1 . Fresh fish should have a mild smell. Strong fishy smells are the first signs to go bad. How do the fishy smells come from?
It can be several days from when the fish are caught to when they reach the supermarket. In that time, bacteria that grow naturally in fish start to consume a substance called trimethylamine N-oxide(TMAO)in fish. These bacteria change TMAO into trimethylamine (TMA), the substance responsible for the fishy smells. Bacteria in fish can also change lysine(赖氨酸)into cadaverine(尸胺), a substance that’s associated with breaking down the fish once they are caught and giving off fishy smell.
Chemical reactions can also lead to fishy smells. This happens through the oxidation(氧化)of fat. Fish are an important source of omega-3 fatty acids. When these fats are exposed to oxygen, they oxidize and break down into the substance that you can smell.
To slow down the fishy smell, what is beyond question is that the less time between when the fish are caught and when they reach the kitchen, the better. But today, fish are often flown across the globe. To keep smell-producing bacteria at bay, the fish must be frozen or kept at the low temperature possible as soon as they are caught and cleaned.
Controlling fat oxidation can function as well, especially for fattier fish species. While freezing slows bacterial growth, it does not stop fat oxidation. This reaction will occur as long as oxygen is present. Fatty fish are usually not frozen because, despite the cold temperature, they’re going to oxidize pretty fast unless they are stored in a low oxygen container. That’s why those species are often canned.
It’s also important to remember that smell is not always an indicator of safety, especially in processed fish products. “What you might consider the fishy smell may be a delicacy in another culture,” said Carl A. Batt, a professor of food science at Cornell University.
1. Which of the following has the fishy smell?| A．Fish fat. | B．TMAO. | C．Cadaverine. | D．Lysine. |
| A．Drying them in the air. | B．Storing them in closed containers. |
| C．Carefully cleaning them. | D．Exposing them to rich oxygen. |
| A．Objective. |
| B．Negative. |
| C．Acceptable. |
| D．Unclear. |
| A．Topic—Example—Conclusion. | B．Topic—Comparison—Opinion. |
| C．Question——Cause——Solution. | D．Question—Effect—Opinion. |
2 . When you ask people to judge others by their speech, a trend emerges: Listeners dislike disfluency. Slow talkers producing loads of ums and pauses(停顿)are generally perceived as less charming. But science tells us there may be even more to disfluency.
Disfluencies do not occur in arbitrary positions in sentences. Ums typically occur right before more difficult or low-frequency words. Imagine you’re having dinner with a friend at a restaurant,and there’re three items on the table: a knife, a glass, and a wine decanter(醒酒器). Your friend turns to you and says, “Could you hand me the...um...” What would you assume they want? Since it’s unlikely that they will hesitate before such common words as knife, and glass, chances are you’ll pick up the decanter and ask, “You mean this?”
This is exactly what we demonstrated through controlled eye-tracking studies in our lab. Apparently, listeners hear the um and predict that an uncommon word is most likely to follow.Such predictions, though, reflect more than just simple association between disfluencies and difficult words; listeners are actively considering from the speaker’s point of view. For example, when hearing a non-native speaker say the same sentence but with a thick foreign accent, listeners don’t show a preference for looking at low-frequency objects. This is probably because listeners assume non-native speakers may have as much trouble coming up with the English word for a common object, like a knife, as for unusual ones and can’t guess their intention.
In another experiment, listeners were presented with an atypical speaker who produced disfluencies before simple words and never before difficult words. Initially, participants displayed the natural predictive strategy: looking at uncommon objects. However, as more time went by, and they gained experience with this atypical distribution of disfluencies, listeners started to demonstrate the contrary predictive behavior: They tended to look at simple objects when hearing the speaker say um.
These findings represent further evidence that the human brain is a prediction machine: We continuously try to predict what will happen next, even though not all disfluencies are created equal.
1. What does the underlined word “arbitrary”mean in paragraph 2?| A．Random. | B．Strategic. | C．Obvious. | D．Consistent |
| A．They can be understood easily. | B．They actively put themselves in others’ shoes |
| C．Their vocabularies are limited. | D．Their disfluencies are a little less predictive. |
| A．Simple things are difficult in some cases. | B．Listeners can adjust predictions accordingly. |
| C．Distribution of disfluencies is changeable. | D．Disfluencies in communication can be avoided. |
| A．Pauses Coexist with Prediction. | B．Brains Are Powerful Prediction Machines. |
| C．Active Listeners Simplify Talks. | D．Disfluency Says More Than You Think. |
3 . Every decision we make is arrived at through hugely complex neurological processing. Although it feels as though you have a choice, the action that you ‘decide’ to take is entirely directed by automatic neural activity. Brain imaging studies show that a person’s action can be predicted by their brain activity up to 10 seconds before they themselves become aware they are going to act. Multiple neuroscientific studies show that even those important decisions that feel worked out are just as automatic as knee-jerk reactions (膝跳反应) (although more complex).
Decision-making starts with the amygdala: a set of two almond-shaped nuclei (杏仁状核) buried deep within the brain, which generate emotion. The amygdala registers the information streaming in through our senses and responds to it in less than a second, sending signals throughout the brain. These produce an urge to run, fight, freeze or grab, according to how the amygdala values various stimuli.
Before we act on the amygdala’s signals, however, the information is usually processed by other brain areas, including some that produce conscious thoughts and emotions. Areas concerned with recognition work out what’s going on, those concerned with memory compare it with previous experiences, and those concerned with reasoning, judging and planning get to work on constructing various action plans. The best plan—if we are lucky—is then selected and carried out. If any of this process goes wrong, we are likely to hesitate, or do something silly.
The various stages of decision-making are marked by different types of brain activity. Fast (gamma)waves, with frequencies of 25 to 100 Hz, produce a keen awareness of the multiple factors that need to be taken into account to arrive at a decision. If you are trying to choose a sandwich, for instance, gamma waves generated in various cells within the ‘taste’ area of the brain bring to mind and compare the taste of ham, hummus, wholemeal, sourdough, and so on. Although it may seem useful to be aware of the full range of choice, too much information makes decision-making more difficult, so irrelevant factors get dismissed quickly and unconsciously.
After this comparison stage, the brain switches to slow-wave activity (12 to 30 Hz). This extinguishes most of the gamma activity, leaving just a single ‘hotspot’ of gamma waves which marks the chosen option.
Although there is no ‘you’ outside your brain to direct what it’s doing, you can help it to make good decisions by placing yourself in a situation which is likely to make the process run more smoothly. Doing something that is physically or mentally stimulating before making a decision will help your brain produce the initial gamma waves that generate awareness of the competing options. Getting over-excited, on the other hand, will prevent the switch to the slow brainwaves, making it much harder to single out a choice.
1. Why does the writer mention “knee-jerk reactions” in the first paragraph?| A．To introduce the finding of the latest brain imaging studies. |
| B．To illustrate that decisions are not consciously thought out. |
| C．To call attention to a kind of neural reaction that is not very complex. |
| D．To show the difference between decision-making and other brain activity. |
| A．It works out conscious thoughts and emotions. |
| B．It selects the best action plan for a given situation. |
| C．It dismisses factors that are irrelevant to the decision to be made. |
| D．It processes sensory information and generates emotional responses. |
| A．Slow-wave activity usually lasts longer than fast-wave activity. |
| B．The brain prioritizes information before settling on a final choice. |
| C．Decision-making is difficult when slow-wave activity occurs first. |
| D．The brain needs as much information as possible to make a decision. |
| A．By preparing the brain to single out the most reasonable choice. |
| B．By helping the brain switch to slow-wave activity more quickly. |
| C．By getting the brain to focus on those most relevant alternatives. |
| D．By making the brain more aware of the factors and choices involved. |
4 . The Great PowerPoint Panic of 2003.
Sixteen minutes before touchdown on the morning of February 1, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia (“哥伦比亚”号航天飞机)
The immediate
By the start of 2003, the phrase “death by PowerPoint” had well and truly entered the
Wired ran an excerpt (节选) from Tufte’s booklet in September 2003 under the headline “PowerPoint Is Evil.” A few months later, The New York Times Magazine included his assessment — summarized as “PowerPoint Makes You Dumb” — in its
Despite the backlash it inspired in the
On its face at least, the idea that PowerPoint makes us stupid looks like a textbook case of misguided technological doomsaying. Today’s concerns about social media somehow resemble the PowerPoint critique. Both boil down to a worry that new media technologies
| A．disappeared | B．disintegrated | C．distributed | D．disappointed |
| A．side | B．cause | C．feature | D．issue |
| A．collected | B．unified | C．dropped | D．single |
| A．discounted | B．viewed | C．accessed | D．founded |
| A．muted | B．absorbed | C．buried | D．sunk |
| A．technical | B．popular | C．negative | D．special |
| A．possibly | B．reasonably | C．ordinarily | D．necessarily |
| A．accommodated | B．combined | C．distinguished | D．enhanced |
| A．abstract | B．repetition | C．review | D．brief |
| A．press | B．publication | C．media | D．criticism |
| A．opened | B．created | C．threw | D．jumped |
| A．rules | B．harmonizes | C．impacts | D．roars |
| A．feature | B．encourage | C．value | D．defend |
| A．Therefore | B．However | C．Certainly | D．Surprisingly |
| A．difference | B．truth | C．time | D．concern |
Antarctica is the center of important scientific research. However, with an increasing number of day, scientists have to leave their work to greet a group of tourists who are taking a vacation in this continent of ice. Even though their desire to enjoy this vast and beautiful landscape can be appreciated, Antarctica should be closed to tourists.
Tourists in Antarctica can damage scientific research and hurt the environment. When tourist groups come, they take scientists away from their research. The work is difficult and some of the projects can be damaged by such simple mistakes as opening the wrong door or knocking against a small piece of equipment. In addition, tourists in Antarctica can also hurt the environment. Members of Greenpeace, one of the world’s leading environmental organizations, complain tourists leave trash on beaches and disturb the plants and animals. In a place as frozen as Antarctica, it can take one hundred years for a plant to grow back.
The need to protect Antarctica from tourists becomes even greater when we consider the fact that there is no government here. Antarctica belongs to no country. Who is making sure that the penguins, plants and sea are safe? No one is responsible. It is true that the number of tourists who visit Antarctica each year is smaller compared to the number of those who visit other places. However, these other places are controlled by local governments. They have an interest in protecting their natural environments. Who is concerned about the environment of Antarctica? The scientist, to be sure, but not necessarily the tour companies that make money from sending people south.
If we don’t protect Antarctica from tourism, there may be serious consequences for us all. We might lose the results of scientific research projects. It’s possible that these results could teach us something important about the causes and effects of climate change. Some fragile plants and animals might die and disappear forever. This could damage the balance of animal and plant life in Antarctica. We know from past experience that when things get unbalanced, harmful changes can occur.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Mental health conditions, including everything from depression and phobias (恐惧) to anorexia (厌食) and schizophrenia (精神分裂症) are shockingly common. In the UK, one in four people experience them each year, so it is likely that you, or someone you know, has sought help from a professional. That process usually begins with a diagnosis. Then you start on a treatment tailored to your condition. It seems an obvious approach, but is it the right one? “For millennia, we’ve put all these psychiatric (神经病的) conditions in separate corners,” says neuroscientist Anke Hammerschlag at Vrije University Amsterdam, the Netherlands. “But maybe that’s not how it works biologically.”
There is growing evidence that she is correct. Instead of being separate conditions, many mental health problems appear to share an underlying cause, something researchers now call the “P factor”. This realization could thoroughly change how we diagnose and treat mental health conditions, putting more focus on symptoms instead of labels and offering more general treatments. It also explains puzzling patterns in the occurrence of these conditions in individuals and families. Rethinking mental health this way could be revolutionary.
At first glance, the idea that different mental health conditions with distinct symptoms share an underlying cause seems unrealistic. The key to understanding it lies in its name. “P factor” has intentional parallels with one of the most famous concepts in psychology. More than a century ago, British psychologist Charles Spearman noted that children’s performance on one kind of mental task, say verbal fluency, was correlated with their mental skill in other areas, like mathematical reasoning, spatial manipulation and logic. In other words, children who are good at one thing tend to be good at another, while those who struggle in one area tend to struggle in others. Using a statistical tool called factor analysis, Spearman showed that this is because these different mental abilities are all linked to an overarching cognitive capacity, which he named general intelligence, or the “G factor”.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
7 . Scientists have discovered more than 5,000 new species living on the seabed in an untouched area of the Pacific Ocean that has been identified as a future hotspot for deep-sea mining, according to a review of the environmental surveys carried out in the area.
It is the first time the previously unknown biodiversity of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), a mineral-rich area of the ocean floor that spans 1.7m sq miles between Hawaii and Mexico in the Pacific, has been comprehensively documented. The research will be critical to assessing the risk of extinction of the species, given contracts for deep-sea mining in the near-pristine area appear imminent.
Most of the animals identified by researchers exploring the zone are new to science, and almost all are unique to the region: only six, including a carnivorous sponge and a sea cucumber, have been seen elsewhere.
Contracts for mining exploration in the CCZ have been granted to 17 deep-sea mining contractors in an area covering 745,000 sq miles. The companies, which are backed by countries including Britain, the US and China, want to dig for minerals including cobalt manganese and nickel in part to sell to the alternative energy sector.
To better understand the impact of mining this fragile ecosystem and its newly discovered inhabitants, an international team of scientists has built the first “CCZ checklist” by compiling all the records from expeditions to the region. Published in the journal Current Biology, it includes 5,578 different species, of which an estimated 88% to 92% had never before been seen.
To study and collect specimens (样品) from the ocean floor, biologists have joined research cruises in the Pacific that send remote-controlled vehicles to traverse (穿越) the seabed 4,000 to 6,000 meters below. Adrian Glover, a deep-sea biologist at the NHM and senior author of the study described it as an “incredible privilege”. The expedition, funded through the Natural Environment Research Council and others, is backed by UK Seabed Resources (UKSR), a deep-sea mining company that operates the UK’s exploration area. The scientists watch operations by video link direct from the boat as new species are gathered by remote control vehicles in the darkness below.
The seabed, Glover said, is an “amazing place” where, despite the extreme cold and dark, life thrives. “One of the characteristics of the abyssal plain is the lack of food, but life has a way of persisting down there,” he said, “It’s a mystery.” One of the deep-sea animals discovered was nicknamed the “gummy squirrel”, because of its huge tail and jelly-like appearance, he said. There are also glass sponges, some of which look like vases.
With approval for deep-sea mining looming, Glover said he believed it was “imperative that we work with the companies looking to mine these resources to ensure any such activity is done in a way that limits its impact upon the natural world”.
1. What’s the meaning of the underlined word “imminent”?| A．Easy to carry out. | B．Ready to take place. |
| C．Hard to cope with. | D．Important to look over. |
| A．Identifying new species living on the seabed. | B．Assessing the risk of extinction of species. |
| C．Documenting the biodiversity of the area. | D．Exploring the potential for deep-sea mining. |
| A．Abundance of food. | B．Extreme lifeless environment. |
| C．Presence of glass sponges. | D．Prosperous life despite challenging conditions. |
| A．A magic zone:available to mining companies |
| B．A mineral-rich area: Clarion-Clipperton Zone |
| C．An “amazing place”: new species booming |
| D．Deep-sea wonders: the new species found in a Pacific mining hotspot |
8 . Background noise—like the chatter in a coffee shop or the drone of passing traffic—might slow our reading speed, but according to a study of Russian readers, it doesn’t
“Overall, previous studies reported a harmful effect of both auditory and visual noise on reading fluency and
One of the language processing theories examined was the noisy channel model, which proposes that our brain deals with noise by looking at the meaning of
The second theory is the good enough model; that’s when our brains aren’t analyzing every single detail of a text but instead only grabbing enough words for a ‘good enough’ understanding. By focusing less on the precise words, our brains can
To see how reading was affected by noise
“In both experiments, we observed that longer total reading time was
There’s a lot going on in this study, but overall it’s a bigger win for the good-enough language processing theory and an indication that auditory and visual noise doesn’t make us
With so many variables to measure in terms of what’s being read and what the
| A．reinforce | B．estimate | C．affect | D．interpret |
| A．First of all | B．For example | C．Above all | D．To start with |
| A．context | B．efficiency | C．comprehension | D．device |
| A．evaluated | B．identified | C．established | D．employed |
| A．individual | B．different | C．new | D．unfamiliar |
| A．confirm | B．imply | C．refer | D．infer |
| A．exploit | B．spare | C．commit | D．consume |
| A．on account of | B．regardless of | C．in regard to | D．in contrast to |
| A．make up for | B．live up to | C．catch up with | D．put up with |
| A．declined | B．shrank | C．expanded | D．increased |
| A．embarrassing | B．depressing | C．puzzling | D．annoying |
| A．associated | B．compared | C．replaced | D．mixed |
| A．take | B．set | C．rely | D．base |
| A．accompanying | B．strange | C．deafening | D．distant |
| A．Therefore | B．However | C．Instead | D．Otherwise |
9 . How Did You Get Five Fingers?
Your arms and toes began as tiny buds that sprouted from your sides when you were just a four-week-old embryo (胚胎). By six weeks, these limb buds had grown longer and five rods of cartilage 软骨) had appeared in their flattened tips. By week seven, the cells between the rods had died away, forming five small fingers or toes from once-solid masses of flesh.
Now, a team of scientists led by James Sharpe from the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona has discovered that these events are carefully orchestrated by three molecules. They mark out zones in the embryonic hand where fingers will grow, and the spaces in between that are destined to die. Without such molecules, pianos and keyboards wouldn’t exist, and jazz hands would be jazz palms.
These three molecules work in a way first envisioned by Alan Turing, a legendary English mathematician and code-breaker. Back in 1952, Turing proposed a simple mathematical model in which two molecules could create patterns by spreading through tissues and interacting with each other. For example, the first molecule might activate the second, while the second blocks the first. Neither receives any guidance about where to go; through their dance, they spontaneously organize themselves into spots or stripes.
Since then, many scientists have found that these Turing mechanisms exist. They’re responsible for a cheetah’s spots and a zebrafish’s stripes. For 30 years, people have also suggested that they could sculpt our hands and feet, but no one had found the exact molecules involved.
Sharpe knew that these molecules would need to show a striped pattern. Sox9 seemed like the most promising candidate. It is activated in a striped pattern from a very early stage of development. By comparing cells where Sox9 is active or inactive, Jelena Raspopovic and Luciano Marcon found two other groups of genes—Bmp and Wnt—also formed striped patterns. Bmp rises and falls in step with Sox9 and both are active in the digits. Wnt is out of phase; it’s active in the gaps. The three molecules also affect each other: Bmp activates Sox9 while Wnt blocks it; and Sox9 blocks both of its partners. It looked like these were the molecules the team was searching for not a pair, as Turing suggested, but a trinity. To confirm this, they created a simulation of a growing limb bud and showed that Sox9, Bmp and Wnt could organize themselves into a pattern of five stripes, by activating and blocking each other.
There’s still a lot to discover, though. For example, I’ve used Bmp and Wnt as shorthands here—in reality, each represents a class of several molecules, and the team still needs to work out which specific member is part of the Turing’s proposal.
1. The underlined sentence in the second paragraph means that ________.| A．some certain molecules are necessary for the growth of human fingers |
| B．the development of embryos is dependent on some certain molecules |
| C．without some certain molecules, music won’t exist in this world |
| D．the molecules work in a way that Alan Turing once offered |
| A．Molecules interact by following a strict mathematical model. |
| B．Molecules have a strong will to form patterns in nature. |
| C．The formation of patterns in nature may be dominated by molecules. |
| D．Alan Turing was able to track down the movement of molecules. |
| A．A protein that determines humans’ development in childhood. |
| B．A gene especially important for the development of our limbs. |
| C．A striped pattern that always interacts with Bmp and Wnt. |
| D．A simulation of growing limbs that activate and block each other. |
| A．How human limbs are developed may well be similar to how animal spots are shaped. |
| B．The way Sox9 interacts with Bmp and Wnt is still a mystery that needs further studying. |
| C．Sox9 can activate both Bmp and Wnt to form our limbs, according to scientific research. |
| D．Sox9, Bmp and Wnt are three specific molecules that determine the growth of fingers. |
10 . On March 7, 1907, the English statistician Francis Galton published a paper which illustrated what has come to be known as the “wisdom of crowds” effect. The experiment of estimation he conducted showed that in some cases, the average of a large number of independent estimates could be quite accurate.
This effect capitalizes on the fact that when people make errors, those errors aren’t always the same. Some people will tend to overestimate, and some to underestimate. When enough of these errors are averaged together, they cancel each other out, resulting in a more accurate estimate. If people are similar and tend to make the same errors, then their errors won’t cancel each other out. In more technical terms, the wisdom of crowds requires that people’s estimates be independent. If for whatever reasons, people’s errors become correlated or dependent, the accuracy of the estimate will go down.
But a new study led by Joaquin Navajas offered an interesting twist (转折) on this classic phenomenon. The key finding of the study was that when crowds were further divided into smaller groups that were allowed to have a discussion, the averages from these groups were more accurate than those from an equal number of independent individuals. For instance, the average obtained from the estimates of four discussion groups of five was significantly more accurate than the average obtained from 20 independent individuals.
In a follow-up study with 100 university students, the researchers tried to get a better sense of what the group members actually did in their discussion. Did they tend to go with those most confident about their estimates? Did they follow those least willing to change their minds? This happened some of the time, but it wasn’t the dominant response. Most frequently, the groups reported that they “shared arguments and reasoned together”. Somehow, these arguments and reasoning resulted in a global reduction in error. Although the studies led by Navajas have limitations and many questions remain, the potential implications for group discussion and decision-making are enormous.
1. What is paragraph 2 of the text mainly about?| A．The methods of estimation. | B．The underlying logic of the effect. |
| C．The causes of people’s errors. | D．The design of Galton’s experiment. |
| A．the crowds were relatively small | B．there were occasional underestimates |
| C．individuals did not communicate | D．estimates were not fully independent |
| A．The size of the groups. | B．The dominant members. |
| C．The discussion process. | D．The individual estimates. |
| A．Unclear. | B．Dismissive. | C．Doubtful. | D．Approving. |
