1 . I had always looked forward to the day when I would finally apply as a delegate at a Model United Nations (MUN) conference. Therefore, you can imagine my excitement when I finally traveled to Belgium to participate in the 2023 MUN conference this March.
The conference was held on March 7-11. Despite the horrible weather throughout our stay, I still found the city extremely attractive due to its cobblestone streets, Gothic monuments and amazing lighting in the evenings. Meanwhile, the delegate’s fee covered lunches for four days, welcoming and closing receptions, a traditional Belgian dinner, a theme party and a gala night.
I was designated to represent Poland in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which turned out to be an unexpectedly unified and efficient committee. We managed to pass the communique to combat hybrid warfare and improve cooperation between NATO allies (盟友).
In the beginning, I felt intimidated by how passionate my fellow delegates were. As a first-timer, I was really confused and felt hesitant to speak up. I only started to enjoy acting my part as a diplomat on the second day. From there, things just got better and better. I got a bit ill at the end of the conference, however, so I couldn’t enjoy the conference to its fullest potential.
Even so, it is without a doubt that those days in Belgium definitely opened a new chapter in my MUN journey! It made me realize how fruitful MUN simulations are. Through the MUN conference, you will surely improve your public speaking skills massively and gain so many good friends, many of whom you will likely stay in touch with for the rest of your life. It is for these reasons that I have fallen in love with Leuven, that magical city.
1. What did the author like about Leuven?| A．The streetscape. | B．Delicious food. |
| C．Its rich history. | D．The friendly locals. |
| A．She helped pass several resolutions. | B．She spent most of her time socializing. |
| C．She found the committee productive. | D．She struggled to get her ideas across. |
| A．Inspired. | B．Frightened. | C．Touched. | D．Excited. |
| A．It is too challenging for first-timers. |
| B．It is a good way to improve negotiation skills. |
| C．It is a valuable experience for personal growth. |
| D．It offers a great chance to learn about other cultures. |
2 . Follow these tips to start a book drive in your neighborhood or school.
Before your book drive
Identify your volunteers. Recruit a committee of volunteers to assist you with planning and pick-ups on collection day.
Determine where to hold the book drive. Good locations include: small retail businesses or local schools. You don’t have to choose just one. You can ask businesses all over your area to collect books for the drive.
Choose an appropriate time to hold the book drive. Join forces with an already-scheduled community event, or take advantage of a national celebration.
Determine what type of books you want to collect and what age group you are targeting. Your range can be as wide or narrow as you like.
Plan a kick-off event. Host a party, and ask each attendee to bring a book.
During your book drive
Motivate. Organize a competition to encourage friends, neighbors, other parents, club members to donate. Keep track of which location and which individual contributes the most books. Recognize the donors with certificates or awards.
Spread the word. The most successful way to gather books is to ask your personal network to contribute. Make these requests in person or by phone. To reach a larger audience: Hang flyers in grocery stores and schools (with permission).
After your book drive
Sort your books. Count the number of books you collected, and sort them by age range or where they will be donated.
Review. Get your committee together to consider what worked and what didn’t. Document changes to make your next book drive even better.
1. When is the best time to hold a book drive in your neighborhood?| A．During the weekends. | B．When stores are holding sales. |
| C．During the National Day holiday. | D．At the beginning of a new semester. |
| A．Hold reading activities. | B．Put on shows during the event. |
| C．Reward donors with prizes. | D．Place collection boxes everywhere. |
| A．Promote the drive online. | B．Sum up the experience and lessons. |
| C．Choose receivers of the books. | D．Set a goal for the next book drive. |
3 . Finding your next awesome read
When you read as much as we do, it can be hard to find a good new book. There are so many read out there that it’s easy to be overwhelmed by all of the possibilities, often leading to a disappointing choice or wasted money and time. We’re here to make the process just a little bit easier. Here are five tips to find your next awesome read:
World’s famous works
If you’re looking for a popular current read, then bestseller lists are a great place to start. Usually there’s a reason that a book ends up on one of these lists, guaranteeing a high quality read. There are always the classic lists to consult, like the New York Times or USA Today, which are both reliable and constant.
Book clubs
Maybe you’re already part of a local book club, so you know how great they can be in terms of introducing you to new books you might not discover on your own. But there are also tons of online book clubs you can join, giving you an even wider access to some awesome reads. Some of these clubs are celebrity-run, like Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 or Emma Watson’s feminist book club: Our Shared Shelf.
To 100 Lists
Another way of finding a good book is to consult a top 100 lists. There are tons of them out there, from the traditional to the unusual. If you’re looking for a lot of solid classics, then try Time’s All-Time 100 Novels, which included books like On the Road and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. If you want something a little more global, then head over to thegreathooks.org for their Top 100 works in World Literature.
Goodreads
Considering the fact that part of Goodreads’ mission is to “help people find and share the books they love,” then there’s no surprise that it’s an awesome way to discover new reads. Fans, readers and authors all connect on the site, sharing review s and shelving books they’re interested in.
1. What can we infer from the first paragraph?| A．Reading wastes a lot of time. | B．There are various wonderful books out there. |
| C．Electric books are more popular now. | D．Readers prefer to buy books online. |
| A．A local book club. | B．Book club 2.0. |
| C．Feminist book club. | D．A celebrity club. |
| A．An online column. | B．A travel journal. |
| C．A text book. | D．A newspaper. |
4 . Evolution (进化) can perform extraordinary makeovers; today’s airborne songbirds evolved from the wingless, earthbound dinosaurs that wandered millions of years ago. But some organisms seem to be unchanged — in other words, escape natural selection. The coelacanth, a modern-day fish, is nearly identical to its410-million-year-old fossils.
Scientists have long wondered how these species do so. It has been assumed that natural selection keeps some species unchanged by selecting for moderate or average qualities (stabilizing selection) rather than selecting for more extreme qualities that would cause a species to change (directional selection).
But a study published in the National Academy of Sciences USA contradicts this idea, showing that evolution constantly favors different qualities in seemingly unchanging animals to improve short-term survival. In the long term, though, “all that evolution cancels out and leads to no change,” says the study’s lead author, James Stroud.
Stroud and his colleagues studied for lizard (蜥蜴) specios; all relatively unchanged for 20 million years. The researchers caught members of these populations every six months for three years. They measured each lizard’s head size, leg length, mass and height, as well as the size of its sticky toes (脚趾头), noting which individuals survived. Stroud expected to observe stabılızıng selection at work preserving moderate qualities. Instead he saw clearer evidence of directional selection: some lizards with unique characteristics, such as stickier toes, survived better.
“The study offers a good explanation for why we see what we think is stabiliring selection,” says Tadashi Fukami, an ecologist studying evolution at Stanford University. Many new qualities are evolving in the short term, but they don’t provide a crucial advantage over the long term. In other words, species staying unchanged may simply have found the best possible combination of qualities for lasting success in their environment. So what happens when the lizards’ environment changes more dramatically? To help answer this bigger question, Stroud is still making trips to visit the lizards.
1. Why does the author mention the “coelacanth fish” in paragraph 1?| A．To demonstrate the power of evolution. | B．To add evidence to natural selection |
| C．To give an example of unchanged species. | D．To prove species' extraordinary makeovers. |
| A．Unsolved mysteries. | B．A common belief. |
| C．A sharp contrast. | D．Unique Characteristics. |
| A．By analyzing lizard fossils. | B．By tracking research objects. |
| C．By illustrating stabilizing selection. | D．By categorizing qualities of lizards. |
| A．Make trips to visit lizard experts. | B．Summarize average features of lizards. |
| C．Reveal the best combinations of qualities. | D．Examine lizards under extreme conditions. |
5 . On January 7, David Bennett went into the operating room at the University of Maryland Medical Center for a surgical procedure never performed before on a human. The 57-year-old Maryland resident had been hospitalized for months due to a life threatening disease. His heart was failing him and he needed a new one.
Bennett’s condition left him unresponsive to treatment and ineligible (不合格) for the transplant (移植) list or an artificial heart pump. The physician-scientists at the center, however, had another-also risky- option: transplant a heart from a genetically-modified pig.
“It was either die or do this transplant,” Bennett had told surgeons a day before the operation. “I want to live. I know it’s a shot in the dark, but it’s also my last choice.”
It took the medical team eight hours to finish the operation, and their efforts have not been in vain. “It’s working and it looks normal. We are thrilled, but we don’t know what tomorrow will bring us. This has never been done before,” Barkley Griffith, who led the transplant team, told the New York Times.
While it’s only been five days since the operation, the surgeons say that Bennett’s new pig heart was, so far，functioning as expected and his body wasn’t rejecting (排斥) the organ. They are still monitoring his condition closely.
“I think it’s extremely exciting,” says Robert Montgomery. The result of the procedure was also personally meaningful for Montgomery, who received a heart transplant in 2018 due to a genetic disease that may also affect members of his family in the future. “It’s still in the early days, but still the heart seems to be functioning. And that in and of itself is an extraordinary thing. Up to now most experimental heart transplant procedures have been done between pigs and other animals. This is the first time that surgeons have taken it into a living human.”
1. What do the words “a shot in the dark” underlined in Paragraph 3 mean?| A．Something that costs a fortune. |
| B．Something impossible to succeed. |
| C．Something drawing public attention. |
| D．Something with an uncertain outcome. |
| A．Bennett can’t afford an artificial heart pump. |
| B．At first, Bennett would rather die than do this transplant. |
| C．Bennett was the first human to successfully receive a pig’s heart. |
| D．Montgomery was the first person who received a heart transplant in the world. |
| A．The heated debate over the pig heart transplant. |
| B．David Bennett’s contribution to medical research. |
| C．The first experimental pig heart transplant in the world. |
| D．The first successful pig heart transplant into a living human. |
| A．illegal | B．unclear. | C．optimistic. | D．pessimistic |
6 . Whether you are looking for an exciting way to spend weekend nights or a new hobby that would help your teen live healthily, LKA Teen Nights are a perfect solution.
Our Montessori-inspired environment empowers students to focus on what interests them most be it exploring cooking art, learning new skills, or making meaningful connections. In Teen Nights, students are motivated to promote their knowledge about nutrition, eating locally and organically, and the impact of their food choices on their minds, bodies, and the environment.
Curriculum(课程)During the sessions, our professional instructors cover diverse topics about food and nutrition that are essential for teenagers to sustain a healthy lifestyle. The curriculum mainly includes developing a moderate portion and preparing meals for various categories such as athletes, picky eaters, and people with eating disorder.
·We challenge our teens by making creative recipes with limited tools, or missing ingredients.
·Our recipes will involve trying a popular dish from a local restaurant and improving it.
·We will ask our teens to look up the price for the ingredients we are using to calculate the cost of our meals.
At the end of every session, we gather around the community table made from recycled chopsticks, where we enjoy the delicious meal teens worked so hard to create.
Targeted GroupsTeen Nights are suitable for all learning styles from traditional schooling to alternative education for exceptional learners.
Opening TimeOur LKA Teen Nights run every Friday & Saturday night from 7:30 pm to 10 pm.
View information on the location-specific page for details on the enrollment.
1. Who is the text intended for?| A．Teenagers. | B．Parents. | C．Chefs. | D．Instructors. |
| A．Improving athletic skills. | B．Raising healthy eating awareness. |
| C．Solving environmental problems. | D．Strengthening family connections. |
| A．It encourages creative cooking. | B．It promotes community service. |
| C．It focuses on home-made dishes. | D．It recommends recycled materials. |
7 . The message is drummed into us from childhood: forgive people who’ve wronged you, because it’s the right thing to do. Forgiveness is a virtue, we’re told, the only way for us to truly move on and heal. But forgiving someone is not always what’s best for us. In fact, if someone has hurt you deeply and the relationship isn’t healthy, trying to “fix” things can do more harm than good.
Most of us would probably agree that forgiving a wrongdoer means letting go of negative feelings like anger towards them. Actually it pressures us to minimize our feelings and revise our boundaries — to say “it’s OK” when for us, it isn’t. And when someone doesn’t make us feel seen or safe, forgiving them can actually weaken our self-respect. A 2010 research paper published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology called this “the doormat effect”. It found that people who forgave partners that didn’t make them feel valued had less respect for themselves, along with a weakened sense of self.
If you keep on forgiving someone who’s done wrong, it can encourage that person to keep hurting you. That’s what 2011 research by psychology professor James K McNulty argues. He looked at how 72 newlywed couples expressed forgiveness towards acts of aggression (攻击性), and whether this caused any changes in the wrongdoer’s behaviour. He found that when a partner was more likely to forgive those acts, the aggressor was more likely to keep committing them. This is because facing the consequences of their actions is what motivates people to change their ways, and being offered a clean sheet can allow them to avoid making changes. Forgiving frequent and major offenses (冒犯), like verbal or physical abuse, can do more harm than good.
What if, instead of looking to forgiveness like a magic medicine, we put our energies towards accepting a situation for what it is? This way, we can focus on recognizing what happened and coming to terms with it, however that looks for us and without any sense of obligation towards our offender. It’ll still be a process, sure, but it’s one centred around you and your needs.
1. What will happen if we forgive a wrongdoer according to “the doormat effect”?| A．We’ll be free from negative thoughts. |
| B．The relationship will be strengthened. |
| C．The wrongdoer will change his behavior. |
| D．We’ll have less self-respect and self-awareness. |
| A．By making comparisons. | B．By listing examples. |
| C．By citing research results. | D．By giving definitions. |
| A．Forgiving a wrongdoer’s behavior stops him from hurting others. |
| B．Facing the consequences of aggression does more harm than good. |
| C．Ignoring major offenses encourages a wrongdoer’s acts of aggression. |
| D．Forgiving frequent aggression prevents a wrongdoer from making changes. |
| A．Forgive and forget. | B．Learn to take the situation as it is. |
| C．Center on yourself. | D．Keep on good terms with offenders. |
8 . My biggest regret of 2023 was the relationship to my smartphone. I spent the equal of January, February and March looking at that tiny screen. While some of that time was necessary for work, or staying connected with family, I became glued to it. This habit started to make me feel uneasy.
So, in December, I made a big change. I swapped my expensive iPhone for a basic flip phone (翻盖手机), which only cost $108. This decision was met with disbelief, especially from my seven-year-old daughter who couldn’t understand why I chose such a device. However, I was determined to reduce my screen time and take back control of my life.
Making the switch was neither easy nor fast. I had to adjust to its limited functions and learn to live without the convenience of having everything at my fingertips. There were moments when I felt frustrated, like when I couldn’t use a smartphone app to charge my electric car or navigate without Google Maps. Despite these challenges, I survived, and even progressed during the month.
It was a relief to disconnect my brain from the internet regularly and for hours at a time. I read four books. I even did a magic jigsaw puzzle. After two weeks, I noticed I’d lost my thumb twitch — physical desire to check my phone in the morning, at red lights, waiting for an elevator or at any other moment when my mind had a brief opportunity to wander.
“Our health is struggling against many of these services and companies that are competing for our time and our energy and our attention,” said Matthew Buman, a professor of movement sciences at Arizona State University. I told him about my own strategy — the flip phone. He said it probably made my mind feel more free and feel as if I had more time (both true), but that in our society, it’s hard to maintain that in the long term.
1. What made the author change her relationship with her smartphone?| A．Her intention to work harder. | B．Her desire to contact her family. |
| C．Her decision to try something new. | D．Her guilt about overuse of the phone. |
| A．Proud of the wise choice. | B．Astonished at the low price. |
| C．Confused by the unexpected switch. | D．Delighted at the new device. |
| A．Efficiency in navigating. | B．Control over her life. |
| C．Convenience to charge her car. | D．Desire to check her phone. |
| A．The author might find it hard to disconnect from the internet. |
| B．The author’s health might suffer due to the lack of connectivity. |
| C．The author might miss the convenience of having a smartphone. |
| D．The author might struggle to adapt to the limited functions of a flip phone. |
9 . It is now possible to generate fake but realistic content with little more than the click of a mouse. This can be fun: a TikTok account on which an artificial Tom Cruise wearing a purple robe sings Tiny Dancer of Paris Hilton holding a toy dog has attracted 5.1 million followers. However, this technology also causes challenges. Cheaters can copy loved ones’ voices with just ten seconds, and AI-generated celebrities advertise questionable products online. Fake videos of politicians are also spreading rapidly.
The fundamental problem is an old one. From the printing press to the internet, new technologies have often made it easier to spread untruths or pretend to be the trustworthy. While humans have traditionally relied on shortcuts to detect fakes, such as spelling mistakes or strangely rendered (渲染的) hands in AI-generated images, these signs are becoming less reliable as AI continues to improve. The arms race between generating and detecting fakes currently favors the former, and it seems that eventually, AI models will be able to produce perfect fakes.
This rapid advancement in AI technology raises serious concerns. For example, it could lead to a world where any photograph of a person can be used for blackmail (敲诈). Additionally, anyone could create a video of a political leader announcing a nuclear first strike, causing widespread panic.
Despite these awful possibilities, societies will adapt to the rise of fake content. People will learn to distrust images, audio, or video as proof of events, similar to how they view drawings. Instead, the focus will shift to identifying the source of content, with reliable sources becoming increasingly important.
It may sound strange, but this was true for most of history. While AI technology presents significant challenges, it is not the end of the marketplace of ideas. Over time, the fakes that rise will mostly be the funny ones.
1. What is the main concern over the ability of AI to generate realistic fake content?| A．It makes people pretend to be someone else. |
| B．It enables cheaters to promote fake products online. |
| C．It causes arms race between generating and detecting fakes. |
| D．It makes it difficult to distinguish the real content from the fake. |
| A．Its source. | B．Its visual quality. | C．Its popularity. | D．Its emotional impact. |
| A．Funny fakes will be the only one that rise in the future. |
| B．The rise of fakes content will not destroy the exchange of ideas. |
| C．People will find it necessary to distinguish AI-made content from reality. |
| D．People will no longer trust any form of media owing to the flood of fakes. |
| A．Fun and Fear of Videos: AI is Changing Our World |
| B．AI-Generated Fakes: A Challenge to Truth and Trust |
| C．From Laughs to Lies: The Impact of AI-Created Videos |
| D．Dawn for Digital Art: Welcoming the Era of AI-Made Content |
10 . In recent years, aggression on social media have become commonplace. More than half of the victims said they didn’t know the identity of the perpetrator (作恶者). Most people agreed that the anonymity (匿名) of the Internet provides cover for nasty and harassing (骚扰) behavior.
Does this growing aggression on social media give us a glimpse of our real human nature? Are we-at our core-aggressive beasts? It’s true that hate crimes are on the rise, and political divisions app ear to be growing. The level of public bitterness-especially online-is substantial. But I don’t believe that’s because social media has unlocked our cruel human nature.
As an evolutionary anthropologist, I have spent years researching our transformation as a species. Over the past two million years, we have evolved from groups of apelike beings armed with sticks and stones to the creators of cars, rockets, and nations. Our bigger brains have allowed us to bond and cooperate in more complex and diverse ways than any other animal. Meanwhile, “you are whom you meet.” How we perceive, experience, and act in the world is shaped by who and what surround us on a daily basis. This process has deep evolutionary roots and gives humans what we call a shared reality.
I would argue that the rise in online aggression is a product of our evolutionary social skills, the social media boom, and the specific political, economic and social context where we find ourselves. This explosive combination has opened up a space for increasingly more people to fan the flames of aggression and insult online. Aggressive behavior-especially to those you don’t have to confront face-to-face-is easier than it’s ever been. And for the aggressor, there are often no consequences.
Yes, it seems that the world is getting more aggressive, but that’s not because we are more aggressive at our core. It’s because we haven’t been standing up against bullying, abuse, and aggressive harassment, and promoting pro-social attitudes and actions our contemporary world demands. In person and on social media, we must do both.
1. What does the underlined word “that” in paragraph two refer to?| A．Hate crimes on the rise. | B．Growing political divisions. |
| C．Considerable online bitterness. | D．The transformation of humans. |
| A．Critical. | B．Objective. | C．Approving. | D．Ironic. |
| A．Embracing our aggressive nature to compete in today’s world. |
| B．Strengthening laws to hold perpetrators responsible for their online actions. |
| C．Promoting positive behaviors and interactions in both real-life and digital spaces. |
| D．Focusing only on reducing anonymity on the internet to reduce offensive behavior. |
| A．The impact of social media on society. |
| B．The influence of evolution on our behavior. |
| C．The reasons behind rising online aggression. |
| D．The factors in the social media development. |
