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。
Do you live in a city? You’ve probably noticed how noisy and crowded life in a city can be. 1. if you could live next to a calm lake instead?
As it turns out, 2. (live) near bodies of water – lakes, rivers, ponds, even oceans – can help us feel both happier and healthier. Those who live less than a kilometer from the coast are around 22 percent less likely 3. (have) mental health problems than those who live 50 kilometers or more away, according to a study by researchers from the University of Exeter, UK. People who visit the coast at least twice a week tend to experience 4. (good) general and mental health as well.
So how does “blue space” make us feel better? For one thing, aquatic environments tend to have less pollution and more sunlight, both of 5. linked to better mental and physical health. People who get more sun tend to be happier than those who do not.
There’s also the air above 6. sea. After spending time near the ocean, you might find that you feel more relaxed than usual. This is 7. sea air is charged with negative ions (负离子). These ions balance our levels of serotonin (血清素), a chemical that affects our moods. With 8. (balance) serotonin levels, we feel more calm and relaxed, according to Daily Mail.
Finally, people who live near water tend to be more 9. (physical) active, according to the Guardian. Water sports like swimming and rowing can help us stay 10. shape, which in turn keeps us healthy.
Today, I was sitting with some other students and teachers as the judges of the annual singing contest of Beijing National Day School (BNDS). Watching the wonderful performances on stage, I could not help________what happened last year.
Last year was the first year I came to the BNDS International Department. The first month at BNDS was almost a(n)________: Curiosity quickly________, replaced by a heavy workload. To make matters worse, I was ______a total stranger in a new environment. When I was in trouble, I was too________to turn to anyone for help. I shut the door to the outside world.
I thought I might continue to_______in darkness by myself, until one day, I saw the______of the annual singing contest. If I was not brave enough to communicate in words, maybe I could______my heart out. Having made my decision, I joined the audition (试镜). Luckily, I_______among more than 100 contestants and entered the top 32. After another three rounds of competition, I made_______to the finals together with three other contestants.________more and more students knew that I joined the contest, they went to watch my performance, volunteered to_______for me and then shared my singing videos on social media. It seemed that I became well-known overnight.
Finally, the big day came. When I________the nerve to walk onstage, I could not believe my eyes. The dark theater was suddenly lit up by________sticks, which were like stars in a dark sky. “Come on, Becky!” A shout broke the silence, followed by kind laughter. When it became_______again, I began to sing.
The music started, which drew me back to________. Now I might not remember clearly what songs I sang last year, but I would never forget the________in the darkness. From then on, I had my_______, made friends, and I even joined the singing club. Singing opens the door________a brand-new world. I know I will stay at BNDS, and I won’t be________.
1.A.scanning B.recalling C.evaluating D.conveying
2.A.disaster B.turning C.growth D.alarm
3.A.distributed B.split C.choked D.faded
4.A.practically B.vitally C.elegantly D.digitally
5.A.sceptical B.shallow C.shy D.sharp
6.A.struggle B.sacrifice C.withdraw D.crash
7.A.detail B.sample C.application D.poster
8.A.dial B.sing C.try D.let
9.A.dropped out B.came out C.stood out D.chewed out
10.A.myself B.it C.them D.itself
11.A.As B.Though C.While D.When
12.A.approve B.applaud C.vote D.qualify
13.A.filled in B.swelled up C.wound up D.got up
14.A.circulating B.linking C.crossing D.waving
15.A.stable B.quiet C.dull D.calm
16.A.truth B.fact C.reality D.case
17.A.lights B.devices C.receivers D.circumstances
18.A.companions B.fans C.opponents D.receptionists
19.A.of B.in C.to D.on
20.A.accessible B.casual C.abnormal D.alone
There are some popular family videos posted on Chinese social media. In these videos, a young child calls out to their mother or father; the parent enters the room smiling, turns around and calls out to their own parent; the grandparent then enters smiling and calls out to their parent – the great-grandparent.
The format of these videos is being described as the “four-generation challenge”. 1. People from all over the world have left comments and even made their own versions.
A Facebook user named Antoine Yupud wrote, “I have to give that to China. 2..” The “four-generation” videos have not only touched foreign viewers, but also given them a deeper look into Chinese family values.
In most East Asian cultures, it is common for many generations of a single family to live together under one roof. 3.. Many Western countries tend to have nuclear families, made up of just children and their parents.
4.. Kids usually move out of the family home after turning 18. Many apply for loans and work part-time jobs to pay for college and rent. If they choose to continue living with their parents after becoming an adult, it can be seen as a sign of immaturity or failure.
Although family structures in the United States may differ, the loving bonds between family members are common to both. 5..
A. Family devotion is usually a strong value.
B. This is called an extended family.
C. These videos have spread to social media in other countries.
D. Nuclear families gradually took the place of extended families.
E. In United States culture, independence is highly valued.
F. These videos have made many people miss their own grandparents.
G. That might be why the “four-generation” videos have gained popularity around the world.
I can’t stop looking at my phone, but I’m not alone.
Over 2.5 billion people have smartphones now, and a lot of them are having a hard time putting them down. The problem is, out devices are designed to be addicting. But if you understand the tricks that grab your attention, you can learn to have a healthier relationship with your phone.
It starts with turning off all notifications（推送通知）, except when a real human is trying to reach you. But a lot of today’s apps simulate the feeling of that kind of social interaction, to get you to spend more time on their platform. If Facebook sends you a push notification that a friend is interested in an event near you, they’re essentially acting like a puppet master, taking advantage of your desire for social connections so that you use the app more.
Today you can get notifications from any app on your phone. So, every time you check it, you get this grab bag of notifications that can make you feel a broad variety of emotions. If it wasn’t for random, if it was predictably bad or predictably good, then you would not get addicted. That’s the same logic behind slot machines（老虎机）. Some apps even copy the process of pulling a slot machine lever with the “pull to refresh” feature. Those apps are usually capable of continuously updating content, but the pull action provides an addicting illusion of control over that process.
Then, you have to make your screen grayer. The easiest way to attract your eye’s attention on a screen is through color. In eye-tracking tests, human eyes gravitate（被吸引）particularly to bright red. That’s why so many apps have redesigned their icons to be brighter, bolder, and warmer over the years. It’s also why notification bubbles are red. So just noticing that if I take out the color, it changes some of the addictiveness.
Finally, restrict your home screen to everyday tools. Make sure that your home screen, when you unlock it, doesn’t have anything except for the in-the-moment tools that help you like live your life.
If you’re not sure what counts as a bottomless vortex（漩涡）of stuff, it helps to filter out apps that use infinite scrolling. Infinite scrolling continuously loads new material so there’s no built-in endpoint. Video autoplay works in a similar way. These interfaces create a frictionless experience, but they also create a user’s sense of control and make it harder to stop.
Technology might not always look harmful. There are ideas for alternative interfaces that give you functional choices and are more transparent about how much time you’ll lose with one action, versus another.
But it’s a really deep philosophical question: what is genuinely worth your attention? Do people even know how to answer that question? It’s a really hard question, it’s not something we think about. But, for now, it’s a question that everybody needs to start asking.
1.Which is the most accurate word to replace the underlined word “essentially”?
A.basically B.necessarily
C.temporarily D.punctually
2.What does the author mean by mentioning “slot machine”?
A.Users can probably predict what the notification is before checking their phones.
B.Netizens can do gambling on the internet legally.
C.There’re a lot of similarities between apps and slot machines.
D.It’s unpredictability that makes phones addicting.
3.From the end of the article we can know that ______.
A.all the interfaces are not extremely addicting
B.we users are not enabled to choose but to waste time on technology
C.it’s philosophers’ job to reflect on the value of technology in information age
D.the development of technology cannot be changed back to the way they were before
4.We can learn from the passage that the author’s attitude to technology is ______.
A.negative B.concerned
C.positive D.indifferent
Most of us are already aware of the direct effect we have on our friends and family. But we rarely consider that everything we think, feel, do, or say can spread far beyond the people we know. Conversely(相反地), our friends and family serve as conduits(渠道) for us to be influenced by hundreds or even thousands of other people. In a kind of social chain reaction, we can be deeply affected by events we do not witness that happen to people we do not know. As part of a social network, we go beyond ourselves, for good or ill, and become a part of something much larger.
Our connectedness carries with it fundamental implications(影响) for the way we understand the human condition. Social networks have value precisely because they can help us to achieve what we could not achieve on our own. Yet, social network effects are not always positive. Depression, obesity, financial panic, and violence also spread. Social networks, it turns out, tend to magnify(放大) whatever they are seeded with.
Partly for this reason, social networks are creative. And what these networks create does not belong to any one individual—it is shared by all those in the network. In this way, a social network is like a commonly owned forest: we all stand to benefit from it, but we also must work together to ensure it remains healthy and productive. While social networks are fundamentally and distinctively human, and can be seen everywhere, they should not be taken for granted.
If you are happier or richer or healthier than others, it may have a lot to do with where you happen to be in the network, even if you cannot recognize your own location. And it may have a lot to do with the overall structure of the network, even if you cannot control that structure at all. And in some cases, the process feeds back to the network itself. A person with many friends may become rich and then attract even more friends. This richget-richer dynamic means social networks can dramatically reinforce two different kinds of inequality in our society: situational inequality and positional inequality.
Lawmakers have not yet considered the consequences of positional inequality. Still, understanding the way we are connected is an essential step in creating a more just society and in carrying out public policies affecting everything from public health to the economy. We might be better off vaccinating(接种疫苗) centrally located individuals rather than weak individuals. We might be better off helping interconnected groups of people to avoid criminal behavior rather than preventing or punishing crimes one at a time.
If we want to understand how society works, we need to fill in the missing links between individuals. We need to understand how interconnections and interactions between people give rise to wholly new aspects of human experience that are not present in the individuals themselves. If we do not understand social networks, we cannot hope to fully understand either ourselves or the world we inhabit.
1.What can be inferred from the first paragraph?
A.We can't be easily affected by strangers.
B.We are connected and form a social network.
C.We have negative effects on other social members.
D.We will not make a difference in a specific group.
2.What does the underlined word “it” in the second paragraph refers to ?
A.something larger B.our connectedness
C.the human condition D.a social network
3.A social network can be compared to a commonly owned forest because ______.
A.it remains healthy and productive.
B.it tends to magnify negative things.
C.it is creative and shared by people in the whole society.
D.what it creates can be enjoyed by everyone in the network.
4.What's the author's purpose in writing the passage?
A.To introduce the characteristics of social networks.
B.To urge people to understand how our society works.
C.To show the significance of understanding social networks.
D.To explain the possible consequences of ignoring social networks.
One day, “supercharged plants” may help feed people around the world. Supercharged plants are ones that grow faster than normal plant life. Scientists can speed up the growth by modifying, or changing, the structure of plants’ genes. The modifications make them react quickly to changes in light. This all has to do with photosynthesis（光合作用）, the process in which plants turn sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into food.
Plants grow fastest in the sun. That is when they make the most food for themselves. But their rate of growth can slow when things like clouds or trees block sunlight. But when the sun returns, it can take many minutes for growth to speed up again. This can be a problem because it means some of our most important crop plants are not as productive as they could be.
Steve Long, a plant biologist with the University of Illinois, wanted to find a way to help plants get back up to speed quickly after a period of darkness. So he and his team added genes that shortened the recovery time. It also increased the speed at which the plants grew. His modified plants grew up to 20 percent more than untreated ones.
"This finding, where we've just made one modification that has boosted crop yield, is really a boost to the whole area, because everyone else working on photosynthesis can now see that if we can improve photosynthetic efficiency in crops, we will get more yield.” Long wrote in a magazine article.
In Long's study, his group used a form of genetic engineering called transgenics. It means taking genes from one plant, then putting them into another. There is a scientific debate about whether transgenics is a good idea or not.
Matthew Reynolds from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center spoke to VOA on Skype. “The increased rates of production noted by Long's team are impressive.” He has some hope about the process. But he also has questions. "What is the downside? Why have the plants not done that before? And we always ask those questions when we see something that looks a bit too good to be true..."
Long's group worked with tobacco plants because they are easy to study. Now they are experimenting with rice, soybeans, cowpeas, and cassava – four important food crops. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provided money for the study. The organization says any new technology approved from this research will be made freely available to farmers in Africa and South Asia.
1.What’s the purpose of Steve Long’s experiment with tobacco?
A.To make plants healthier and more productive than before.
B.To help plants grow quickly after the sun returns.
C.To shorten the time that plants adapt themselves to light.
D.To increase crop yield through modifying plants’ genes.
2.Which of the following is not included in the process of Long’s experiment?
A.genes are added to some tobacco plants.
B.Experiments are being conducted with rice and soybeans.
C.Some crop plants are not as productive as they could be.
D.Improved photosynthetic efficiency means more yield.
3.What can we learn about Long’s group and his study from the passage?
A.The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has financed Longs group.
B.VOA interviewed Steve Long on Skype about his group and his study.
C.The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center approved of his study.
D.Matthew Reynolds didn’t believe the production rates noted by Long’s group.
4.Which of the following can be the best title for the passage?
A.Transgenics May Cause a Scientific Debate
B.Photosynthesis May Improve Crop Production
C.Supercharged Plants May Mean More Crop Yield
D.Genetic Modifications May Help Plants Grow Better
