While many high-achieving students will spend their summers volunteering, working part-time jobs, or interning (实习), another great opportunity available to high schoolers is summer programs.

Experiences in Architecture
Dates: July 7 — 11
Location: University of Chicago

This workshop is perfect for high school students in architecture and design. In order to prepare them for a career in architecture, the two-week program promises to provide the study of the discipline at the college level while introducing them to life on a college campus.

Immersion (沉浸) into ASL
Dates: June 15 — 22 (overnight); June 24 — 29 (day camp)
Location: Gallaudet University

This program is designed for students who are either beginning or intermediate (中级的) signers and want to become more fluent. Participants will work with advanced ASL (American Sign Language) instructors and their assistants who are similarly deaf or hard of hearing, learn about deaf culture and history, and explore the nation’s capital. Students may participate in a residential or day camp program.

Conway School of Nursing
Dates: July 15 — 19
Location: George Washington University

This one-week program hopes to introduce students to careers in nursing. Taught by the nursing teachers and aided by upper-class nursing students, participants will learn about the moral values guiding the work.

High School Drama Institute
Dates: July 8 — 26
Location: Columbia University

Though this intensive three-week program is super-selective and a limited number of students are chosen to participate, it is a perfect fit for students with a passion for the performing arts. Participants develop acting skills focusing on voice, movement, and gesture, strengthen their dancing and singing skills, and learn what it takes to prepare for college auditions (试演).

1. What will Experiences in Architecture offer to participants?

A．Interning positions.	B．Pre-college courses.
C．A career in design.	D．On-campus tours.

2. Who might help with Immersion into ASL?

A．Experienced teacher assistants.	B．Residential ASL programmers.
C．Staff members with hearing problems.	D．Starters and Intermediate ASL learners.

3. Which of the following might be hard to attend?

A．Experiences in Architecture.	B．Immersion into ASL.
C．Conway School of Nursing.	D．High School Drama Institute.

More than 30 years ago, Jadav Payeng started planting trees on a barren sandbar (贫瘠的沙洲) near his birthplace in India’s Assam region. That day, the then-16-year-old noticed many snakes washed up on the sandbar after a flood. They were dying due to heat exposure at a rapid rate. “How can I help them?” Then he had an idea: Trees can provide shade for them!

Jadav lives on an island, Majuli, which is in the middle of the Brahmaputra River. It begins at the base of the Himalayas, at the meeting of a fan of rivers that drain (流走) snowmelt. At one time, villages upstream had redirected the river, creating more forceful currents around the island and carrying away the soil, thus damaging the natural habitats of its wildlife. As a consequence, much of the island became barren sand, and an entire community was at risk of being displaced.

Jadav also noticed that nobody was doing anything about it besides watching their part of the world disappear. So, he started to put his idea into action — every day, one or two or three at a time. He took notes of how they grew, harvested their seeds, grew saplings (树苗) in his hut and planted before going off to work.

Now that once-barren sandbar is a 1,360-acre forest, home to many animals: deer, Bengal tigers, Indian rhinoceros and even a group of 100 elephants that visit every year. There are now native grasses that have taken root in the shade and varieties of native trees grown from seeds that have washed ashore. But most importantly, the island that is also home to a few hundred people is holding its own against the bad weather. Standing beside one of the first trees he planted 30 years ago, Jadav tells us: “It’s a little thing, something anyone can do.”

4. What was Jadav’s original aim to plant trees?

A．To save the snakes from heat exposure.	B．To protect the snakes from extinction.
C．To produce materials to stop flooding.	D．To use the leaves to create more shades.

5. What primarily made Majuli a barren island?

A．Villagers’ ignorance of ecology.	B．Villagers’ redirecting the river.
C．The extreme weather conditions.	D．Loss of wildlife’s natural habitats.

6. Which of the following can best describe Jadav?

A．Frank and learned.	B．Subjective yet reliable.
C．Determined and careful.	D．Smart but hot-tempered.

7. What is Paragraph 4 mainly about?

A．What the forest means to the wildlife.	B．How ecology benefits the human kind.
C．How Jadav feels about his simple deeds.	D．What difference Jadav’s efforts have made.

Like many eco-conscious films, I’ve seen Don’t Look Up many times, and shown it to my friends and family whenever anyone suggests a movie night. I rarely pass up the moment to educate my loved ones on any possible disaster or crisis in an entertaining or thought-inspiring way. It’s a refreshing break from the usual doom-mongering that conversations can often get into. The power of cinema in communicating the climate crisis plays a critical role in affecting public attitudes and behaviors in relation to environmental justice.

Films appeal to our emotions in a way scientific presentation, academic papers or broadcast interview rarely can. Accordingly, films have an unusual way of engaging our emotions, which is a vital step in driving changes in people’s behavior. Films can make full use of this by presenting climate messages within fantastic narratives (叙述) that seasoned movie watchers will be familiar with. In the case of Don’t Look Up, it’s about meteor (流星) strikes. For The End We Start From, it’s extreme flooding. In First Reformed, climate activism is the predominant focus.

Films and TV dramas can also bring the vastness of climate disaster down to earth by integrating everyday events. The TV series Years and Years, launches climate issues into public debate, helping viewers relate to the characters’ experiences. The End We Start From, set in an extreme flood in London, follows the everyday experience of having a newborn child. This creates a heart-felt emotional connect ion between the themes of the film and the viewers’ own experiences. The Day After Tomorrow, the first hit released in 2004, enhances public awareness and concern through its vivid imagery of environmental disaster.

Films like this generate a strong empathetic (同理心的) connect ion that can help people change the way they behave far more than facts and data can. Of course, the growing type of climate change cinema is not always scientifically accurate. But if cinema is to be used more forcefully as a tool to raise the public awareness of climate crisis, then accuracy is not entirely necessary: it is the emotional connection and thrilling storytelling that are most crucial.

8. What does the underlined word “doom-mongering” probably mean?

A．Misfortune.

B．Imbalance.

C．Disbelief.

D．Irrelevance.

9. What can be inferred about climate disaster movies from Paragraph 2?

A．They can change environmental efforts.	B．They can uniquely create emotional link.
C．They can help viewers out of their trouble.	D．They can solve social issues academically.

10. How is Paragraph 3 mainly developed?

A．By inferring results.	B．By analyzing reasons.
C．By giving examples.	D．By making comparisons.

11. What of the following might the author agree with?

A．Disaster films are educational and entertaining.

B．Scientific accuracy is a necessity for disaster films.

C．The growing popularity of cinema is not desirable.

D．Public awareness of entertainment needs raising.

Generations of parents have told their children to practice their musical instruments. They have good reason for it: learning an instrument is not only associated with better educational attainment but also cognition (认知) and even intelligence scores in children. But does this musicality translate to better cognition (thinking) later in life?

A recent study showed that musical people had better memory and executive (决策的) function than those with less or no musicality. This makes sense as continued engagement in cognitively stimulating activities, such as playing an instrument, should result in continued brain health benefits.

Singing is a very popular musical activity as it allows joining musical groups, such as choirs. But does singing provide the same cognitive benefit as playing an instrument? According to the study, singing can result in better executive function but not memory, suggesting that playing an instrument has additional brain health benefits. However, when singing is done in choirs, there is good evidence that being engaged in social activity is good for our brain health.

Many people might remember the famous “Mozart Effect”, which was based on a 1993 study showing that when students were played Mozart, they scored higher on intelligence tests. Sadly, the current study found having played the recorder for three years at primary school might not have that big an impact on our cognitive performance. So, passively listening to music doesn’t seem to provide any cognitive benefits.

Playing an instrument or singing seems to have benefits to our brain health in aging, according to the study. What is yet to be established is whether this would also help prevent future cognitive decline or dementia. Still, considering the overall cognitive and social benefits of learning an instrument or singing in a choir, it might be worth engaging in such cognitive stimulation as we age. Our parents would be proud of us.

12. Why do parents intend their kids to play an instrument?

A．They suppose it can broaden the kids’ horizons.

B．They design the kids to be musicians in the future.

C．They expect to equip the kids with critical thinking.

D．They think it can improve the kids’ study and thinking.

13. Where could singing differ from playing an instrument?

A．It has better memories.	B．It has social benefits.
C．It requires more energy.	D．It shapes brain development.

14. What is the author’s purpose of mentioning Mozart Effect?

A．To show cognition relies on active engagement.

B．To display the real role that music plays in study.

C．To list similarities between music and study.

D．To demonstrate how to play a recorder properly.

15. Which of the following is the best title for the text?

A．Why Do People Prefer Singing?	B．What Musicals Can Do for You
C．How Music Boosts Your Brain	D．Where Shall We Find Musicality?