2021 年 06 月大学英语四级考试真题（第 1 套）

Most animals seek shade when temperatures in the Sahara Desert soar to 120 degrees Fahrenheit. But for the Saharan silver ant, __26__ from their underground nests into the sun's brutal rays to __27__ for food, this is the perfect time to seek lunch. In 2015 these ants were joined in the desert by scientists from two Belgian universities, who spent a month in the __28__ heat tracking the ants and digging out their nests. The goal was simple, to discover how the __29__ adapted to the kind of heat that can __30__ melt the bottom of shoes.

Back in Belgium, the scientists looked at the ants under an electronic microscope and found that their __31__, triangular hair reflects light like a prism (棱镜), giving them a metallic reflection and protecting them from the sun's awful heat. When Ph.D. student Quentin Willot __32__ the hair from an ant with a __33__ knife and put it under a heat lamp, its temperature jumped.

The ants' method of staying cool is __34__ among animals. Could this reflective type of hair protect people? Willot says companies are interested in __35__ these ants' method of heat protection for human use, including everything from helping to protect the lives of firefighters to keeping homes cool in summer.

Educators and business leaders have more in common than it may seem. Teachers want to prepare students for a successful future. Technology companies have an interest in developing a workforce with the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) skills needed to grow the company and advance the industry. How can they work together to achieve these goals? Play may be the answer.

Focusing on STEM skills is important, but the reality is that SIBM skills are enhanced and more relevant when combined with traditional, hands-on creative activities. This combination is proving to be the best way to prepare today's children to be the makers and builders of tomorrow. That is why technology companies are partnering with educators to bring back good, old-fashioned play.

In fact many experts argue that the most important 21st-century skills aren't related to specific technologies or subject matter, but to creativity; skills like imagination, problem-finding and problem solving, teamwork, optimism, patience and the ability to experiment and take risks. These are skills acquired when kids tinker (鼓捣小玩意). High-tech industries such as NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have found that their best overall problem solvers were master tinkerers in their youth.

There are cognitive (认识的) benefits of doing things the way we did as children-building something, tearing it down, then building it up again. Research shows that given 15 minutes of free play, four- and five-year-olds will spend a third of this time engaged in spatial, mathematical, and architectural activities. This type of play-especially with building blocks-helps children discover and develop key principles in math and geometry.

If play and building are critical to 21st-century skill development, that's really good news for two reasons: Children are born builders, makers, and creators, so fostering (培养) 21st-century skills may be as simple as giving kids room to play, tinker and try things out, even as they grow older. Secondly, it doesn't take 21st-century technology to foster 21st-century skills. This is especially important for under-resourced schools and communities. Taking whatever materials are handy and tinkering with them is a simple way to engage those important "maker" skills. And anyone, anywhere, can do it.

Being an information technology, or IT, worker is not a job I envy. They are the ones who, right in the middle of a critical meeting, are expected to instantly fix the projector that's no longer working. They have to tolerate the bad tempers of colleagues frustrated at the number of times they've had to call the help desk for the same issue. They are also the ones who know there are systems that are more powerful, reliable and faster, but their employer simply will not put up the funds to buy them.

According to a recent survey, employees who have a job reliant on IT support consider IT a major source of job dissatisfaction. Through no fault of their own, they can suddenly find their productivity deteriorating or quality control non-existent. And there's little they can do about it.

The experience of using IT penetrates almost the entire work field. It has become a crucial part of employees' overall work experience. When IT is operating as it should, employee self-confidence swells. Their job satisfaction, too, can surge when well-functioning machines relieve them of dull tasks or repetitive processes. But if there's one thing that triggers widespread employee frustration, it's an IT transformation project gone wrong, where swollen expectations have been popped and a long list of promised efficiencies have been reversed. This occurs when business leaders implement IT initiatives with little consideration of how those changes will impact the end user.

Which is why managers should appreciate just how influential the IT user experience is to their employees, and exert substantial effort in ensuring their IT team eliminates programming errors and application crashes. Adequate and timely IT support should also be available to enable users to cope with technological issues at work. More importantly, IT practitioners need to understand what employees experience mentally when they use IT.

Therefore, businesses need to set up their IT infrastructure so that it is designed to fit in with their employees' work, rather than adjust their work to fit in with the company's IT limitations.