1 . Greenstein Prescott was a high school senior. Her English teacher, Fred DiMeo, gave her an assignment:
Greenstein had a mild stutter(口吃). The
When the day finally came, Greenstein recited the poem one-on-one to DiMeo. Once she was
Greenstein went on to graduate from high school and go to college. She never got to
“He truly is an unsung
| A．Create | B．Recite | C．Assess | D．Repeat |
| A．chance | B．memory | C．trouble | D．thought |
| A．bear | B．control | C．forget | D．ignore |
| A．confirmed | B．imagined | C．revealed | D．recorded |
| A．prohibited | B．questioned | C．excused | D．discouraged |
| A．tired | B．done | C．stressed | D．hesitant |
| A．story | B．voice | C．opinion | D．explanation |
| A．feature | B．source | C．treatment | D．signal |
| A．minor | B．funny | C．flexible | D．necessary |
| A．guilty | B．proud | C．mindful | D．afraid |
| A．generously | B．secretly | C．properly | D．regularly |
| A．position | B．challenge | C．connection | D．opportunity |
| A．family | B．reputation | C．confidence | D．patience |
| A．hero | B．citizen | C．fighter | D．volunteer |
| A．forgiving | B．punishing | C．limiting | D．embarrassing |
2 . Protecting and serving is more than checking for imminent (紧急的) danger. One officer in South Hill, Virginia, makes it his mission to make people of all ages feel safe after giving the all-clear, starting with the younger generations.
And because of his kindness, many parents and their children look on C. B. Fleming as something of a superhero. 28-year-old Mom, Lesha Roper-Boswell said that the neighborhood kids need someone “larger than life” they can depend on to protect them and their town, and Fleming fits the role beautifully. “He’s awesome. That’s the only word you can really use to describe C. B.,” she told reporters. “It’s just amazing — the bond he has with the children.”
Recently, residents in an apartment complex had a scare when emergency crews came to investigate a gas leak. Though he could have just left the scene after making sure the leak wasn’t harmful, Officer Fleming made sure everyone in the building felt safer.
Seeing some kids play outside with dolls, he sat down and joined them, reassuring them that everything was going to be okay. The kids were happy to have another playmate, regardless of his uniform. Impressed and grateful, Roper-Boswell took a video of the kind act and posted it on Facebook, where it’s gained thousands of views from people living all over the country.
Fleming, who is celebrating his 15th year on the force, said he’s always desired to do more than fine people for violating (违反) parking rules. “It’s something I’ve always tried to do,” he said about also looking out for the children. “When I got into this job, I knew there was something different, other than just writing tickets and being the ‘bad’ person all the time. I figured if I could be that bright spot in someone’s day, then that was all that mattered.”
1. What kind of role did C. B. Fleming play according to Roper-Boswell?| A．A risk-taker. | B．A superhero. | C．A decision-maker. | D．A teacher. |
| A．His devotion to work. | B．His professional skills. |
| C．His striking uniform. | D．His connection with kids. |
| A．Bringing joy to people. | B．Performing his duties. |
| C．Looking after the kids. | D．Raising people’s awareness. |
| A．Neighborhood Spared from Fire Thanks to Crews |
| B．Police Officer’s Kindness Rewarded by Residents |
| C．Police Officer Becomes Hero to Neighborhood Kids |
| D．Police Officer Aims to Reduce Residents’ Violations |
3 . Skate Westgate
Nov. 3rd — Dec. 28th
●Admission: $22
Kids & adults are invited to partake in a timeless holiday tradition — outdoor ice-skating on our real ice rink! Whether you’re a professional skater or wearing skates for the first time, you are welcome. Skate Westgate will be open from November 3rd through December 28th, with hours varying each day.
Posers! An Art Installation
Nov. 16th — Nov. 30th
●Admission: $15
●Time: 3 pm — 5 pm
Peter Leue, a wood and mixed media artist for 5 decades, brings wood to life with his fascinating art tools. Posers! A series of wood sculptures that take on the trappings (装饰) of real life will be on exhibit in Haggerty Plaza from November 16th through the 30th. Join Peter and his Posers for an interactive opening ceremony on November 16th from 3 pm to 7 pm. Children under 12 are admitted free.
Candlelight: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons & More
Nov. 10th
●Admission: $12
●Time: 6: 30 pm — 11:00 pm
Candlelight concerts bring the magic of a live, multi-sensory musical experience to awe-inspiring locations like never seen before in Tucson. Get your tickets now to discover the music of Vivaldi at Grace St Paul’s Episcopal Church under the gentle glow of candlelight.
Age requirement: 8 years old or older. Anyone under the age of 16 must be accompanied by an adult.
Oak Creek Arts and Crafts Show
Nov. 16th — Dec. 31st
●Admission: $10
●Time: 9 am — 5 pm
Arts and crafts lovers celebrate the return of the Oak Creek Arts and Crafts Show at Sedona Vista Village. Our shows are very popular with locals and visitors. In fact, we have another location in Sedona, Arizona just to showcase all works of the artists. Shopping is at its finest with paintings, photography, pottery, jewelry and Native American art.
1. What do we know about Skate Westgate?| A．It admits skaters of all levels. |
| B．It is a competitive event for skaters. |
| C．It has a fixed open time during the day. |
| D．It asks kids to be accompanied by their parents. |
| A．It takes place in the open air. |
| B．It charges the highest admission. |
| C．It focuses on both music and fine arts. |
| D．It has age limits for its participants. |
| A．At Skate Westgate. | B．At Haggerty Plaza. |
| C．At Episcopal Church. | D．At Sedona Vista Village. |
4 . Is life a story or a game? Answers may vary from one to another. Over the course of life, we find things to love and commit to — a job, a partner or a community. At times, we struggle to learn from our misfortunes to grow in wisdom, kindness and grace.
Will Storr, a writer whose work I admire, says this story version of life is a misunderstanding. In his book The Status Game, he argues that human beings are deeply driven by status. Rather than about being liked or accepted, he writes, it’s about being better than others. “When people are obedient to us, offer respect, admiration or praise, that’s status. It feels good.”
Life is a series of games, he adds. There’s the high school game of competing to be the popular kid. The lawyer game to make partner. The finance game to make the most money. The academic game for fame. The sports game to show that our team is the best. Even when we are trying to do good, Storr claims, we’re playing the “virtue game” to show we are morally superior to others.
I think Storr is in danger of becoming one of those guys who ignore the noble desires of the human heart and the caring element in every friendship and family. The status-mad world that Storr describes is so loveless. In fact, gaming as a way of life is immature. Maturity means rising above the shallow desire — for status — that doesn’t really nourish us. It’s about cultivating the higher desires: the love of truth and learning; the inner pleasure the craftsman gets in his work, which is not about popularity, and the desire for a good and meaningful life that inspires people to practise daily acts of generosity.
How do people gradually learn to cultivate these higher motivations? To answer that, I’d have to tell you a story.
1. What lies in the core of Will Storr’s opinion about life?| A．The pride in one’s virtue. | B．The pursuit of superiority. |
| C．The desire for acceptance. | D．The motivation by wealth. |
| A．Love and inspiration. | B．Maturity and desire. |
| C．Commitment and kindness. | D．Friendship and popularity. |
| A．To correct an attitude. | B．To compare two values. |
| C．To explain two arguments. | D．To criticize a viewpoint. |
| A．A king’s-comeback story. | B．A rags-to-riches story. |
| C．A Yuan Longping-style story. | D．An overnight-success story. |
5 . 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
6 . 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. |
| A．By justifying an idea. | B．By giving examples. |
| C．By providing evidence. | D．By making a comparison. |
| 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. |
| 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 |
7 . 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| A．A non-fiction. | B．A book review. |
| C．An agricultural leaflet. | D．A celebrity biography. |
8 . 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. |
| A．Former slaves. | B．Citizens in Haiti. |
| C．Active revolutionaries. | D．Haiti government. |
| A．Citadel of Haiti. | B．Borders of France and Spain. |
| C．The city of Brasilia. | D．The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway. |
9 . “What beautiful music!”I shout loudly as my 9-year-old son practices playing the violin. He’s used to this praise; I give rewards like that most days. But every once in a while, I skip it, and when I do, I can see the disappointment on his face when he’s finished.
Am I a bad mom? Conventional wisdom says that consistency is key to parenting since it enables your child to predict how you’ll react, leading to good behavior. And it’s true that children need some level of predictability in their lives, particularly when it comes to discipline.
But research suggests that inconsistent gifts and praise can have a greater effect on motivation. While we all like to live in a predictable world, we often respond more strongly to unpredictable rewards.
In one experiment, my colleagues and I told participants they’d be paid if they could drink about one-and-a-half quarts of water in two minutes or less. In one condition, we offered people a $2 fixed reward. In another, there was an uncertain reward of either $2 or $1. The certain reward was a better deal, yet many more people successfully met the challenge when assigned an uncertain reward. Resolving the uncertainty — whether they would win $1 or $2 — was significantly more motivating than winning $2 for sure.
Here is one of the reasons why uncertainty is motivating. What scientists call “intermittent (间歇性) reinforcement” — rewarding behavior on some but not all occasions — makes it more arduous to know when rewards will show up. If you very often, but don’t always, praise your child for completing their chores, they’ll keep up the good behavior in the hope of receiving praise the next time.
So don’t assume that if kids are always praised for finishing their homework, they’ll be more likely to do it. Do praise young people for a job well done, just not every time. And pick rewards out of a hat when they complete chores—the surprise prize might keep everyone motivated to get things done.
1. Why does the author mention her kid’s story in the first paragraph?| A．To display the conclusion of her research. |
| B．To show that her kid is very smart. |
| C．To explain that she is a good mom. |
| D．To lead in the topic. |
| A．It was more inspiring. | B．It was more demanding. |
| C．It was fair to all participants. | D．It was easy to get more rewards. |
| A．Convenient. | B．Popular. | C．Flexible. | D．Difficult. |
| A．Why Consistency Is Critical to Parenting |
| B．Why Resolving Uncertainty Is Rewarding |
| C．How Inconsistent Praise Affects Motivation |
| D．How Parents’ Behaviors Affect Their Children |
10 . We were sitting in the doctor’s waiting room when my father said something that
The doctor told us my father had Alzheimers (阿尔茨海默病). It was a big
As the disease continued to progress, his behaviors became
Babies are born helpless; parents keep on
When a(n)
| A．disappointed | B．shocked | C．delighted | D．satisfied |
| A．chance | B．goal | C．challenge | D．plan |
| A．ready | B．brave | C．unsuitable | D．unprepared |
| A．took hold of | B．got rid of | C．paid attention to | D．got used to |
| A．unhappiness | B．inability | C．courage | D．power |
| A．normal | B．regular | C．strange | D．patient |
| A．care | B．advice. | C．intention. | D．trust |
| A．expected | B．refused | C．feared | D．needed |
| A．complaining | B．wondering | C．explaining | D．giving |
| A．following | B．connecting | C．changing | D．spreading |
| A．since | B．if | C．although | D．until |
| A．mistake | B．problem | C．mission | D．object |
| A．Obviously | B．Universally | C．Fortunately | D．Generally |
| A．get through | B．learn from | C．turn down | D．make out |
| A．provided | B．presented | C．rewarded | D．responded |
