1 . Plastic, which is now common, contains endocrine-disrupting chemicals, or EDCs (内分泌干扰物), that has been linked to increased risk of many chronic diseases. Parental exposure to EDCs, for example, has been shown to cause metabolic (新陈代谢的) disorders, including obesity and diabetes, in the later generations.

Led by Changcheng Zhou, a professor of biomedical sciences in the School of Medicine at the University of California, the researchers investigated the impact of fathers’ exposure to a phthalate called dicyclohexyl phthalate, or DCHP (邻苯二甲酸二环己酯), on the metabolic health of first generation (F1) and second generation (F2) in mice. Phthalates are chemicals used to make plastic more durable.

The researchers found that fathers’ DCHP exposure for four weeks led to high insulin (胰岛素) resistance and impaired insulin signaling in F1. The same effect, but weaker, was seen in F2 .

“We found fathers’ exposure to EDCs may have intergenerational and transgenerational detrimental effects on the metabolic health of their later generations, ”Zhou said. “To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first to demonstrate this.”

In the case of fathers’ exposure in the study, intergenerational effects are changes that occur due to direct exposure to a stressor, such as exposure to DCHP of fathers (F0 generation) and his F1 generation. Transgenerational effects are changes passed down to later generations that are not directly exposed to the stressor (for example, F2 generation).

“This suggests that fathers’ DCHP exposure can lead to sex-specific transgenerational effects on the metabolic health of their later generations,” Zhou said.

Zhou stressed that the impact of exposure to DCHP on human health is not well understood, even though DCHP is widely used in a variety of plastic products and has been detected in food, water, and indoor particulate matter.

“It’s best to minimize our use of plastic products,” Zhou said. “This can also help reduce plastic pollution, one of our most pressing environmental issues.”

1. Why are phthalates added to plastic?

A．To beautify it.	B．To make it long-lasting.
C．To reduce its cost.	D．To increase its weight.

2. What does the underlined word “detrimental” in paragraph 4 probably mean?

A．Negative.

B．External.

C．Distinct.

D．Adventurous.

3. What did Zhou advise people to do?

A．Bury plastic waste.	B．Watch out for the food they eat.
C．Use fewest plastic products.	D．Never produce plastic products.

4. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A．Plastic contains endocrine disrupting chemicals

B．Plastic pollution is a pressing environmental issue

C．DCHP is widely used in a variety of plastic products

D．Chemicals in plastic may impact two generations’ health

2 . Face blindness, a mystifying condition that can trick us into believing we recognize people we’ve never met or make us fail to recognize those we have, has been previously estimated to affect between 2 and 2.5 percent of people in the world.Now, a new study by researchers at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the VA Boston Healthcare System is providing fresh insights into the disorder, suggesting it may be more common than currently believed.

Published in February 2023 in Cortex, the study findings indicate that as many as one in 33 people may meet the criteria for face blindness, or prosopagnosia (面孔失认症).“This translates to more than 10 million Americans,” the research team said.

The study found similar face-matching performance between people diagnosed with prosopagnosia using stricter vs looser criteria, suggesting that diagnostic criteria should be expanded to be more inclusive. That could lead to new diagnoses among millions who may have the disorder but don’t realize it.

The study results are based on a web-based questionnaire and tests administered to 3,341 individuals.First, the researchers asked participants whether they experience difficulties recognizing faces in their everyday lives.Then they administered two objective tests to determine whether they had difficulties learning new faces or recognizing highly familiar famous faces.

The results showed that 31 individuals out of the 3,341 had major prosopagnosia, while 72 of the 3,341 had a milder form. The researchers also observed that there were no neatly divided separate groups of people with poor or good ability to recognize faces. Rather, the ability to recognize faces appeared to lie on a continuum (连续体).

Finally, the researchers compared face-matching scores among people with prosopagnosia diagnosed using different criteria and found that using stricter diagnostic cutoffs did not correspond with lower face-matching scores.

In the new study, the researchers provide diagnostic suggestions for identifying mild and major forms of prosopagnosia based on guidelines for major and mild neurocognitive disorders in the DSM5, the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

1. Which of the following indicates a person has face blindness?

A．Failing to identify his belongings.

B．Being able to recognize his friends.

C．Mistaking a stranger for an acquaintance.

D．Misunderstanding ones’ facial expressions.

2. What question is sure to be included in the questionnaire?

A．Do you have trouble recognizing faces?

B．Do you know what face blindness means?

C．Do you know anybody with face blindness?

D．Do you experience difficulties in everyday life?

3. What do we know about the DSM5?

A．It came up based on the new study.

B．It has experienced four revisions.

C．It is only used to identify face blindness.

D．It participated in and funded the new study.

4. Where is the text most likely from?

A．A fiction novel.	B．A fashion website.
C．A health brochure.	D．A science magazine.

3 . People are looking to make meaning after the global pandemic. And one way that some of us do this is to credit coincidences—the unexpected concurrence (同时发生) of events—with helping to find jobs, friends and spouses, make significant career decisions and relieve pains. Scholars disagree on the cause of coincidences. Some say they are random and due to probability. Others see God or spiritual forces at work. Still others say it’s our subconscious making connections. No matter the cause, people who study coincidences say that paying attention to these moments may help us, especially in times of stress.

Studies show that noticing coincidences may help boost both the effectiveness of psychotherapy and mental well-being. Michael Schauch, 42, an investment-portfolio manager in Squamish, British Columbia, who is an avid mountaineer, lost his best friend Brent last year. A few months later, Mr. Schauch climbed a mountain he and Brent often scaled together. At the summit, Mr. Schauch found hundreds of ladybugs. When he climbed a different mountain on the anniversary of Brent’s death, he saw a ladybug as he started up each new section of the rock face. “I knew at once that it was Brent, and that he was still there with me, as if to say: ‘You’ve got this, Mike. Keep going!’” he says.

Coincidences can make the world feel like it makes good sense, says David B. Yaden, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University School. Varieties of spiritual experiences show a correlation (关联) between coincidences and an increase in positive emotions，better personal relationships and a greater sense of meaning in life.

Coincidences are more likely to happen to certain people. “People who are troubled by distress and searching for signs are more likely to experience coincidences,” says Bemard Beitman, a psychiatrist and a coincidence researcher. If you’d like to enhance your ability to notice coincidences, there are several strategies, says Lisa Miller, a clinical psychologist: Be open to them. Write them down. Talk about them with others. “We really need this deep inner wisdom.” she says.

1. What can we learn about coincidences from paragraph 1?

A．They happen as expected.	B．They provide guidance or relief.
C．They activate subconscious mind.	D．They contribute to invisible forces.

2. Why does the author mention Michael Schalch’s story?

A．To clarify the cause of coincidences.

B．To offer a method of coping with grief.

C．To show the comforting effect of coincidences.

D．To present a solid friendship between two climbers.

3. What can we infer from the last paragraph?

A．Lucky people tend to be surprised by coincidences.

B．Wisdom is to the soul what mental health is to the body.

C．Coincidences mean more to our daily lives than the surface.

D．The more we cultivate coincidences, the more likely they happen.

4. What is the passage mainly about?

A．The meaningful moments in life.	B．The hidden power of coincidences.
C．The various opinions on coincidences.	D．The strategies for noticing coincidences.

4 . Is language, like food, a basic human need without which a child at a critical period of life can be starved and damaged? Judging from the drastic experiment of Frederick I in the thirteenth century, it may be hoping to discover what language a child would speak if he heard no mother tongue, he told the nurses to keep silent.

All the infants died before the first year. But clearly there was more than lack of language here. What was missing was good mothering. Without good mothering, in the first year of life especially, the capacity to survive is seriously affected.

Today no such severe lack exists as that ordered by Frederick I. Nevertheless, some children are still backward in speaking. Most often the reason for this is that the mother is insensitive to the signals of the infant, whose brain is programmed to learn language rapidly. If these sensitive periods are neglected, the ideal time for acquiring skills passes and they might never be learned so easily again. A bird learns to sing and to fly rapidly at right time, but the process is slow and hard once the critical stage has passed.

Experts suggest that speech stages are reached in a fixed sequence and at a constant age, but there are cases where speech has started late in a child who eventually turns out to be of high IQ. At twelve weeks a baby smiles and makes vowel-like sounds; at twelve months he can speak simple words and understand simple commands; at eighteen months he has a vocabulary of three to fifty words. At three he knows about 1,000 words which he can put into sentences, and at four his language differs from that of his parents in style rather than in grammar.

Recent evidence suggests that an infant is born with the capacity to speak. What is special about man’s brain, compared with that of the monkey, is the complex system which enables a child to connect the sight and feel of, say, a toy-bear with the sound pattern “toy bear”. And even more incredible is the young brain’s ability to pick out an order in language from the mixture of sound around him, to analyse, to combine and recombine the parts of a language in new ways.

But speech has to be induced(激发), and this depends on interaction between the mother and the child, where the mother recognizes the signals in the child’s babbling(咿呀声), grasping and smiling, and responds to them. Insensitivity of the mother to these signals dulls the interaction because the child gets discouraged and sends out only the obvious signals. Sensitivity to the child’s nonverbal signals is essential to the growth and development of language.

1. Frederick I did the experiment to _____.

A．find out nursing is essential to a child’s language development

B．to confirm that good mothering ensures the survival of a child

C．to find out what a child would speak if raised in a no-human speech context

D．to confirm that many children would not grow up without learning to speak

2. If a child starts to speak later than others, _____.

A．he will certainly be stupid in adult years

B．he will not necessarily be less intelligent

C．his language development will be limited to babbling

D．he will be insensitive to verbal signals

3. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?

A．Efficient nursing contributes to a child’s speech ability.

B．A child may never learn to speak if the sensitive periods are neglected.

C．Like a child, a monkeys’ brain can connect the sight and feel of an object.

D．A child can choose words and phrases that interest him and make new sentences

4. According to the passage, the writer seems to agree that _____.

A．when it comes to language, a child’s brain is highly selective

B．nonverbal signals affect a child’s language development as much as verbal ones

C．A child has his language ability developed randomly and irregardless of age as well

D．A mother’s brain is programmed to instruct language efficiently

5 . The most detailed study yet of the physics of a finger snap (响指) has shown that in terms of acceleration (加速度), no other body movement comes close. Using high speed cameras, the researchers found that it reached a speed about 20 times faster than the blink of an eye. This “rotational (旋转的) acceleration” was nearly three times greater than the previous record for humans, set by a professional baseball player's arm.

The research, published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, divides the finger snap into three stages. First, force is first built up by pressing the thumb and middle fingers together. This appears to be stored in springlike muscle in the fingers and forearm. Friction (摩擦力) between the two fingers acts like a latch (门闩), preventing the energy from being released. Eventually, an “unlatching” process begins, with the thumb moving sideways and the middle finger quickly sliding past the thumb, starting the snap motion. The middle finger then slips into the palm, generating shockwaves that result in a “pop” sound.

The study was inspired by the Hollywood movie Avengers: Infinity War and the character Thanos, who destroys half the universe by snapping his fingers. He does this while wearing a metal glove. When they saw this scene, Dr Saad Bhamla, the leading researcher, and his colleagues asked themselves if this was possible - could you snap your fingers while wearing a metal glove?

They explored the role of friction by covering fingers with different materials, including metallic thimbles (金属套管), which reduced friction. The researchers concluded that a “Goldilocks zone” of friction was necessary. Too little friction and not enough energy was stored to power the snap. Too much friction led to displacement of energy as the fingers took longer to slide past each other, “wasting” the stored energy as heat. “Our results suggest that Thanos could not have snapped because of his metal armoured fingers. So, it's probably the Hollywood special effects, rather than actual physics, at play,” said Bhamla.

1. What can we learn from paragraph 1?

A．The finger snap is the fastest acceleration of our body.

B．The blink of an eye is faster than a finger snap.

C．People can have faster acceleration if they want.

D．Baseball players have the fastest acceleration.

2. What does the underlined word “This” in paragraph 2 refer to?

A．The position of the thumb.	B．The rotational acceleration.
C．Friction between two fingers.	D．Potential energy from pressing fingers.

3. Why did the researchers conduct the study?

A．They questioned a movie scene.

B．They suspected the function of fingers.

C．They wanted to prove a theory in the movie.

D．They hoped to create different movie scenes.

4. What did the researchers find in the end?

A．A finger snap can happen in any movie.

B．Wearing a metal glove can snap a magic sound.

C．The finger snap of Thanos in the movie is just a play.

D．The friction between fingers is occasionally out of control.

6 . For humans, adapting to (适应) climate change will mostly be a matter of technology. More air conditioning, better-designed houses and bigger flood defenses may help reduce the effects of a warmer world. However, animals will have to rely on changing their bodies or their behaviour.

In a study done by Trends in Ecology & Evolution, a team led by Sara Ryding, a PhD at Deakin University, in Australia, shows that is already happening. And climate change is already changing the bodies of many animal species, giving them bigger beaks (鸟喙), limbs and ears.

In some species of Australian parrot, for example, beak size has increased by between 4% and 10% since 1871. All that is nicely in line with evolutionary theory (进化论). “Allen’s rule”, named for Joel Asaph Allen, who suggested it in 1877, holds that warm-blooded animals in hot places tend to have larger appendages (附肢) than those in mild regions.

Such increase in an animal’s surface area helps it release (释放) extra heat. For example, being richly gifted with blood vessels, and not covered by feathers, beaks make an ideal place for birds to release heat.

It seems clear that the world of the future is not just going to be hotter than humans are used to. These animals living in it will look different, too. Studying a larger range of animals will help figure out what is exactly happening. Much of Ms Ryding’s data is about birds, however, with less information available for other animals.

1. What is the purpose of the text?

A．To introduce climate change.	B．To introduce evolution of animals.
C．To introduce a result of a study.	D．To introduce a technology.

2. What does the underlined word “that” in paragraph 2 refer to?

A．For humans, adapting to climate change will mostly be a matter of technology.

B．A study which was done by Trends in Ecology & Evolution.

C．Technology may help reduce the effects of a warmer world.

D．Animals will have to rely on changing their bodies to adapt to climate change.

3. What is “Allen’s rules”?

A．It says that warm-blooded animals in hot places tend to have larger appendages than those in mild regions.

B．It holds that animals in hot place tend to have larger appendages than those in cold region.

C．It says that cold-blooded animals in hot places tend to have larger appendages than those in mild regions.

D．It holds that warm-blooded animals in hot places tend to have larger appendages than those in cold regions.

4. What will Sara Ryding’s team do in the future?

A．They will do a larger range of researches on birds.

B．They will do more researches on other animals.

C．They will do more researches on climate change.

D．They will do more researches on technology.

7 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Detecting strong X-ray flares (耀斑) beaming from the center of a blackhole is nothing new. But detecting light signals from behind one is a different story. That’s     1     the force of gravity in a blackhole is so severe that nothing that goes in can come out. No scientist has managed     2     (find) light from beyond— until now.

In contrast     3     what their name implies, supermassive (特大质量的) blackholes can be one of the brightest sources of continuous light in the universe. Their     4     (extremely) gravity brings in all kinds of material around them. Little is known about supermassive black hole coronas, so scientists turned to blackhole I Zwicky 1,     5     lies 100 million light years from Earth, to investigate the beams shooting out.

Scientists     6     (detect) smaller X-ray “echoes” around the supermassive blackhole, in addition to the expected flares. The obvious light characteristics of these pulsing beams (脉冲光束) indicated that they were the same X-ray flares, but reflected from the backside,     7     (mean) the supermassive black hole’s gravity must have actually abnormal space-time, thus bending the beams around in a detectable direction by specialized telescopes. The     8     (finding), published in Nature, support a key     9     (predict) from Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

This is the     10     (one) research to confirm what the famous physicist predicted more than half a century ago.

8 . E-cigarettes can damage vital immune system cells and may be more harmful than previously thought, a study suggests. Researchers found e-cigarette vapour disabled important immune cells in the lung and boosted inflammation (炎症).

The researchers caution against the widely held opinion that e-cigarettes are safe. However, Public Health England advises they are much less harmful than smoking and people should not hesitate to use them as an aid to giving up cigarettes.

The small experimental study, led by Prof David Thickett, at the University of Birmingham, is published online in the journal Thorax. Previous studies have focused on the chemical elements of e-cigarette liquid before it is vaped.

In this study, the researchers designed a mechanical process to mimic (模拟) vaping in the laboratory, using lung tissue samples provided by eight non-smokers. They found vapour caused inflammation and impaired the activity of alveolar macrophages cells (肺泡世噬细胞) that removed potentially damaging dust particles, bacteria and allergens. They sail some of the effects were similar to those seen in regular smokers and people with chronic lung disease.

They caution that the results are only in laboratory conditions and they are planning to do more research to better understand the long-term health impact the changes recorded took place only 48 hours.

Prof Thicket said while e-cigarettes were safer than traditional cigarettes in terms of cancer risk, they may still be harmful in the long-term. If you vape for 20 or 30 years, you can suffer from COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), then that’s something we need to know about.

1. What’s the widely held opinion about e-cigarettes?

A．They’re more harmful.	B．They’re less harmful.
C．They’re unknown to people.	D．They’re harmless.

2. What can we learn about the study?

A．It’s believable.	B．It’s conducted narrowly.
C．It’s accepted by most people.	D．It’ s carried out in America.

3. What can we learn about e-cigarettes from the last paragraph?

A．They are safer in terms of mental problems.

B．They may be little harm in the long run.

C．They are safer with regard to cancer risk.

D．They can completely replace traditional ones.

4. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A．Can e-cigarettes damage vital brain system cells?

B．Can e-cigarettes become popular among people?

C．Can e-cigarettes be recommended to smokers ?

D．Can c-cigarettes damage vital immune system cells ?

9 . For all its drawbacks, aging brings a benefit: social relationships generally improve. Older individuals have fewer but closer friendships, avoid conflicts, and are more optimistic compared with younger adults. Now, 20 years of data on chimpanzees suggest they, too, develop more meaningful friendships as they age.

“The finding challenges a long-standing assumption that humans mellow (成熟) with age because we are aware of our approaching death.” said Zarin Machanda, a professor at Tufts University. But finding the same pattern in chimps suggests a simpler explanation: It could be an evolved trait found in a wider range of species. Zarin and her colleagues gathered data from the Kibale Chimpanzee Project, which has tracked wild chimpanzee behavior in Uganda’s Kibale National Park since 1987. Because chimps are socially similar to humans — they live in large groups and engage in both cooperative and antagonistic (敌对的) relationships throughout their lives — they serve as an ideal test group for studying changes in social behavior. The researchers zeroed in on the males, who had more purely peer-to-peer relationships than females.

Combing through 21 years of behavioral logs on 21 chimps aged 15 through 58, the researchers found that older males (aged 35 and up) had more mutual friendships than younger ones. Older “friends” would sit together and groom one another on a regular basis, whereas younger chimps were more likely to engage in one-sided relationships, in which they groomed preferred elders who rarely returned the favor. As males age and fall in rank, they stop competing for dominance and “tend to give up”. Forming these cooperative relationships with peers could help older males maintain their status, helping them fend off challenges by younger and fitter chimps.

The team are eager to see whether other chimpanzee groups—and female chimpanzees—also experience this mellowing with age. Machanda says the theory could also be tested in other long-lived social species. Next, however, the team will take a deeper look at how social bonds might benefit aging chimps - and whether the same mechanisms could be at work in humans. “There is a lot more to learn,” Machanda says.

1. The author writes Paragraph 1 to ________

A．introduce the topic about the finding on chimps.

B．compare chimps with humans in social behaviors.

C．show that humans mature as they age is a mere misunderstanding.

D．stress that aging is very terrifying not only for humans but also for animals.

2. Why did Machanda and her team choose chimpanzee as the test group of their study?

A．Because chimps look like humans in so many ways.

B．Because chimps are easy to track down in the wild.

C．Because chimps bear resemblance to humans in social behaviors.

D．Because chimps live in large groups together throughout their lives.

3. What do we know about the findings?

A．It took the researchers 21 years to study the elderly chimps.

B．Older males exhibit mutual friendship among the group.

C．Younger males prefer to groom the elders because they respect them.

D．Elderly chimps will continue to fight to maintain their status as they age.

4. Which of the following might Machanda agree with?

A．There’s no need to study the female chimpanzees for the theory.

B．It would be better to test other species who live a short life as well.

C．They have learned fairly enough about how aging affects animal behaviors.

D．The study on aging chimps would help better understand human interactions.