Section 2 Reading Comprehension(In this section you will find after each of the passages a number of questions or unfinished statements about the passage, each with 4 (A, B, C and D) choices to answer the question or complete the statement You must choose the one which you think fits best Blacken the corresponding letter as required on your machine-scoring ANSWER SHEET.)
1.Chronobiology might sound a little futuristic — like something from a science fiction novel, perhaps - but if’s actually a field of study that concerns one of the oldest processes life on this planet has ever known: short-term rhythms of time and their effect on flora and fauna. This can take many forms. Marine life, for example, is influenced by tidal patterns.Animals tend to be active or inactive depending on the position of the sun or moon.Numerous creatures, humans included, are largely diurnal—that is, they like to come out during the hours of sunlight. Nocturnal animals, such as bats and possums, prefer to forage by night. A third group are known as crepuscular: they thrive in the low- light of dawn and dusk and remain inactive at other hours. When it comes to humans, chrono-biologists are interested in what is known as the circadian rhythm. This is the complete cycle our bodies are naturally geared to undergo within the passage of a twenty-four-hour day. Aside from sleeping at night and waking during the day, each cycle involves many other factors such as changes in blood pressure and body temperature. Not everyone has an identical circadian rhythm. ‘Night people’, for example, often describe how they find it very hard to operate during the morning, but become alert and focused by evening. This is a benign variation within circadian rhythms known as a chronotype. Scientists have limited abilities to create durable modifications of chronobiological demands. Recent therapeutic developments for humans such as artificial light machines and melatonin administration can reset our circadian rhythms, for example, but our bodies can tell the difference and health suffers when we breach these natural rhythms for extended periods of time. Plants appear no more malleable in this respect; studies demonstrate that vegetables grown in season and ripened on the tree are far higher in essential nutrients than those grown in greenhouses and ripened by laser. Knowledge of chronobiological patterns can have many pragmatic implications for our day-to-day lives. While contemporary living can sometimes appear to subjugate biology —after all, who needs circadian rhythms when we have caffeine pills, energy drinks, shift work and cities that never sleep? — keeping in synch with our body clock is important. The average urban resident, for example, rouses at the eye-blearing time of 6.04 a.m.,which researchers believe to be far too early. One study found that even rising at 7.00 a.m. has deleterious effects on health unless exercise is performed for 30 minutes afterward.The optimum moment has been whittled down to 7.22 a.m.; muscle aches, headaches and moodiness were reported to be lowest by participants in the study who awoke then. Once you’re up and ready to go, what then? If you’re trying to shed some extra pounds, dieticians are adamant: never skip breakfast. This disorients your circadian rhythm and puts your body in starvation mode. The recommended course of action is to follow an intense workout with a carbohydrate-rich breakfast; the other way round and weight loss results are not as pronounced. Morning is also great for breaking out the vitamins. Supplement absorption by the body is not temporal-dependent, but naturopath Pam Stone notes that the extra boost at breakfast helps us get energized for the day ahead. For improved absorption, Stone suggests pairing supplements with a food in which they are soluble and steering clear of caffeinated beverages. Finally, Stone warns to take care with storage; high potency is best for absorption, and warmth and humidity are known to deplete the potency of a supplement. After-dinner espressos are becoming more of a tradition — we have the Italians to thank for that — but to prepare for a good night’s sleep we are better off putting the brakes on caffeine consumption as early as 3 p.m. With a seven-hour half-life, a cup of coffee containing 90 mg of caffeine taken at this hour could still leave 45 mg of caffeine in your nervous system at ten o’clock that evening. It is essential that, by the time you are ready to sleep, your body is rid of all traces. Evenings are important for winding down before sleep; however, dietician Geraldine Georgeou warns that an after-five carbohydrate-fast is more cultural myth than chronobiological demand. This will deprive your body of vital energy needs. Overloading your gut could lead to indigestion, though. Our digestive tracts do not shut down for the night entirely, but their work slows to a crawl as our bodies prepare for sleep. Consuming a modest snack should be entirely sufficient.
【正确答案-参考解析】：参加考试可见2.Nexirotechnology has long been a favorite of science-fiction writers. In Neuromancer, a wildly inventive book by William Gibson written in 1984, people can use neural implants to jack into the sensory experiences of others. The idea of a neural lace, a mesh that grows into the brain，was conceived by Iain M. Banks in his “Culture” series of novels. The Terminal Man by Michael Crichton, published in 1972, imagines the effects of a brain implant on someone who is convinced that machines are taking over from humans. (Spoiler: not good.) Where the sci-fi genre led, philosophers are now starting to follow. In Howard Chizeck's lab at the University of Washington, researchers are working on an implanted device to administer deep-brain stimulation (DBS) in order to treat a common movement disorder called essential tremor. Conventionally, DBS stimulation is always on, wasting energy and depriving the patient of a sense of control. The lab's ethicist, Tim Brown, a doctoral student of philosophy, says that some DBS patients suffer a sense of alienation and complain of feeling like a robot. To change that, the team at the University of Washington is using neuronal activity associated with intentional movements as a trigger for turning the device on. But the researchers also want to enable patients to use a conscious thought process to override these settings. That is more useful than it might sound: stimulation currents for essential tremor can cause side-effects like distorted speech, so someone about to give a presentation, say, might wish to shake rather than slur his words. Giving humans more options of this sort will be essential if some of the bolder visions for brain-computer interfaces are to be realised. Hannah Maslen from the University of Oxford is another ethicist who works on a BCI project, in this case a neural speech prosthesis being developed by a consortium of European researchers. One of her jobs is to think through the distinctions between inner speech and public speech: people need a dependable mechanism for separating out what they want to say from what they think. That is only one of many ethical questions that the sci-fi versions of brain-computer interfaces bring up. What protection will BCIs offer against neural hacking? Who owns neural data, including information that is gathered for research purposes now but may be decipherable in detail at some point in the future? Where does accountability lie if a user does something wrong? And if brain implants are performed not for therapeutic purposes but to augment people's abilities, will that make the world an even more unequal place? For some, these sorts of questions cannot be asked too early: more than any other new technology, BCIs may redefine what it means to be human. For others, they are premature."The societal-justice problem of who gets access to enhanced memory or vision is a question for the next decades, not years,9, says Thomas Cochrane, a neurologist and director of neuroethics at the Centre for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School. In truth, both arguments are right. It is hard to find anyone who argues that visions of whole-brain implants and Al-human symbiosis are impossible to realize; but harder still to find anyone who thinks something so revolutionary will happen in the near future.
【正确答案-参考解析】：参加考试可见Section 3 Cloze Test(In the following passage, there are 20 blanks representing words that are missing from the context.Below the passage，each blank has 4 choices marked by letters A, B, C and D respectively.There is only ONE right answer.Blacken the corresponding letter as required on your machine-scoring ANSWER SHEET.)
1.This summer, student debt reached a record $1.5 trillion in the United States. To put that in perspective, student-loan borrowers in this country are carrying debt equal to Russia’s gross domestic product in 2017. Over half say it is preventing them________(91) saving for retirement or for an emergency; more than 10 percent of borrowers are in________(92) because they cannot pay their minimum balance. This crisis exists in part because actions by the Trump administration and the student-loan servicing companies it employs have condemned many people________(93) have sought an education to a lifetime of debt. It wasn't supposed to be this way. Eleven years ago, Congress created the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. In________(94) for 10 years of service to America — in its public schools, military, Civil Service or nonprofit service organizations — and making payments for those 10 years, qualified borrowers could have their debt________(95). This year, Republicans in Congress introduced a bill to eliminate the program.________(96) that legislation lays dormant for now, there's another hurdle for people________(97) in public service: The student loan servicing companies the Department of Education keeps on contract to administer the program________(98) accused by borrowers of sabotaging loan forgiveness by providing false________(99), delaying the processing of qualifying payments and________(100) to certify eligible public service jobs. New Department of Education data confirms that the program is not operating________(101). As of June 30, only 96 out of the 28,000 applicants who had applied for forgiveness since 2017 had________(102) had their student loans discharged. As the union________(103) 1.7 million professionals around the country, many who work in public service, the American Federation of Teachers is trying to help. We have hosted student debt clinics nationwide to help our members learn about their________(104) options. Some borrowers are not aware of the government^ loan forgiveness program because, in many cases, the Department of Education and the loan servicer fail to adequately________(105) them of it. Those who do know of it have told us of their difficulties ________(106) trying to meet its requirements. Take Lisa Oelfke, a health policy analyst in Maryland, who repeatedly got________(107) information from her student-loan servicer. She made three years of ________(108) she thought were qualifying payments under the program, only________(109) that she was not enrolled in a qualifying repayment plan,________(110) having submitted forms to certify her work in public service.
【正确答案-参考解析】：参加考试可见
