A team of engineers at Harvard University has been inspired by Nature to create the first robotic fly. The mechanical fly has become a platform for a series of new high-tech integrated systems. Designed to do what a fly does naturally, the tiny machine is the size of a fat housefly. Its mini wings allow it to stay in the air and perform controlled flight tasks.
“It’s extremely important for us to think about this as a whole system and not just the sum of a bunch of individual components (元件),” said Robert Wood, the Harvard engineering professor who has been working on the robotic fly project for over a decade. A few years ago, his team got the go-ahead to start piecing together the components. “The added difficulty with a project like this is that actually none of those components are off the shelf and so we have to develop them all on our own,” he said.
They engineered a series of systems to start and drive the robotic fly. “The seemingly simple system which just moves the wings has a number of interdependencies on the individual components, each of which individually has to perform well, but then has to be matched well to everything it’s connected to,” said Wood. The flight device was built into a set of power, computation, sensing and control systems. Wood says the success of the project proves that the flying robot with these tiny components can be built and manufactured.
While this first robotic flyer is linked to a small, off-board power source, the goal is eventually to equip it with a built-in power source, so that it might someday perform data-gathering work at rescue sites, in farmers’ fields or on the battlefield. “Basically it should be able to take off, land and fly around,” he said.
Wood says the design offers a new way to study flight mechanics and control at insect-scale. Yet, the power, sensing and computation technologies on board could have much broader applications. “You can start thinking about using them to answer open scientific questions, you know, to study biology in ways that would be difficult with the animals, but using these robots instead,” he said. “So there are a lot of technologies and open interesting scientific questions that are really what drives us on a day to day basis.” The difficulty the team of engineers met with while making the robotic fly was that __________.
| A．they had no model in their mind |
| B．they did not have sufficient time |
| C．they had no ready-made components |
| D．they could not assemble the components |
Which of the following can be learned from the passage?
| A．The robotic flyer is designed to learn about insects. |
| B．Animals are not allowed in biological experiments. |
| C．There used to be few ways to study how insects fly. |
| D．Wood’s design can replace animals in some experiments. |
Which of the following might be the best title of the passage?
| A．Father of Robotic Fly |
| B．Inspiration from Engineering Science |
| C．Robotic Fly Imitates Real Life Insect |
| D．Harvard Breaks Through in Insect Study |
Wang Zhongjin said she “runs around faster than a rabbit”
Every time she leaves home to ravel abroad with her husband. Traveling has been a new career for this gray-haired couple after retirement.
Wang,61，boasts of the fact that，knowing a little English，she and her husband，Zhang Guangzhu,63，have visited about 40 countries and regions as backpackers since 2008.
“You are awesome” were the words Zhang said to her after she bought food and drinks using only body language while they waited for a ferry in Athens in 2008.
They organize everything for their overseas journeys，including for their trip to the Antarctic in March.
The 11day journey was full of incredible new experiences. “We can die without any regrets after the Antarctic visit，”Wang said，“I will always remember penguins waving their wings，seals playing nearby and camping out one night.”
Wang and her husband had to wait almost three months for a tourist visa for Argentina，which is the launching point for the Antarctic.
For the couple，traveling is the best way to get along in retirement. “How to get along with your partner after retirement is really a challenge for old people like us because you need to face the person almost 24 hours a day. We have learned to appreciate and admire each other for tiny things while traveling abroad.” Wang said，“Traveling has helped me and my husband fall in love again.”
“I hope our experiences and stories can encourage more retired people in China to pursue a happy life instead of sacrificing their own happiness for their children，”said Wang，who had spent six years staying at home to help her married daughter raise her child.
The couple also shares travel tips and their experiences online. Their microblog on Sina.com，China's version of Twitter，is called “huajia beibaoke” and had attracted more than 56,000 fans by the middle of last month. “The old couple can overcome so many difficulties to enrich their life，but as a young person just over 20，I don't have the guts and strong will to follow my heart，”Lin Xiao wrote on the couple's microblog.
Next the couple was considering Asia or Africa as their next destination，but only after regaining some weight she lost on their last adventure.The underlined sentence in the first paragraph suggests ________.
| A．Wang Zhongjin is used to traveling abroad with her husband |
| B．Wang Zhongjin is unwilling to travel abroad with her husband |
| C．Wang Zhongjin is crazy about traveling abroad with her husband |
| D．Wang Zhongjin is in good condition due to traveling abroad |
From the second and the third paragraphs we can infer that ________.
| A．Wang's English is very good |
| B．Wang's English is very poor |
| C．Zhang was very surprised at his wife's English |
| D．Wang speaks English as well as her husband |
In which column on a website can you find the article?
| A．Health and care. |
| B．Business. |
| C．Entertainment. |
| D．Travel around. |
From what Lin Xiao wrote on the couple's microblog，we conclude that Lin Xiao was ________.
| A．admired |
| B．sad |
| C．discouraged |
| D．satisfied |
What would be the best title of the article?
| A．Old Travelers |
| B．An Old Couple Traveling around the World |
| C．Gray-haired Backpackers |
| D．Old but Vigorous |
An absolute description of the threat hanging over the world’s mammals, reptiles, amphibians(不如、爬行、两栖动物) and other life forms has been published by the well-known scientific journal, Nature. A special analysis carried out by the journal indicates that an astonishing 41% of all amphibians on the planet now face extinction while 26% of mammal species and 13% of birds are similarly threatened.
Many species are already critically endangered and lose to extinction, including the Sumatran elephant, Amur leopard and mountain gorilla. But also in danger of vanishing for the wild, it now appears, are animals that are currently rated as merely being endangered.
In each case, the finger of blame points directly at human activites The continuing spread of agriculture is destroying million of hectares of wild habitats(栖息地)every year, leaving animals without homes, while the introduction of newly-come species, often helped by humans, is also damaging native populations. At the same time, pollution and overfishing are destroying ocean ecosystems.
“Habitat destruction, pollution or overfishing either skill off wild creatures and plants or leaves them badly weakened,” said Derek Tittensor, an ocean ecologist at the World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge. “The trouble is that in coming decades, the additional threat of worsening climate change will become more and more common and could then kill off these survivors.”
The problem, according to Nature, is worsened because of the huge gaps in scientists knowledge about the planet’s biodiversity. Evaluations of the total number of species of animals and plants alive vary from 2 million to 50 million. In addition, evaluations of current rates of species’ disappearances vary from 500 to 36, 000 a year. “That is the real problem we face,” added Tittensor. “The scale of uncertainty is huge.”
In the end, however, the data indicate that the world is heading cruelty towards a mass extinction-which is defined as one involving a loss of 75% of species or more. This could arrive in less than a hundred years or could take a thousand, depending on extinction rates.What’s the main idea of the first two paragraphs?
| A．Figures about some wild animals are astonishing. |
| B．“Nature” is the famous journal around the world. |
| C．Many endangered species are close to extinction. |
| D．Some rare species have appeared around the world. |
The direct reason for the extinction of some species is _____.
| A．continuous appearance of new species |
| B．destructive activities of human beings |
| C．more and more homeless animals |
| D．the great change of ocean ecosystem |
From paragraph 4 we know that another future threat is ______.
| A．destruction of habitats |
| B．overfishing and pollution |
| C．the worsening climate change |
| D．killing off wild creatures and plants |
What is the real problem we are facing now according to paragraph 5?
| A．The killing of wild creatures and cutting of trees. |
| B．The global warming caused by human beings. |
| C．The destruction of ocean ecosystem by pollution. |
| D．Evaluation of current rates of species’ disappearances. |
What does “This” in the last sentence refer to _____?
| A．mass extinction |
| B．extinction rates |
| C．extinction time |
| D．75% of species or more |
If you are a sleep deprived(被剥夺) teacher, you may not be aware of the term woodpeckering(啄木鸟式点头), but you’ve probably done it. It happens the day following a bad night’s sleep. You’re sitting in a long meeting and you can barely keep your eyes open, so you support your head up with your hand. Next thing you know, you are moving your sleeping head back to its upright position. Do this a few times and you are woodpeckering.
I thought I knew sleep deprivation when I did my medical internship(实习) in hospital. That year I frequently went 36 hours with no sleep. When I finished my stay in neurology(神经内科), I welcomed the promise of full nights of sleep ever after. It went pretty well for the next 10 years until I became a school teacher and experienced a whole new level of sleep deprivation.
Teachers’ working hours go far beyond the 8 am to 5 pm schedule of kids in school. There are hours spent at staff meetings, correcting homework, preparing for the next day- and then there is the worrying. What I did in a hospital emergency room required no more intensive mental energy than what is need to keep 30 kids attentive enough to learn what I was teacher.
Good teachers are like magicians keeping a dozen balls in the air to come at right time, with alarm set for 6 am to finish grading papers, memories of the day that’s gone- including the students who didn’t understand something, forgot their lunch or were embarrassed by wrong answers. All these will become sleep-resistant barriers. And also with some financial stress, you’ll have a cycle of insomnia(失眠) with unwelcome consequences.
With inadequate sleep comes irritability(易怒), forgetfulness, lower tolerance of even minor annoyances, and less efficient organization and planning. These are the very mental useless that teachers need to meet the challenges of the next day. In wanting to do a better job the next day, the brain keeps bringing up the worries that deny the rest it needs.After a bad night’s sleep, usually the direct effect for the next day is to ______.
| A．keep one’s eyes open all the time |
| B．move head back and forth |
| C．raise one’s head in upright position |
| D．keep nodding like a woodpecker |
The writer’s new level of sleep deprivation began since he _____.
| A．did his medical internship in hospital |
| B．began to teach in a school |
| C．left hospital ten years ago |
| D．went 36 hours with no sleep |
From paragraph 3 we can infer that ____.
| A．teachers’ work is comfortable |
| B．correcting homework needs less time |
| C．working in hospital is even tougher |
| D．teaching needs more mental energy |
Good teachers’ sleep problems are mainly due to the _____.
| A．common sleep-resistant barriers |
| B．embarrassment for wrong answers |
| C．diligence and devotion to teaching |
| D．misunderstanding of their students |
What does the writer really want to tell us in the last paragraph?
| A．Unfavorable effects of inadequate sleep are various |
| B．Lay down worries and sleep well first for the next day. |
| C．Teachers should often practice mental muscles. |
| D．Better job has nothing to do with inadequate sleep. |
Our most commonly held code for success is broken. Conventional wisdom holds that if we work hard we will be more successful, and if we are more successful, then we’ll be happy. If we can just find that great job, win that next promotion, lose those five pounds, happiness will follow. But recent discoveries in the field of positive psychology have shown that this code is actually backward: Happiness fuels success, not the other way around. When we are positive, our brains become more engaged, creative, motivated, energetic, and productive at work. This discovery has been repeatedly borne out by rigid research in psychology and neuroscience(神经学), management studies, and the bottom lines of organizations around the globe.
In The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor, who spent over a decade living, researching, and lecturing at Harvard University, draws on his own research—including one of the largest studies of happiness and potential at Harvard and others at companies like UBS to fix this broken code. Using stories and case studies from his work with CEOs of Fortune 500 in 42 countries, Achor explains how we can reprogram our brains to become more positive in order to gain a competitive ability at work.
Based on seven practical, actionable principles that have been tried and tested everywhere from classrooms to boardrooms, stretching from Argentina to Zimbabwe, he shows us how we can capitalize on the Happiness Advantage to improve our performance and maximize our potential.
A must-read for everyone trying to stand out in a world of increasing workloads and stress, The Happiness Advantage isn’t only about how to become happier at work. It’s about how to acquire the benefits of a happier and more positive mode of thinking to achieve the extraordinary in our work and in our lives.Which of the following is the traditional code for success?
| A．Hard word→success→happiness. |
| B．Success→happiness→hard word. |
| C．Happiness→hard word→success. |
| D．Hard work→ happiness→success. |
What do we know about the new discovery in paragraph 1?
| A．Conventional code for success is totally useless. |
| B．The more we are successful, the happier we are. |
| C．Positive psychology is really backward. |
| D．Happiness contributes greatly to success. |
Why did the writer write the book The Happiness Advantages?
| A．To reprogram one’s brain to be healthier. |
| B．To make people more positive and competitive. |
| C．To study stories and cases of CEOs. |
| D．To make a lecture at Harvard University. |
The underlined phrase “capitalize on” in paragraph 3 is closes in meaning to ____
| A．provide fund for |
| B．make full use of |
| C．write big letters for |
| D．stand out in |
What is the purpose of the writer in writing the passage?
| A．To help people stand out in the world. |
| B．To arouse people’s sense of happiness. |
| C．To help people decrease the work stress. |
| D．To strongly recommend the book. |
One windy spring day, I observed young people having fun using the wind to fly their kites. Multicolored creations of varying shapes and sizes filled the skies like beautiful birds dashing and dancing in the exciting atmosphere above the earth. As the strong winds gusted against the kites, a string kept them in check.
Instead of blowing away with the wind, they arose against it to achieve great heights. They shook and pulled, but the controlling string and the clumsy tail kept them in tow(牵引), facing upward and against the wind. As the kites struggled and trembled against the string, they seemed to say, “Let me go! Let me go! I want to be free!” They flew beautifully even as they fought the forced restriction of the string. Finally, one of the kites succeeded in breaking loose. “Free at last,” it seemed to say. “Free to fly with the wind.”
Yet freedom from control simply put it at the mercy of an unsympathetic gentle wind. It flew ungracefully to the ground and landed in a twisted mass of weeds and string against a dead bush. “Free at last”. Free to lie powerless in the dirt, to be blown helplessly along the ground, and to settle down lifeless against the first roadblock.
How much like kites we sometimes are. There always exist misfortunes and restrictions, rules to follow from which we can grow and gain strength. Prohibition is a necessary counterpart to the winds of opposition. Some of us pulled at the rules so hard that we never fly fast to reach the heights we might have obtained. If we keep all the commandment(戒律), we will never rise high enough to get our tails off the ground.
Let us each rise to the great heights, recognizing that some of the prohibitions are actually the steady force that helps us climb and achieve.In the passage the writer watched _______.
| A．many young people enjoying the sunny day |
| B．many birds dashing and dancing in the sky |
| C．many young people flying multicolored kites |
| D．the strong winds blowing against the sky |
What enables a kite fly gracefully in the sky according to the story?
| A．The kite itself and strange shapes. |
| B．A long string and blowing wind. |
| C．A windy spring day and blue sky. |
| D．The size and a long string. |
What didn’t happen to the freed kite?
| A．It kept flying freely in the air. |
| B．It lay powerless in the dirt. |
| C．It was trapped in a dead bush. |
| D．It was blown helplessly around. |
What is the purpose of the author in writing this passage?
| A．To give up tips on how to fly kites effectively. |
| B．To warn us that freedom is actually powerless. |
| C．To explain that restrictions are really unnecessary. |
| D．To teach us a lesson that rules are important in life. |
Which of the following is the best title of the passage?
| A．Fly with Restrictions |
| B．Where to Fly |
| C．Why to Fly Kites |
| D．Fly to Freedom |
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