1 . We drove to the Needles district of Canyonlands National Park — a very remote, dry, mountainous place in Utah. I went there when I was about 10 years old, but I can only recall certain things: how cold it got that night as we slept in the tent, the small insects that covered the mountain beside us, and having to use the bathroom in an outhouse.
Huge rocks are hanging dangerously on the jagged (嶙峋的) mountainside, and you know they have to fall eventually. We stopped at Newspaper Rock, a National Historic Site where prehistoric people sketched drawings onto sandstone from B.C. time to A.D.1300. With only a short fence surrounding it, it seems unavoidable that modern-day people would feel the urge to carve their names into this precious historic landmark.
The sky is the bluest I think I’ve ever seen; it’s a beautiful backdrop to the orangey-red cliffs lining the horizon. And the silence — I’ve never experienced a quieter place. When I first got out of the truck at our campsite, I stood still and held my breath, and all I could hear was the ringing in my ears.
In my opinion, only at night can you witness the true beauty of the Canyonlands: the stars. Since the Needles district is an extremely dry place about 80 miles away from any major city’s lights, it offers the clearest view I’ve ever seen of the night sky. It is incredible how many stars you can see out there. I climbed on top of a nearby rock formation and lay on my back just soaking (沉浸) it all in. It was like looking through a window straight into the universe.
I wanted to sleep outside beneath the stars, but then the temperature dropped to 40 degree and I discovered massive ants crawling on the ground, so I quitted that. The next morning, I discovered a nearby camper passed out on the rock formation in a sleeping bag. How he managed to brave the temperatures and the ants, I have no idea.
1. What was the environment of Needles district like to the author as a kid?| A．Confusing. | B．Difficult. | C．Dull. | D．Adventurous. |
| A．It’s a combination of old and new. | B．It’s a piece of prehistoric artwork. |
| C．It’s currently in need of protection. | D．It’s been in existence for 1300 years. |
| A．He was too tired to move. | B．He lost his hearing temporarily. |
| C．He was extremely out of breath. | D．He wanted to feel nature closely. |
| A．To encourage people to travel there. | B．To compare childhood experience. |
| C．To describe his journey in wild nature. | D．To raise awareness of natural protection. |
2 . Bad news sells. If it bleeds, it leads. No news is good news, and good news is no news. Those are the classic rules for the evening broadcasts and the morning papers. But now that information is being spread and monitored in different ways, researchers are discovering new rules. By tracking people’s e-mails and online posts, scientists have found that good news can spread faster and farther than disasters and sob stories.
“The ‘if it bleeds’ rule works for mass media,” says Jonah Berger, a scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. “They want your eyeballs and don’t care how you're feeling. But when you share a story with your friends, you care a lot more how they react. You don’t want them to think of you as a Debbie Downer.”
Researchers analyzing word-of-mouth communication — e-mails, Web posts and reviews, face-to-face conversations — found that it tended to be more positive than negative, but that didn't necessarily mean people preferred positive news. Was positive news shared more often simply because people experienced more good things than bad things? To test for that possibility, Dr. Berger looked at how people spread a particular set of news stories: thousands of articles on The New York Times’ website. He and a Penn colleague analyzed the “most e-mailed” list for six months. One of his first findings was that articles in the science section were much more likely to make the list than non-science articles. He found that science amazed Times’ readers and made them want to share this positive feeling with others.
Readers also tended to share articles that were exciting or funny, or that inspired negative feelings like anger or anxiety, but not articles that left them merely sad. They needed to be aroused one way or the other, and they preferred good to bad. The more positive an article, the more likely it was to be shared, as Dr. Berger explains in his new book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On.
1. How does the author bring out the new rules of media?| A．By giving a definition. | B．By making a comparison. |
| C．By presenting an argument. | D．By introducing the background. |
| A．attentive to their own story making | B．eager for frequent eye contact |
| C．particular about their physical contact | D．careful about others’ response |
| A．A technological breakthrough. | B．A solution to poverty. |
| C．An individual’s life of unemployment. | D．A historical short story. |
| A．Sad Stories Actually Travel Far and Wide | B．Online News Attracts More People |
| C．Good News Beats Bad on Social Networks | D．Reading Habits Change with the Times |
3 . As with every World Cup, at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar the players will be using a new ball. The last thing competitors want is for the most important piece of equipment to behave in unexpected ways in the most important tournament of the world’s most popular sport, so a lot of work goes into making sure that every new World Cup ball feels familiar to players.
Between shots on goal, free kicks and long passes, many important moments of a soccer game happen when the ball is in the air. So one of the most important characteristics of a soccer ball is how it travels through air.
As a ball moves through air, a thin layer of mostly still air called the boundary layer (边界层)surrounds some part of the ball. At low speeds this boundary layer will only cover the front half of the ball before flowing air peels (划过) away from the surface. In this case, the wake of air behind the ball is somewhat regular and is called laminar flow. When a ball is moving quickly, though, the boundary layer wraps much farther around the ball. When the flow air does eventually separate from the ball’s surface, it does so in a series of chaotic swirls (不规则气旋). This process is called turbulent flow.
When calculating how much force moving air imparts on a moving object — called drag — physicists use a term called the drag coefficient (系数). For a given speed, the higher the drag coefficient is, the more drag an object feels.
It turns out that a soccer ball’s drag coefficient is approximately 2.5 times larger for laminar flow than for turbulent flow. Though it may seem counterintuitive, roughening a ball’s surface delays the separation of the boundary layer and keeps a ball in turbulent flow longer. This fact of physics that — rougher balls feel less drag — is the reason why dimpled (坑坑洼洼的) golf balls fly much farther than they would if the balls were smooth.
1. What can be inferred from the passage about footballs in the World Cup?| A．Unexpected ways of playing them will come into view. |
| B．They make sure of long passes to be performed by players. |
| C．They’ll be judged by their quality when kicked off in the air. |
| D．Their importance explains why the World Cup is famous globally. |
| A．Changes of the football surface. | B．A wide variety of airflows. |
| C．Formation of the boundary layers. | D．A broad range of football's speed. |
| A．the result seems unlikely at first sight | B．the prediction lacks explanation |
| C．the research requires further investigation | D．the method of study isn’t proper enough |
| A．To compare the speed of different golf balls. |
| B．To encourage more footballs to be made as such. |
| C．To apply the research result to explain another phenomenon. |
| D．To explain clearer the function of separating boundary layers. |
4 . There is increasing alarm about the extent of micro plastic pollution, which has been found everywhere from Everest to the Arctic. However, it turns out there’s an even smaller and more poisonous form of plastic pollution entering remote reaches of the globe. A new study published in Environmental Research found significant quantities of nanoplastics in ice samples from both the North and South Poles.
“Now we know that nanoplastics are transported to these comers of the Earth in these quantities. This indicates that nanoplastics are really a bigger pollution problem than we thought,” study lead author Dusan Materic said in a press release.
Nanoplastics are plastics that are smaller than a micrometer in size. Their small size means they are more difficult to study than microplastics, or plastics between five millimeters and a micrometer. But they maybe even more dangerous.
“Nanoplastics are very toxicologically active compared to, for instance, microplastics, and that’s why this is very important” Materic said.
Materic and his team used new methods to measure nanoplastic pollution in ice samples from Greenland and Antarctica. They sampled a 14-meter-deep ice core (核) from the Greenland icecap and sea ice from Antarcia’s McMurdo Sound. They found that there were an average of 13.2 nanograms per milliliter of nanoplastics in the Greenland ice and an average of 52.3 nanograms per milliliter in the Antarctic ice.
But what was even more surprising than the amount of nanoplastics in the remote ice was just how long they had sat there. “In the Greenland core, we see nanoplastic pollution happening all the way from the 1960s. So organisms, despite the lack of the solid evidence, likely all over the world, have been exposed to it for quite some time now,” Materic said.
The study also looked at the types of plastic present in the samples. Half of the Greenland nanoplastics were polyethylene (PE), the kind of plastic used for plastic bags and packaging. A quarter came from tires and a fifth were polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is, used for clothing and bottles.
1. Why should researchers focus more on nanoplastics?| A．They are more important to science. | B．They are smaller but more dangerous. |
| C．They are easily polluted by ocean water | D．They are more active in cold surroundings. |
| A．The Greenland core. | B．The Antarctic ice. |
| C．The amount of nanoplastics. | D．Nanoplastics pollution. |
| A．The North and South poles are the birthplace of nanoplastics. |
| B．Nanoplastics have less influence on the pa net than microplastics. |
| C．Nanoplastics found in the samples are widely used in the daily life. |
| D．Nanoplastics have been existing since the 1960s throughout the world. |
| A．Microplastics—proving more dangerous. |
| B．Nanoplastics—making its way to the poles. |
| C．Nanoplastics—posing a threat to people’s life. |
| D．Microplastics—setting the alarm bells ringing. |
5 . Wildlife populations around the world are facing dramatic declines, according to new figures that have led environmental campaigners to call for urgent action to rescue the natural world. The 2022 Living Planet Index(指数) (LPI), produced by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), reveals that studied populations of mammals, birds, reptiles (爬行动物) and fish have seen an average decline of 69 per cent since 1970, faster than previous predictions. The LPI tracked global biodiversity between 1970 and 2018, based on the monitoring of 31,821 populations of 5230 vertebrate (脊椎动物) species. Mark Wright of WWF says the degree of decline is destructive and continues to worsen. “We are not seeing any really positive signs that we are beginning to bend the curve of nature,” he says.
Freshwater vertebrates have been among the hardest-hit populations, with monitored populations showing an average decline of 83 per cent since 1970. The Amazon pink river dolphin, for example, has experienced a 65 per cent decline in its population between 1994 and 2016. Habitat loss and reduction is the largest driver of wildlife loss in all regions around the world.
In December, governments from around the world will gather in Montreal, Canada, for the COP15 Biodiversity Framework to agree on a set of new targets intended to prevent the loss of animals, plants and habitats globally by 2030. Robin, Freeman of ZSL, says “We need governments to take action to ensure that those goals deal with the complicated combined threats of climate change and biodiversity” says Freeman. But some researchers are critical of the LPI’s use of a headline figure of decline, warning it is easy to be misunderstood.
The findings don’t mean all species or populations worldwide are in decline. In fact, roughly half the populations show a stable or increasing trend, and half show a declining trend. “I think a more appropriate and useful way to look at it is to focus on specific species or populations,” says Hannah Ritchie. But Wright says the LPI is a useful tool that reflects the findings of other biodiversity indicators. “All of those show they all scream there is something going really very badly wrong,” says Wright.
1. What does the underlined phrase in the first paragraph mean?| A．Loving and protecting nature. | B．Preserving the diversity of nature. |
| C．Underestimating the benefits of nature. | D．Destroying and changing nature. |
| A．the number of Amazon dolphins is on the rise |
| B．some of the world’s wild animals are in decline |
| C．there are no positive measures to protect nature |
| D．freshwater vertebrates are at risk of extinction |
| A．It makes sense to focus on a particular species. |
| B．Preventing the loss of habitats by 2030 is certain to happen. |
| C．New agreement on the prevention of habitat loss will be in vain. |
| D．The Caribbean wildlife has been well protected in recent decades. |
| A．The COP15 Biodiversity Framework | B．Urgent Action to Save the Earth |
| C．Wildlife Population Declining Sharply | D．Correct Explanation of LPI |
6 . Compassion has not been a traditional characteristic of sport. With its UK roots in 19th-century British public schools and universities, modern sport developed as way of creating strong military leaders, training them to develop adaptability defined in those times by iron will and biting the bullet. Fear and harsh criticism were crucial to toughening up players and soldiers alike. The “tough guy” narrative was strengthened by 20th-century media stereotypes and Hollywood’s heroes and became rooted into sport and society.
I’ve heard countless stories like the popular culture I found when I joined the Olympic rowing team in the mid-1990s. We were expected to suffer after mistakes or losses to show that we truly cared, and everyone believed coaches needed to be severe and unforgiving to get results. These approaches still exist. But an alternative approach with compassion at its center addresses aims of performance and wellbeing for those with greater ambitions.
This isn’t some soft option which plays down hard work, as supporters of the earlier traditional sporting mindset might criticize. Research across branches of psychology — behavioral, sports, positive — shows how compassion creates the strongest foundation for adaptability and sustained performance under pressure whether in sport, the military, healthcare or business. Rather than activating our threat system which began to help us survive way back, compassion helps us to feel safe and protected, leaving us free to learn, connect with others and start exploring what we’re capable of.
The continuous need to improve performance has led top coaches to appreciate that high performance requires levels of support to match the level of challenge. When you provide that, players start thriving while striving to achieve more. Rooted in compassion, a different coach-athlete relationship thus develops.
The dictionary definition of compassion includes the recognition of another’s suffering and the desire and support to relieve it. Compassion has been shown to decrease fear of failure and increase the likelihood of trying again when failure does happen. But how many talented athletes experience that depth of support in moments of crisis and failure?
1. What does the underlined phrase “biting the bullet” in paragraph one mean?| A．Commitment. | B．Ambition. | C．Suffering. | D．Toughness. |
| A．To arouse people’s interest about rowing. |
| B．To recall a painful training experience. |
| C．To draw a distinction between training approaches. |
| D．To bring out a compassion-centered training approach. |
| A．Criticism about the compassion. | B．Necessity of employing compassion. |
| C．Characteristics about the compassion. | D．Fields that compassion is involved in. |
| A．The media is active in developing tough training style. |
| B．Extraordinary athletes rarely received enough support. |
| C．The compassion-centered training is widely used in sports. |
| D．Compassion means more openness to failure and less training. |
7 . It’s always exciting to receive a letter in the mail. Even today, when the world is digitally connected, receiving an actual letter in your mailbox from a distant land is a great way for children to make new friends.
The Peaceful Pen Pals Project is a beautiful project that blends together global connection and self-expression. The project is part of the nonprofit Kids for Peace, founded by Jill McManigal and Danielle Gram in California in 2006. It is open to all children, ages two through seventeen. To date, there are 1,500 children from 17 countries participating in the program according to the organization. Currently, all letters are written in English. When children sign up, they can select if they would rather be matched with a USA Peaceful Pen Pal or an international one.
Each child is then matched to a pen pal of similar age. This establishes a point of connection quickly for the children and facilitates (促进) a stronger bond. If the letter writers are in the same grade, they can chat about school, their teachers, and what they are studying. They can also compare what different states or countries learn about and how the atmosphere of the classroom are, whether socially or academically. Children may also be more likely to write about problems they are having if they feel like they are speaking to a peer in a similar situation. Although pen pals may live in different countries, they may find common ground. The writer lists their favorite activities to do outside, plus what they like best and least about school. This gives the writer an opportunity to express and receive advice or feedback (反馈) from the pen pal.
“Hearing first-hand stories from an international pen pal can encourage teens to take someone else’s viewpoint and to think outside of themselves,” writes Rebecca Fraser-Thill on Very Well Family. “Having a foreign pen pal can also encourage interest in geography, history and culture.”
1. What can we know about the Peaceful Pen Pals Project?| A．It helps strengthen links between kids. |
| B．It is aimed at improving children’s English. |
| C．It encourages children to help people in need. |
| D．It is created for teenagers to take online lessons. |
| A．The necessity of discussion in study. |
| B．The approaches to making new friends. |
| C．The purpose of the Peaceful Pen Pals Project. |
| D．The benefits of having friends of similar ages. |
| A．Careful. | B．Supportive. | C．Uninterested. | D．Disappointed. |
| A．Writing Enriches Kids’ Life | B．Friendship Teaches Kids a Lesson |
| C．The Pen Pal Project Connects Kids | D．Communication Skills Better the World |
8 . Parents often believe that they have a good relationship with their teenagers. But last summer, Joanna and Henry noticed a change in their older son. Suddenly he seemed to be talking far more to his friends than to his parents. “The door to his room is always shut,” Joanna noted.
Tina and Mark noticed similar changes in their 14-year-old daughter. “She used to cuddle up (依偎) against me on the sofa and talk,” said Mark. “Now we joke that she does this only when she wants something. Sometimes she wants to be treated like a little girl and sometimes like a young lady. The problem is understanding which time is which.”
Before age 11, children like to tell their parents what’s on their mind. “In fact, parents are first on the list,” said Michael Riera, author of Uncommon Sense for Parents with Teenagers. “This completely changes during the teen years,” Riera explained. “They talk to their friends first, then maybe their teachers, and their parents last.”
Parents who know what’s going on in their teenagers’ lives are in the best position to help them. To break down the wall of silence, parents should create chances to understand what their children want to say, and try to find ways to talk and write to them. And they must give their children a mental (思想的) break, for children also need freedom, though young. Another thing parents should remember is that to be a friend, not a manager, with their children is a better way to know them.
1. “The door to his room is always shut” suggests that the son ________.| A．keeps himself away from his parents | B．begins to dislike his parents |
| C．is always busy with his study | D．doesn’t want to be ignored |
| A．Their daughter isn’t as lovely as before. |
| B．They can’t read their daughter’s mind exactly. |
| C．They don’t know what to say to their daughter. |
| D．Their daughter talks with them only when she needs help. |
| A．Teenagers talk a lot with their friends. | B．Teenagers do not understand their parents. |
| C．Teenagers talk little about their own lives. | D．Teenagers do not talk much with their parents. |
| A．Parents shouldn’t be angry with teenagers. |
| B．Parents have to talk with children face to face. |
| C．Parents are unhappy with their growing children. |
| D．Parents should try to understand their teenagers. |
9 . Manchester City are the current champions of the English Premier League, and now they’re championing the cause of landfill waste by offering edible (可食用的) coffee and tea cups at their 55,000 seater Etihad Stadium. They played their first home match of the season, drumming Norwich City 5-0 while producing 0 pounds of disposable (一次性的) hot drinks cups--a disaster in a coffee loving country where a shocking 2.5 billion disposable cups are used every year.
“It is the first time that an ‘edible coffee cup’ has been introduced. This fantastic and innovative solution provides an amazing solution to waste, just eat your cup,“ reads a statement from the Etihad Stadium.
The cup is made by a Scottish startup called BioBite, and is essentially a 100-calorie biscuit in the shape of a cup．Made with wafer (薄脆饼) in much the same way as an ice cream cone，the cup will stay leak-proof for 12 hours, and even more amazingly, crunchy for one-half the duration of a “football” match. According to the company’s website, the cup is fully recyclable, but the taste of coffee-soaked cup is actually delicious.
There are several problems with making an edible coffee cup, however; and it’s why there still isn’t one today in the largest drinking chains.
Edible cups truly might be the best solution, provided firms like BioBite can bring the cost-per-unit down. 240 of their biscuit cups cost $111, about 14 cents more than what Starbucks pays for the cup, the plastic lid, and the wood stirrer.
Another limiting factor is that a wafer is not exactly the fuel of a healthy society. If there were a company that could make the wafers out of some kind of vegetable fiber, something many western diets are nutritionally short of, then you’re talking about a real revolution.
1. What is the purpose of writing the first paragraph?| A．To introduce the Manchester City. |
| B．To arouse the awareness of preserving the environment. |
| C．To put forward the subject of using edible cups. |
| D．To cover a football match of Manchester City. |
| A．The popularity of the cup. | B．The advantages of the cup. |
| C．The ways of using the cup. | D．The process of making the cup. |
| A．Western diets are short of nutrition. |
| B．Wafers are made from vegetable fibers. |
| C．The revolution for making cups is carried on. |
| D．Western eating habits need improving. |
| A．Stubborn. | B．Carefree. | C．Supportive. | D．Objective. |
10 . I lost my mom last month and it’s been really tough. I flew to my hometown to pay my respect and say goodbye.
After spending a few days with my family, it was time to head back. I boarded the plane to find a young man sitting in my seat. Usually it’s not a big deal to me, but I really wanted that window seat so I could just put on my headphones and sleep. He agreed politely when I asked him to move, all the while I was apologizing repeatedly.
After the doors were closed and we began to move to the runway, the emotions began to hit-something about leaving the place I grew up and knowing that my mom was no longer there just destroyed me. My vision became vague (模糊的) as my eyes filled with tears.
As I wiped them away, I felt a tap on my elbow. That same young man was checking on me. He asked me if I was OK and I said something like having to say goodbye to someone who I really loved. Without hesitation, he said he was there if I needed to talk. After all, we would have a three-hour flight sitting in the same row.
I told him that I wasn’t ready to talk, but that his words had made me feel better. I felt like I wasn’t alone on that plane traveling many miles across the country. Although I never took up his offer, I was touched that a stranger knew that I might need some-one at that moment. I was grateful that this guy was willing to give me all of his time.
It doesn’t take much to make someone feel that they are on this earth for a reason and that they do matter.
1. Why did the author make an apology to the young man?| A．She demanded he move to his own seat. |
| B．She had taken his seat by mistake. |
| C．She had blocked his sightseeing view. |
| D．She had disturbed his sound sleep. |
| A．Delighted. | B．Frightened. | C．Frustrated. | D．Relieved. |
| A．To have a medical treatment on her. |
| B．To chat with her during the flight. |
| C．To give her a tap on the elbow. |
| D．To change seats with her if necessary. |
| A．Leaving hometown is sorrowful. |
| B．Comfort from others is priceless. |
| C．Talk to strangers is delightful. |
| D．Little kindness can make a difference. |
