1 . If you think about World Heritage Sites, you probably think of places associated with ancient art and culture and historical buildings. And of course, many of these are on the World Heritage List (WHL). These include remains of ancient cultures like Cuzco in Peru or the rock city of Petra in Jordan as well as old city centers such as Rome in Italy. Also common are places of artistic or cultural significance, like the Stonehenge stone circle in England. But the WHL contains a lot of sites that are not so obvious. Let’s look at a few of the more unusual sites on the WHL and why it is important to preserve them.

Citadel of Haiti

These monuments were built at the end of the 19th century when Haiti became independent and the many thousands of black slaves in Haiti were free for the first time. These ex-slaves built the monuments, which the WHL describes as “a universal symbol of liberty”.

Borders of France and Spain

This is an area of great natural beauty and the mountains have many interesting geological formations.

But it is also an area of small farms. The WHL has listed the site because it shows us about past European society through its landscape of villages, farms, fields, up land pastures and mountain roads.

The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway

This railway in India was opened in 1881 and is still operating today. It crosses a difficult area of mountain landscape and it is a great example of railway engineering. The WHL says that it is “the first, and still the most outstanding, example of a hill passenger railway.”

The city of Brasilia

Brasilia is a capital city that was created from nothing in 1956. The WHL calls it “a land mark in the history of town planning”. The different areas of the city and the buildings themselves were all designed at the same time so that they would harmonize with each other.

1. What’s the function of the examples of World Heritage Sites in paragraph 1?

A．To highlight the importance of WHL.

B．To exemplify sites of artistic and cultural value.

C．To compare the differences between various sites.

D．To draw readers’ attention to more unique sites on the WHL.

2. Who built Citadel of Haiti?

A．Former slaves.	B．Citizens in Haiti.
C．Active revolutionaries.	D．Haiti government.

3. Which site will attract a town planner most?

A．Citadel of Haiti.	B．Borders of France and Spain.
C．The city of Brasilia.	D．The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway.

2 . There are many great independent bookstores in North Carolina. If you’re looking for some good books to read, you can visit the bookstores listed below.

Purple Crow Books

It’s a literary meeting place right in historic downtown Hillsborough. It was opened in 2009. You can find new books, used ones or the latest works by local authors. Because it specializes in local writers, Purple Crow Books is a favorite tourist destination. It’s a great place to grab a signed copy of a book by your favorite local author.

109 West King Street, Hillsborough, NC 27278

Quail Ridge Books

This is an independent bookstore with friendly staff dedicated to (致力于) providing the best customer service. Founded in 1984 by Nancy Olson, the store provides a wide variety of carefully selected books, events, discussion groups and town hall meetings. The owner Lisa Poole bought the store in 2013 and is dedicated to serving the locals.

4209-100 Lassiter Mill Road, Raleigh, NC 27609

Pomegranate Books

This bookstore is located in the historic Borkenhagen House in the Winter Park neighborhood of Wilmington, North Carolina. It has been finding good homes for great books since 2005. It stocks a carefully selected collection of literary and life-enhancing titles for all ages and also features locally-made cards and gift items.

4418 Park Ave, Wilmington, NC 28403

Scuppernong Books

This bookstore was opened on December 21, 2013 and has been an important part of the rebirth of downtown Greensboro ever since. It features fiction and poetry along with a remarkable children’s section and a broad range of general interest titles. Within the store is a busy cafe serving coffee, wine, and beer sourced primarily from local small businesses.

304 South Elm Street, Greensboro, NC 27401

1. What is special about Purple Crow Books?

A．It holds various reading activities.	B．It mainly sells books by local writers.
C．It focuses on selling second-hand books.	D．It is supported by local small businesses.

2. Which bookstore has the longest history?

A．Quail Ridge Books.	B．Purple Crow Books.
C．Pomegranate Books.	D．Scuppernong Books.

3. Who would prefer to visit Scuppernong Books?

A．People loving non-fiction books.	B．People liking handmade cards and gifts.
C．People enjoying a very quiet environment.	D．People fond of buying collections of poetry.

3 . When temperatures climb, many people reach for ice-cold beverages (饮料) to cool down. But others put the kettle on: Hot tea is a go-to beverage year-round in countries such as Bangladesh, China, Japan and Saudi Arabia. Many people find hot tea refreshing on hot days. Can hot drinks really cool you down on a hot day?

According to Peter McNaughton, a professor at King’s College London who studies thermoregulation (温度调节), hot drinks really can cool you down. “It seems totally counterintuitive (反直觉的，违反直觉的),” McNaughton said. “Drinking a hot drink really does make you drop your temperature if it’s not too humid out.”

“If a drink is warmer than your body at first, obviously, that drink makes you hotter,” McNaughton said. But humans, like all warmblooded animals, are constantly adjusting to maintain a consistent internal temperature. McNaughton found that hot drinks activate a receptor (接受器) in our nerves called TRPV1, which tells the body it needs to cool down. In response, humans sweat.

“Sweat pooling on skin is uncomfortable, but add a breeze or a fan, and the air blowing past helps sweat evaporate (蒸发), taking heat with it,” McNaughton said. “In general, your life depends on sweating. Sweating can help humans survive in some of the highest temperatures documented on Earth, at least in dry heat. Sweat is less effective in high humidity because the air is already full of water vapor and can’t absorb as much from the skin, that’s why in high humidity, the survivable temperature is much lower.”

A 2012 study in the journal Acta Physiologica found that when sweat fully evaporates, hot drinks can help cool people off overall, at least temporarily. That study looked at cyclists biking quickly enough to create their own breeze in a climate with no humidity: ideal conditions for sweat evaporation.

In the reverse effect, cold drinks lower body temperatures and then make the brain reduce sweating in order to bring body temperature back to its baseline. A 2018 paper suggests that with less wind, more humidity, or other barriers to effective sweating—like the heavy clothing worn by firefighters—it may make more sense to cool off by drinking crushed ice.

1. What do we know about people in Bangladesh, China, Japan and Saudi Arabia?

A．They like ice-cold beverages on hot days.

B．They favor hot tea over cold drinks year-round.

C．They doubt whether hot tea can help cool them down.

D．They believe ice-cold beverages are harmful to their health.

2. What can we learn from paragraph 3?

A．TRPV1 helps adjust blood temperature.	B．Blood helps add heat to the human body.
C．Sweating helps increase our body temperature.	D．TRPV1 sends signals related to body temperature.

3. Why does the author quote McNaughton’s words about sweating paragraph 4?

A．To show the danger of high humidity.	B．To reveal why some people sweat more.
C．To tell us about the function of sweating.	D．To display how people survive extreme heat.

4. What can we conclude after reading the text?

A．Drinking enough water benefits our bodies.

B．We should avoid cold water in high humidity.

C．Hot water cools us down better than cold water.

D．Hot drinks help cool the body under certain conditions.

4 . When I was a little boy growing up, my Mom, Dad, brothers and I lived in my Nana’s old house. It was surrounded by four huge vegetable gardens. And around the house so many flowers were planted. It was so beautiful there in the spring and summer. That wasn’t all, though. On the back porch Nana had dozens of potted plants hanging on hooks. She watered them, talked to them and nurtured them. And in the winter she would carry them all inside and set them on shelves near the windows of our enclosed front porch. There with a little water and a lot of love she kept them alive, green, and growing even during the coldest, darkest months.

As a boy I was puzzled by all the effort she put into them. I understood the vegetable gardens. They helped to feed the family all winter long. I even understood the flowers around the house. They were pretty and smelled so sweet in the summer months. The reason she put so much effort into caring for those potted plants, however, eluded me. They didn’t give us any food and they rarely had any flowers on them. They remained a mystery to my child’s mind.

Now as I’ve grown older I am beginning to understand why my Nana had those potted plants. It is the same reason I have so many pictures of sunrises and forests hanging in my home. They remind me during the dark, cold, winter months full of bare trees and yellow grass that light, love, and growth still exist. They remind me that Spring will come again. They remind me that God loves us and is still with us even when the earth doesn’t show it.

Today I see Nana’s potted plants in a new light. They are worth every bit of the love and care she put into them. But what tells me most about light and love is Nana herself. She is light to my soul even in my darkest times. And her love lives on in my heart even if she is in Heaven. May we all learn to love as she loved, shine as she shined, and live as she lived.

1. Which of the following is close in meaning to the underlined word “eluded” in paragraph 2?

A．Upset.

B．Misguided.

C．Confused.

D．Distracted.

2. Why was Nana fond of potted plants?

A．They were a sign of hope.	B．They resembled sunrise and forests.
C．They constantly kept Nana company.	D．They were portable and easy to nurture.

3. What is the author’s purpose of writing the passage?

A．To advocate growing potted plants.	B．To sing the praise of Nana’s spirit and love.
C．To stress the benefits of a positive lifestyle.	D．To recall beautiful memories spent with Nana.

4. What’s the type of the passage?

A．A non-fiction.	B．A book review.
C．An agricultural leaflet.	D．A celebrity biography.

5 . I was surfing the Internet, planning for our 15th-anniversary trip when a perfect spot attracted me: The Shire of Montana, a “hobbit house”, which Jim my husband had dreamed about. I knew he’d be impressed. And our six-year-old daughter, Aurora, would like it, too. I was about to book our reservation when I saw a note on the website: No kids allowed. That ruined everything!

Luckily, there was an email address on the site. I plucked up the courage to contact the owner. Soon, a reply arrived, saying, “If you promise that your daughter is responsible and will not touch, she can come.” I was relieved, thinking Aurora was a good kid. “This will be okay,” I wrote back.

The day finally arrived. We piled into the car. I couldn’t help being excited, imagining Jim and Aurora’s reactions. We passed a sign that read, “The adventure begins …” Turning onto the Hobbit Lane, I felt a pan g of anxiety. As soon as we got out of the car, I pulled Aurora aside. “Children aren’t usually allowed here,” I said. “So you have to be very, very careful. You can look at everything, but don’t touch.” I explained the rule and how terrible it would be to damage anything. Aurora’s eyes widened at my no-nonsense tone. “I promise, Mom,” she said.

Obviously, my concern was superfluous. We spent several days at The Shire. Aurora was delighted at each discovery but she never disturbed a thing. She took her responsibility to protect the owner’s work seriously. It turned out that respecting boundaries didn’t take away the beauty and wonder, it allowed The Shire to remain beautiful and wonderful into the future.

Not so different from a marriage, I thought. Now I understood why we went to this place to celebrate our fifteenth anniversary. Jim and I moved through life side by side as a couple, and we’d learned to accept each other’s individuality and boundaries as well. Marriage is full of surprises, challenges and adventures. The key to making it work is respecting each other.

1. What can we learn from the first paragraph?

A．The author met a problem while planning a trip.

B．The author and her husband had been married for 6 years.

C．Aurora didn’t want to take a trip to The Shire of Montana.

D．The trip was ruined because the author didn’t reserve a room.

2. Why did the author feel a pang of anxiety?

A．She felt it a burden to take care of her daughter.

B．She doubted if her daughter would behave well.

C．She worried her daughter wouldn’t be admitted.

D．She wasn’t sure whether her husband would like the place.

3. Which of the following can replace the underlined word “superfluous” in paragraph 4?

A．considerable

B．important

C．unnecessary

D．common

4. What does the author want to convey through the text?

A．Don’t give up until you try your best.

B．Good role models are essential for teaching kids.

C．Respect contributes to a happy and lasting marriage.

D．Obeying the rules is important when dealing with people.

7 . The age-old chore of dusting could soon be a thing of the past. Scientists are developing “self-cleaning” surfaces that make dust particles unable to stick to them. Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin say the particles instead stick to each other and simply roll off the surfaces with nothing more than the assistance of gravity.

The scientists altered the geometry (几何构造) of flat surfaces at a level invisible to human eyes. The team made a tightly-packed nanoscale (纳米级) network of pyramid-shaped structures on the surfaces which made it difficult for dust particles to stick to the material. Instead, the particles stick to each other before rolling off the material due to gravity.

The study, funded by a grant (拨款) from NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research program, tested the material by piling lunar dust on their engineered surfaces before turning them on their sides. The team found that just two percent of the surface remained dusty, compared with more than 35 percent of an unaltered smooth surface. The new surface could provide a passive solution to removing dust, as opposed to more active methods like using wipers and fluid to clear dust from a car windscreen.

“What we’ve demonstrated here is a surface that can clean itself,” says lead study author Chih-Hao Chang. “Particulates aren’t able to stick to the surface, so they come off using just the force of gravity.”

Study authors hope the material provides a solution to space dust, which can be extremely harmful in such a high-risk environment and is almost impossible to clean out. Space dust has previously caused great damage to NASA’s human spaceflight Apollo missions and has even caused rovers on Mars to malfunction and fail. “There’s not much you can do about lunar dust in space—it sticks to everything and there’s no real way to wipe it off,” says Samuel Lee, a lead author of the study. “Dust on solar panels of Mars rovers can cause them to fail.”

However, the researchers also believe the discovery could prove useful on Earth, preventing solar panels from collecting dust and losing efficiency. These surfaces may even protect our screens and windows from irritating dust.

1. How did the scientists alter the flat surfaces?

A．By putting thin paint on them.	B．By creating a special network on them.
C．By making particles stick to each other.	D．By making them invisible to human eyes.

2. What can we learn about the surfaces after the test?

A．Over 35% of the surfaces were dusty.

B．Just two percent of the surfaces remained dusty.

C．The surfaces still needed to be cleaned with wipers and fluid.

D．The surfaces attracted more dust particles than common ones.

3. Why does the author mention NASA’s human spaceflight Apollo missions and rovers on Mars?

A．To show the material can be very helpful.	B．To prove irritating dust exists everywhere.
C．To show the importance of space exploration.	D．To explain why NASA supported the research.

4. What is the main idea of the text?

A．Dust threatened missions in space.	B．Scientists developed self-cleaning surfaces.
C．Self-cleaning surfaces proved useful on Earth.	D．Scientists developed a material for rovers on Mars.

9 . Recent experiments by psychologists at the University of Pittsburgh shed new light on how we learn and how we remember our real-world experiences. The research, described in the March 12, 2024 online edition of proceedings of the National Academy of Science, suggests that varying what we study and spacing out our learning over time can both be helpful for memory.

“Lots of prior research has shown that learning and memory benefit from spacing study sessions out,” said Benjamin, a director of the Causal Learning and Decision-Making Lab at Pitt. “For example, if you cram the night before a test, you might remember the information the next day for the test, but you will probably forget it fairly soon,” he added. “In contrast, if you study the material on different days leading up to the test, you will be more likely to recall it for a longer period of time.”

But “spacing effect” has been based on the idea that what you are trying to learn repeats identically each time. Yet that is rarely the case in real life, when some features of our experience s may stay the same,but others are likely to change. For example, imagine repeat trips to your local coffee shop. While many features may stay the same on each visit, a new barista (咖啡师) may be serving you. How does the spacing effect work in light of such variation across experiences?

In two experiments, researchers asked participants to repeatedly study pairs of items and scenes that were either identical on each repetition or in which the item stayed the same but the scene changed each time. Researchers found that spaced learning benefited item memory. But they also found that memory was better for the items that had been paired with different scenes compared with those shown with the same scene each time.

“It is hard to provide clear advice for things like studying for a test because the sort of material can be so different,” Benjamin said. “But in theory our findings should be broadly relevant to different sorts of tasks, like remembering someone’s name and things about them and learning new vocabulary in a foreign language.”

1. In what way is “spacing effect” challenged in reality?

A．The lack of sufficient learning time.

B．The misuse of the memory technique.

C．The repetition of the learning process.

D．The variability of real-life experiences.

2. Which behavior is least likely to contribute to long-term memory?

A．Integrating spaced repetition into learning.

B．Studying intensively the night before a test.

C．Linking new information with different tasks.

D．Learning materials against various backgrounds.

3. What will Benjamin suggest readers do to remember a new person's name?

A．Use the name in conversations shortly after meeting them.

B．Repeat the name by associating it with different information.

C．Practice item memory to create a mental image with the person.

D．Engage in active listening when they are introducing themselves.

4. What is the text mainly about?

A．The impact of constant spaced study.

B．The study of various and self-paced learning.

C．The role of varied learning and spaced study.

D．The significance of repeated learning sessions.

10 . Extremely authentic-looking prosthetic (假体的) eyes can now be 3D-printed in a fraction of the time it would normally take to produce the eyes by hand, scientists demonstrate in a new study.

The new technology can create a prosthetic eye in just 90 minutes, compared with the eight hours it would normally take a skilled technician, or ocularist, to produce one by hand. The 3D-printed eyes require five times less labor to make than traditional methods, the scientists behind the technology wrote in a new paper published in the journal Nature Communications.

The 3D-printed eyes also look more natural than traditional prostheses; this could help improve a patient’s self-confidence in using the devices. “Patients are very conscious about wearing a prosthesis, and they don't want others to notice,” Johann Reinhard, lead study author and a researcher at the Fraunhofer

Institute for Computer Graphics Research in Germany, told us. “With these more realistic eves, it might help them to participate more in society,” he said.

The new printing approach involves taking a specialized image of a patient’s empty eye socket and of their healthy eye. These images are then processed and used to draft blueprints that can be sent to be 3D-printed in the lab. These 3D-printed eyes closely replicate the color, size and structure of the patient's healthy eye and are particularly good at capturing the colored part of the eye, known as the iris, and the white part of the eye, called the sclera. Once finished, the eyes take 15 to 30 minutes to be installed by an ocularist, Reinhard said.

“About 80% of adults in need of prosthetic eyes could theoretically have one made this way, either due to a birth defect that causes an eye to be small or missing or because they’ve lost an eye,” the team said. “However, this wouldn’t be possible for all patients, such as those who have a very complex eye socket, as the software wouldn’t be able to find a matching shape for the prosthetic eye,” Reinhard said.

“More data are needed to see if this technique could also be used to make prosthetic eyes for children,which would require more regulation,” Reinhard said.

1. Which of the following words can be best used to describe the 3D-printed eyes?

A．Eco-friendly.

B．Time-consuming.

C．Fit-of-all.

D．Realistic-looking.

2. How does the author develop his idea mainly in Paragraph 2?

A．By justifying an idea.	B．By giving examples.
C．By providing evidence.	D．By making a comparison.

3. Which statement is true about a 3D-printed eye?

A．The patients prefer to show off their prosthetic eyes.

B．Every adult in need of a prosthetic eye can’t possibly have one.

C．It normally takes a skilled technician, or ocularist, to produce one.

D．The installment of one is 5 times faster than a traditional prosthetic eye.

4. Which of the following would be the best title for the text?

A．3D-printed Eyes——a Better Alternative

B．3D Printing—a Promising Technology

C．3D-printed Eyes—a Source of Confidence

D．Prosthetic Eyes—the Hope for all Blind People