1 . For decades sleep scientists have thought over the link between dreaming and creative inspiration. They have long thought the insight came from the stage of rapid eye movement sleep, which is rich with dreams and begins around 90 minutes after one falling asleep. But new evidence puts the spotlight on a much earlier phase — the period that separates sleep and wakefulness. In a study by MIT, researchers show that people who take brief naps (小睡) that bring about the beginning of sleep score higher on several measures of creativity than those who undertake the tasks after staying awake.
The findings suggest researchers could even exercise some measure of control over the dreaming process by directing people's dreams toward a specific topic. The more frequently people dreamed about that, the more creative they were on tasks related to it. “We can come to the conclusion that dreaming about a topic enhances your subsequent creativity on it,” says Robert Stickgold, a member of the study team.
The experiment took advantage of a glovelike sleep detector, which charts sleep by monitoring one's muscle tone, skin conductance and heart rate through contacts on the wrist and hand. It communicates with an app that issues voice prompts (提示) for dreams and records dream reports.
More than one famous thinker has capitalized on the phase called non-rapid eye movement sleep stage 1,or N1, illustrating the point about generating creative insights. The painter Salvador Dalí would deliberately nap, holding a set of keys above a metal plate, when thinking over an idea for a painting. As he nodded off, he'd drop the keys, which would hit the plate and wake him up, and he'd hold onto the image from his dream. Thomas Alva Edison is said to have used a similar technique with metal balls to gain insights.
“It's exciting because, in principle, people could use the technology themselves to develop creativity,” says Jonathan Schooler, a professor of psychological and brain sciences at the University of California. There seems to be no shortage of folks coming to try it. “So many different kinds of people have visited, knocking on the lab door and asking to have dreams,” co-lead investigator Haar Horowitz says.
1. Which phase boosts creative ideas according to the study?| A．The initial sleep stage. | B．The middle of the sleep cycle. |
| C．The wakefulness after sleep. | D．The rapid eye movement sleep stage. |
| A．Physical changes reflect the sleep phase. | B．Dream contents re late to real life. |
| C．Creativity levels vary with the nap length. | D．The theme of the dream can be guided. |
| A．Encourages. | B．Improves. | C．Tracks. | D．Influences. |
| A．To prove the effect of dreams. | B．To provide support for the findings. |
| C．To interpret the benefits of N1. | D．To give examples of fueling creativity. |
2 . “The Worthington Christian defeated the Westerville North by 2—1 in an Ohio boys’ soccer game on Saturday.” That’s according to a story that appeared last month in The Columbus Dispatch. That lead was written not by a sportswriter, but by an artificial intelligence (AI) tool.
Many news organizations are now examining how AI might be used in their work. But if they begin their “experimenting” with high school sports because they are less momentous than war, peace, climate change and politics, they may miss something crucial. Nothing may be more important to the students who play high school sports, and to their families, neighborhoods, and sometimes, the whole town. That next game is what the students train for, work toward, and dream about. Someday, almost all student athletes will go on to have jobs in front of screens, in office parks, at schools, in hospitals or on construction sites. They may suffer blows and setbacks. But the high school games they played and watched, as well as their hopes and cheers, will stay vivid in their memories.
I have a small idea. If newspapers will no longer send staff reporters to cover high school games, why not hire high school student journalists? News organizations can pay students an hourly wage to cover high school games. The young reporters might learn how to be fair to all sides, write vividly, and attract readers. That’s what some celebrities in sports did, and do.
And think of the great writers who were inspired by sports: Hemingway on fishing, Bernard Malamud and Marianne Moore on baseball, Chen Zhongshi on football, and CLR James on cricket, who said, “There can be raw pain and bleeding where so many thousands see the inevitable (不可避免的) ups and downs of only a game.” A good high school writer, unlike a robot, could tell readers not just the score, but the stories of the game.
1. Why is the lead mentioned in the first paragraph?| A．To introduce an original idea. | B．To show AI’s wide application. |
| C．To bring in the opinion about AI. | D．To stress AI’s importance to news. |
| A．Hopeful. | B．Eye-catching. | C．Competitive. | D．Far-reaching. |
| A．Rich in contents. | B．Fair in comments. |
| C．Centered on results. | D．Targeted on readers. |
| A．News Organizations Are Abusing AI | B．High Schoolers Can Do What AI Can’t |
| C．Great Writers Are Crazy About Sports | D．AI Ruins High School Students’ Memory |
3 . If you want to fill your shelves with the best books of all time, you’re in the right place.
Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein (1974)
The imagination of Shel Silverstein is on full display in this classic collection of short stories and poems. The book is truly one of the best poetry books of all time because of its staying power for children. The stories of this American poet, author, singer and folk artist have something for everyone.
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (1878)
Most critics regard it as one of the most typical literary love stories. The author’s Russian tale of unfortunate lovers is filled with fascinating quotes like, “He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.” This one belongs on any book collector’s shelf.
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1943)
It is a timeless tale of a prince’s journey in search of adventure. What he finds, however, are interactions with adults who leave him so upset. It’s one of the most appealing short books we’ve ever read and also one of the most widely read children’s classics all over the world.
The Shining by Stephen King (1977)
The master of mystery must be included in any list of books you should read in a lifetime. That’s why you will find it here. Horror fans take note: This is one of the scariest and best Stephen King books of all time.
1. In which book can we read about unfortunate lovers?| A．Anna Karenina. | B．The Shining. |
| C．The Little Prince. | D．Where the Sidewalk Ends. |
| A．Shel Silverstein. | B．Stephen King. |
| C．Antoine de Saint-Exupery. | D．Leo Tolstoy. |
| A．They are both novels. |
| B．They are both for children. |
| C．They are both about adults. |
| D．They were both written in the 1970s. |
4 . Nowadays, everyone seems to hope to go into space and live on new planets. Instead of depending on another pre-existing planet, could we make a new planet by ourselves?
First of all, if we were to live on it, we should find a good place in space to put the new planet. We would want it to be in a habitable zone, which means the planet should be at the right distance from its star to make sure there would be perfect temperatures and most importantly, liquid water.
We’d also need the right materials to make the planet. Our Earth is made up of many different elements (元素). If we made our own new planet, we’d probably want it to have similar elements and a similar structure (结构). We’d also want enough water to form some oceans.
But even if we get all of the materials, creating a new planet like Earth could have many troubles. It might be something more like a huge space station. It would be pretty expensive if we wanted it to be super big.
We would probably also need a lot of food because there is going to be many scientists and astronauts out in space working on this project!
According to NASA, each astronaut uses about 0.83 kilograms of food per meal, including 0.12 kilograms of packaging (包装) material. Without the weight of the packaging material, we’d need about 780 kilograms of food just to feed one astronaut for a year.
Putting all these together could make it possible to make our own planet one day! In fact, creating a new planet would probably require a very modern technology and there would be tons of other things to think about. And if this is possible, it won’t likely happen within a very long time.
1. To create a new planet, which of the following should we first do?| A．To collect materials similar to Earth. | B．To prepare plenty of food for astronauts to eat. |
| C．To design its inner structure. | D．To find a proper place to set it. |
| A．About 0.12 kilograms. | B．About 0.71 kilograms. |
| C．About 0.83 kilograms. | D．About 0.95 kilograms. |
| A．It is a waste of time and money. |
| B．It may be a dangerous thing for humans. |
| C．It is impossible to come true in the near future. |
| D．It should be one of NASA’s next plans. |
5 . My father never kept anything for emotional purpose—except once. I was the only one in my family who cared about baseball and I always
The following Sunday, he told me, “Let’s put away some money into a
| A．tried out | B．worried about | C．dreamed of | D．lived on |
| A．note | B．letter | C．schedule | D．novel |
| A．exploring | B．touching | C．tearing | D．checking |
| A．bottle | B．jar | C．bowl | D．cup |
| A．immediately | B．patiently | C．unwillingly | D．slowly |
| A．attached | B．identified | C．created | D．bought |
| A．referred | B．contributed | C．attended | D．fell |
| A．However | B．Moreover | C．Therefore | D．Otherwise |
| A．accused | B．inquired | C．warned | D．informed |
| A．comforted | B．scolded | C．encouraged | D．rescued |
| A．boring | B．terrible | C．common | D．free |
| A．signal | B．sign | C．reply | D．company |
| A．balls | B．coins | C．tickets | D．flags |
| A．stand | B．imagine | C．breathe | D．jump |
| A．hearing | B．watching | C．greeting | D．playing |
6 . My earliest memories are of having two very old parents. My mother was 42 when I was born, which back then was seriously old to have a baby, and a little risky too. My oldest brother was 14 years older than me and the middle brother ten years older. When I was quite small they had both left home. I grew up almost like an only child. I tended to amuse myself and play in the garden and draw and paint and shoot. I suppose you do learn as an only child that you’re going to have to get on with life by yourself. You’re going to have to find things that excite and move you.
I was shipped off to Sunday school in Edinburgh when I was seven years old. I felt a proper Charlie, because I was the only little boy among the Sunday school children who was wearing a kilt (苏格兰短裙). I also felt rather threatened by the stories we were taught. Old-school Christianity was filled with punishment and anger that I didn’t really enjoy. For the rest of my attendance at Sunday school, I didn’t get closer than climbing a tree outside the church and hiding in the branches, waiting until the children came out, then dropping down to join the school team and walking out of the church to be met by my parents, who were then reassured that I’d been to Sunday school as I was supposed to.
When my parents moved to Blackpool, my aunt, who came to live with us, took me to two or three concerts. I got to see Cliff Richard, Adam Faith and the early Rolling Stones performing at Blackpool’s ABC Theatre-which, when I was 12 years old, was an important moment of recognising that that isn’t what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, because the music they played was not what I was enjoying. I was drawn to the blues and Black American folk music. It felt very real and human.
1. What do we know about the author’s childhood?| A．Many things moved him. | B．He had to do many things on his own. |
| C．He liked playing in the garden. | D．He got on badly with his brothers. |
| A．A real fool. | B．An independent child. |
| C．A capable student. | D．A clever student. |
| A．He liked wearing a kilt. | B．He often studied in the trees. |
| C．He was threatened by others. | D．He was often absent from school. |
| A．His brothers were not important to him. | B．He never walked into the church. |
| C．His parents took him to some concerts. | D．The blues caught his interest. |
7 . Are parents rational (理性的) about their children? No. Parents aren’t rational because
My eldest daughter’s
“I sailed around the Mediterranean in a yacht (游艇) when I was seventeen,” she said. “I hiked through the Pyrenees from Spain to Paris. I’ve done rock climbing and deep-sea diving and slept in rainforests in the jungle of Indonesia. Right?”
“Right,” I said, “So what?”
“So this,” she went on. “When I go to the corner drugstore to pick up some shampoo, why do you always tell me to be
There is no satisfactory
All I could say in reply was that when I was 50, my mother would
There is something else, too, that children find it hard to understand. When they are far away, there is nothing we can do about their
But when the children are close, the old protective urge quickly
Most
In the parents’ mind, a child ages but does not
| A．worry | B．fear | C．love | D．need |
| A．easy | B．friendly | C．hard | D．important |
| A．problem | B．explanation | C．warning | D．question |
| A．anger | B．pride | C．worry | D．surprise |
| A．careful | B．brave | C．quick | D．helpful |
| A．question | B．answer | C．problem | D．present |
| A．select | B．remind | C．insist | D．expect |
| A．different | B．extra | C．same | D．right |
| A．success | B．happiness | C．luck | D．safety |
| A．argue | B．think | C．forget | D．complain |
| A．comes back | B．pays back | C．looks back | D．goes back |
| A．prove | B．mean | C．matter | D．mind |
| A．accidents | B．failures | C．changes | D．mistakes |
| A．tolerate | B．protect | C．devote | D．treat |
| A．stop | B．compete | C．grow | D．leave |
8 . In 2005, Rachel O’Neill, of Rockwood, Michigan, was working full-time as an assistant in an engineering company. While
She was struck by the heavy work done by girls to
Rachel
So far, more than 10 million dresses have been donated to children in 97 countries, including the United States, though Africa remains a focus. The nonprofit runs a distribution center in Malawi and works
“Nearly half of Malawi’s population is under age 14,” Rachel says, “We are
| A．active | B．internal | C．elegant | D．primitive |
| A．load | B．preserve | C．support | D．form |
| A．interrupted | B．prevented | C．persuaded | D．warned |
| A．dresses | B．cakes | C．books | D．trousers |
| A．led | B．donated | C．floated | D．leaked |
| A．set | B．achieved | C．lost | D．had |
| A．flooded | B．froze | C．dived | D．took |
| A．experiment | B．exposure | C．evidence | D．experience |
| A．simple | B．harmonious | C．royal | D．poor |
| A．customs | B．hairstyles | C．clothes | D．possessions |
| A．violently | B．directly | C．severely | D．hurriedly |
| A．apart from | B．far from | C．absent from | D．tired from |
| A．cover | B．charge | C．shelter | D．remove |
| A．Urgent | B．Distinct | C．Generous | D．General |
| A．trouble | B．danger | C．faith | D．silence |
9 . The Internet’s carbon footprint is as bad as air travel. While it is difficult to measure precisely, estimates place it at over two percent of global greenhouse gas emissions(排放)—the same as the air travel.
Information may appear to spread around the world unseen to our eyes, but it actually passes through enormous data centers placed strategically about the globe, which store, organize and deliver everyone’s data. These centers are extremely energy intensive. In the EU, they consume close to three percent of its total energy usage and also require lots of water to prevent their computers from overheating. In the US, about a fifth of data centers draw water from already stressed water sources.
A typical spam email(垃圾邮件)emits around 0.03g of CO2 emissions, though longer messages read on a laptop can go all the way up to 26g. Now multiply that by 333 billion(roughly the number of emails that get sent every day in 2022). That puts all those work emails into perspective. One study found if every British adult sent one less “thank you” email a day, it would save 16, 433 tons of carbon a year. It even predicted that the ICT industry could account for up to a fifth of the world’s energy consumption by 2025.
However, there are measures that we can take to reduce our digital carbon footprint. For instance, you can unsubscribe from marketing and other spam emails and only subscribe to newsletters that you still regularly read. Have regular data checks where you delete old contact lists and other documents that no longer have any use. Keep a clean inbox and delete emails you no longer need.
1. Why does the author make a comparison in the beginning?| A．To present the digital carbon footprint. |
| B．To emphasize the importance of air travel. |
| C．To advise people not to travel by airplane. |
| D．To inform the disadvantages of the Internet. |
| A．It enjoys a wide popularity. |
| B．It has various kinds of functions. |
| C．It causes large energy consumption. |
| D．It has quite a complex mode of operation. |
| A．To draw the readers’ attention. |
| B．To illustrate a certain information. |
| C．To highlight the change of CO2 emission. |
| D．To stress the importance of reducing CO2 emission. |
| A．Neutral. | B．Optimistic. |
| C．Unfavorable. | D．Concerned. |
10 . The tea that has delighted and fascinated the world for thousands of years has finally received top-level global recognition as a shared cultural treasure of mankind. China’s traditional tea-making was added on Tuesday to the intangible cultural heritage list of UNESCO.
The traditional tea processing techniques and associated social practices in China consist of knowledge, skills and practices concerning the management of tea plantations, picking of tea leaves, manual(手工的)processing, drinking and sharing of tea. Since ancient times, Chinese people have been planting, picking, making and drinking tea. Tea producers have developed six categories of tea: green, yellow, dark, white, oolong and black teas. Together with reprocessed teas, such as flower-scented teas, there are over 2, 000 tea products in China.
Tea-related customs are not only found across the country, but also influence the rest of the world through the ancient Silk Road and trade routes. Tea is ubiquitous in Chinese people’s daily life, as steeped(浸泡)or boiled tea is served in families, workplaces, tea houses, restaurants and temples, etc. It is also an important part of socialization and ceremonies such as weddings and sacrifices. The practice of greeting guests and building relationships within families and among neighbors through tea- related activities is common to multiple ethnic groups, providing a sense of shared identity and continuity for the communities.
In China, 44 registered national-level intangible cultural heritage entries are related to tea. There are over 40 vocational colleges and 80 universities that have set up majors in tea science or tea culture, resulting in over 3,000 graduates specializing in tea production and art every year, according to the ministry.
China now has 43 items on the intangible cultural heritage list, continuing to be the most enlisted country in the world.
1. What can be learnt from the passage?| A．Chinese producers developed 44 categories of tea. |
| B．Tea is quite popular with people all over the country. |
| C．More than 2,000 tea products could be found in China. |
| D．There’ re about 300 graduates specializing in tea production every year. |
| A．rare | B．common | C．temporary | D．available |
| A．By listing figures. | B．By making definitions. |
| C．By giving examples. | D．By making comparisons. |
| A．A textbook. | B．A travel journal. |
| C．A story book. | D．A cultural magazine. |
