1 . Famous People Who Begin With Difficulties
Oprah Winfrey
Probably having one of the most famous success stories, Oprah was born into a poor family in Mississippi, raised by a single mother living on welfare. She was physically, and mentally abused during her childhood. Despite her initial struggles as a young girl, she turned herself into one of the most successful talk show hosts of our time.
Jim Carrey
Jim Carrey has been the star of some of the most successful movies of all time. But Carrey grew up extremely poor in Canada. When he was a teenager, his family took security jobs in a factory to help pay the bills. And during his first stand-up comedy performance, he was booed off （喝倒彩） the stage. Not shortly after, he made it big on In Living Color and then went on to star in Dumb & Dumber, The Mask, and Ace Ventura in the same year!
James Dyson
If you thought Thomas Edison’s failures were bad, let me introduce you to James Dyson, the famous inventor of the Dyson vacuums （真空吸尘器） you see all over the television. Dyson developed over 5,000 failed prototypes （原型） before finding the bagless vacuum brand. Not only that, he put his entire savings account into his prototypes over fifteen years! Luckily, the bagless vacuum worked.
Stephen King
Before Stephen King became known as a great living writer—having written over 60 novels, many of which have been adapted for film and television—King was rejected over and over again. In his memoir, On Writing, King describes how he used to post his rejection letters on the wall for inspiration. His first novel, Carrie, was rejected 30 times.
1. What do Oprah and Jim have in common?| A．They were abused by parents. | B．They grew up in poor families. |
| C．They were hired as comedians. | D．They found jobs in a factory. |
| A．He repaired the failed prototypes. | B．He developed over 5,000 brands. |
| C．He put all efforts into marketing. | D．He invented the bagless vacuum. |
| A．Oprah Winfrey. | B．Stephen King. | C．James Dyson. | D．Jim Carrey. |
2 . Orchid Island is a striking travel destination full of natural beauty. Due to popular demand, we’ve assembled two- and three-day tour packages to ensure you’ll see the best the island has to offer.
ISLAND ADVENTURES TRAVEL AGENCY
Package options and prices
Two-day tour $406
Three-day tour $606
What to expect
Our tour begins with a scooter(小型摩托车) tour around the island. In the late afternoon, it’s time to head to the beach for a wonderful snorkeling adventure. Finally, we’ll close out the first day by taking in an Orchid Island sunset over the Qingqing Grassland. The following morning, you’ll witness an unforgettable sunrise at Dongqing Bay. Later, you’ll travel around the island on your scooter and observe traditional Tao fishing boats. You’ll even have the option of rowing out to sea on one of these boats for a small additional expense.
The three-day tour costs an additional $200, but it’s well worth the extra expense. It includes a historical tour of traditional underground houses and a visit to the well-known Lover’s Cave.
• Both packages include round-trip boat tickets from Fugang Port to Orchid Island.
• Snorkeling equipment rental and professional instruction are included.
Reminders
Travelers are required to present ID at Fugang Port.
Travelers must have a scooter driving license for scooter rentals.
1. What can you do at the end of the first day of the tour?| A．Go snorkeling. |
| B．Camp at Dongqing Bay. |
| C．Ride a scooter around the island. |
| D．Enjoy the sunset over the Qingqing Grassland. |
| A．It features scooter driving. |
| B．It gives tourists round-trip ferry tickets. |
| C．It involves a visit to the Lover’s Cave. |
| D．It includes boarding traditional fishing boats. |
| A．Receiving professional instruction. | B．Rowing a traditional boat out to sea. |
| C．Renting snorkeling equipment. | D．Renting a scooter. |
3 . I felt anxious when going into my room from school. Every day, my room was something different. The hours away at school were long enough to cause a terrible change to my peaceful harbor. Today was no
As I entered the house, Mom
I
I pushed my room door open and saw damage! There were a few headless dolls, some broken blocks, and a few juice-stained stuffed animals. “She did it again!” I screamed in
She leaped off the sofa and hugged my knees with such happiness that I could only look down at her and smile.
| A．evidence | B．answer | C．exception | D．intention |
| A．cheered | B．greeted | C．attracted | D．claimed |
| A．usual | B．perfect | C．wrong | D．impossible |
| A．head | B．hair | C．leg | D．mouth |
| A．Luckily | B．Obviously | C．Normally | D．Curiously |
| A．looked around for | B．put up with | C．got close to | D．broke away from |
| A．examined | B．decorated | C．described | D．protected |
| A．noisy | B．large | C．messy | D．empty |
| A．nervous | B．proud | C．tired | D．hopeful |
| A．anger | B．sorrow | C．regret | D．anxiety |
| A．desired | B．pretended | C．promised | D．preferred |
| A．warmer | B．better | C．braver | D．freer |
| A．unpleasant | B．strange | C．unfortunate | D．adventurous |
| A．Above all | B．After all | C．In advance | D．In addition |
| A．hunt | B．clean | C．leave | D．destroy |
4 . Jacqueline’s dream of being a world-class runner began when she was a child in Kenya. She soon realized she had to
Jacqueline traveled to China to
Jacqueline missed out on first place, but she
| A．perform | B．race | C．conduct | D．train |
| A．worried | B．confident | C．proud | D．energetic |
| A．compete | B．struggle | C．serve | D．adjust |
| A．taking | B．losing | C．winning | D．completing |
| A．division | B．movement | C．research | D．education |
| A．jumped into | B．left for | C．escaped from | D．arrived at |
| A．finding | B．drinking | C．carrying | D．pouring |
| A．planned | B．hated | C．struggled | D．allowed |
| A．imbalance | B．unemployment | C．disability | D．disqualification |
| A．eventually | B．gradually | C．immediately | D．occasionally |
| A．spotted | B．grabbed | C．emptied | D．packed |
| A．complete | B．win | C．enjoy | D．start |
| A．pace | B．position | C．command | D．best |
| A．connected | B．helped | C．finished | D．met |
| A．event | B．prize | C．dream | D．failure |
5 . Every year, painted lady butterflies (小红蛱蝶) born in Europe head south on a long journey to Africa. But pinpointing exactly where painted lady butterflies overwinter and breed (繁殖) was the last unknown piece of their roughly 15,000-kilometer migration. Scientists knew that the painted ladies went to Africa, but where on the continent they waited out European winters from December to February was a mystery. Researchers had predicted that subtropical regions close to the equator might provide suitable habitat. To know for sure, the researchers needed to find butterflies in the field.
From late 2017 through early 2020, researchers conducted fieldwork at a wide variety of sites across sub-Saharan Africa during the months of December and January. Another 15 sites were monitored all year round for about two years. In total, the team looked for adults and their young in nine countries, including Benin, Cameroon, and Kenya.
The researchers found more than 2,700 caterpillars (毛虫) and nearly 2,000 adult butterflies, from as far west as Cote d’Ivoire and all the way east to Kenya and Ethiopia. From September to November, the butterflies occupy the tropical grasslands. As those areas dry up, the painted ladies shift south to slightly damp regions from December to February. Central Africa’s tropical rainforests stop the butterflies from going any farther south. Three to five generations might be born in sub-Saharan Africa before any surviving adults head north in February.
Knowing where painted lady butterflies breed could help researchers understand why there are occasional population booms with 100 times as many butterflies in some years as others. In 2021, researchers linked the phenomenon to rains in sub-Saharan Africa — perhaps giving butterflies more plants to stop and lay eggs on. But the part of West Africa identified in that study is different from the newly identified breeding grounds. Now, scientists can confirm the link by looking at rainfall and other conditions where baby butterflies are found growing up.
But the next mystery researchers hope to solve is why painted lady butterflies make such a long journey at all.
1. How do the researchers confirm the painted ladies’ wintering location?| A．By comparing their habitats. |
| B．By spotting them in the field. |
| C．By doing experiments with them. |
| D．By tracking them on their migration. |
| A．In the Europe. | B．South of Africa. | C．South to Sahara. | D．In the rainforest. |
| A．Rains. | B．Foods. | C．Droughts. | D．Temperatures. |
| A．To protect them. | B．To make use of them. |
| C．To know about their habits. | D．To know how they relate to climate. |
6 . Last fall, the Great Salt Lake hit its lowest level since record keeping began. The lake sank to nearly six meters below the long-term average. The lake’s shrinking threatens to upend the ecosystem, disturbing the migration and survival of 10 million birds, including ducks and geese.
Duck hunters aren’t the only ones worried about the Great Salt Lake. The decades-long decline in lake level is raising alarm bells for millions of people who live in the region. The low lake level and increasing salts in the lake water threaten to destroy economic mainstays like agriculture, tourism and mining. Exposed salts can also reduce air quality and so threaten public health.
Saline lakes (咸水湖) are terminal lakes. They have no rivers flowing out of them. As water disappears, salts are left behind. At the same time, the people who live in these deserts use freshwater for crops, homes and industry. Residents get water from streams and rivers into canals, pipelines or reservoirs before it reaches the lakes. And as the lakes shrink, the salt in water increases.
Lake Poopo, a highland lake in Bolivia that used to stretch 90 kilometers long and 32 kilometers wide, is now a salty mud flat. The Aral Sea shared by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, once the world’s fourth largest lake, has at times in recent decades shrunk to a tenth of its historic 68,000-square-kilometer surface area. Some saline lakes, like Nevada’s Winnemucca Lake, dried up so long ago — the waters that fed it were led to agricultural fields — that most people have forgotten they were ever wet.
The good news is that people still have time to halt the Great Salt Lake’s decline by using less water. Cutting agricultural and other outdoor water use by a third to half through a combination of voluntary conservation measures and policy changes would allow the lake to refill enough to support the region’s economy, ecology and quality of life. If this succeeds, the Great Salt Lake can be a model for how to save other saline lakes around the world.
1. What do we know about the Great Salt Lake from the first two paragraphs?| A．It is home to ducks. | B．It will disappear soon. |
| C．It will be less important. | D．It’s been shrinking for years. |
| A．Their current states. | B．The challenges they face. |
| C．Measures to restore them. | D．Reasons why they become saltier. |
| A．Stop. | B．Boost. | C．Adapt. | D．Learn. |
| A．The Great Salt Lake Is Getting Smaller |
| B．The World Is Becoming Drier and Drier |
| C．Saline Lakes Need Freshwater Deadly |
| D．Many Lakes in the World will Disappear |
7 . When the designer and typographer (排印工) Marcin Wichary chanced upon a tiny museum just outside Barcelona five years ago, the experience tipped his interest in the history of technology into an obsession (痴迷) with a very particular part of it: the keyboard.
“I have never seen so many typewriters under one roof. Not even close,” he shared on the Internet at the time. “At this point, I literally have tears in my eyes. I’m not kidding. This feels like a miracle.”
He’d had a discovery while wandering through the exhibit: Each key on a keyboard has its own stories. And these stories are not just about computing technology, but also about the people who designed, used, or otherwise interacted with the keyboards.
Take the backspace key for example, he explains, “I like that the concept of backspace was originally just that — a space going backward. We are used to it erasing now, but for a hundred years, erasing was its own incredibly complex effort. You needed to master a Comet eraser, or Wite-Out, or strange correction tapes, and possibly all of the above… or give up and start from scratch whenever you made a small mistake in typing.”
The deeper he researched, the more obsessive he became. Amazed that no comprehensive books existed on the history of keyboards, he decided to create his own. When not working at his day job as the design leader for the design software company Figma, he began producing Shift Happens, a two-volume, 1,216-page hardcover book — and raised over $750,000 for the project on Kickstarter in March of 2023. Wichary was only a bit surprised by the support and the keyboard’s wide appeal. As he points out. “It’s such a crucial device that occupies a lot of our waking life.”
1. After the museum experience, Wichary’s interest in technology ________.| A．took off | B．died out | C．grew stronger | D．became more concrete |
| A．The stories behind them. | B．The wisdom of human. |
| C．The secret of the keyboards. | D．The history of technology. |
| A．It is a simple but powerful key. |
| B．It can be used to move back one space. |
| C．It is the result of long-term improvement. |
| D．It allows people to make mistakes when typing. |
| A．To fill a gap. | B．To get famous. | C．To make money. | D．To record history. |
8 . Book Reviews
 Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility By Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua (Haymarket Books, 2023) Hope isn’t a lottery ticket, says activist and writer Rebecca Solnit. Rather, it’s a tool, and an essential one for anyone living through climate change today. This essay collection from scientists, policymakers, and activists balances showing the very real stakes (利害关系) of the climate crisis with making the case for possibility. |  Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock By Jenny Odell (Random House, 2023) “What is time?” we’ve all asked ourselves and each other. For most of us the question is just a question, but not for Odell, who urges us to seriously reconsider the ways we spend it. Not bad advice, but her observations on, say, the importance of rest or the limitation capitalism has on the hours in our collective days can feel more like a mix of other people’s ideas than a new way forward. |
 Science Fiction: Voyage to the Edge of Imagination By Glyn Morgan (Thames & Hudson, 2022) Science Fiction, writes Nalo Hopkinson in this catalogue for the London Science Museum’s 2022 exhibition, “is the literature of social and technological change… it tests in order to discover the truth.” It upends our brains visually, too, as the images here will prove. |  Meganets: How Digital Forces Beyond Our Control Commandeer Our Daily Lives and Inner Realities By David B. Auerbach (Public Affairs, 2023) Auerbach defines meganets as autonomous digital forces that have brought an unheard-of level of chaos to our politics, economy, and social lives. We might think that Microsoft, Google, etc. are in control of these networks; Auerbach suggests that what chatbots might really indicate are new modes of mass control and cheat. |
| A．Not Too Late. | B．Saving Time. | C．Science Fiction. | D．Meganets. |
| A．Jenny Odell’s. |
| B．Glyn Morgan’s. |
| C．David B. Auerbach’s. |
| D．Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua’s. |
| A．Worried. | B．Excited. | C．Disappointed. | D．Satisfied. |
9 . A jobless man applied for a job as an office boy at a big company. The HR manager interviewed him and then watched him cleaning the floor as a test.
“You are employed,” the HR manager said. “Give me your email address and I’ll send you the application to fill in, as well as the date when you may start.”
The man replied, “But I don’t have a computer or an email account.”
“I’m sorry,” said the HR manager. “We can’t accept persons who do not use email.”
The man left with no hope at all. With only ten dollars in his pocket, he decided to go to the supermarket and buy 10 kg tomatoes. He then sold the tomatoes from door to door. In less than two hours, he succeeded to double his capital. He repeated this three times, and returned home happily with 60 dollars.
The man realised that he could survive in this way, and started to go every day early, and return late. Thus, his money doubled or tripled every day. Shortly, he bought a cart, then a truck, and then he had his own delivery vehicles. Five years later, the man was one of the biggest food retailers (零售商人) in the US.
He started to plan his family’s future and decided to have a life insurance. He called an insurance broker(经纪人) and chose a protection plan.
When the conversation ended, the broker asked him his email address. The man replied, “I don’t have an email account.”
The broker answered surprisingly, “You don’t have an email account, but you have succeeded to build an empire. Can you imagine what you could have been if you had an email?” The man thought for a while and replied, “Yes, I’d be an office boy at a company!”
1. Why couldn’t the man have the job at the big company?| A．Because he was lazy. |
| B．Because he didn’t pass the test. |
| C．Because he didn’t have an email account. |
| D．Because he didn’t clean the floor. |
| A．tomato | B．money | C．time | D．operation |
| A．He is one of the biggest food retailers in the world. |
| B．He started his career as an office boy in the supermarket. |
| C．He didn’t give up though he failed the interview. |
| D．He didn’t want to accept the job at the big company. |
| A．Misfortune may be an actual blessing. |
| B．Where there is a will, there is a way. |
| C．Accidents will happen. |
| D．No pains, no gains. |
10 . 
Cheating can happen in a lot of different ways.When people cheat,it’s not fair to other people，like the kids who studied for the test or who the true winners of a game were.
Many people like the action of cheating.In their opinion,it makes difficult things seem easy,like getting all the right answers on the test.But it doesn't solve the problem of not knowing the material and it won't help on the next test—unless the person cheats again.
Some people lose respect for cheaters and think less of them.The cheaters themselves may feel bad because they know they shouldn't get that good grade.And,if they get caught cheating,they will be in trouble at school，and maybe at home,too.
Some kids cheat because they're busy or lazy and they want to get good grades without spending the time studying.Other kids might feel like they can’t pass the test without cheating.Even when there seems to be a “good reason” for cheating,cheating isn’t a good idea.
If you were sick or upset about something the night before the day and couldn’t study,it would be better to talk with the teacher about this.And if you don’t have enough time to study for a test because of swim practice,you need to talk with your parents about how to balance swimming and school.A kid who thinks cheating is the only way to pass a test needs to talk with the teacher and his or her parents so they can find some solutions together.Talking about these problems and working them out will feel better than cheating.
1. What does the author think when kids cheat in class?| A．It is unfair to other people. |
| B．It does harm to their health. |
| C．Teachers should punish them. |
| D．Teachers shouldn't stop them at once. |
| A．Because they think the material in the test is very difficult. |
| B．Because they want to do better than the others. |
| C．Because cheating can make hard things seem very easy. |
| D．Because they have little time to study their lessons. |
| A．Some kids can’t pass the test without cheating. |
| B．Why kids cheat in the test. |
| C．Cheating isn’t a good idea. |
| D．Some kids don't spend the time studying. |
| A．Cheaters are often thought highly of. |
| B．People show no respect for those who cheat. |
| C．Parents whose kids cheat are often in trouble. |
| D．Kids cheat in the test because of swim practice. |
