Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and the main point(s) of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.
Blowing a Few Tops
Ever stopped to consider the upside of volcanic eruptions? It’s not all death, destruction and hot liquid rock—scientists have a plan to cool the planet by simulating one such eruption.
Solar geoengineering involves simulating a volcano by spraying aerosols(气溶胶) into the atmosphere. When they combine with oxygen, droplets of sulfuric acid (硫酸) form. These droplets reflect sunlight away from Earth, cooling the planet. All good in theory, but the consequences are largely unknown and a few could be disastrous. In a study recently published in Nature Communications, researchers led by Anthony Jones, a climate scientist from the University of Exeter, found that using this technology in the Northern Hemisphere could reduce the number of tropical winds hitting the U.S. and Caribbean. But there's an annoying exchange: more winds in the Southern Hemisphere and a drought across the Sahel region of Africa. That’s because the entire climate system is linked—disrupting one region will invariably affect another. How would a nation react if another was causing its weather to get much worse? Would that be an act of war?
There is, however, a case for using solar geoengineering on a global scale. Jones says it could be used to “take the edge off” the temperature increases scientists are predicting. It could be used while the world searches for more effective strategies.
The study also highlights a far bigger problem with solar geoengineering: its complete lack of regulation. “There’s nothing that could stop one country just doing it,” Jones says. “You only need about 100 aircraft with three flights per day. It would cost $1 billion to $10 billion per year.” He adds, “It’s deeply disturbing that we have this technology that could have such a massive influence on the climate, yet there’s just no regulation to stop countries or even organizations from doing it.”
Jones cautions that there is much about the climate system we do not understand, as well as far more work that will need to be done before solar geoengineering is considered safe—or too dangerous to even discuss.
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Directions: Read the passage carefully. Fill in each blank with a proper sentence given in the box. Each sentence can be used only once. Note that there are two more sentences than you need.
True intelligence
Taking charge of yourself involves putting to rest some very prevalent myths. At the top of the list is the notion that intelligence is measured by your ability to solve complex problems, to read, write and compute at certain levels, and to resolve abstract equations quickly. 1.It encourages a kind of intellectual prejudice that has brought with it some discouraging results. We have come to believe that someone who has more educational merit badges, who is very good at some form of school discipline is "intelligent". Yet mental hospitals are filled with patients who have all of the properly lettered certificates. A truer indicator of intelligence is an effective, happy life lived each day and each present moment of every day. 2.
Problem solving is a useful help to your happiness, but if you know that given your inability to resolve a particular concern you can still choose happiness for yourself, or at a minimum refuse to choose unhappiness, then you are intelligent. You are intelligent because you have the ultimate weapon against the big N. B.D. --Nervous Break Down.
"Intelligent" people do not have N. B. D. because they are in charge of themselves. 3.
You can begin to think of yourself as truly intelligent on the basis of how you choose to feel in the face of trying circumstances. The life struggles are pretty much the same for each of us. Everyone who is involved with other human beings in any social context has similar difficulties. Disagreements, conflicts and compromises are a part of what it means to be human. 4.But some people are able to make it, to avoid immobilizing depression and unhappiness despite such occurrences, while others collapse or have an N, B. D. Those who recognize problems as a human condition and don't measure happiness by an absence of problems are the most intelligent kind of humans we know; also, the most rare.
A. Holding a university degree indicates one’s ability to write properly worded documents.
B. If you are happy, if you live each moment for everything it’s worth, then you are an intelligent person.
C. N.B.D refers to an illness that causes a person to suffer from anxiety and to have difficulty living and working as usual.
D. Similarly, money, growing old, sickness, deaths, natural disasters and accidents are all events which present problems to virtually all human beings.
E. They know how to choose happiness over depression, because they know how to deal with the problems of their lives.
F. This vision of intelligence asserts formal education and bookish excellence as the true measures of self-fulfillment.
The idea that richer countries are happier may seem intuitively obvious. However, in 1974, research by economist Richard Easterlin found otherwise, He discovered that while individuals with higher incomes were more likely to be happy, this did not hold at a national level. In the United States, for example, average income per person rose steadily between 1946 and 1970, but reported happiness levels showed no positive long-term trend.; in fact, they declined between 1060 and 1970. These differences between nation-level and individual results gave rise to the term “ Easterlin paradox”: the idea that a higher rate of economic growth does not result in higher long-term happiness.
Having access to additional income seems to only provide a temporary surge in happiness. Since a certain minimum income is needed for basic necessities, it’s possible that the happiness boost from extra cash isn’t that great once you rise above the poverty line. This would explain Easterlin’s findings in the United States and other developed countries. He argued that life satisfaction does rise with average incomes but only in the short term.
Recent research has challenged the Easternlin paradox, however. In2013, sociologists Ruut Veenhoven and Floris Vergunst conducted a study using statistics from the World Database of Happiness. Their analysis revealed a positive correlation between economic growth and happiness. Another study by the University of Michigan found that there is no maximum wealth threshold at which more money ceases to contribute to your happiness: “If there is a satiation point, we are yet to reach it.” The study’s findings suggested that every extra dollar you earn makes you happier. With a much debate about the relationship between money and happiness, it’s clear that happiness itself is a complex concept and depends on many factors.
According to psychologists Selin Kesebir and Shigehiro Oishi, happiness also depends on how your income compares to the people around you. They argue that a country’s economic growth only makes its citizens happier if wealth is evenly distributed. In emerging countries with high income inequality——where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer——average happiness tends to drop because only relatively few people benefit from the economic prosperity. This suggests that governments should consider implementing policies to ensure more equal distribution of wealth. The happier people are, the more productive they are likely to become, thus leading to improved economic outcomes at the individual and national levels.
There is continuing debate about the link between wealth and happiness, with arguments both for and against the notion that richer countries are happier. However, it is clear that wealth alone isn’t enough to make us happy. The effect of income inequality on happiness shows that happiness is a social responsibility. We need to remember the positive effects of generosity, altruism, and building social connections. Perhaps our focus should be less on how m uch money we have, and more on how we use it.
1.According to the passage, Easterlin Paradox refers to______.
A.the fact that the more money, the happier people will feel
B.the suggestion that money should be given the top priority
C.the question how economic outcomes are distributed nationwide
D.the opinion that higher income doesn’t necessarily generate happiness
2.The word “satiation” in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to “______”.
A.satisfaction B.controversial C.central D.sensitive
3.What is the major reason for people’s unhappiness related to money?
A.Money not enough. B.Money not fairly dirtributed.
C.Rich people richer D.Unequal money paid for equal work.
4.Which of the following might be best title of this passage?
A.It’s all relative B.Easternlin paradox
C.The economic of happiness D.Rising income, rising happiness
“Buffalo, buffalo, Buffalo, buffalo, buffalo, buffalo, Buffalo, buffalo’’ is a real sentence.
How?
Let's break it down, starting with simple phrase.
Monkeys from Pisa bully deer from London.
Ok, admittedly, it's an impossible scenario, but it is a grammatically fine sentence. In English, we can use place names as adjective, so let's shorten the sentence a little.
Pisa monkeys bully London deer.
Now we'll throw in some giraffes from Paris to even the score with those mean monkeys.
Pisa monkeys, whom Paris giraffes intimidate, bully London deer.
English is peculiar in that you can omit relative pronouns, e.g., “ the person whom I love’’ can be expressed as ‘’the the person I love.’’ Let’s do that to this sentence.
Pisa monkeys Paris giraffes intimidate bully London deer.
This kind of pronoun removal can be a little more dedicate to grasp when written than when spoken. Saying the above sentence with pauses after monkeys and intimidate can help. Now we need to replace both of the verbs, intimidate and bully, with their (admittedly uncommon) synonym, buffalo.
Pisa monkeys Paris giraffes buffalo buffalo London deer.
Again, pauses help keep the meaning in mind: Put a pause after monkeys and the first buffalo. Now we'll replace all the worldwide place names with the second-largest city in New York State, Buffalo.(That’s Buffalo’s tallest building, One Seneca Tower, below.)
Buffalo monkeys Buffalo giraffes buffalo buffalo Buffalo deer.
You can probably guess what the next step is. But before we replace all the animals with the common name for the American bison, note how the capital letters in the above sentence help you keep the place names separate from the other usages of the word. Ok, here goes:
Buffalo, buffalo, Buffalo, buffalo, buffalo, buffalo, Buffalo, buffalo.
One last thing to note: This exceptional sentence is possible because the plural of the animal buffalo is buffalo, not buffalos, otherwise all the words wouldn’t be identical.
1.How should we read the following sentence with proper pauses?
A.Buffalo buffalo Buffalo / buffalo buffalo /buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
B.Buffalo Buffalo /Buffalo buffalo buffalo / buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
C.Buffalo buffalo Buffalo / buffalo buffalo buffalo / Buffalo buffalo.
D.Buffalo buffalo /Buffalo buffalo / buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
2.What’s the key element to make this sentence possible?
A.The relative pronouns in English can be omitted.
B.In English, place names can be used as adjectives.
C.The city has the same name with a kind of American bison.
D.The word buffalo has the same form of singular and plura.
3.Where can you probably find this article?
A.Wandering the Earth
B.Linguistics Around Us
C.Popular Animal Science
D.Collins English Grammer
The two roads
It was New Year’s Night. An aged man was standing at a window. He raised his mournful eyes towards the deep blue sky, where the stars were floating like white lilies on the surface of a clear calm lake. When he cast them on the earth, where a few more hopeless people besides himself now moved towards their certain goal--- the tomb. He had already passed sixty of the stages leading to it, and he had brought from his journey nothing but errors and regrets. Now his health was poor, his mind vacant, his heart sorrowful, and his old age short of comforts.
The days of his youth appeared like dreams before him, and he recalled the serious moment when his father placed him at the entrance of the two roads---one leading to a peaceful, sunny place, covered with flowers, fruits and resounding with soft, sweet songs; the other leading to a deep, dark cave, which was endless, where poison flowed instead of water and where devils and poisonous snake hissed and crawled.
He looked towards the sky and cried painfully, “O, my father, place me once more at the entrance to life, and I’ll choose the better way!” But both his father and the days of his youth had passed away.
He saw the lights flowing away in the darkness. These were the days of his wasted life; he saw a star fall from the sky and disappeared, and this was the symbol of himself. His regret, which was like a sharp arrow, struck deeply into his heart. Then he remembered his friends in his childhood, who entered on life with him. But they had made their way to success and were now honored and happy on this New Year’s night.
The clock in the church tower struck and the sound made him remember his parents’ early love for him. They had taught him and prayed to God for his good. But he chose the wrong way. With shame and grief he dared no longer look towards the heaven where his father lived. His darkened eyes were full of tears, and with a despairing effort, he burst out a cry: “Come back, my early days! Come back”
And his youth did return, for all this was only a dream which he had on New Year Night. He was still young though his faults were real; he had not yet entered the deep, dark cave, and he was still free to walk on the road which leads to the peaceful and sunny land.
Those who still linger at the entrance of life, hesitating to choose the bright road, remember that when years are passed and your feet stumble on the dark mountains, you will cry bitterly, but in vain: “ O youth, return! Oh give me back my early days!”
1.In the 3rd paragraph, the man cried painfully because _________.
A.all the hopeless people were moving towards death
B.He had lost forever the chance to take the right road
C.His parents and the happy days of his youth were gone
D.He refused to take the road leading to a deep dark cave
2.What happened to the man before his sudden realization?
A.He was at his father’s funeral farewell.
B.He was enjoying the New Year’s eve.
C.He was wandering at the entrance to life.
D.He was having a dream of his life in old age.
3.We can infer from the story that _________.
A.The man’s childhood friends led a joyful life like him
B.The man still had the opportunity to chose the right way
C.both the man’s parents passed away when he was young
D.the man’s father was quite strict with his son before death
4.The passage is mainly written for _________.
A.a new driver getting lost on a detour
B.a concerned mother with two children to raise
C.an experienced teacher with a good reputation
D.a hesitating young adult facing a tough life choice
Face shape lets AI spot rare disorders
People with genetic syndromes（综合征）sometimes have revealing facial features, but using them to make a quick and cheap diagnosis can be_____ given there are hundreds of possible conditions they may have. A new neural network that analyses photographs of faces can help doctors _____ the possibilities.
Yaron Gurovich at biotechnology firm FDNA in Boston and his team built a neural network to look at the overall impression of faces and _____ a list of the 10 genetic syndromes a person is most likely to have.
They _____ the neural network, called DeepGestalt, on 17,000 images correctly labelled to match more than 200 genetic syndromes. The team then asked the AI to _____ potential genetic disorders from a further 502 photos of people with such conditions. It included the correct answer among its list of 10 responses 91 per cent of the time.
Gurovich and his team also_____ the neural network’s ability to distinguish between the different genetic mutations (变异) that can lead to the same syndrome. They used photographs of people with Noonan syndrome, which can result from mutations in any one of five genes. DeepGestalt correctly identified the genetic source of the physical appearance 64 per cent of the time. It’s clearly not _____, but it’s still much better than humans are at trying to do this.
As the system makes its assessments, the facial regions that were most helpful in the determination are _____ and made available for doctors to view. This helps them to understand the relationships between genetic make-up and physical appearance.
The fact that the diagnosis is based on a simple photograph raises questions about_____. If faces can reveal details about genetics, then employers and insurance providers could, in principle, _____ use such techniques to _____ against people who have a high probability of having certain disorders. _____, Gurovich says the tool will only be _____ for use by clinicians.
This technique could bring significant_____ for those who have genetic syndromes. The real value here is that for some of these ultra-rare diseases, the process of diagnosis can be many, many years. This kind of technology can help narrow down the search space and then be confirmed through checking genetic markers. For some diseases, it will cut down the time to diagnosis dramatically. For others, it could perhaps add means of finding other people with the disease and, _____, help find new treatments or cures.
1.A.convincing B.tricky C.reliable D.feasible
2.A.bring about B.result from C.narrow down D.rule out
3.A.return B.input C.top D.feed
4.A.based B.imposed C.focused D.trained
5.A.identify B.distinguish C.shift D.cure
6.A.tested B.demonstrated C.recognized D.acquired
7.A.acceptable B.perfect C.reliable D.workable
8.A.covered B.excluded C.highlighted D.supervised
9.A.objectivity B.accuracy C.credibility D.privacy
10.A.legally B.habitually C.efficiently D.secretly
11.A.discriminate B.fight C.argue D.vote
12.A.Furthermore B.Therefore C.Otherwise D.However
13.A.impossible B.available C.ready D.rare
14.A.challenges B.benefits C.damages D.concerns
15.A.by contrast B.in turn C.in addition D.on the contrary
