Centering myself on the ice of the skating rink (溜冰场), I prepared for my skating performance. A confident smile spread across my face. This was the day I’d perform my best skating in a year, attempting a challenging jump known as the axel (前外一周半跳). My friend Caleb yelled from the stands, “You can do it, Harper!” My other friends crossed their fingers. My dad also shouted, “You look beautiful!”
As the music started, I was fully prepared. With a graceful circle, spins, and a broad smile, I began my performance. Everything progressed smoothly until I reached the crucial axel jump. As I prepared to jump, suddenly a mix of excitement and nerves filled me. To be frank, I could do it when I practiced off-ice, but I’d only landed it on-ice several times in my entire life. My coach had strategically placed it at the start of my routine to ensure my legs were at their peak for this demanding move.
I took the leap, but performed a distinct jump. It was a mere half-circle, falling short of the axel’s one and a half. I heard my friends sigh and saw my coach raise an eyebrow.
Determined, I attempted the axel again, but failed. I repeatedly tried and failed, spending so much time on the ice. When my routine ended, my dress was wet and I was far behind the beat. The silence was deafening, marking the most embarrassing moments of my skating career. As I skated away, I could sense the weight of everyone’s stare upon me.
As I made my way to my coach and dad, I heard the crowd cheering for Marlo, a charming eight-year-old, who was gracefully skating past me, leaving me with an intense sense that my skating career had come to an end.
My coach handed me my skate guards, asking if I was improvising (即兴创作) my routine. I didn’t know how to reply. My friends were embarrassed for me, avoiding my eyes. They seemed to discuss me except Caleb, my close friend. He brought me hot chocolate and apologized before skating his own routine.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150个左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
I felt an urge to go home, but my dad insisted we wait for the results.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________With doubt I returned onto the skating rink the next morning.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________2 . The existing coffee market is dominated by Coffea arabica and Coffea canephora. Unfortunately for them, coffee bushes grow best in a rather narrow range of temperatures, so their cultivation is threatened by a changing climate. But a chance discovery by Aaron Davis from Britain, published in Nature Plants, may offer a way out. Dr Davis and his colleagues report that they have tracked down a type of wild coffee which is both pleasant to taste and tolerant of higher temperatures.
Dr Davis, however, came across a paper written in 1834 by George Don, a Scottish scientist, which described a species from warmer areas. Don named it stenophylla, and wrote that it had a flavour superior to arabica’s, and it was farmed up until the 1920s, after which canephora, which had higher yields, took over. Stenophylla was then gradually forgotten.
The crucial question was, was Don’s praise to its flavour justified? To find out, Dr Davis arranged a competition involving 18 professional coffee tasters who assessed, in a blind comparison, a set of samples that included stenophylla, two types of arabica and one of canephora.
Stenophylla performed well. It was rated as having higher fruitlike qualities than a Brazilian arabica and an Indonesian canephora, and also a more favourable acid ity and more complex flavour profile, though slightly less desired than an Ethiopian arabica. It had nearly the same body as the others, and lacked an unpleasant, earthy bitterness found in the Brazilian arabica and the Indonesian canephora. When asked if what they were tasting was arabica, the judges said “yes” 81% of the time for samples of stenophylla, compared with 98% for the arabica from Ethiopia. They identified the Brazilian arabica as such only 44% of the time, and misidentified the canephora as arabica on7% of occasions.
Stenophylla does taste like arabica and tolerates higher temperatures than either arabica or canephora. That opens two possible courses of action. One is to cultivate it directly, though this might run into the yield problem which led to its abandonment in the first place. The other is to crossbreed it with existing species, to provide those high-yielding varieties with its heat tolerance.
1. What is the purpose of the research into a type of wild coffee?| A．To promote the habit of drinking coffee. | B．To deal with global warming problems. |
| C．To help coffee farmers make more profits. | D．To save coffee production from global warming. |
| A．Ethiopian arabica is more appealing than Brazilian arabica. |
| B．Indonesian canephora tasted best among four types of coffee. |
| C．Stenophylla has less taste of bitterness than two types of arabica. |
| D．Stenophylla has a more favourable acidity than Ethiopian arabica. |
| A．Historical factors. | B．Theoretical bases. |
| C．Statistical analyses. | D．Practical solutions. |
| A．Business. | B．Agriculture. |
| C．Finance and economics. | D．Science and technology. |
1. 简要描述图表；
2. 你认为教师是否会被人工智能取代；
3. 你的理由。
注意：
1. 写作词数应为80个左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
4 . Abraham Lincoln was a typical self-made man. He obtained his license to practice law without ever having stepped foot inside a college or academy building. Books became his academy. Everywhere he went, Lincoln carried a book with him. He thumbed through page after page while his horse rested at the end of a long row of planting. Whenever he could escape work, he would lie with his head against a tree and read.
Though the young Lincoln never left America, he traveled with Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage to Spain and Portugal; accompanied Robert Burns to Edinburgh; and followed the English kings into battle with Shakespeare. As he explored the wonders of literature and the history of the country, the young Lincoln developed ambitions far beyond the expectations of his family and neighbors. It was through literature that he was able to
go beyond his surroundings and reach his destination.The volumes to feed Lincoln’s intellectual hunger did not come cheaply. The story is often recounted of the time he borrowed Parson Weems’s The Life of George Washington from Josiah Crawford, a well-to-do farmer. Thrilled by this account of the first president’s life, he took the book to his loft at night, where he read as long as he could stay awake, placing the book on a makeshift shelf between the cabin logs so he could fetch it at daybreak. During a severe rainstorm one night, the book was badly soiled. Lincoln went to Crawford’s house, explained what had happened, and offered to work off the value of the book. Crawford calculated the value of two full days’ work pulling corn, which Lincoln considered an unfair repayment. Nevertheless, he straightway set to work and kept on until all work was done. Then, having paid his debt, Lincoln wrote poems and songs teasing Josiah’s large nose. Thus Crawford, in return for loaning Lincoln a book and then overly punishing him, won a permanent place in American history.
1. What can we learn about Lincoln from the first paragraph?| A．He wasn’t academically competent. | B．He read on horseback to escape work. |
| C．He failed to obtain a valid law license. | D．He is an excellent autonomous learner. |
| A．By reading extensively. | B．With his family’s support. |
| C．Through self-employment. | D．By traveling around the world. |
| A．Stolen by a farmer. | B．Burned by a candle fire. |
| C．Damaged in a rainstorm. | D．Lost and never recovered. |
| A．Tough and helpful. | B．Diligent and generous. |
| C．Intelligent and humble. | D．Determined and sharp-tongued. |
I was never “that girl” — the one who had charming appearance, and who enjoyed a colorful social life. I was another girl entirely, one who was considered “nice girls”, and the top student in class. Not that I didn’t care about friends or fun, I just didn’t think it was worth putting lots of time and effort into changing how I looked, how I acted, even as I started high school.
Marissa was “that girl” — fun to be around, good to know. We are different, but our friendship began the first time we met at an exciting soccer match, on the second day of freshmen year. The excitement of the game and our shared interest in soccer connected us, I was deeply impressed with her enthusiasm, while she admired my calm. Our conversations went smoothly, and our relationship quickly turned into a close bond.
However, as the school year progressed, Marissa’s outgoing personality began to conflict with my reserved nature. She stood out in social situations, constantly asking me to attend parties and social events. While I appreciated her efforts to include me, I felt awkward and uncomfortable to be forced into unfamiliar surroundings. Our once harmonious friendship started to crack, I tried to turn down her invitations, but in vain.
One evening, Marissa persuaded me to attend a large party at a classmate’s house. Surrounded by loud music and strange faces, I felt uneasy and upset. Marissa was the queen of the party, leaving me feeling extremely lonely. Her personality attracted others to her, creating a barrier between us.
注意:1.续写词数应为150个左右;
2.请按如下格式在答题纸的相应位置作答。
Paragraph 1:
At that moment, I realized the growing divide between us.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Paragraph 2:
Since then, we worked together to find a balance of our personalities.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________1. What does Peter plan to do now?
| A．Learn cooking. | B．Read books. | C．Do some Chinese painting. |
| A．His hobbies. | B．His dream. | C．His work. |
I have always been free and easy when it comes to handing out small change on the street, and a couple of months ago I lend 200 to a man I had never met before. Anyway, let me tell you about Brendan.
On my way back to London, I spotted a man with a large backpack and his thumb out to ask for a free lift. I pulled over and lowered the window.
“Which way are you heading?” I asked. “I’m going back to London.”
“Ah, that would be grand,” came his immediate reply. He opened the door and put his backpack on the back seat, “I’m Brendan,” he said with a smile. “I’ve had my thumb out for a day and half. Nobody seems to stop these days.”
As we headed cast along the motorway, Brendan told me about the two recent family tragedies that had pushed him out of his old life and on to the road. He told me that he was 52. He laughed a lot and enjoyed his off-grid (离网) lifestyle until the week before when he’d been mugged (抢劫). And now he just wanted to get some casual work in London, so he could then get himself home to Ireland.
It must have been the notion of home that got me and helping a man who’d clearly had a tough time seemed like the right thing to do. To my surprise I heard myself say: “Well, I’ll lend you 200 to fly home, Brendan.”
“Grand,” he replied excitedly. Then, after a pause, “and please don’t worry. I’ll definitely pay back the money when I get home.” He took my phone number and address, saying he’d call as soon as he could.
Eight weeks past, a call from Brendan made me disappointed.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________A month after I got the call, to my surprise, a package was delivered to me.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________8 . An experimental pill (药丸) looks set to cause more weight loss than existing treatments such as Ozempic, based on early trial results reported on 7 March.
The pill, called amycretin, led people to lose 13 per cent of their weight over three months, more than twice the amount seen with Ozempic.
Ozempic is a product name for the compound semaglutide. They work by copying a gut hormone (胃肠激素) called GLP-1 that is normally released after eating. This makes people feel full and reduces their appetite (胃口).
Amycretin, however, copies GLP-1 and a different hormone called amylin, which seems to make it more effective still — at least over the first three months of treatment. People taking amycretin lost 13 per cent of their weight in this period, Novo Nordisk announced on 7 March. This is more than the same amount for Ozempic of 6 per cent.
“However, we can only know for sure how the drugs measure up long term when they are compared under exactly the same condition in a single study,” says Drucker. “We need head-to-head trials.”
Another warning is that medicines that work by copying GLP-1 have been used for more than a decade and so their safety profile is well understood, which isn’t the case for copying amylin. Novo Nordiskhas also said that amycretin’s side effects were similar to those of Wegovy, which tend to be vomiting and diarrhoea (呕吐和腹泻).
“Being available in tablet form would be a great advantage for people who don’t like injections,” says Daniel Chancellor at global pharmaceutical business analyst Citeline. “An oral Pill is very attractive.”
1. How does Ozempic work to cause weight loss?| A．It takes the place of daily exercise. | B．It turns the blood sugar into hormones. |
| C．It produces a GLP-1-like hormone. | D．It copies a hormone called amycretin. |
| A．By doing head-to-head trials on the drugs. | B．By finding proper conditions for the drug. |
| C．By measuring the amount of the drug. | D．By conducting series of clinic trials. |
| A．Warnings from failed cases. | B．Concerns for medicines copying amylin. |
| C．Positive effects of amycretin. | D．Composition of amycretin and its uses. |
| A．Positive. | B．Concerned. | C．Doubtful. | D．Objective. |
9 . Dede Gardner was born in Chicago in 1967 and studied English at Columbia University. Seventeen years after her graduation, she worked as President of Plan B Entertainment, a production company started by Brad Grey.
At Plan B, Dede finds stories to make into films. Jeremy Kleiner, who is now co-president of Plan B, says Dede was his mentor (导师) before he joined her as a producing partner. “I’ve had the honor to work with her for almost 20 years,” he says. “She’s just a one-of-a-kind person in so many ways. She is very brave and views storytelling as the focus of her films.”
This year, Dede is the only woman to have won two Best Picture Oscars, for Moonlight and 12 Years a Slave. Before, together with Kleiner, she won seven films to Best Picture nominations (提名) including Selma in 2015, The Big Short in 2016 and Minari in 2021.
“Basically, whatever Dede does, it turns to gold,” says Jessie Buckley, one of the stars of Women Talking. “Dede has also changed the culture of making movies. She is always there to make the set feel comfortable when we are obviously coming across difficult things. She’s a great example to follow. She’s very careful with protecting the workers’ voice.”
Dede is actually exploring a much healthier and kinder way to make movies. She’s a producer who consciously thinks about creating a set where there is care. That includes making sure there are therapists (治疗专家) on set for all the workers in case there are emergencies happening.
1. Who set up the company Plan B Entertainment?| A．Brad Grey. | B．Dede Gardner. |
| C．Jessie Buckley. | D．Jeremy Kleiner. |
| A．Storytelling. | B．Action. | C．History. | D．Adventure. |
| A．Moonlight. | B．Selma. | C．The Big Short. | D．Minari. |
| A．She is strict with her partners. | B．She always avoids difficulties. |
| C．She is successful and thoughtful. | D．She is a medical expert. |
10 . With artificial intelligence (AI) seemingly working its way into every technology out there, one area where it’s considered particularly promising is in helping doctors. And already, AI is entering some doctors’ offices.
Dr. Michael Mansour of Massachusetts General Hospital is an early user who’s helped by a form of AI that could someday change the way doctors get information. When a patient comes in with unknown infection (感染), Mansour turns to a computer program called UpToDate. It’s a common tool, with more than 2 million users at 44,000 health care organizations in over 190 countries. Basically, it’s Google for doctors — searching a huge database (数据库) of articles written by experts in the field, who are all getting information from the latest research.
Wolters Kluwer Health, the company that makes UpToDate, is trying to incorporate (整合) AI so that doctors can have more of a conversation with the database.
Some doctors hope to use AI to comb through a patient’s medical history before an appointment (预约). In some cases, Dr. June-Ho Kim, who directs a program on primary care at Ariadne Labs, says AI technology may also help primary care doctors look after patients without the help of specialists. “It will free up specialists’ time to focus on more difficult cases that they need to really home in on, rather than the ones that could be answered through a few questions,” he says.
Dr. Marc Succi, who was a co-worker of Kim, says, “AI will finally prove to be a trusted medical tool. AI won’t replace doctors, but doctors who use AI will replace doctors who do not. It will become very common just like designing a PPT on a computer. It’s that level of leap.”
1. How does UpToDate help a doctor?| A．It looks after patients. | B．It does a temperature test. |
| C．It offers useful information. | D．It leads patients to doctors. |
| A．Concentrate on. | B．Adapt to. |
| C．Waste time on. | D．Have interest in. |
| A．The difficulty of writing. | B．The user-friendlines s of AI. |
| C．The importance of a doctor. | D．The advantages of office software. |
| A．AI in the Field of Medicine | B．The Challenges of AI |
| C．Changes That AI Has Brought | D．Doctors at Home or in the Office |
