1 . Next time you are struggling with the crossword, try putting the kettle on. Drinking a cup of tea can improve creativity, a study suggests.
Researchers gave participants either tea or water and then asked them to complete a word association game, which was used to measure a form of creativity known as convergent thinking (聚合思维).
In the game, the participants were given sets of words such as “same, tennis, head” and asked to find a meaningful link between them. After analyzing the results in a way that ruled out the potential effects of a person’s intelligence and language ability, the researchers found those who drank the tea performed significantly better in the word association game. The tea drinkers scored an average of 13.89 in the game compared with 12.94 for water drinkers.
The researchers said it was not clear why tea has this beneficial effect. Tea contains special components, which can improve attention, but the participants in the study drank only a small amount of tea — 90 ml, on average — and carried out the tests very soon after consuming it, meaning any effect would have been ignored. This result showed the tea drinking event itself — rather than the biological components of tea — played a positive role, the researchers said.
Previous research has found that people tend to associate tea drinking with a specific set of personality traits(特征), such as smart, creative, elegant, confident, and stable. It may be that when participants are stimulated (刺激) by tea, the mental representation of a tea drinker is also activated, and they unconsciously think that they should be smarter and more creative.
1. What did the participants have to do in the study?| A．Pair the words with each other. |
| B．Guess the meaning of the words. |
| C．Find a connection between the words. |
| D．Tell the differences among the words. |
| A．The participant’s intelligence. |
| B．The action of drinking tea itself. |
| C．The participant’s language ability. |
| D．The biological components of tea. |
| A．Drinking tea makes people more active. |
| B．Drinking tea is popular among the youth. |
| C．People tend to drink tea more than before. |
| D．People drinking tea are often thought smart. |
| A．Drinking Tea Is Good for Health |
| B．Drinking Tea Is A Popular Trend |
| C．Drinking Tea Makes for Creativity |
| D．Drinking Tea Matters A Lot in Life |
2 . Music is said to be a universal language. But for Chase Burton, a deaf filmmaker, music has always been a different experience.
“When I was a kid, I used to lie on the floor above our garage so that I could feel the vibrations (震动) from my brother’s band rocking out below my body. That was one of the first times I began building a relationship with music,” said Burton.
In 2016, his ability to experience music changed completely, thanks to the California-based technology company Not Impossible Labs. It designed a vibrating suit. The suit enables deaf people to “feel” music through their skin. It can translate audio into a range of vibrating pulses that are felt at 24 points of contact. Burton has been wearing the suit for four years. “The sound drubs different parts of my body,” said Burton. “It strikes me on my ankles first. And then I start to feel the vibrations on my back and wrists.”
The creators want to extend the musical experience beyond the deaf community. In 2018, they gave out 150 vibrating suits at a rock concert where half the audience members were deaf and half could hear. From then on, the creators worked to improve the technology and wanted the suit to become a consumer product accessible to all, which would be used in live sports broadcasts or video games.
As a writer and director, Burton has been working to make the movie world more inclusive. For his latest movie he hired all-deaf staff and actors. Burton hopes that the vibrating suits will be available to his film audiences in the future. He believes that the suits can improve emotions while people are watching a movie for normal people as well as the deaf. “I see the tech as a real opportunity to help people understand that music or movies don’t always need to be enjoyed through the ears,” said Burton.
1. What does the underlined word “drubs” in Paragraph 3 probably mean?| A．Hits. | B．Affects. |
| C．Changes. | D．Reflects. |
| A．To promote sales. |
| B．To enrich their experience. |
| C．To carry out an experiment. |
| D．To make people enjoy music. |
| A．It will be used by his film audiences. |
| B．It will help improve actors’ emotions. |
| C．It will become the main theme in his movies. |
| D．It will change normal people’s attitude to the deaf. |
| A．A Deaf Filmmaker’s Musical Experiences |
| B．The Application of Vibrating Suits to Films |
| C．Wearable Devices for Deaf People Are Coming |
| D．Vibrating Suits Allow Deaf People to Feel Music |
3 . I never went to university but always thought about it. The only way I
My first day of school finally arrived. As I drove there, my mind was filled with
Then, suddenly, I saw it! A large billboard on the side of the road with a picture of Kermit the Frog. I slowed down a little and read the words, “Live your dreams.” Was Kermit talking about me? I didn’t turn the car around.
I drove a little
| A．attended | B．gained | C．consulted | D．contained |
| A．goal | B．idea | C．advice | D．dream |
| A．since | B．before | C．until | D．after |
| A．theme | B．system | C．programme | D．process |
| A．sign up | B．turn up | C．keep up | D．make up |
| A．negative | B．attractive | C．active | D．optimistic |
| A．tutors | B．kids | C．professors | D．guards |
| A．degree | B．praise | C．skill | D．reputation |
| A．higher | B．further | C．closer | D．lower |
| A．billboard | B．picture | C．portrait | D．cartoon |
| A．breaking | B．giving | C．pulling | D．sticking |
| A．holding | B．arriving | C．setting | D．making |
| A．Leaving | B．Squeezing | C．Approaching | D．Staying |
| A．stood | B．lived | C．lay | D．sat |
| A．slightly | B．accidentally | C．differently | D．completely |
4 . I was born legally blind. Of all the stories of my early childhood, the one about a
Mom loves to use this story as an
We are almost certain to get
| A．trip | B．race | C．tree | D．driver |
| A．incident | B．change | C．illness | D．problem |
| A．feared | B．refused | C．forgot | D．turned |
| A．delay | B．absence | C．freedom | D．rest |
| A．promised | B．encouraged | C．allowed | D．expected |
| A．woke | B．picked | C．warmed | D．gave |
| A．answer | B．example | C．excuse | D．order |
| A．afraid | B．ashamed | C．able | D．anxious |
| A．ask | B．share | C．fear | D．try |
| A．regretted | B．reviewed | C．made | D．explained |
| A．job | B．friend | C．fortune | D．house |
| A．memories | B．efforts | C．research | D．experience |
| A．mixed up | B．fed up | C．knocked down | D．settled down |
| A．play | B．relax | C．dream | D．cry |
| A．all at once | B．in the end | C．in either case | D．as a result |
5 . “More and more consumers across the country are using cashless payment methods. The rapid development of third⁃party mobile payment tools is helping to encourage cashless payment across the country,” said Dong Ximiao, a researcher at Renmin University of China.
Although there were 3.4 billion third⁃party payment accounts in total in China in 2016, China is not the first country to seek a cashless society. Developed countries like Sweden, Denmark and Singapore are also seeing that increase.
However, the rapid development of the cashless payment does not mean there are no challenges or criticisms. Alibaba’s Hema store has come under the spotlight (成为焦点) recently. The media said that consumers couldn’t buy goods in cash there, which would be considered illegal.
Alipay and WeChat Pay, the nation’s two major third⁃party mobile payment tools, also launched campaigns this month to encourage more people to use cashless payment methods, which caused concern over whether cash will soon disappear.
“Some offline sellers refuse to accept cash, which influences the natural circulation (流通) of cash,” said Dong. He stressed that a cashless society would not mean that cash would completely disappear. “Also it’s important to remember that nearly half of China’s population live in the country, and they are unable to enjoy innovation (革新) brought by the Internet,” said Dong. “And when it comes to China’s senior citizens, most of them prefer to use cash in their daily lives,” he added.
“It’s ridiculous (荒谬的) to question digital payment tools’ contribution to financial development. In the long term, various payment methods will be used by consumers, and merchants should respect consumers’ payment habits,” Dong noted.
1. What does the underlined word “that” in Paragraph 2 probably refer to?| A．The economic activity. | B．A large amount of payment. |
| C．The development of the economy. | D．The cashless payment. |
| A．It fights against illegal activities. |
| B．Customers are not permitted to use cash there. |
| C．It provides comprehensive services. |
| D．It starts campaigns to encourage mobile payment. |
| A．The cashless payment should be limited in the countryside. |
| B．The innovation from payment is ridiculous in fact. |
| C．Various payment methods should be supported. |
| D．The digital payment should replace cash completely. |
| A．Innovation on the Internet | B．Cash or cashless? |
| C．Payment online should replace cash | D．Is the circulation of cash dying? |
6 . The wonderful multiple-award winning producer, writer, and director Norman Lear, who is 100, was recently interviewed by a TV host, who asked him what advice he would give to younger people as a successful man. Without missing a beat, Lear said, “Learn to let things that bother you go.”
Those few words are some of the most powerful in the world. I know that if people could just learn to do it, murder and divorce rates would fall dramatically, and I would be out of a job.
Learning to let go of what bothers you is a dream for many people, each of us has our own personal demons (魔鬼) to fight. The big question is: how do you let go of them? There is no one solution that works for everyone, because we’re all different. Psychotherapy(心理疗法) may help some people who hold on to negative thoughts, while others don’t respond to such treatments.
Even after you’ve worked on this, you may have to deal with the after-effects of a traumatic experience. It’s hard to forget, for example, that someone held a gun to your head or broke your heart. Truly letting go means not forgetting what happened but rather leading to live with it, because no one can completely forget their past and it’s no use avoiding the unfortunate past. But each day is a chance to start anew.
Elvira, an actress, was disturbed by PTSD, a mental disorder. Medication didn’t help. She got counseling from some good people and did her own work, but she would still wake up in a state of anxiety every morning. When we started working together, I asked her to imagine, as often as she could, that the discomfort she was feeling was the negativity leaving her body. Whenever a negative thought entered her mind, she would repeat this visualization exercise and would soon begin to feel okay again.
Learning to let go of things that bother you frees you from the feeling that you don’t deserve good things coming your way. It takes effort, but it’s worthwhile.
1. What advice did Norman Lear share with younger people?| A．Being professional in multiple fields. | B．Being enthusiastic about one’s career. |
| C．Having an optimistic attitude to bad things. | D．Showing great love and caring for the young. |
| A．Annoying dreams share certain similarities. | B．Strategies for letting go vary between individuals. |
| C．It’s necessary for us to let go of negative thoughts. | D．It’s normal for us to receive psychological treatments. |
| A．Move forward with bad memories. | B．Avoid things related to past traumas |
| C．Try hard to forget unpleasant experiences. | D．Mark the boundary between the present and the past. |
| A．An effective technique for battling against anxiety. |
| B．The way how mental disorders affect people’s life. |
| C．The process of treating mental disorders is painful. |
| D．Actresses are more likely to suffer mental disorders. |
7 . Wang Yaping, 41, became China’s first female astronaut to conduct a spacewalk on November. 2021.
Wang’s dream of becoming an astronaut was
“Now China has its first man in space, when will our country have its first
After years of
In the first year, Wang could not get the top level in the high-G training, which simulates (模拟) the environment when the spacecraft
Wang realized her space dream as part of the Shenzhou-10 mission. She was confident that the crew could fulfill this challenging mission.
Meanwhile, to prepare for their
| A．influenced | B．requested | C．inspired | D．reported |
| A．aircraft | B．woman | C．planet | D．experiment |
| A．boring | B．tough | C．online | D．proper |
| A．missions | B．countries | C．methods | D．sections |
| A．loved | B．respected | C．titled | D．selected |
| A．burst into | B．show up | C．set out | D．brought in |
| A．takes off | B．puts on | C．jumps over | D．rises up |
| A．firmly | B．properly | C．frequently | D．gently |
| A．lack | B．supply | C．form | D．release |
| A．ignore | B．land | C．board | D．operate |
| A．mental | B．basic | C．additional | D．similar |
| A．selection | B．competition | C．separation | D．celebration |
| A．platform | B．cause | C．performance | D．tasks |
| A．collect | B．draw | C．buy | D．circle |
| A．sighed | B．laughed | C．yelled | D．regretted |
8 . George Headley would have been a dentist in the USA rather than one of the greatest cricketers (板球运动员) if he had got his papers from Panama on time. The Indian legend was born in Colón, Panama and a period of unemployment in Jamaica caused him to begin the process of seeking a career elsewhere.
The delay, however, gave Headley time to make his first-class debut (首次亮相) for Jamaica against the visiting Lord Tennyson’s XI from England. These were his scores in the three first-class games in the series: 16, 40, and 71. The rest, as they say, is history. Yet, consider what might have occurred if his documents had arrived on time and he had migrated to America. There would have been a missing chapter in cricket.
Headley’s ta le brings to the fore the role that happenstance (偶然情况) plays in life. In the song A Different Comer, George Michael lamented (哀叹) that a romantic union went wrong and suggested that it might have been better if circumstances had worked to prevent their first meeting: “Take me back in time; maybe I can forget. Turn a different corner and we never would have met.”
Our lives are the result of much planning and deliberate action. But they are the result of chance as well. “The harder I practice, the luckier I get” is a quote normally used by sportsmen to discount the occurrence or consequence of luck. Athletes like to think that whatever success they’ve had is only down to them. To admit otherwise is to devalue the skills and efforts.
The changes in luck are a large part of why we watch sports. It fosters uncertainty, which, in turn. enhances interest in the process and the result. On any given day, the underdog can be at the champion. Whenever that occurs, luck is likely to have played some significant part, and sport is better for it.
1. What decision did George Headley make before getting his papers?| A．To complete his official documents in Panama. | B．To sharpen his cricket skills in Jamaica. |
| C．To get a degree in medicine in the USA. | D．To work as a dentist in the USA. |
| A．It affected his debut performance. | B．It became a turning point in his life. |
| C．It benefited the England cricket team. | D．It led to a missing chapter in cricket. |
| A．To stress the importance of chance. |
| B．To explain the necessity of planning ahead. |
| C．To show the significance of the first impressions. |
| D．To illustrate a love-hate relationship with friends. |
| A．Practice makes perfect. | B．Little people can make a big difference. |
| C．Efforts and chances are equally important. | D．Nothing is impossible to a willing heart. |
9 . Learning Chinese could be one of the most important decisions you ever made. Chinese is becoming the language to learn in the 21st century. With the world’s largest population and a rapidly growing middle class, China stands to become the engine of the world’s economy in the coming years. This will make learning Chinese very important to people in many industries, or to those of us who wish to visit China or learn about its culture and history.
There is an ongoing effort to modernize the writing system and standardize(使标准化) the language. An increasing number of people learning Chinese are learning Mandarin, so unless you absolutely need to learn another dialect (such as Cantonese), be sure to study Mandarin.
For native English speakers Chinese is one of the most difficult and most different languages to learn. The vocabulary is wholly unfamiliar and unlike anything we know. In addition, in the Chinese tone system, words are said in rising or falling tones, which helps to distinguish them. Furthermore, there is the Chinese writing system—a collection of thousands of individual ideograms (表意文字), or symbols, which represent a word or an idea. These ideograms have no phonetic value—that is to say, we can’t tell how the word is pronounced by how it is written. There is a way to present written Chinese in a phonetic script called pinyin. If you are learning Chinese, you'll be working with this pinyin system, but the beauty of the traditional writing system shouldn’t be passed up(放弃). All these factors make learning Chinese difficult for us. Yet, for a determined learner, there’s always a way to overcome them.
1. Why is learning Chinese becoming more and more important?| A．Chinese engines are very welcome. |
| B．China has the world’s largest population. |
| C．There are more and more rich people in China. |
| D．China has become important to the world economy. |
| A．The author thinks Chinese is as difficult as English. |
| B．The author is interested in the Chinese language and culture. |
| C．Foreign languages can play a great role in industrial development. |
| D．As long as the pinyin system is learned well, one can learn Chinese well. |
| A．The difficulties of learning Chinese. |
| B．The advantages of learning Chinese. |
| C．The Chinese tone system. |
| D．The Chinese writing system. |
| A．The sources of Chinese characters. |
| B．The importance of learning Chinese. |
| C．The advice on how to learn Chinese. |
| D．The difficulties of learning other languages. |
10 . When we want to communicate with another person, we generally use our voice, such as speaking or shouting. They are great ways to communicate, but they have some drawbacks.
For instance, if you live on a mountainside and your friend lives on another mountainside, shouting to each other isn’t always that effective. Shouting creates lots of echoes (回声) among the corners and holes of mountains, and the average outdoor range of an understandable human voice is only about 180 meters. Unless you walk over to where your friend lives to carry on a conversation at a reasonable speaking distance, or communicate by some sort of visual technique like smoke signals, there’s not much to be done except whistle (吹口哨).
Whistling is the product of air being forced through a small hole made by your lips. A whistle is different from your voice because it’s clear, and the frequency is high. The sound of a whistle can carry for over 8 kilometers and it holds its form, while a shout can become a mess because of the echoes.
For thousands of years, humans have relied on spoken language to accomplish daily, face-to-face communication most of the time. And in recent years, the coming of text messaging has also made whistled languages take a dive worldwide. Luckily, there are still over 70 groups around the world that engage in special whistled languages.
They’re most commonly found in mountainous regions where farmers need to pass messages around without walking up and down hills, and whistles are also used to communicate through the thick Amazon rainforest and are useful to Inuit at sea as well. Hunters can use whistling to communicate with each other in a way that doesn’t alarm their targets as the voice-produced language might.
Whistled languages are unique to a certain area and they are not distinct from spoken language. However, whistled language speakers around the world are found to be able to understand about 90 percent of what’s communicated. When whistled languages are still present, it signals that traditional activities are still commonly practiced and therefore the cultures behind them have been maintained.
1. What does the author want to express in the first two paragraphs?| A．Reasons for producing echoes outdoors. |
| B．The difficulty of living on the mountainside. |
| C．The necessity of adopting face-to-face communication. |
| D．Limitations of communicating by speaking or shouting. |
| A．Stay adaptable. | B．Become influential. |
| C．Get an improvement. | D．Experience a decline. |
| A．By providing research results. | B．By listing the statistic data. |
| C．By giving examples. | D．By doing some questionnaires. |
| A．They will disappear gradually. |
| B．They could help keep traditional cultures alive. |
| C．They are independent of the local spoken language. |
| D．They become much more complex as time goes by. |
