1 . In an increasingly globalized business world, companies demand Human Resources (HR) leaders who can overcome cultural barriers to achieve key goals. This year, students in the Master of Human Resources and Industrial Relations (MHRIR) Program will get hands-on experience leading multicultural teams as they work together with peers (同辈) from all corners of the globe.
“Our students get firsthand experience on global teams, which helps them understand the challenges and the opportunities they will face in the business world,” said MHRIR Program Director Stacy Hove.
Elishka Correa joined the program to explore how HR leaders can help businesses grow quickly in the global marketplace. “Companies appreciate diversity — not only in terms of products and markets, but the people they hire — so that they can expand their business and reach customers in different parts of the world,” she said. “When I go into an organization, I’m not only going to work with Indians or Americans, it’s going to be a mix of people. That trend is beginning to grow, so I think it’s very important to appreciate people from different backgrounds.”
As they progress through the program, the students are discovering unexpected challenges as they work on projects in diverse teams. Each contributor brings a different approach to solving problems, communicating, and challenging one another’s opinions.
Devin Roll, a student from North Dakota, appreciating the unique views his classmates share, said, “The benefits of having cross-cultural experiences go far beyond the classroom. Diverse teams and companies outperform their competitors, and HR leaders act as a vital partner in acquiring and maintaining diversity in the workforce.”
Many of the international students in the program said they would return to their home countries after graduation and bring along connections to their classmates, who would build careers (职业) in countries around the world. They hope to stay in touch, and share their expert knowledge.
1. What is the aim of the program?A.To help students to set clear goals. |
B.To provide jobs for foreign students. |
C.To teach students to run their own business. |
D.To train students to build multicultural teams. |
A.It prevents social advance. | B.It makes it easy to hire people. |
C.It can help business growth. | D.It can put an end to the conflict. |
A.It is predictable. | B.It is short-lived. | C.It is unidentifiable. | D.It is far-reaching. |
A.Work for the university. | B.Keep closely connected. |
C.Stay in their home countries. | D.Reform teaching methods. |
2 . It’s not great when a person breathes in all the oxygen out of a room. When a battery does it to a tumor (肿瘤), though, it could be a good thing.
Scientists have developed a new type of battery that can be implanted (植入) directly into tumors to deliver a steady stream of electricity. The battery is made from salt water and can be recharged by the body’s own heat. It works by splitting (使分离) salt water into hydrogen and oxygen gas. The hydrogen gas is then used to generate electricity, which can be used to kill cancer cells. The oxygen gas is released harmlessly into the body.
The new battery has several advantages over traditional cancer treatment. First, it is more targeted, meaning that it can deliver the electricity directly to the tumor cells, while sparing healthy cells. This can reduce the side effects of treatment. Second, the battery is self-charging, which means that it does not require surgery to remove or replace. This can make treatment more convenient and less expensive for patients. Third, the battery is small and lightweight, and it can be implanted directly into tumors. This means that patients will not have to need surgery to remove the battery, which can reduce the risk of complications.
The battery has been tested in animal studies, and it has been shown to be effective in killing cancer cells. The scientists who developed the battery are now planning to begin clinical trials in humans. They are thinking about how the battery might have to be made more flexible and more powerful to work on human-sized tumors. If the trials are successful, the battery could become a new standard of cancer treatment. It is a more targeted, convenient, and affordable way to deliver electricity to tumors. This could lead to more effective ways to treat cancer in humans.
1. What does paragraph 3 mainly tell us about the new battery?A.Its benefits. | B.Its side effects. | C.Its weight. | D.Its working process. |
A.Test the treatment in humans. | B.Reduce the cost of surgery. |
C.Implant the battery into animals. | D.Make the battery affordable. |
A.Negative. | B.Uncaring. | C.Optimistic. | D.Unclear. |
A.Business. | B.Science. | C.Education. | D.Sports. |
3 . Lena Mars and her parents had taken a trip to Costa Rica. While enjoying one of the country’s many beautiful beaches, the girl’s parents gave her a snack. But it turned out that she wasn’t the only one who was hungry: A wild iguana (鬣蜥) appeared unexpectedly as the girl at e her cake by the water. The iguana ran up to the girl and bit her on the back of her left middle finger, causing her to drop the cake. The animal then ran off with the snack, but it did leave something else behind.
The Mars immediately took the girl to a local clinic, where a doctor disinfected the wound with alcohol and gave her some antibiotics (抗生素). The wound appeared to have cleared up in about two weeks. It was five months later, when Lena’s parents noticed a coin-sized bump (肿块) on her hand in the same spot causing mild pain, that they thought they should take her to another doctor.
The doctor removed the 2-centimeter mass and took a closer look at the growth in the lab and discovered that the child had a rare infection that more commonly causes a tuberculosis-like illness in fish. It’s ubiquitous in fresh and salt water but rarely infects humans. Typically, when humans are infected, it’s after a wound has been exposed to the bacteria in water.
Most antibiotics alone don’t work on these kinds of infections, so the doctor gave the girl a different medical treatment often used for skin infections. She responded well to the treatment.
“Generally, iguanas will go about their day. But like any wildlife, if they start associating people with food, they’re going to risk coming closer.” said Anna Meyer, operations manager at a zoo in Florida. “The lesson here is that no one should feed wildlife, because they will most likely give you a bite.”
1. What can we learn about Lena Mars?A.She tried to feed an animal. | B.She was bitten by an iguana. |
C.She left the cake on the beach. | D.She found a rare wild animal. |
A.The antibiotics were harmful. | B.They distrusted the first doctor. |
C.Her wound became infected. | D.She took the medicine wrongly. |
A.Common. | B.Dangerous. | C.Lively. | D.Useful. |
A.It is good for wildlife. | B.It puts animals in danger. |
C.It is a risky behavior. | D.It gets us close to nature. |
4 . In an awe-inspiring incident, a young killer whale recently demonstrated remarkable intelligence by seeking assistance from a group of humans to save its trapped mother, which challenged our conventional understanding of wild predators (食肉动物).
The online viral video, shared by Alvin Foo, began with a young killer whale emitting distressing cries towards a group of people on a boat. Recognizing the urgency of the situation, the concerned individuals promptly responded by contacting a rescue team. The young whale’s desperate request for help touched more people’s hearts and set a truly extraordinary chain of events in motion.
As the rescue team arrived, they were amazed to witness the young killer whale’s playful interaction with the humans. The whale appeared elated, seemingly understanding that assistance had finally arrived. This interaction between the mother killer whale and rescuers underlined the potential for mutual understanding beyond the boundary of traditional predator-prey relationships.
The young whale took on the role of a guide, leading the rescue team to its mother trapped in a fishing net. It navigated the water with purpose, as if fully aware that the humans possessed the means to save its mother. This display of intelligence left the rescuers in awe, highlighting the complex cognitive abilities of these magnificent marine creatures. With its guidance, the rescue team swiftly initiated the liberation process, carefully cutting the net to free the trapped whale. Astonishingly, they seemed to understand that the humans were there to help and did as asked.
The instant the mother whale was finally freed, an eruption of joyous cries filled the air. The emotional outpouring conveyed the immense gratitude of both the mother whale and the young whale to the humans who had intervened. As the rescue team made their way back to shore, the two whales swam alongside them. This heart-warming sight emphasized the lasting impact of the rescue. The bond formed through this extraordinary rescue operation was well obvious, proving that the profound connections can be established between various species. The journey back to safety symbolized the victory of compassion over adversity.
1. What can we learn about the video from paragraph 2?A.It spread widely. |
B.It went unnoticed. |
C.It documented humans’ requesting help. |
D.It recorded passive response to the rescue. |
A.Tired. | B.Excited. | C.Frightened. | D.Confused. |
A.Wise and cooperative. | B.Complex and mysterious. |
C.Curious and careful. | D.Wild and rude. |
A.Adversity is a good discipline. |
B.It is urgent to protect wildlife. |
C.Different species can coexist in harmony. |
D.Human intervention poses a threat to whales. |
5 . “It’s too sugary, I can’t manage very many,” said a friend. She wasn’t talking about dessert but about some fresh cherries. I bit into another cherry and realized she was right. The fruit was so sweet that it was as if it had been pre-sugared.
But the cherries of my childhood were much less sweet than today’s cherries. Some of them were hardly sweet at all, which made it all the more exciting when you happened upon a super sweet one.
Is modern fruit getting sweeter? The answer is yes. Some of the most powerful evidence comes from zoos. In 2018, Melbourne Zoo in Australia had stopped giving fruit to most of its animals because cultivated fruit was now so sweet that it was causing tooth decay and weight gain.
Breeding isn’t the only reason that modern fruit is sweeter; there’s also climate change. It’s found that since the 1970s, with rising temperatures, Fuji apples have become significantly sweeter and softer.
But the sweetness of modern fruit is not without its problems, especially for people with diabetes, who have to be careful to moderate their intake of higher - sugar fruits such as pineapple. Fruit that is bred sweeter also tends to be lower in the phytochemicals (植物化学成分) that make it so healthy.
Health aside, maybe the real problem with modern fruit is that it has become yet another sweet thing in a world filled with sugar. Even grapefruit, which used to be quite bitter, is sometimes now as sweet as oranges. If you’ve never tasted a sour cherry, how can you fully appreciate a sweet one? Experts put forwards some thoughts about how to appreciate the various tastes of modern fruit.
1. Why does the author mention her friend’s words in Paragraph 1?A.To introduce the topic of the extreme sweetness of modern cherries. |
B.To highlight the content of friend’s preference for sour cherries. |
C.To emphasize the importance of pre-sugaring fruits. |
D.To show the breeding and selection of modern fruit. |
A.The author believes it has no impact on health. |
B.The author sees it as a triumph of plant breeding. |
C.The author thinks it is a bit worrying in today’s world. |
D.The author is concerned that it will lead to bitterness in fruit. |
A.It is short of healthy phytochemicals. |
B.It may not be as tasty as it used to be. |
C.It could lack variety and contrast in taste. |
D.It doesn’t meet people’s need for sweetness. |
A.The advice on selecting modern fruit. |
B.The approaches to freeing bitter fruit. |
C.The comments about cultivated grapefruit. |
D.The research into the health of zoo animals. |
6 . Meteorites (陨石) can offer clues about what the early solar system was like. But finding them is far from difficult. Now, some scientists are turning to drones (无人机) and machine learning to help spot freshly fallen meteorites much more efficiently. “A team of six people on a meteorite-hunting expedition can search about 200,000 square meters per day,” says Seamus Anderson, a planetary scientist in Australia.
Around 2016, Anderson began toying with the concept of using drones to take pictures of the g round to look for meteorites. That idea blossomed into a Ph.D. project. In 2022, he and his colleagues reported their first successful recovery of a meteorite spotted with a drone. They’ve since found four more meteorites at a different site. Drone-based searches are much faster than the standard search way. “You’re going from about 300 days of human effort down to about a dozen or so,” he says.
Anderson and his workmates have used drones to search for meteorites in remote parts of Western Australia and South Australia. The team is tipped off about a fall site by networks of ground-based cameras that track meteoroids flashing through the Earth’s atmosphere. The researchers have to do a series of fun but difficult work before the hunt. They pack a four-wheel drive vehicle with drone and computer equipment, battery charging stations, generators, fuel, food, camping equipment, tables, chairs and much more. The drive to the fall site can take more than a day, often on rough or nonexistent roads. Anderson says, “You hope you don’t pop a tire.”
After arriving, the team flies its primary drone at an altitude of about 20 meters. Its camera takes an image of the ground once every second, and the scientists download the data every 40 minutes or so when the drone lands to receive fresh batteries. A typical day of flying can net over 10,000 images, which are then divided digitally into 100 million or so smaller sections. Those “tiles”, each 2 meters on a side, are fed into a machine learning algorithm (算法) that has been trained to recognize meteorites based on images of real land rocks which are spray-painted black.
1. Why do the scientists study meteorites?A.To spot the planetary course. | B.To promote machine learning. |
C.To test the functions of drones. | D.To explore the past of solar system. |
A.Their barriers. | B.Their causes. |
C.Their efficiency. | D.Their concept. |
A.Fun and light. | B.Smooth and flexible. |
C.Difficult and unpleasant. | D.Complicated and tough. |
A.By dividing them in half. | B.By storing them for analysis. |
C.By combining them into a picture. | D.By linking them with a digital printer. |
7 . Recent research confirms what our farming ancestors have known for centuries about hedges (树篱). They conserve precious soil by acting as windbreaks and absorbing rainwater that would otherwise wash it from the fields. And hedges store carbon, putting them in the front line of our bi d to tackle the climate crisis.
However, hedges have had a tough time in the poor countryside, with farmers encouraged to tear them down in pursuit of maximum production and larger field s to accommodate ever-larger machinery. What’s more, some hedges have been ignored. If left to their own devices, they’ll eventually become a line of trees. Some hedges each year lose their structures and fail to fulfil the primary duty as a barrier. Around a half of the nation’s hedges have disappeared in the past century.
There are signs that “the tide is turning”. The search for net zero has aroused many organizations’ interest in the humble hedge’s role as a carbon sink. The Climate Change Committee is recommending a 40 percent increase in hedges: an additional 200,000 km. Such recommendations are starting to drive policy. Cash-pressed farmers will be encouraged to create new hedges and improve their management of existing ones under the new Environmental Land Management Schemes, which will replace many of the existing agricultural support payments in coming years. Meanwhile, initiatives such as Close the Gap, led by the Tree Council, is providing funding and support to plug the gaps in existing hedges with new planting. There’s even an app to help time-pressed farmers do a quick survey to spot where their hedges need some help.
This is a good time for hedges. Take some of the most pressing challenges facing the countryside, and indeed, the world as a whole — the climate crisis, soil erosion (侵蚀), insect attack and wider biodiversity loss — and hedges are part of the solution.
1. What does recent research show about hedges?A.They are unique landscapes in the rain. |
B.They act as dividing lines between fields. |
C.They have long been helpful to agriculture. |
D.They are frequently washed away from the fields. |
A.Their suffering. | B.Their production. |
C.Their duties. | D.Their structures. |
A.Puzzled. | B.Concerned. | C.Humble. | D.Indifferent. |
A.Hedges: Ancient Resources |
B.Hedges: Official Recommendations |
C.Restoring Hedges: Bringing Benefits to the Environment |
D.Researching Hedges: Originating from Farmers’ Request |
8 . Let’s get to some famous attractions in London!
Chinatown
At the beginning of the 20th century, many Chinese immigrants gathered together in the East End of London and set about creating businesses to provide services for Chinese people who frequented the area. In the 1930s and 1940s, with a large inflow of immigrants from Hong Kong and a growth in popularity of Chinese cooking style, many Chinese restaurants opened elsewhere.
Natural History Museum
It was ever known as part of the British Museum which was established in 1753. The museum exhibits a large number of cultural relics. It holds collections coming from every continent around the globe. It exhibits millions of life and earth samples, and visitors can witness collections having great scientific value like samples that were collected by Charles Darwin.
Madame Tussauds London
The museum is created by the w ax sculptress, Marie Tussaud. Located on Marylebone Road, it is the first Madame Tussaud’s museum, which opened about 200 years ago, though there are now a variety of other branches within different cities around the globe. The museum hosts lifelike figures, including royal people, film stars, sports stars and models.
Royal Observatory, Greenwich
The Royal Observatory, Greenwich in London, has played a global role in the history of astronomy and navigation. It was established in 1675 with the key function being to set right the places of the fixed stars and find the desired navigational places. With its position overlooking the River Thames in central London, it makes for an excellent tourist attraction on a year-round basis.
1. Where is the text most probably taken from?A.A course plan. | B.A tourism journal. |
C.A science magazine. | D.A history textbook. |
A.Its scientific samples. | B.Its birth city. |
C.Its Chinese architectural style. | D.Its lifelike figures. |
A.Chinatown. | B.Natural History Museum. |
C.Madame Tussauds London. | D.Royal Observatory, Greenwich. |
9 . I am 49 now. Reader’s Digest has been a(n)
In an era with no television or the Internet, the evenings were spent
I read through them all over my school holidays. One thing I learned from Reader’s Digest is how to reverse (倒车) a car, which still benefits me today. I
I’ve
A.essential | B.awkward | C.challenging | D.legal |
A.left | B.ran | C.spotted | D.visited |
A.given away | B.set aside | C.subscribed to | D.stored up |
A.copying | B.booking | C.reading | D.printing |
A.collected | B.designed | C.assessed | D.purchased |
A.publication | B.transformation | C.increase | D.display |
A.difficult | B.instructive | C.tiresome | D.traditional |
A.admit | B.postpone | C.propose | D.remember |
A.backing | B.picking | C.giving | D.counting |
A.latest | B.slightest | C.biggest | D.craziest |
A.never | B.indeed | C.occasionally | D.usually |
A.close | B.false | C.frequent | D.quick |
A.errors | B.requirements | C.limitation | D.explanation |
A.merchant | B.loss | C.coach | D.barrier |
A.fashionable | B.practical | C.previous | D.financial |
10 . For a few moments, the tourists thought they were about to witness something terrible.
“Many of us thought it may be a shark attack. But it was not. Instead of the
“The fact that you can see the blood means the
Schulman-Janiger admitted she’d never
“Whales are born with soft fins (鳍) that take about 24 hours to become
A.Instead | B.Therefore | C.Unfortunately | D.Eventually |
A.Diving | B.Looking | C.Turning | D.Backing |
A.blue | B.green | C.red | D.black |
A.chance | B.cost | C.protection | D.end |
A.loss | B.first | C.mistake | D.punishment |
A.baby | B.family | C.shark | D.swimmer |
A.ignored | B.appreciated | C.documented | D.accepted |
A.rare | B.expensive | C.dark | D.terrible |
A.regret | B.forget | C.remember | D.wish |
A.wanted | B.witnessed | C.investigated | D.given |
A.late | B.brave | C.lucky | D.weak |
A.delicious | B.warm | C.strong | D.long |
A.search for | B.hold up | C.follow up | D.put down |
A.water | B.soil | C.forest | D.air |
A.carelessly | B.unfriendly | C.secretly | D.frequently |