Recently, Ma Xiaohui, a famous Chinese erhu
Attendees from different backgrounds and participants in the World Madam Global Awards Ceremony were
The concert began
In the next three
“This beautiful and
2 . Born in 1990, a wheelchair has been part of Zhao Hongcheng’s life since she was one year old due to poliomyelitis (小儿麻痹症) . And now, as a video content creator who has over 84, 000 followers on the video-sharing platform Bilibili, Zhao wants to be a bridge between the disabled and the rest of society.
“I made my first video in 2019,” Zhao says. “My original purpose was to find a way to reduce my emotional stress. I always met inconvenience caused by my wheelchair when going out, which made me feel sad. I barely had any disabled friends, so I had no one to talk to. I felt quite lonely,” Zhao explains.
Her first vlog was about a trip to Guangzhou with friends. The video was viewed more than 2, 000 times on the first day. “This made me feel that there were many things worth sharing in my life,” she explains. Since then, that first video has been viewed over 48, 000 times. Her fourth video, displaying how she got to work in a wheelchair, made her even more popular. The video has received more than 300, 000 views on Bilibili.
“One of the great things about being a content creator is that I feel like I have the opportunity of talking about the real difficulties and pains that a disabled person faces,” Zhao says.
1. What’s the purpose of Zhao’s first video?| A．To make a living. | B．To reduce her emotional stress. |
| C．To be popular. | D．To practice film skills. |
| A．The problems the disabled face. | B．The difficulties of making a video. |
| C．The popularity of Zhao’s videos. | D．The four videos Zhao made. |
| A．Receiving more views. | B．Being successful on Bilibili. |
| C．Sharing stories from the disabled. | D．Encouraging the disabled to be content creators. |
| A．A Positive Disabled Influencer | B．A lonely Day of the Disabled |
| C．A Popular Content Creator | D．A Caring Community for the Disabled |
3 . The “Got Talent” crew is one of the pioneers in finding and publicizing music talents and has been giving the world some of its most favorite artists for almost two decades. This year “Britain’s Got Talent” (BGT) uncovered a musical genius named Malakai Bayoh who amazed the audience with perfect high-note singing. The London-based 13-year-old boy appeared for the show’s audition (试镜) in April, 2023 and was accompanied by his mom and sister. “My big dream is to be a singer. I started singing at 7,” said Bayoh to the BGT team and added jokingly, “My mom made me join the choir (合唱团) because she’s very bossy.” The teenager mentioned she’s his biggest fan.
Bayoh’s mom was shocked as he was about to perform and said, “It scares me because, on his first show, somebody heckled (对……起哄) him. It was bad to think that someone would boo (喝倒彩) a child on stage because it could’ve knocked his confidence completely.” Contrary to his mom’s fear, Bayoh set the stage on fire singing the song “Pie Jesu” and the entire crowd were struck by his beautiful voice. As he ended his song, the audience and the judges gave him a standing applause. Simon Cowell, a judge, had just one word to say and it was “Golden Buzzer”, sending him straight to the semi-finals of the show.
Cowell and the other judges called Bayoh’s performance “flawless” and “heavenly”. His angelic voice made the audience tear up and the judges thanked the teen for coming on the show. Bayoh went on to become one of the finalists of the show.
Bayoh’s audition at the BGT became popular on social media. People loved the boy’s impeccable singing and some musicians even commented on how perfectly he hit the high notes. “I’m a trained singer and a music teacher by profession, and sang this song as a young performer myself. I can say with absolute certainty that this song is most beautifully sung this time. With proper technique and breathing, this boy sang really well,” posted @mayacorinne878.
1. What can be learned about Bayoh from paragraph 2?| A．He comes from a single-parent family. | B．He is humorous in speech. |
| C．His dream was inspired by his fans. | D．His mom used to be a singer. |
| A．Bayoh’s difficulty in singing. | B．The judges’ attitudes to his son. |
| C．Bayoh’s performance on stage. | D．Some audiences’ initial responses. |
| A．Touched. | B．Annoyed. | C．Relieved. | D．Amused. |
| A．To uncover more musical geniuses. | B．To show musicians’ ability to sing well. |
| C．To stress Bayoh’s excellent singing. | D．To contradict some audiences’ comments. |
4 . It took a thunderstorm for Gordon Hempton to truly appreciate quiet. After a visit home to Seattle, Washington in 1980, the graduate student found himself tired from the 3,000km way back to his university in Wisconsin.
Deciding it was time to sleep for the night and that the August heat made it unnecessary to live in a motel, Hempton pulled over and laid down in a field. He stretched out after hours on the road. Suddenly, a thunderstorm sounded overhead. Too tired to move, he decided to stay right there. What he did next led to an awakening: he listened.
“I heard all: the movement of the air, the insect activity, the drops of the rain, the echo of the thunder,” he says. “My eyes were closed, but it was as if I could see all the creatures I’d been sharing life with but never known. I was impressed by my awareness.” So vivid was Hempton’s awakening that he immediately dropped out of university, giving up a degree in Economics, and changed the course of his life.
After that, Hempton travelled within Olympic National Park with microphone and recorder, where he captured the wonderful sounds from the wildlife in quiet. Quiet, in this sense, does not mean complete silence. He says, “We might say that quiet offers an opportunity to be aware of our surroundings.”
Yet, despite these ear-arresting experiences, Hempton realized that quiet places were disappearing at an alarming rate, with noise pollution making it more difficult to listen to the quiet sounds of nature.
In 1998, the Smithsonian hired Hempton to go on a trip to Hawaii, collecting sounds of endangered animals and plants to be played at a photography exhibition.
Now 67, he is a famous acoustic ecologist (someone who studies sound in living environments) and co-founder of Quiet Parks International (QPI), an organization that identifies and preserves natural soundscapes by testing sound levels and encouraging visitors to recognize the importance of quiet.
1. What made Gordon Hempton quit the university?| A．His concerns about future. |
| B．His tiredness of school work. |
| C．An experience on his way to university. |
| D．The long distance from the university to his home. |
| A．Quiet doesn’t mean no sound. |
| B．Quiet can awake one’s sense. |
| C．Quiet helps one capture sounds of nature. |
| D．Quiet places are damaged by human beings. |
| A．enthusiastic and devoted. | B．creative and expressive. |
| C．hardworking and outgoing. | D．modest and generous. |
| A．An appeal for environment protection. |
| B．An explanation of a science related to sound. |
| C．An introduction of a man with great achievements. |
| D．A story about fighting for quiet in a world full of noise. |
5 . David Chipperfield, the British designer known for his minimalist and inclusive spaces, has won the Pritzker Prize, often called “the Nobel Prize of architecture”. With this honor, he joins the company of groundbreaking designers such as Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Richard Rogers and Oscar Niemeyer.
Chipperfield has distinguished his works by creating sharp, minimalist socially conscious buildings. The Pritzker committee wrote, “His architectural language balances consistency with the fundamental design principles and flexibility towards the local cultures ...The work of David Chipperfield harmonizes European classicism, the complex nature of Britain and even the delicateness of Japan.”
In 1997, Chipperfield’s firm was chosen to renovate Berlin’s Neues Museum, which was a mess long after being damaged by World War I. Chipperfield approached the project in honor of the building’s history. For more than a decade, he searched through stones and bricks from the original structure for pieces to use,some of which had bullet (子弹) holes in them.
The architect has applied the same belief to his recent works, including the expansion of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, where he renovated galleries, created a new auditorium (礼堂) and built a concrete bridge to connect its original buildings.
“While some architects may use the attention that comes with the Pritzker Prize to go big and advance their commercial ambitions, Chipperfield’s win is unlikely to result in steel-and-glass supertall skyscrapers,” writes Bloomberg’s Kriston Capps.
Instead, Chipperfield says he will work harder to create architecture that has a specific mission.“I regard this award as an encouragement, continuing to direct my attention not only to the substance of architecture and its meaning but also to the contribution that we can make as architects to address the existing challenges of climate change and social inequality,” he says in a statement. He adds,” We must rise to these challenges and help inspire the next generation to shoulder this responsibility with vision and courage.”
1. What do the groundbreaking designers mentioned in paragraph 1 indicate?| A．The fierce competition for the Pritzker Prize. |
| B．The inspiration for Chipperfield’s design features. |
| C．Chipperfield’s goal to become a leading architect. |
| D．Chipperfield’s amazing architectural achievements. |
| A．The creation of visually striking buildings. |
| B．The integration of different cultural elements. |
| C．The consistent design style in different projects. |
| D．The flexible selection of architectural materials. |
| A．Research. | B．Restore. | C．Build. | D．Decorate. |
| A．Realize personal commercial ambitions. |
| B．Take up environmental protection industry. |
| C．Make a positive impact on critical social issues. |
| D．Encourage more people to major in architecture. |
6 . Jack Prelutsky is an American poet. He is known for his humorous and fantastic poetry for children, which has earned him numerous awards.
Jack Prelutsky was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1940. As a child, he did not enjoy poetry, finding it boring and pointless. Instead, Prelutsky expressed his artistry through music, taking voice and piano lessons. While Prelutsky claims he got into poetry almost by accident, he also states that he was always a poet. It just took him some time to realize his love for poetry.
Prelutsky explored quite a few options before he found his niche in poetry. He was a folk singer and guitar teacher in Greenwich Village in his late teens and early twenties. Prelutsky also held a variety of odd jobs. He worked as a furniture mover, piano mover, taxicab driver, coal shoveler, fruit picker, truck driver and photographer, among other jobs.
At the age of 23, Prelutsky decided to try illustrating. Just before presenting his illustrations to a children’s book editor, he added a few lines of poetry to the pictures. The editor told him that the illustrations were not publishable but the poems showed the talent. Over the next months and years, Prelutsky worked with the editor to create a collection of animal poems inspired by his love of the Bronx Zoo. His first book, entitled A Gopher in the Garden and Other Animal Poems, was published in 1967.
In addition to writing, Prelutsky has edited various poetry collections and translated poetry from German and Swedish into English. He currently resides in Seattle, where he writes and performs his work. Prelutsky is considered one of the most popular children’s poets. His work pioneered a new era of children’s poetry. In 2006, the Poetry Foundation named Jack Prelutsky the first Children’s Poet Laureate, a position designed to promote poetry for children and raise awareness of the power and relevance of poetry for young people.
1. Why did Prelutsky dislike poetry in his early years?| A．It was too difficult. | B．He wasn’t good at it. |
| C．He thought it meaningless. | D．It took up too much of his time. |
| A．Mistake. | B．Dream | C．Comprehension. | D．Interest. |
| A．23. | B．27. | C．40. | D．66. |
| A．To introduce a poet. | B．To attract poetry lovers. |
| C．To display some excellent poems. | D．To encourage readers to write poems. |
1. When did Albert Bierstadt move to America?
| A．In 1830. | B．In 1831. | C．In 1832. |
| A．He focused on improving his drawing skills. |
| B．He held exhibitions in different countries. |
| C．He started to work as an art teacher. |
| A．To visit his sick family member. |
| B．To get inspiration for his paintings. |
| C．To engage in environmental protection. |
Amy, a famous piano player has shown her musical
Many foreigners are
He built a website in 2002 and named it Chinese Etymology (词源),
In September, Sears set up his studio in Nanjing as part of the local government’s plan to promote Chinese culture. To help both Chinese
With the tireless efforts of people like Richard Sears and the government’s support,
10 . Dr. Tatiana Erukhimova is a physics professor at Texas A&M who aims to show her students, especially the young women, that there are no limits.
Only 25% of physics undergraduate students are female. Perhaps it is because boys grow up playing with machines and making drawings of fast cars and rocket explosions. But girls are just as curious about the way the world works — they just haven’t jumped into the culture of chemical reactions, energy and magnetic force with as much enthusiasm. That is, until they see one of Tatiana’s videos showing the science behind real life’s magic. Tatiana is really one of the few living female examples they could follow.
Her videos get millions of views. She is a ball of energy with a short haircut, a Russian accent and a lively personality that makes physics accessible to the younger audience. Young girls are attracted to Tatiana’s attractive demonstrations the way they flock to pop concerts. This is real. This is science they can participate in. This is an open door to endless possibilities.
“These short clips are the spark that inspires,” Tatiana says with so much excitement that it lights up the room. Everything she does involves students. She believes the magic in learning is when your peers are part of the demonstration, when you are part of the teaching process.
“She wants everything to be a celebration of science,” says one of Tatiana’s former students. And indeed, the classroom is in a party atmosphere, with students cheering when amazed by Newton’s law of motion, demonstrated by a spinning bicycle wheel held upright by the professor. It’s hard to tell who is more delighted, Tatiana or her students. She is an attraction for female students who are graduating college and working in the sciences in higher numbers than ever before.
Dr. Tatiana’s story began in Russia and her parents were both physicists. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Tatiana moved to Texas with her husband, also a physicist. They both teach at Texas A&M, and when Tatiana isn’t in the classroom, she is doing outreach with schoolchildren, amazing them with spinning lights that soon form words, liquid oxygen that shrinks objects and chemical reactions that expand matter to 10 times its size. But most importantly, she is expanding the audience of female physicists.
1. According to the passage, why do girls sometimes hesitate to jump into the culture of physics?| A．Lack of interest in chemical reactions. |
| B．Cultural differences in curiosity. |
| C．Absence of female role models. |
| D．Fear of liquid oxygen demonstrations. |
| A．They were made by a female physician. |
| B．They feature engaging demonstrations. |
| C．They are meant for Tatiana’s homeland. |
| D．They have received millions of likes online. |
| A．Appealing to students with fascinating demonstrations. |
| B．Teaching students some difficult physics concepts. |
| C．Explaining the history of Newton’s law of motion. |
| D．Encouraging girls to attend parties and pop concerts. |
| A．Female Professor Rejecting Gender Barrier |
| B．Russian Physicist and Female Scientists |
| C．Physics Professor Stimulating Girls’ Passion |
| D．The Significance of Online Short Videos |
