1 .        The “April snow” is here! It’s not real snow, of course, it’s catkins (飞絮) from willows and poplar trees in spring. For some people, this “snow” is not welcomed. Catkins can cause allergies (过敏), making people’s noses, eyes, and skin uncomfortable. In spring, the female (雌性的) trees grow lots of flowers. When these flowers finish growing, they produce cotton-like seeds that spread through the air.

Luckily, scientists have found many ways to control catkins. Doing “gender change surgery (变性手术)” on willow and poplar trees is one of them. People cut off the branches of female trees and replace them with branches from male (雄性的) trees. This cuts down the number of catkins. However, this way is slow and expensive. A skilled worker can do the “surgery” on less than ten trees a day. From 2008 to 2018, only around 1, 000 trees were treated in Beijing.

Scientists also use special injections (注射剂) to reduce the number of catkins on trees. These injections make the trees mainly use their energy to grow bigger and get more leaves, not to make catkins. Xu Qinming, an expert, said that this method is safe for the trees. However, the trees need to get injections every year to keep the catkins numbers under control.

Other than injections, the trees can “take medicine”, too. This medicine can be sprayed onto the trees before the catkins form, which can quickly reduce catkins numbers. Still, people need to be careful about how much of the medicine they use and when they use it, or they might hurt the environment.

1. What can we know from paragraph one?

A．Catkins are hard to see.

B．It’s normal to snow in April.

C．People welcome willows.

D．It’s uncomfortable to breath in catkins.

2. How many ways are introduced to deal with catkins?

A．One.

B．Two.

C．Three.

D．Four.

3. What is the disadvantage of using injections according to the passage?

A．Trees need to be injected every year.

B．It needs many skilled workers to do it.

C．It is slow and expensive.

D．It’s bad for the trees and environment.

4. What is the main idea of the passage?

A．How to deal with catkins allergies.

B．How to control catkins with new technology.

C．How to tell male and female willow trees apart.

D．How to protect willow and polar trees.

3 .

A video went popular on August 15, 2023. In the video, there was a group of tourists traveling in the desert in Turpan, Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. Suddenly they found their hair standing on end, which scared everyone on the scene (在场的). According to the tourists, their hair returned to normal situation after they drove 3 kilometers down the road.

Many people on the Internet said the phenomenon (现象) is a sign of a coming storm. They suggested that the group should have run away as soon as possible. However, Feng Minxue, an expert, said that running away is not the best choice.

According to Feng, if a person’s hair is dry and there is a little static electricity (静电), there is still time to leave. However, if the hair has already stood on end, running can be fatal because it may put the person in danger. The correct way is to lower one’s body height. If they can’t leave the mountain top in time, they should quickly crouch (蹲) down in that place, bring their feet as close together as possible and use their hands to protect their head, avoiding touching the ground.

Wu Xueke, a professor, thinks that the clouds with electricity above the head of the tourists caused the situation. The electric field distortion (电场畸变) above their head became strong, and then it caused static electricity in their hair. In some serious cases, the person might be hit by lightning. Therefore, if people meet with such a situation outdoors, they should keep a clear mind and take action properly.

1. What did many people on the Internet advise the tourists to do?

A．Stand still.	B．Lie down quietly.
C．Run away immediately (立即).	D．Record the sign carefully.

2. What does the underlined word “fatal” in Paragraph 3 mean?

A．Accidental.

B．Dangerous.

C．Sudden.

D．Safe.

3. According to Feng, what should the tourists do?
①Keep their body down.   ②Bring their feet close together.
③Protect their head.     ④Touch the ground.

A．①②③

B．①②④

C．①③④

D．②③④

4. What can we know from the last paragraph?

A．People outdoors should try to avoid dark clouds.

B．The clouds without electricity above the head of the tourists caused the situation.

C．People are easily hit by lightning in the desert.

D．Strong electric field distortion can cause static electricity in hair.

4 . When you get really sleepy, you may nod off (打瞌睡) for a short time. However, chinstrap penguins (帽带企鹅) in the South Pole take nodding off to a whole new level, because they do it more than 10, 000 times a day!

A group of scientists studied 14 chinstrap penguins in the South Pole. They put electrodes (电极) on the penguins’ heads and necks to see their brain activities. The scientists also followed them by GPS and watched them for 10 days.

Finally, the scientists found that the penguins’ longest sleep time is 34 seconds (秒). On average (基本上), the penguins sleep 4 seconds at a time. Sometimes, only half of their brains would sleep, while the other half stayed awake. But in one day, they sleep for more than 11 hours, so they get enough rest.

The penguins sleep like this because they need to protect their eggs and babies. If they sleep too long, the babies may get hurt by seabirds and other penguins. Also, their home is usually noisy and crowded. So the parent penguins just have very short sleeps to stay alert (警觉的).

1. What is Paragraph 2 mainly about?

A．Why scientists put electrodes on the penguins.

B．What scientists found about the penguins’ sleeping.

C．How scientists studied the penguins’ sleeping habits.

D．When scientists studied the penguins’ brain activities.

2. What does the underlined word “they” in the last paragraph refer to?

A．Seabirds.	B．Scientists.
C．The baby penguins.	D．The parent penguins.

3. What makes the penguins have short sleep habits?
①The flying of seabirds.             ②Their noisy and crowded homes.
③The cold weather in the South Pole.       ④The need to protect their eggs and babies.

A．①②

B．②③

C．②④

D．③④

4. What is the best title for the passage?

A．Chinstrap Penguins’ Busy Lives

B．Differences in Rest Between Animals

C．Chinstrap Penguins’ Favorite Activities

D．Chinstrap Penguins’ Special Sleeping Habits

5 . You can hardly pay no attention to hunger. Hunger has many different causes, according to Dr. Monique Tello, from Harvard Medical School.

The first cause may be medical problems. “If a person always feels hungry and can’t put on weight or even loses weight, he should go to the hospital. For people with Type 1 diabetes (糖尿病), their body isn’t able to process (分解) sugar. They eat a lot, but still lose weight and they feel terrible.” Tello said.

If it isn’t a medical cause, the problem could be in the head. It’s reasonable (合理的) to be hungry every three to five hours. However, you may eat often and a lot after watching food ads on TV or social media. Also, the more you eat, the larger your stomach gets and the more you want to eat. A person’s state (状态) of mind can play a role, too. Research has shown that stress and worry can increase levels of ghrelin (饥饿激素).

Another reason may be the lifestyle. Sometimes, the reason why a person is always hungry is that he eats too little, exercises too much, or both.

So, what are the solutions (解决方法)? First, reduce your time on watching food advertisements. In addition, say no to food if you’re not really hungry. Finally, change your diet by eating more food high in fiber (纤维), protein (蛋白质) and healthy fat.

1. According to Tello, what should you do if you are always hungry and getting thinner?

A．Eat more food.	B．Change your diet.
C．See a doctor.	D．Do some Exercise.

2. What can you learn from Paragraph 3?

A．You don’t feel like eating when you’re worried.

B．You will probably eat more when you feel stressed.

C．The smaller your stomach is, the healthier you will be.

D．The more food advertisements you watch, the less you eat.

3. How many solutions does the writer give in Paragraph 5?

A．Two.

B．Three.

C．Four.

D．Five.

4. What’s the structure of the article? (P＝Paragraph)

A．

B．

C．

D．

6 . From the moon to Mars, scientists have been looking for water—the key to life—in the solar system for decades. Recently, they have turned to Jupiter (木星)!

On April 14, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) JUICE spacecraft successfully lifted off from French Guiana in South America. JUICE, short for “Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer”, will collect data from Jupiter and its three moons, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.

The three moons are believed to have big oceans of liquid water (液态水) under their icy shells (壳). According to ESA, the water on these moons could be six times as much as the amount in Earth’s oceans. The mission (任务) “will change our understanding of the solar system”, wrote Scientific American.

In 1998, NASA’s Galileo spacecraft found that Europa might be ejecting (喷射) water as far as 160 kilometers into space. That gave scientists the idea of studying the icy moons of Jupiter.

The oceans under these moons are likely to be tens of kilometers deep. But they are also trapped under tens of kilometers of ice, making it very difficult to study them. Although JUICE cannot land on the surface, it has lots of high-tech equipment to study the moon’s environment, including spectral imaging (光谱成像) tools and radar (雷达). “They could give more data on things like the thickness of the oceans, their salt content (含量), and their distance from the icy shells above,” reported Phys.org.

“The main goal is to understand whether there are habitable (适合居住的) environments among those icy moons and around a giant planet like Jupiter,” JUICE team member Olivier Witasse said during a press conference (发布会) on April 6.

1. JUICE has been sent to look for ______ on Jupiter.

A．air

B．sand

C．gold

D．water

2. Paragraph 4 mainly wants to tell us ______.

A．how far water can be ejected	B．why scientists wanted to study Jupiter
C．what NASA’s Galileo spacecraft found	D．which spacecraft was used to explore the universe

3. The underlined word “trapped” in Paragraph 5 has the closest meaning to “ ______”.

A．locked

B．created

C．collected

D．taken

4. The purpose of the task is to find out if ______.

A．there are living things out there	B．life can live on some of Jupiter’s moons
C．there are lakes in the universe	D．we can move water from Earth to the moons of Jupiter

8 . When you open a certain mobile app, there is usually an open-app ad. If you shake your phone a bit, some of these ads can send you to another app. And this has caused heated discussion online recently.

These open-app ads are like “doors”—no matter which app you open, you may always end up in those apps that have more ads. During online shopping festivals, for example, users are usually led to shopping apps.

The government has already introduced a number of rules for this problem. A rule in December 2022 told us how these open-app ads should operate. Instead of just shaking your phone, the rotation angle (旋转角度) of the phone should be larger than 35 degrees, and the time spent shaking the phone should be longer than 3 seconds. At the same time, the ads must have a clear button (按钮) to let users close them.

However, putting these rules into action can be difficult. The Internet companies release more than one million apps every month. The total number of apps is large. That makes it hard to check every app.

However, this shouldn’t be the reason for the mobile apps to step out of these “lines”. In fact, over 90 percent of users strongly dislike such open-app ads. Such ads only make fewer users want to use them. To attract more users, the apps should respect their choices and provide them with ads that they can choose to click on only if they want to.

1. What does the text mainly talk about?

A．Open-app ads.	B．Shopping festivals.
C．Certain apps.	D．Some shopping rules.

2. What does Paragraph 3 mainly tell us?

A．It’s difficult to deal with open-app ads.

B．Most users don’t like such open-app ads.

C．There are some rules to solve the problem.

D．Actually, open-app ads are harmful to apps.

3. What does the underlined word “release” mean?

A．come out

B．look through

C．shut off

D．give up

4. What can we know from the text?

A．All of the ads can lead the users to shopping apps.

B．Many users think the ads are helpful and necessary.

C．Open-app ads make Internet users like the app better.

D．We have a long way to go in managing open-app ads.

9 . 阅读短文，从下面所给的选项中选出可以填入空白处的最佳选项，其中有个多余的选项。

On March 4th, 2023, after 10 years of difficult talks, nearly 200 countries agreed to a new UN agreement—the High Seas Treaty (《公海保护协议》). It is the first of its kind in 40 years.     1     Oceans cover about 71% of the earth’s surface, and are home to all kinds of animals and plants. Healthy oceans play a very important role in a healthy planet.     2     Overfishing has had terrible influence on many kinds of fish and other animals. Pollution has caused serious damage (破坏) in many areas..

In 1982, one UN sea agreement described the “high seas”—the parts of the oceans that aren’t controlled by any country.     3     The high seas cover about 2/3 of the ocean. But now only 1.2% of these areas are protected. The new agreement sets a goal to turn 30% of the high seas into protected areas. It also requires that research should first be done to see what influence human’s activities might have on the ocean environment.

During the past 10 years, the talks were held time and time again.     4     For example, there are disagreements about how much to control fishing or pollution. Now the agreement has a long way to go, which must be officially (官方地) accepted at a UN meeting and be supported by enough countries before it works.

A．But the oceans are in trouble.

B．The agreement was finally reached after difficult discussions.

C．And it’s a great achievement in protecting the world’s oceans.

D．That is because different countries have their own different ideas.

E．So all countries have the right (权利) to fish and send ships there.