Section Ⅰ Use of English Directions: Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on the ANSWER SHEET. On the surface, Mars is the picture of desolation. A barren land remains 1 for hundreds of millions of years, motionless 2 the scattering of powdery dust by a faint breeze. But perhaps just 3 the Martian soil, the picture is very different. New evidence suggests the presence of a lake one mile beneath the ice-coated surface of Mars's south 4 , according to new research published Wednesday in Science. Scientists say the lake 5 20 kilometers across, and is one meter in 6 The findings, if 7 , would mark the detection of the largest body of 8 water on Mars today. The data comes from Mars Express, a European spacecraft that 9 Mars for 15 years. 10 a high-resolution camera snapped stunning images of the surface, a radar instrument probed what was 11 underground. The instrument—the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding, or MARSIS 12 --emits radio waves toward the planet. The waves penetrate the Martian surface and bounce off 13 material they come in contact with, then reflect back to the spacecraft. MARSIS 14 the echoes of the radio waves, which scientists can then 15 to decipher the composition of the subsurface. Starting in May 2012, MARSIS 16 more than three years pinging a region at Mars with radio waves. 17 helps to look at the data yourself. In addition to an illustration that shows how Mars Express 18 Mars, the image 19 what's called a radargram, a picture of different materials, molded out of radio waves. The thick, gray line at the top is the planet's surface. The squiggles below that are a 20 of ice and dust.
Part A Directions: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on the ANSWER SHEET.
Text 1 For almost two centuries now, scientists have noticed a place's suicide rate bears troubling links to the changing of the seasons and the friendliness of its climate. In 1881, the Italian physician Enrico Morselli noted that suicide rates peak in the summer, deeming the effect "too great for it to be attributed to chance of the human will". Two decades later, the French sociologist Emile Durkheim noticed the same effect—though he also found the suicide rate was higher in Scandinavian countries. Even today, CDC data confirms that suicides peak in the United States in the early summer. Now, scientists have identified one more way that climate shapes suicide—and, worryingly, they have projected that it will only become more pronounced as suicide rates rise in a rapidly warming world. Unusually hot days cause the suicide rate to rise, according to a study published Monday in Nature Climate Change. If a month is 1 degree Celsius warmer than normal, then its suicide rate will increase by 0.7 percent in the United States and 2.1 percent in Mexico. "It's sort of a brutal finding," says Marshall Burke, a professor of earth science at Stanford University and one of the authors of the paper. The finding has anxious implications for a world whose climate is rapidly changing. The authors project that roughly 14,000 people—and as many as 26,000—could die by suicide in the United States by 2050 if humanity does not reduce its emissions of greenhouse-gas pollution. It also concludes that humans can do little about this suicide-climate link beyond developing better medical care to address suicide specifically. The normal ways that people adapt to high temperatures generally—by installing air conditioners, for instance—do not seem to affect the suicide rate. Suicide is the second most-common cause of death among Americans between 10 and 34 years of age. In other words, more people are dying by suicide than used to.
1. The underlined sentence in Paragraph 2 most probably means that ______.
A.people will climb to the peak to commit suicide
B.suicide rate is the highest in summer
C.suicide rate is the lowest in summer
D.suicide rate is the highest in winter
A B C D
B
[解析] 语义理解题。这里的关键词是peak,有“山顶”的意思,分析句子会发现,这里的peak为动词,而后段也有一句提示it will only become more pronounced as suicide rates rise in a rapidly warming world,这里的pronounced意为“明显的,显著的”,再结合peak的名词意思可以推断出它的动词意思是“上升,达到顶峰”。A“人们爬到山顶自杀”,C“夏季自杀率最低”和D“冬季自杀率最高”都不正确,因此正确答案为B。 [参考译文] 近两个世纪以来,科学家们已经注意到,一个地方的自杀率与季节的变化和气候是否适宜之间有着令人担心的联系。 1881年,意大利医生恩里科·莫塞利指出,自杀率在夏季达到顶峰,他认为其影响“太大,不能仅仅归因于人类意志”。20年后,法国社会学家爱米尔·杜尔凯姆注意到同样的影响——虽然他也发现斯堪的纳维亚地区国家的自杀率更高。 即使在今天,疾病预防控制中心的数据也证实了这一点,在美国,自杀事件在初夏达到顶峰。现在,科学家已经确定了气候是影响自杀的一个因素。同时,令人担忧的是,他们预测,这个影响将变得更加明显,因为自杀率会随着这个迅速变暖的世界而上升。 根据周一发表在《自然气候变化》上的一项研究,异常炎热的天气会导致自杀率上升。如果一个月的温度升高1摄氏度,那么美国的自杀率将提高0.7%,墨西哥将提高2.1%。 马歇尔·伯克是斯坦福大学的地球科学教授,同时也是该论文的作者之一,他说:“这项发现有点儿残忍。”这一发现放在如今这个气候迅速变化的世界上来看,其暗示非常令人焦虑。作者预计,如果人类不减少有害温室气体的排放,那么到2050年,在美国大致会有14000人(或者多达26000人)可能会自杀身亡。 研究还得出了一个结论,除了发展更好的医疗服务以专门解决自杀问题之外,人类对这种自杀和气候之间的联系几乎毫无办法。人们通常采用的应对高温的办法——比如通过安装空调来降温——似乎不会影响自杀率。 自杀是美国10岁至34岁之间人口死亡的第二大常见原因。换句话说,与过去相比,更多的人正因自杀而死亡。
2. In Paragraph 5, why does Marshall Burke say it is a brutal finding? ______
A.Because suicide rate will rise to 0.7% in America.
B.Because climate is rapidly changing.
C.Because as many as 26,000 could die by suicide in the United States by 2050.
Text 2 When the giant Indian technology-services firm Infosys announced last November that it would open a design and innovation hub in Providence, the company's president said one of the key reasons he chose Rhode Island was its strong network of higher-education institutions: Brown University, the Rhode Island School of Design, and the Community College of Rhode Island. In a higher-education system that is often divided between two-and four-year colleges and further segregated between elite and nonelite institutions, it's not often that a community college is mentioned in the same breath as an Ivy League campus. Nor is a two-year college seen as a training ground for jobs in the so-called creative economy, which include industries such as design, fashion, and computer gaming that typically require bachelor's degrees. But the Community College of Rhode Island, New England's largest two-year college with more than 15,000 students, is working hard to change the tired image of two-year institutions as places for high-school graduates who can't hack it on four-year campuses or for the unemployed trying to figure out what's next. Led by Meghan Hughes, a relatively new president with an academic background in art history, the college is overhauling its approach to workforce development by better aligning programs with the state's economic priorities than is currently the ease. "Like many colleges, we tended to be more reactive and slower to respond to training needs," said Julian Alssid, who started last summer as vice president of workforce development. The college would typically wait for displaced workers to come to the campus to receive retraining instead of intervening before they were laid off. It had advisory groups of employers to provide guidance on certificates and degrees, but they met infrequently, so it would take months or sometimes years to tweak existing programs or start new ones. Now, the college is in the process of reorganizing its continuing-education division to build ongoing partnerships with companies to keep it current on industry trends and operate training programs responsive to and in sync with the labor market. The alliance with Infosys is a good example of this new strategy as the college works with the company to figure out how the school can help in recruiting and training 500 workers who will make a median salary of $79,000. The problem with many existing workforce-training programs, Alssid said, is that employers, colleges, and local workforce boards responsible for doling out federal funds "all operate separately, calcified in their own silos." In this new economy, he added, "those worlds will blend together."
1. Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage? ______
A.Indian firm Infosys would open a design and innovation hub in Providence.
B.American higher-education system is divided between two- and four-year colleges.
C.A community college is the same with an Ivy League campus in America.
D.A two-year college is not usually seen as a training ground for jobs in America.
Text 3 It's fairly well known that a bad diet, a lack of exercise, and genetics can all contribute to type 2 diabetes. But a new global study points to an additional, surprising culprit: the air pollution emitted by cars and trucks. Though other research has shown a link between diabetes and air pollution in the past, this study is one of the largest of its kind, and it's unique because it both' is longitudinal and includes several types of controls. What's more, it also quantifies exactly how many diabetes cases in the world are attributable to air pollution: 14 percent in 2016 alone. In the United States, it found, air pollution is responsible for 150,000 cases of diabetes. The study, published in The Lancet Planetary Health, linked data from 1.7 million American veterans who had been followed for a median of 8.5 years with air data from the EPA and NASA. It also aggregated past international research on diabetes and air pollution to devise a model to estimate diabetes risk based on the level of pollution, and it used the Global Burden of Disease study to estimate how many years of healthy life were lost due to this air-pollution-induced diabetes. Globally, 8.2 million years of healthy life were lost in 2016 to pollution-linked diabetes, it showed. The study authors controlled for things like obesity and BMI, so it wasn't the case that heavier people simply lived in more polluted neighborhoods and were also more likely to get diabetes. The particles examined in this study are known as PM2.5, or particulate matter that's 2.5 micrometers big—30 times smaller than a human hair. They are emitted by various types of industry and fuel burning, but in the United States, the biggest source of PM2.5 is cars, says Ziyad Al-Aly, the study's senior author and an assistant professor of medicine at Washington University at St. Louis. When there's lots of PM2.5 in the air, the air might look smoggy or hazy. In lighter concentrations, the particles are invisible.
1. What's NOT the commonly-known cause of type 2 diabetes? ______
Text 4 British physicist Dr. Jess Wade has written 270 Wikipedia pages for trailblazing female scientists in an effort to get every woman "who has achieved something impressive in science to get the prominence and recognition they deserve". Completing the feat in less than a year, Wade, a postdoctoral researcher in the field of plastic electronics at Imperial College London's Blackett Laboratory, said she needed to "change things from the inside" to encourage more girls to participate in science, according to The Guardian. "Wikipedia is a really great way to engage people in this mission because the more you read about these sensational women, the more you get so motivated and inspired by their personal stories," Wade told the publication. Wade told HuffPost that she "decided at the beginning of this year" that she'd make one page an evening. "In reality, I've made more than that, because sometimes there are just too many awesome people, and it would be too much of an injustice not to get their stories out, ASAP," she told HuffPost. As a female Ph. D. student, Wade realized she was a minority in her program—a feeling that became the catalyst for her speaking out at school and encouraging younger women to get involved in science, technology, engineering or math. Wade became particularly fixated on revising the messaging surrounding women in science. For example, "9 percent is not enough" is a tagline of a 2016 campaign by the Institution of Engineering and Technology. "If I heard something was only 9 percent of girls when I was at school I would've been, 'Like, no,'" Wade told The Guardian. Additionally, Wade noticed that many of the initiatives designed to boost women's participation, at least in the U. K. , have "little or no evaluation as to whether the projects had achieved their aims". "There's so much energy, enthusiasm and money going into all these initiatives to get girls into science," Wade told the publication. "Absolutely none of them is evidence-based and none of them work. It's so unscientific, that's what really surprises me."
1. The underlined word "trailblazing" is most probably used to describe someone ______. A. who has achieved something impressive B. who does something new and interesting C. who gets prominence [ D ]who works on roads
Part B Directions: Read the following text and answer questions by finding information from the right column that corresponds to each of the marked details given in the left column. There are two extra choices in the right column. Mark your answers on the ANSWER SHEET. The majority of the population in the world might drink only two liters of water a day, but they consume about 3,000 liters a day if the water that goes into their food is taken into account. The rich gulp down far more, since they tend to eat more meat, which takes far more water to produce than grains. So as the world's population grows and incomes rise, farmers will need a great deal more water to keep everyone fed: 2,000 more cubic kilometers a year by 2030, according to the International Water Management Institute (IWMI). Yet in many farming regions, water is scarce and likely to get scarcer as global warming worsens. The world is facing not so much a food crisis as a water crisis, argues Colin Chartres, IWMI's director-general. The solution, Mr. Chartres and others contend, is more efficient use of water or, as the sloganeers put it, "more crop per drop". Some 1.2 billion people live in places that are short of water. Farming accounts for roughly 70% of human water consumption. So when water starts to run out, farming tends to offer the best potential for thrift. But governments rarely charge farmers a market price for water. So they are usually more wasteful than other consumers—even though the value they create from the water is often less than households or industry would be willing to pay for it. The pressing need is to make water go further. Antoine Frérot, the head of the water division of Veolia Environment, promotes recycling of city wastewater to be used in industry or agriculture. This costs less and cuts pollution. Yet as Mr. Frérot himself concedes, there are many even cheaper ways to save water. As much as 70% of water used by farmers never gets to crops, perhaps lost through leaky irrigation channels or by draining into rivers or groundwater. Investment in drip irrigation, or simply repairing the worst leaks, could bring huge savings. "Farmers in poor countries can usually afford such things only if they are growing cash crops," says David Molden of IWMI. "Even basic kit such as small rainwater tanks can be lacking." Ethiopia, for example, has only 38 cubic meters of storage capacity per inhabitant, compared to almost 5,000 in Australia. Yet modest water storage can hugely improve yields in rain-fed agriculture, by smoothing over short dry spells. Likewise, pumping water into natural aquifers for seasonal storage tends to be much cheaper than building a big dam, and prevents the great waste of water through evaporation. Agronomists are beginning to devise tools to help monitor the efficiency of water use. Some have designed algorithms that use satellite data on surface temperatures to calculate the rate at which plants are absorbing and transpiring water. That allows governments and development agencies to concentrate their efforts on the most prodigal areas. Raising yields does not always involve greater water consumption, especially when farms are inefficient. It would take little extra water to double cereal output in many parts of Africa, Mr. Molden argues. IWMI reckons that some three-quarters of the extra food the world needs could be provided simply by bringing yields in poor countries closer to those of rich ones. That is more realistic than the absolute alternative: giving up meat and other thirsty products altogether.
A. cultivating cash crops
1 . The world is meeting with challenges more from
B. leaking irrigation system
2 . Farmers waste more water due to
C. expenses and efficiency
3 . Farmers in poor countries can pay for irrigation improvement by
D. surface temperature data
4 . Building big dams is less effective for their
E. low water price
5 . The water use rate of plants is computed with
F. water shortage
G. food crisis
1.
F
[解析] 题目对应信息在第一段最后一句:The world is facing not so much a food crisis as a water crisis…意思是“与其说世界面临的是食物危机,不如说是用水危机。”“Not so much as”比较结构,意思是“与其说……不如说……”。因此干扰项G要排除。 [参考译文] 大多数人可能每天饮用两升水,但如果把进入他们食物的水也考虑在内,他们每天消耗大约3000升。富人消耗的水量远远大于上述数字,因为他们倾向于吃更多的肉,相对于谷物来说这需要更多的水。因此,随着世界人口的增长和收入的提高,农民将需要更大量的水。根据国际水资源管理研究所(IWMI)的研究估计,到2030年达到每人每年2000多立方千米。然而,在许多农业地区,水是稀缺的,而且随着全球变暖,水资源会更加稀缺。国际水资源管理研究所的总干事科林·沙特尔认为世界正面临着比粮食危机更加严重的水危机。 沙特尔和其他议员提出的解决方案是,更有效地利用水资源,或者正如某些口号所说的“让每滴水生产更多的粮食”。约12亿人生活在缺水地区。农耕占人类的用水量约70%。因此当水资源开始耗尽时,农业具有节约水源的最佳潜力。但政府很少按市场价向农民收水费,所以农民通常比其他消费者更浪费水,尽管农民用水创造的价值往往小于家庭和工业用水的费用。 我们迫切需要的是如何让水资源源远流长,威立雅环境司的负责人安托万·费莱罗说道,促进工业和农业中使用回收的城市污水,这个成本更低并能削减污染。 然而费莱罗先生自己也承认,有很多更便宜的方法来节约用水。农民使用的高达70%的水永远不会到达农作物,而是通过渗漏灌溉渠道流失或流进河流或地下水。投资建设滴灌设备或是简单修理漏水最严重的地段,就可以节省大量水资源。 “在贫穷国家的农民通常只能负担种植经济作物的费用,”国际水资源管理研究所的戴维·莫尔登说,“甚至连基本的装备(如小型雨水储罐)都没有。”例如,在埃塞俄比亚每个居民的水资源存储容量只有38立方米,而在澳大利亚是5000立方米。然而,适度的水储存可以缓解靠雨水浇灌的农业的短期干旱,从而大幅提高产量。同样,把水注入地下蓄水层的季节性存储行为往往比建设一个大坝便宜得多,而且还可以防止因为蒸发造成的极大浪费。 农学家都开始设计工具,以帮助监测水的使用效率。他们已经设计了程序算法,这些算法运用地表温度卫星数据计算植物吸收和蒸发水分的速度。这使得政府和发展机构能够着重治理水资源浪费最严重的地区。 提高产量并不总是涉及更大的用水量,尤其是当农场低效的时候。莫尔登先生认为,在非洲的许多地方只需一些额外的水就能使谷物产量增加一倍。国际水资源管理研究所估计,全球四分之三的食物需求能够通过在贫困国家提高产量以接近富裕国家的产量获得满足。以下这种行为是绝对具有实际意义的:完全放弃肉类和其他耗水型产品。
2.
E
[解析] 题目对应信息在第二段第五、六句:But governments rarely charge farmers a market price for warer. So they are usuallv more wasteful than other consumers…大意是“政府很少按市场价向农民收水费。所以农民通常比其他消费者更浪费水。”因此水价低造成了农民浪费水多。干扰项B中leaking irrigation system“漏水的灌溉系统”只是表象,根本原因是水价低。如果水价高,农民为了省钱也会想办法解决浪费水的问题。
3.
A
[解析] 题目对应信息分别在第四段最后一句和第五段首句:Investment in drip irrigation…could bring huge savings. 意思是“投资建设滴灌设备或是简单修复漏水最严重的地段,就会带来巨大的节水效益。”“Farmets in poor countries can usually afford such things only if they are growing cash crops. ”这句话里的such things就是上一句中相关的新灌溉设备和修理费用。因此应该是种植经济作物来补贴这笔改造费用。
4.
C
[解析] 题目对应信息在第五段最后一句:Likewise, pumping water into natural aquifers for seasonal storage tends to be much cheaper than building a big dam, and prevents the great waste of water through evaporation. 大意是“同样,将水抽到自然蓄水层的季节性存储行为往往比建一个大坝便宜得多,并能防止因蒸发造成的浪费”。因此建水坝效果差是因为费用和效率问题。
5.
D
[解析] 题目对应信息在倒数第二段第二句:Some have designed algorithms that use satellite data on surface temperatures to calculate the rate at which plants are absorbing and transpiring water. 大意是“一些农学家设计了一些程序算法,这些算法利用地表温度卫星数据来计算植物吸收和蒸发水分的速度”。题干中water use rate of plants“植物对水的利用速度”概括了原文the rate…evaporating water“植物吸收和蒸发水的速度”的说法。
Section Ⅲ Translation Directions: Translate the following text into Chinese. Your translation should be written on the ANSWER SHEET.
1. AI systems must he trained how best to interact with humans. While organizations across sectors are now in the early stages of filling trainer roles, leading tech companies and research groups already have mature training staffs and expertise. Consider Microsoft's AI assistant. The bot required extensive training to develop just the right personality: confident, caring, and helpful but not bossy. Instilling those qualities took countless hours of attention by a team that included a poet, a novelist, and a play-wright. Similarly, human trainers were needed to develop the personalities of Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa to ensure that they accurately reflected their companies' brands. Siri, for example, has just a touch of sassiness, as consumers might expect from Apple.
1. Directions: Suppose you are working in the Student Union of your university and you will hold an orientation party for the freshmen this Friday evening. Write a letter to all freshmen to, 1) introduce the Student Union and the party to them, and 2) invite them to the party. You should write about 100 words on the ANSWER SHEET. Do not use your own name. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.
[范文] Dear all, Welcome to XXX University! I'm a senior student working at the Student Union of this university. And we are here to help you to get a smooth start in this big family. The Student Union is a good place for all students with ambition to serve other students and improve themselves. And the first thing we'd like to do for you is to host a welcome party to introduce this university to you. You can make friends, know this campus and your program inside-out and enjoy all kinds of activities we've prepared for you! Please join us at any time between 7:30 and 10:00 this Friday evening! Welcome to take your friends with you!
Best regards, Li Ming
Part B
1. Directions: The chart below shows the main reason for migration to the UK in 2017. In your writing, you should 1) describe the chart, and 2) give your comments. You should write about 150 words on the ANWER SHEET.
[范文] This chart shows several reasons why people want to immigrate to Britain in 2017. The leading reason is finding a long-term job in this country, which accounts for 30%. Apart from that, 26% want to get a good education in the UK. The third reason is to get together with their family or friends, and it makes up 15%. What comes fourth is looking for work opportunities, maybe just temporary ones, comprising 12%. The other 11% people come to this country for various other reasons and the rest 6% don't give a specific reason. From this chart we can infer that most people come to the UK for a better life, whether it is a good job or a diploma. That's the charm of this country, attracting people from different places to fight for a promising future.