What’s small, buzzes here and there and visits flowers? If you said bees or hummingbirds, you got it. You wouldn’t be the first if you mixed the two up. Now a group of researchers even say we should embrace our history of considering the two together in the same group. The way scientists study bees could help them study hummingbird behavior, too.
Scientists first compared the two back in the 1970s when studying how animals search for food. The idea is that animals use a kind of math to make choices in order to minimize the work it takes to earn maximum rewards. Researchers at the time focused on movement rules, like the order in which they visited flowers, and where flowers were located relative to others. It was “almost like an algorithm(算法)” for efficient searching, said David Pritchard, a biologist at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Hummingbirds and bees had similar solutions.
As the field of animal cognition(认知) appeared, hummingbird and bee research parted. Neuroscientists and behavioral ecologists developed ways to study bee behavior in naturalistic settings. Hummingbird researchers compared hummingbirds to other birds and borrowed methods from psychology to study their ability to learn in the lab. To be fair, hummingbirds and bees differ. For example, hummingbirds have more advanced eyes and brains than bees. Honeybees and bumblebees are social; hummingbirds typically aren’t.
But however they perceive(感知) or process information, they both experience similar information, Dr. Pritchard said. In day-to-day searching for food, for example, hummingbirds may rely on more of a bee’s-eye view than a bird’s-eye view. Like other birds, they rely on landmarks, distances and directions to make maps when travelling long distances, but they don’t use these cues to find flowers. Move a flower just an inch or so away from where a hummingbird thought it was and it will hover over the flower’s original location. Dr. Pritchard is investigating if, like bees, hummingbirds engage in view matching — hovering, scanning snapshots of a place to its memory and using those as references later.
1.What is the center of research on hummingbirds and bees in the 1970s?
A.Memory.
B.Movement rules.
C.Reward calculating.
D.Information processing.
2.Which subject’s research methods were adopted to study the learning ability of Hummingbirds?
A.Math.
B.Biology.
C.Ecology.
D.Psychology.
3.How do researchers find out that hummingbirds are not like birds?
A.By setting them free.
B.By moving flowers.
C.By matching view.
D.By making maps.
4.Which of the following can be the best title for the text?
A.Hummingbirds and Bees
B.Hummingbirds in the Lab
C.New Trends in Studying Bees
D.Thinking of Hummingbirds as Bees
Traditionally, robots have been hard, made of metal and other rigid material. But a team of scientists at Harvard University in the US has managed to build an entirely soft robot-one that draws inspiration from an octopus (章鱼).
Described in science journal Nature, the “Octobot” could pave the way for more effective autonomous robots that could be used in search，rescue and exploration. “The Octobot is minimal system which may serve as a foundation for a new generation of completely soft, autonomous robots” the study’s authors wrote.
Robots built for precise, repetitive movements in a controlled environment don’t do so well on rough terrains (地形) or in unpredictable conditions. And they aren’t especially safe around humans, because they’re made out of hard and heavy parts that could be potentially dangerous to their users.
So researchers have been working on building soft robots for decades. They’re taken inspiration from nature, looking to animals from jellyfish to cockroaches, which are often made up of more flexible matter.
But creating a completely soft robot remains a challenge. Even if engineers build a silicone (硅酮) body, it’s still a grand challenge to construct flexible versions of essential parts, such as a source of power.
“Although soft robotics is still in its early stage, it holds great promise for several applications, such as search-rescue operations and exploration,” Barbara Mazzolai and Virgilio Mattoli of the Italian Institute of Technology’ Center for Micro-BioRobotics, wrote in a comment. “Soft robots might also open up new approaches to improving wellness and quality of life.”
1.What’s the special feature of “Octobot”？
A.It’s soft. B.It’s made of metal.
C.It’s very small. D.It looks like an octopus.
2.What’s the disadvantage of traditional robots?
A.They’re hard to control. B.They’re too heavy to move.
C.They can’t predict conditions. D.They can’t behave well all the time.
3.One of the biggest challenges is to build Octobot’s ________.
A.silicone body B.complex components
C.precise movements D.flexible power source
4.What’s the possible application of “Octobot”？
A.Medical research. B.Life rescue.
C.Machine operation. D.House cleaning.
Alongside air and water, food is a necessity for human beings to survive and thrive. But it’s a lot more than that. As Mariette Dichristina of Scientific American wrote: “The most intimate (亲密的) relationship we will ever have is not with any fellow human being. Instead, it is between our bodies and our food.”
Nowadays, for most people in the world’s wealthiest countries, food is a hobby, an enthusiasm, and even something fashionable.
Turn on the TV in the US, UK or France, and you’ll find at least one channel feeding this popular obsession.
And most of us know at least one person who thinks of themselves as a “foodie”. It’s almost impossible nowadays to check our social media apps without at least two or three photos of delicious meals appearing on our screen.
But behind the fancy recipes and social media bragging (夸耀), many of us forget how much we take food for granted. This is why World Food Day is held each year.
Take Kenya for example. This east African nation has been suffering terrible droughts. The result is that people are beginning to starve. Children in particular are suffering, with some of them even dying.
This may seem shocking to know, especially as many cultures outside of Africa think of food in a completely different way. But even in the UK, families on low incomes are forced to use food banks—European organizations that hand out donated food to those who can’t afford to pay for it themselves.
So what can we do on World Food Day? One good way to spend it would be to feel humble and appreciate what we have. After all, food is essential for survival, but not everyone is as lucky as we are when it comes to dinner time.
1.According to Mariette Dichristina, what has the closest relationship with us?
A.Air. B.Water.
C.Food. D.Human beings.
2.What does the underlined word “foodie” in Paragraph 4 probably mean?
A.Delicious food. B.A person fond of food.
C.A social media app. D.A photo of delicious meals.
3.Who can get help from food banks?
A.Poor people in the UK. B.Poor people in Africa.
C.Starving children in Kenya. D.People in the drought-stricken.
4.What’s the best title for the text?
A.Treat Food as a Hobby B.Time to Appreciate Food
C.Food Shortage in Some Countries D.How to Spend World Food Day
Last year marked the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. There were events around the world in memory of those who died in the conflict. We have picked out three of them in European countries. Let's take a look.
Belgium
In a park, the famous Belgian artist Koen Vanmechelen had an exhibition called Coming World, Remember Me. The work consisted of 600,000 individual(个别的) clay sculptures, one for each person killed during the World War. In the center of the exhibition was a big egg made of clay, symbolizing a new world.
UK
In a small town called Aldridge, almost 100 houses in one street were covered with 24,000 poppies and statues of soldiers. They stood for the men from the area who had been killed in the war. The flowers were chosen because of a poem written by the Canadian doctor John McCrea in 1915. They made people think of fields of blood.
France
The British artist Guy Denning arrived in La Feuille, a small town in the northwest of France, to stick life-size drawings of soldiers who never came back home. Armed with glue and a brush, Denning stuck his drawings carefully on walls. Before long 112 men, mainly young adults, were brought back to mind, if not to life.
1.What do we know about Coming World, Remember Me?
A.It's the name of an exhibition. B.It's a film about World War I.
C.It's a work standing for peace. D.It's a sculpture made of clay.
2.Why were poppies chosen to symbolize the dead soldiers?
A.The British people preferred them. B.They showed the cruelty of war.
C.A Canadian doctor suggested them. D.The fields were filled with them.
3.How was the end of World War I marked in France?
A.A memorial to the dead soldiers was built.
B.112 wounded soldiers in the war were helped.
C.Drawings of some dead soldiers were put up.
D.Young adults were encouraged to join the army.
假定你是李华，计划下周六去买有关中国文化经典的书籍，你校交换生Peter想与你一起前往。请给他写封邮件说明你的计划，内容包括：
1. 见面时间和地点；
2. 交通方式；
3. 其它活动。
注意:1. 词数100左右;
2. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
假定英语课上老师要求同桌之间交换修改作文，请你修改你同桌写的以下作文。文中共有10处语言错误，每句中最多有两处，每处错误仅涉及一个单词的增加、删除或修改。
增加：在缺词处加一个漏符号（∧），并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线（\）划掉。
修改：在错的词下画一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意：1. 每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；
2. 只允许修改10处，多者（从第11处起）不计分。
The high school life of three years have made me learn a lot of things. Among them teamwork is the most significantly for me. In fact, I didn’t realize its importance after I was elected monitor of my class. In the beginning, I did almost all the duties myself. However, other students cared little about class activity. As a consequence, I tired out and depressed. Then I turned to my head teacher, whom advised me to cooperate with others. Thus I began to recognize the strengths at my classmates and managed to have everyone to play a role in class. It is working in teams instead of on my own which has freed me of trouble and made my work more efficient. Without teamwork, I wouldn’t have made such many achievements at school.
