheel had its brakes on and that dotted spokes indicated the wheel was spinning quickly.

In addition, the favoured description for the sighted was the favoured description for the blind in every instance. What is more, the consensus among the sighted was barely higher than that among the blind. Because motion devices are unfamiliar to the blind, the task I gave them involved some problem solving. Evidently, however, the blind not only figured out meanings for each line of motion, but as a group they generally came up with the same meaning at least as frequently as did sighted subjects.

1. The author makes the point that blind people___________.

A．can draw accurately	B．may be interested in studying art
C．can recognise conventions such as perspective	D．can draw outlines of different objects and surfaces

2. The author was surprised because the blind woman___________.

A．drew a circle on her own initiative	B．was the first person to use lines of motion
C．included a symbol representing movement	D．did not understand what a wheel looked like

3. From the experiment described, the author found that the blind subjects___________.

A．got better results than the sighted undergraduates

B．worked together well as a group in solving problems

C．could control the movement of wheels very accurately

D．had good understanding of symbols representing movement

4. The following diagram suggests that the wheel is___________.

A．steadily spinning

B．rapidly spinning

C．shaky

D．jerking

6 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use ONE word that best fits each blank.

Coping With the Sunday Scaries

A few years ago, I was in the kitchen of a friend’s house preparing a meal. When we all sat down to eat, my friend’s wife wolfed down her supper and then disappeared into another room to do some work. He smiled and said, “Sunday nights are the new Monday mornings around here.”

I was surprised at the time. Now, I find myself     1    (behave) in exactly the same manner. Every time I open up my calendar on Sunday evening, a subtle sense of dread comes over me. I feel as     2     I am behind before the week has even begun.

Apparently, my Sunday-night anxieties and Monday-morning blues are not unique to me alone. A new study led by Ilke Inceoglu from the University of Exeter found that this phenomenon often takes the form of mental concerns about the week ahead, as well as feelings of nervousness and difficulty with sleeping. “It’s as if your mind moves away from     3     has been experienced over the weekend as the general sense of relaxation or enjoyment, and quickly shifts towards whatever worries you have about everything you’ve got to do in the work week ahead,” said one of Inceoglu’s respondents.

Inceoglu found that these Sunday scaries were particularly pronounced     4     people who frequently checked their emails during the weekend, had tasks left over from the previous week, and had unreasonably high expectations of themselves. These matters seem     5    (make) worse as a result of the pandemic, where the rise of working from home     6    (blur) the boundaries between work and leisure.

What should we do about the “Sunday scaries”? Researchers have offered some useful suggestions that     7     help us make Monday less depressing. One is to change     8     you think about the weekend. One U.S. study found that when participants were asked to treat their weekend as a mini-vacation, they tended to do more cheerful activities and returned to work on Monday satisfied with their jobs.     9     second way is to redesign our Monday so that it has some of the features that make us feel good during the weekend. Introducing simple changes, such as starting the day with something you are good at, setting aside a little unstructured time where you are able to do what you want, or setting up a lunchtime date with     10     you find enjoyable to be around, could make all the difference.

7 . Jealousy is a motive of immense power. Although you are often ________ aware of being jealous or envious of someone, sometimes the actual reasons for the envy are buried in your unconsciousness and hidden by rationalizations. ________, what you really value in life is more often revealed by asking yourself who you are jealous of rather than asking yourself directly “what do I value.” The ________ often takes into account what society expects you to value and you are aware only of what you should want ________ what you really want. Envy and jealousy, on the other hand, kick in as a gut reaction (直觉反应) in your emotional system long ________ you become conscious of it.

Introspection (反省) which can help one achieve a deeper understanding of emotions is unfashionable in contemporary psychology largely due to the lasting effects of behaviorism. ________ this view, we will argue that introspection can be a valuable source of insights into the internal logic and evolutionary underlying principle of certain complex emotions like envy. Of course, ________ can be rightfully raised against the purely subjective exercise of introspection, which is why it is essential to eventually test these assumptions by using a rigorous scientific approach. But ________ one can have fun speculating (沉思) on possibilities of finding why.

What ________ jealousy, beyond the obvious of someone who is better off? And can the functional logic of the causes be explained in evolutionary terms; i.e., what might be their _______ value? Through introspecting on ________ and through informally surveying friends, students, colleagues, etc., we are trying to come up with a reasonable evolutionary scenario (设想).

Let’s think about envy, too. The whole purpose of envy is to ________ you to act either by independently trying harder (envy) or by coveting (贪求) and stealing what the other has (jealousy). This is why jealousy has a (n) ________ component, but envy is more positive sometimes even being associated with admiration.

In this book, we can show that there is often an evolutionary hidden ________ that drives this human psychological tendency, and makes it comprehensible. Evolution has ________ into you an emotion (jealousy) that is caused by certain very specific “releasers” or social cues, which is largely insensitive to what the other person’s final state of happiness is.

1.

A．obviously

B．actively

C．consciously

D．hardly

2.

A．Importantly

B．Generally

C．Certainly

D．Ironically

3.

A．former

B．latter

C．above

D．below

4.

A．other than

B．less than

C．more than

D．rather than

5.

A．before

B．after

C．until

D．unless

6.

A．Compared to

B．In response to

C．In line with

D．Contrary to

7.

A．agreements

B．arguments

C．doubts

D．objections

8.

A．luckily

B．unfortunately

C．meanwhile

D．finally

9.

A．agrees with

B．lies in

C．results in

D．comes from

10.

A．emotion

B．survival

C．moral

D．compulsory

11.

A．others

B．ourselves

C．parents

D．superiors

12.

A．forbid

B．force

C．motivate

D．bother

13.

A．beneficial

B．aggressive

C．promising

D．active

14.

A．hint

B．enemy

C．regulation

D．agenda

15.

A．programmed

B．created

C．constructed

D．migrated

8 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage, coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fit s each blank.

Scientists were deeply concerned about what was happening. Avian vacuolar myelinopathy (AVM) was first discovered in the winter of 1994     1     29 bald eagle carcasses were found near DeGray Lake, a man-made reservoir in Arkansas. Two years later, at least 70 eagles had died across several Arkansas reservoirs. By 1998, conditions continued to deteriorate as dead birds of different species including American coots, mallards and ring-necked ducks were confirmed at ten sites across six states. All of the documented cases of this     2     (emerge) disease occurred on or near manmade water reservoirs with abundant aquatic vegetation.

But what particularly puzzled scientists was     3     these birds behaved before they died. The birds were observed suddenly flying straight     4     stationary objects (rock walls and trees), swimming in circles, and with their wings drooped. For many years, scientists from state and federal agencies tried to figure out what was killing the birds and the testing of sediment and dead birds at affected water reservoirs for xenobiotic compounds that cause AVM     5     (reveal) nothing. Necropsies of the birds’ brains showed widespread vacuolation of white matter of the central nervous system and spinal cord which explained their uncoordinated behaviour.

Early studies suggested that an unknown, seasonal and environmental neurotoxin     6     be responsible. Recently, a paper published in the journal Science has pinpointed the exact neurotoxin responsible for the death of those bald eagles in Arkansas. The research describes the series of events that leads to AVM. It’s a fatal three-part process that requires invasive plants, abundant bacteria, and chemicals in the environment. It begins with the invasive plant named Hydrilla verticillata, also called waterthyme, first introduced to the United States in the 1950’s     7     an aquarium plant. The plant is home to cyanobacteria called Aetokthonos hydrillicola which colonize up to 95% of the plant leaves. The cyanobacteria aren’t     8     deadly to waterbirds but when they     9     (expose) to the chemical bromide in the environment, they produce a dangerous neurotoxin called aetokthonotoxin which causes AVM in birds.

Previous field and laboratory studies have also demonstrated that AVM in herbivorous waterbirds due to the ingestion of H. verticillata can be transferred up the food chain to birds of prey which consume the     10     (affect) waterfowl. AVM thus presents a threat to multiple avian species. Furthermore, feeding trials have also confirmed neuropathy and mortality in a wide range of taxa including amphibians, reptiles, and fish. This work highlights the role of cyanobacteria as potentially dangerous toxin producers and further research into how the toxin effects human health via the consumption of fish and waterbirds from these contaminated reservoirs is urgently required.

9 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passages coherent and grammatically correct.

Two Ancient Stories and the Geological Events That May Have Inspired Them

Myths have fed the imaginations and souls of humans for thousands of years. The vast majority of these are just stories people     1     (hand) down through the ages. But a few have roots in real geological events of the past, providing warning of potential dangers and speaking to the awe we hold for the power of the planet.

The Oracle (神示所) at Delphi

In ancient Greece, in the town of Delphi on the slopes of Mount Parnassus, there was a temple     2     (devote) to the god Apollo. Within a sacred chamber, a priestess called the Pythia would breathe in sweet-smelling vapors coming from     3     crack in the rock. These vapors would send her into a state of excitement during which she would channel Apollo and speak     4     would then be turned into prophesies (预言) by a priest.

Science: The temple was a real place, and scientists have discovered two geologic faults (断层)     5     (run) beneath the site, now in ruins. Gas was likely coming from those cracks     6     the oracle was in action.

Atlantis

Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher, wrote that Atlantis, a great civilization founded by a race of people who were half god and half human,     7     (destroy) in a great disaster.

Science: Atlantis probably wasn’t a real place, but a real island civilization may have inspired the tale.     8     the contestants is Santorini in Greece. Santorini is now a group of islands, but thousands of years ago it was a single island — a volcano named Thera. Around 3, 500 years ago, the volcano blew up, destroying the island, setting off tsunamis and blowing tons of sulfur dioxide (二氧化硫) into the atmosphere     9     it continued to exist for years and probably caused many cold, wet summers. Those conditions would have ruined harvests in the region and are thought     10     (contribute) to the quick decline of the Minoans, who had dominated the Mediterranean from nearby Crete.

10 . Directions: Fill in the blanks with the words in the box and change the form where necessary. Note that there is one word more than you need.

coordinate   glaring   materialize   proportions   utilize   abuse   susceptible   collective   contend   novel   speculate

Nine out of every ten humans are right-handed, an imbalance that researchers for decades have attempted to explain, without definitive success.

One of the ideas considered is the fighting hypothesis, which suggests that left-handedness provides an advantage in combat, albeit with an overall hit to physical health that keeps lefties rare in the population. Indeed, males — who historically have competed most strongly for resources and mates — are left-handed at slightly higher rates than females. Moreover, studies suggest that lefties tend to outperform right-handed people in fighting sports as well as in sports that require hand-eye     1     like tennis, baseball, and volleyball. This is likely because players are unaccustomed to competing against lefties as they are rarer.

However, a big problem with the fighting hypothesis is that its predicted health disadvantage hasn’t     2     in large studies. On the whole, left-handed people don’t seem to suffer from more health problems than right-handed people, nor do they live shorter lives.

Left vs. Right

Noticing this     3     issue, a trio of scientists based out of Lund University in Sweden and Chester University in the United Kingdom proposed an update to the fighting hypothesis that comports better with current data. In an article published in the journal Symmetry, Matz Larsson, Astrid Schepman, and Paul Rodway     4     that right-handed humans actually had a greater fighting advantage over much of our species’ history, which is why they’ve become far more numerous.

“When left-handers became rarer, they gained a surprise advantage and the     5     of left- and right-handers in a population stabilized,” they further explained.

So why do right-handed humans have a fighting advantage? According to the researchers, it has to do with the position of the heart and the notion that humans did most of their fighting with handheld, pointy weapons like wooden spears for much of our species’ existence.

About three-quarters of the heart is situated in the left hemithorax, making the left side of the chest a(n)     6     target for a mortal blow. The researchers note that when humans battle with stabbing weapons, the hand     7     to hold the weapon determines which area of the chest is exposed to an opponent. A left-handed grip will rotate the left side of the chest, and thus most of the heart, toward an enemy, while a right-handed grip will rotate it away. Moreover, a free left arm could be used to deflect spear strikes in combat.     8    , this means that right-handed humans might be more protected from a deadly strike.

Based on this     9     version of the fighting hypothesis, a key prediction can be made. Since there is no health disadvantage from being left-handed and fighting with pointy weapons is no longer an evolutionary pressure, we should see the proportion of left-handed people stay the same in modern societies or broadly rise. Some studies suggest that left-handedness has increased in the 20th century, but it is uncertain if this is due to genetic or cultural reasons.

It should be noted that this new explanation for the preponderance of right-handed people is still very much a hypothesis, based on     10     from physiological facts and behavioral anecdotes, with further support from large, albeit observational, data sets. The modified fighting hypothesis is cogent, but as yet unproven.