2 . Do you remember that cold you had when you were 10? No? Well, your body does. Each time you faced some viruses, and after you fought them off, your body stored a memory to recognize these threats if they appeared again. It is the memory of cell in your immune system (免疫系统).

The immune system is so adaptable and long-lasting that it might be able to help our bodies to become immune to viruses we’ve never met, or even give us universal immunity. But how does it do the job?

Our first level of defense is physical, like your skin. If something goes through skin, your second line of defense comes into action. White blood cells will search your body for these dangers and attack them. They’ll call in helpers to kill the dangers, and start an alarm system called inflammation (发炎). This is your body’s innate (先天的) immune system at work.

But it isn’t always enough, especially if a more serious threat appears. Some viruses can double in your body every 20 minutes. This can quickly defeat that innate immune system, but luckily, we’ve developed a more complicated line of defense to stop these terrible enemies: the adaptive immune response.

This army of cells is like your body’s special army, and its best soldiers are antibodies (抗体). Each antibody carries a unique area with a special shape that allows it to latch onto one particular enemy, just like a key fits into its lock. When one antibody catches its enemy, it can work together with all your body’s defenses to fight this enemy. And your immune system learns from this fight so it can attack even more strongly if you ever meet that enemy again in the future. That’s called being immune to something.

1. What is the function of our memory of cell?

A．It works as a warning of our health condition.

B．It strengthens our immune system as we grow older.

C．It helps to identify the bacteria our body has met before.

D．It stops us suffering from the same disease again and again.

2. What do we know from Paragraph 3?

A．Inflammation is a preventive response.

B．The first level of defense is easy to break.

C．White blood cells often work independently.

D．Helpers may build an alarm system against enemies.

3. What does the underlined phrase “latch onto” in the last paragraph probably mean?

A．Seize.

B．Free.

C．Monitor.

D．Suspect.

4. What might be the best title for the text?

A．How the viruses try to get into our body.

B．What we should do to keep from new illnesses.

C．How the immune system helps us fight diseases.

D．What our minds do to store the sickness memory.

3 . In a fast developing world, many old-fashioned skills seem to be disappearing. It’s hard to find people who know such skills as sewing, but a few decades ago, it was common for every person to learn them.

Now many would think sewing isn’t as useful today. The garment (服装) industry is producing clothing that is cheaper, faster and more fashionable than ever, making it possible to buy a suit for less than $10 at home.

However, that doesn’t mean clothing isn’t indestructible (破坏不了的). Garments with simple tears that could be fixed in seconds with a needle are just thrown away. This causes more than 26 billion pounds of garbage and millions of dollars wasted because of a tear. Even dirty or worn clothing that still has plenty of usable cloth is being thrown away.

The ability to create hand-made clothes doesn’t only reduce waste. It is also tailor-made just for you. Most buy clothes made for a general body type, and to get it tailored by a professional is expensive. So why not do it yourself?

Perhaps the greatest problem of sewing is simply the time involved. Buying a skirt online takes a few seconds. Making a skirt can take weeks. But learning to sew doesn’t always involve complicated projects. Instead they might just be simple adjustments to help the garments fit or match your style.

Schools could easily teach sewing. Yet, they focus more on college preparations, ignoring traditional skills. Actually sewing is a valuable skill to be used in daily life. It wouldn’t take much time to teach children how to sew.

So, instead of letting old things die in this new age of the Internet, how about learning some of the lost skills that helped us for so long?

1. Why do some people think the sewing skill is less useful?

A．Because cloth is too expensive.

B．Because sewing is a bit boring to learn.

C．Because hand-made things are easily broken.

D．Because clothes are cheaper and convenient to buy.

2. Which benefit of sewing is talked about in Paragraph 3?

A．It contributes to creativity.	B．It’s environmentally-friendly.
C．It pushes the garment industry.	D．It gives costumers a typical look.

3. How do schools treat traditional skills?

A．They make the skills easy to learn.	B．They set the skills as basic subjects.
C．They make every effort to teach the skills.	D．They fail to give the skills enough attention.

4. What’s the author’s attitude to the old-fashioned skills?

A．Supportive.

B．Doubtful.

C．Uncaring.

D．Opposing.

4 . “You can get a kitten,” I promised my daughter Cali after her father and I divorced (离婚). After _________ in our new apartment, we headed to North Bay Animal Services.

One orange-and-white kitten drew Cali’s _________.

“_________, we’ve got two of those,” said the attendant. “They are _________, Caramel and Butter.”

“Can we take them both?” Cali _________.

“We have to follow the _________ of our new apartment,” I said. “Only one cat, remember?”

“I know,” Cali _________.

We brought Caramel home. Caramel seemed _________ without his twin and Cali cried for it. Two weeks later we drove back to the _________, hoping our landlord wouldn’t realize there were two of them because they looked __________.

However, we were told Butter was __________ four days ago.

Two years later I had a new boyfriend Brain. The first time I went to his home, I saw a flash of orange and white. Caramel? I thought, __________.

“That’s my daughter’s cat Butter,” Brian said.

After comparing the adoption papers, I __________ Butter was Caramel’s twin!

“They might not __________ each other after two years,” Brian said. But when brought together, Caramel and Butter nuzzled (依偎) each other with __________.

Today Caramel and his brother are inseparable. As are Brian and I, and our daughters after our marriage.

1.

A．cooling down

B．lying down

C．settling down

D．slowing down

2.

A．expectation

B．attention

C．strength

D．response

3.

A．Instantly

B．Merely

C．Roughly

D．Actually

4.

A．sisters

B．partners

C．twins

D．neighbors

5.

A．doubted

B．demanded

C．opposed

D．begged

6.

A．rules

B．strategies

C．theories

D．concepts

7.

A．relieved

B．sighed

C．wondered

D．resisted

8.

A．hesitant

B．energetic

C．distant

D．lonely

9.

A．shelter

B．hospital

C．apartment

D．nursery

10.

A．familiar

B．ordinary

C．identical

D．common

11.

A．sold

B．adopted

C．attacked

D．stolen

12.

A．amused

B．shocked

C．ashamed

D．satisfied

13.

A．interpreted

B．defended

C．exposed

D．confirmed

14.

A．approve

B．contact

C．remember

D．distinguish

15.

A．affection

B．concentration

C．ease

D．courage

5 . Towards the end of the 1985 sci-fi classic Back to the Future, the inventor Doc Brown announces “where we’re going, we don’t need roads as the car lifts into the air”. While flying cars aren’t yet filling our skies, many are in development. In October the Chinese XPeng X2 successfully completed the first public test flight of its two-seater flying car in Dubai.

The XPeng X2 lifts vertically off the ground using eight propellers (螺旋桨), without the need for a runway, and is therefore suitable for built-up city areas. The vehicle, designed to carry two passengers, is fully electric and its makers say it can rise through the air at around two meters per second and then reach speeds of up to 80 miles per hour. The XPeng X2 is equipped with AI automation — it can be set to self-drive. It learns how to avoid traffic, buildings and people. It does not produce any carbon dioxide emissions during flight and is a step forward in the pursuit of urban green transportation. It is suitable for future low-altitude city flights and is perfect for short-distance city journeys such as sightseeing and medical transportation.

Although the test flight lasted just 90 seconds, according to Dr. Liu, chief aviation specialist at Xpeng Aeroht, the technology is close to being ready for public use, but regulations on flying cars are still some way off. Liu believes that people will be able to use flying cars within limited regulated spaces in just five years. This lines up pretty well with the Chinese government’s plan to put flying taxis on the market by 2025. The self-driving function presents further difficulties with regulation and also throws into question public acceptance. Many people are worried about the safety issues around self-driving cars on the ground, let alone vehicles that are flying around above their heads. However, Peng says it is safer for its flying car to be self-driving than to be driven by a human.

There are lots of flying cars in development now around the world and many of them actually fly, like Opener’s “BlackFly”, SkyDriver’s “SD-03’’and Klein Vision’s “AirCar” — which made a successful 35-minute test flight between two cities in Slovakia in 2021.

1. Why does the author mention the 1985 sci-fi classic Back to the Future?

A．To introduce the topic	B．To recommend the movie
C．To provide background information	D．To make a prediction

2. What is paragraph 2 mainly about?

A．The popularity of XPeng X2.	B．The advantages of XPeng X2.
C．The limitation of XPeng X2.	D．The prospect of XPeng X2.

3. What can we learn from the text?

A．XPeng X2 can carry two passengers at a speed of 80miles per hour.

B．XPeng X2 is close to finishing the first public test fight.

C．XPeng X2 has already been launched on the market at present.

D．XPeng X2 has been widely accepted by the public now.

4. In which section of a website may this text appear?

A．Science fiction	B．Film review
C．Science & Technology	D．Historical events

6 . Forgetting names, faces, or events is a universal human experience; even those who see their minds sharp struggle with memory loss from time to time. Most consider these mental mistakes to be annoyed, and they’re seen as a potentially worrisome sign of cognitive decline. But neurologist Scott Small, who studies and treats Alzheimer’s disease at Columbia University, thinks this view of forgetting is all wrong. In fact, some amount of forgetfulness is critical for our minds and relationships to function at their best.

We’re developing drugs to protect against memory loss. But many psychologists have joked that what they want is a forgetfulness drug. Too much memory poses a challenge in any long-term relationship. Anger, hatred—they all come from not being able to let go of emotional memories. People who repeatedly think of anger or fear suffer, often in loneliness.

Living in a noisy, ever-changing world, forgetting details is actually a perfect adaptation. Creativity isn’t making something out of nothing. It’s making connections between already-known elements—ideas, words, visuals, or expressions—to create something new. But to make new connections, the existing connections in your mind have to be loose. If the connections between those elements are too tightly bound in our memory, there’s no room for creativity.

What can we do to help our brains forget what we need to forget? One of the best ways to make sure that you don’t have a brain that’s burning too. hot with bad memories is to stay socially engaged. Another thing to do is to sleep, and sleep well. Many experts have concluded that we sleep in order to forget, so it makes sense that sleep has been shown to improve creativity. If you’re short of sleep, your brain is on fire with too many memories. The brain is like a lawn of grass—you need to keep it trimmed to make way for new memories, new connections, and new growth.

1. What is the first paragraph mainly about?

A．The damage of cognitive decline.	B．The importance of forgetting things.
C．The reasons of getting mental disease.	D．The methods of preventing memory loss.

2. Why is the forgetfulness drug needed?

A．Because various pressure makes us sleepless.

B．Because some patients forget important things.

C．Because too much memory disturbs and bothers us.

D．Because many seniors suffer from Alzheimer’s disease.

3. What can we learn from the last two paragraphs?

A．Too much memory blocks our creativity.	B．Our brain can adapt to ever-changing world.
C．Sleeping well contributes to improved attention.	D．Bad memory has terrible impact on our social life.

4. Where is the text probably from?

A．A book review.

B．An advertisement.

C．A science fiction.

D．A news report.

7 . Using CRISPR genome (基因组) editing on a few common crops, a team of plant and soil scientists seeks to greatly increase and speed up carbon storage to help fight climate change.

To prevent dangerous levels of global warming, scientists say it won’t be enough to just stop burning fossil fuels that release carbon into the air. Because it’s nearly impossible for humanity to do that as fast as is now required, we will also need to pull carbon out of the air and secure it.

Plants are among the best tools we have to do this, since these living solar collectors already capture billions of tons of carbon dioxide each year from the atmosphere through photosynthesis (光合作用). About half of that carbon winds up in roots and eventually the soil, where it can stay for hundreds to thousands of years.

But what if we could create plants and soils that are better at capturing carbon? With CRISPR genome editing—a new molecular (分子的) biology tool that allows scientists to make edits to the DNA code that underpins all life—that might be possible.

Last month, the Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI), a research team founded by CRISPR pioneer Jennifer Doudna, began to explore the idea. With an $11-million donation from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a team of researchers made a three-year effort using CRISPR to create new crop varieties that photosynthesi ze more efficiently and transport more carbon into the soil. Eventually, the researchers hope to create gene-edited rice and sorghum seeds that could—if planted around the globe--pull more than a billion extra tons of carbon out of the air annually.

It’s an ambitious goal, and the team is likely to face numerous challenges in the lab before its CO2-cleaning plants can be put in the ground. Additional social, policy, and ethical considerations will determine whether those crops are widely accepted by farmers. But the researchers believe their ambitious project is beneficial to cope with climate crisis.

1. What is the purpose of using CRISPR genome editing on crops?

A．To improve soil structure.	B．To increase carbon storage.
C．To create new crop varieties.	D．To help fight climate change.

2. What does the underlined word “capture” in paragraph 3 mean?

A．Mix.

B．Release.

C．Absorb.

D．Grab.

3. What can be inferred from this text?

A．CO2-cleaning plants can be put in the ground now.

B．It is still unknown whether gene-edited crops will be accepted.

C．Researchers have successfully created gene-edited rice and sorghum seeds.

D．CRISPR genome editing will face so many challenges that it has no future.

4. What is the researchers’ attitude to the gene-edited crops?

A．Hopeful.

B．Doubtful.

C．Indifferent.

D．Negative.