1 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

The Impact of Visual Cues on Behavior

During the energy crisis in the 1970s, Dutch researchers began to pay close attention to the country’s energy usage. In one suburb near Amsterdam, they found that some homeowners used 30 percent less energy than their neighbors     1     the homes being of similar size and getting electricity for the same price.

It turned out that the houses in this neighborhood were nearly identical except for one feature: the location of the electrical meter. Some had one in the basement.     2     had the electrical meter upstairs in the main hallway.     3     you may guess, the homes with the meters located in the main hallway used less electricity. When their energy use was obvious and easy to track, people changed their behavior.

Every habit     4     (initiate) by a cue, and we are more likely to notice cues that stand out. Unfortunately, the environments where we live and work often make it easy not to do certain actions     5    there is no obvious cue to trigger the behavior. When the cues that spark a habit are subtle or hidden, they are easy     6     (ignore).

By comparison, creating obvious visual cues can draw your attention toward a    7     (desire) habit. I’ve experienced the power of obvious cues in my own life. I used to buy apples from the store, put them in the crisper (储藏格) in the bottom of the refrigerator, and forget all about them. By the time I remembered, the apples     8     (go) bad. I never saw them, so I never ate them.

Eventually, I took my own advice and redesigned my environment. I bought a large display bowl and placed it in the middle of the kitchen counter. The next time I bought apples, that was     9     they went. Almost like magic, I began eating a few apples each day simply because they were obvious,     10     (facilitate) the formation of a healthy eating habit rather than keeping them out of sight.

2 . 用所给词的适当形式填空

Good afternoon.The lunch time news today     1     (read) by John Howard.The Prime Minister has visited a primary school in Ipswich where she     2     (meet) by the children and their teachers.She opened a new sports centre that     3     (build) with money raised by the parents and teachers.Another ￡20，000     4     (need)to finish the swimming pool，so more money raising activities     5     (organize) for the summer months.Earlier today a group of teachers were in an accident when their coach     6     (hit) by a truck.The teachers     7     (help)by local people until ambulances(救护车) arrived.Most of the teachers     8     (allow) to go home immediately，but those with more serious injuries     9     (take) to Norwich Central Hospital later today.More details     10     (report) to you later this afternoon.

3 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Longjing tea,    1    (literal) meaning Dragon Well tea, is a variety of pan-roasted green tea that    2    (name) after its production region — Longjing Village of West Lake in Hangzhou, China. It is one of the most popular teas in China and is considered as “the Queen of Green Tea”. Nowadays, this tea is also known    3     (lower) blood pressure and help the body keep cholesterol (胆固醇) levels under control, thus    4    (reduce) the risk of heart attack.

Longjing tea has a history over 2000 years, but what makes it even more    5    (fame) is an emperor. A legend links the Qianlong Emperor to Longjing tea. It goes that during his visit     6    tea plantations in the area, he took an interest in the harvesting activities and even joined in. While picking the tea, he received word    7    his mother in Beijing was ill, and in a hurry to leave, he put the leaves he had picked into his sleeves (袖子). On his return, his mother smelled the leaves and asked for tea to be made from them. After drinking the tea, as the story goes, she made a full    8    (recover) and the emperor declared Longjing tea    9    cure for illness, increasing its popularity around the country. Afterwards, Longjing tea became better known as the head of all tea types in China and also    10    (title)as the “Gentleman of the Chinese Teas”.

4 . 阅读下面材料，在空白处填入 1个恰当的单词或者括号内单词的正确形式。

Lantern festivals add magic to     1     (celebrate) and their designs are deeply inspired by traditional culture. Shortly after organizing the lantern carnival in Hong Kong on Sept 24, Wan Songtao and his team hurried back to their hometown of Zigong in Sichuan province, where another grand lantern show was on the cards.

“The older I grow, the more     2     (attach) I become to lantern making” the 54 year old craftsman tells China Daily Early in     3     morning, Wan went to inspect work at Chinese Lantern World,     4     on Sept 27 was transformed into an ocean of light and color by massive lanterns in the shape of humans, flowers, animals and buildings, made to celebrate both the Mid Autumn Festival     5     the National Day.

“For this lantern fair, we derived inspiration from ancient Chinese poems,” Wan says, adding that Tianshang Gongque (the moon palace), a centerpiece as well as one of 21 core lantern installations ( 装 置) at the fair,     6     (inspire) by Su   Dongpo’s The Mid-Autumn Festival. The installation, which was composed of 19 palace style     7     (structure), stretched 270 meters and     8     (rise) high into the sky, drawing visitors’ eyes up to a “full moon”, a round LED screen showing Chang’e, goddess of the moon, flying toward her palace.

The eight-day holiday attracted over 210,000 visitors from around China to Zigong, a city which is     9     (remote) situated in the southwest of China but is home     10     one of the world’s best lantern shows.

5 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Buy Now, Pay Later Spending

Buy now, pay later(BNPL) spending is expected to rise to record levels this holiday season. With so many young “buy now, pay later” shoppers already in debt from this short-term financing tool not requiring interest, questions emerge: Why do these shoppers use such a tool? And what risks does it pose to their budgets in the months     1     (come)?

The many Generation Z and millennials (typically around 40 years and younger) tend to use this short-term financing,     2     allows them to buy items and pay for them over time. Offered mostly by financial technologies, BNPL allows these customers to pay back their purchases     3     interest and with the first payment usually made at checkout. The most common “buy now, pay later” plan is     4     customers make four equal payments and pay off the debt in six weeks. It’s been a lifeline for some people, such as a university student     5     weekly income is not big enough. “BNPL provides consumers with flexible payment options so they     6     manage spending,” said Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights. That is of great importance for many consumers, especially     7     with a tendency to purchase higher-cost items.

However, since BNPL     8     (appear), warnings from experts have come into our view. They have been indicating that it’s financially unhealthy to form such a spending habit. According to New York Federal Reserve economists, BNPL may encourage debt to increase over time,     9     (influence) a consumer’s ability to meet non-BNPL commitments, or users to over extend themselves. Users should also note that     10     interest is not charged on the loan, they’ll be hit with late fees for missed payments, which can add up quickly, says the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

6 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Bacteriophages (phages) and other mobile genetic elements (MGEs) exert an immense selective pressure on     1    (bacterium), which in response have developed a broad arsenal of defence mechanisms.     2     these, CRISPR–Cas (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats–CRISPR-associated proteins) is a group of widespread RNA-guided adaptive immune systems that are classified into two broad classes, six types and numerous subtypes according to their genetic composition and interference mechanism1. The CRISPR–Cas immune response starts with the    3    (acquire) of short DNA fragments (protospacers) from invading MGEs. The protospacers are inserted as spacers between repeats in the CRISPR array to create a memory of the infection. Next, the CRISPR array is expressed    4     a long transcript that is processed into small, mature CRISPR RNAs (crRNAs), each    5    (carry) a spacer sequence flanked by part of the repeat. Finally, the interference complexes, composed     6     a crRNA and one (class 2) or more (class 1) Cas proteins, degrade the complementary nucleic-acid targets that are often found next to a short protospacer-adjacent motif (PAM). The specificity and programmability of the CRISPR–Cas machinery     7    (lead) to the development of various biotechnological applications in genome editing, molecular diagnostics and more.

In the evolutionary arms race with CRISPR–Cas, phages and other MGEs have evolved diverse strategies to block or circumvent immunity. One widespread evasion mechanism uses protein-    8    (base) CRISPR–Cas inhibitors called anti-CRISPRs (Acrs). So far, more than 100 Acr protein families have been identified    9     inhibit different stages of the CRISPR–Cas immune response, mainly by interacting directly with Cas proteins. For example, Acrs prevent crRNA loading, effector-complex formation, and target DNA binding and cleavage. Notably, the discovery of these natural ‘off switches’ has presented new opportunities    10    (control) the activity of CRISPR–Cas technologies.

7 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Reconsidering the Staycation

I’ve always been doubtful of the staycation. The newly-invented word is too cute for     1     feels like a comfort: While other people are off exploring the Blue Lagoon by camper van, you get to stay in your very own home and go to your usual supermarket     2     cookies!

So, I am fascinated to discover, thanks to my colleague Catherine Pearson, that I     3     (understand) staycation in a wrong way. Evidently, my tendency     4     (take) a break without a plan is unlikely to produce a restorative effect. Instead, one should make good preparations for that period of time. Jaime Kurtz, a psychology professor at James Madison University and the author of “The Happy Traveler: Unpacking the Secrets of Better Vacations,” advises     5     (ask) oneself, “If I were moving away soon, what would I most want to do, and who would I most want to spend time with?”

I like this saying “Live every day as if it were your last.” Any reminder that time is flying is a good one     6     it gets you to live better. This weekend, you could, for instance, seek out some vegan ice cream     7     doesn’t taste terrible. You could try running in a pool, which is easier on the joints but as effective as running on land. You could go for a walk or a drive while listening to “Slow Radio,” a very comforting BBC podcast     8     (feature) sounds of the natural world.

Whether or not you have a proper vacation     9     (plan) for the coming weeks, you could envision any coming weekend as its own two-day mini-break, programming it as you would a trip to somewhere new, with a journey     10     (exciting) than just “sleep as much as possible” and “mow the lawn”.

8 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

I received an email from a reader who asked, “Why do some friendships end, no matter how much you want them to last?” She referred to     1     (see) the question in one of my articles, Mystery of Friendship. As I wrote in it, I don’t think easy answers exist as to how friendships start, why some turn into lifetime     2    , and why some end. Although I’ve tried answering the first two questions in other articles (To Have A Friend and Be A Friend), I still get surprised by friendships that endure and disillusioned by those that slip away. Even so, I’ll try to offer some insights here as to why friendships end.

My simple answer is that friendships end because the situations     3     friends are in or even the friends themselves change. First, the realities friends face may change. The decision to relocate     4     a new school or job cannot help but affect a friendship. Likewise, if a friend is in an accident, develops an illness, or loses someone close, these cannot help but affect a friendship. Does a friendship need to end because of these changes? No, but it’ll require adjustments that one or both friends     5     not be willing to make.

Second, the friends themselves may change. A significant reason why friendships often end     6    friends are apart for an     7     (extend) period of time (for summer camp, college, etc.) is that one or both of the friends change. I think it     8     (hurt) less when both friends change, because then the breakup is more often mutual and so both friends get closure by both deciding to let go and move forward in their lives without each other. What tends to hurt most is when just one friend changes. One friend might change social circles, become involved in new social organizations, start to date, get a pet, or take on some other venture that consumes more time and passion. Again, a friendship can endure these changes,     9     one or both of the friends for some reason decide not to invest the time and energy involved in the adjustment period. In this situation, breakups may not be mutual and so one or both friends feel betrayed and end up with bitter memories about     10     was a precious friendship to them.

9 . 语法填空

ChatGPT could be better than GPs (全科医生) at treating depression (抑郁症). It is not affected by class and gender (性别),     1     study has found. Researchers discovered that the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot did not distinguish (区别) between men and women or economic status when     2    (decide) how to treat patients with mild and severe depression.

The study     3    (publish) in the British Medical Journal. It compared the treatment plans prescribed (开处方) by 1,249 doctors. They were in France. They compared them with that of the AI bot. It was for patients with depressive symptoms. These include sadness, sleeping and     4    (lose) of appetite. It said there was “no significant difference” in the treatment     5     the AI system recommended. It did not prescribe     6    (different) for men and women or white collar (白领) and blue collar workers.

    7    , it said doctors prescribed “significantly less” antidepressants (抗抑郁药) to women than men. They “commonly” prescribed antidepressants without therapy (疗法) to blue collar workers and a “combination” of both     8     white collar workers. For those with mild depression, ChatGPT prescribed therapy to 97.5 percent of hypothetical (假定的) patients presented with mild depression. This was in line with clinical guidance     9    (compare) with 4.3 percent of the same patients that were referred by GPs. For those     10     severe depression, ChatGPT recommended therapy and a drug to every single patient. GPs did this in less than half of the cases (44.4 percent). They opted for drugs only for four in 10 people.

10 . 语篇填空

In one club in Beijing, for example, players enter into a fictional martial arts school     1     they wear costumes and assume roles like a peach fairy or a dragon. The script offers character backgrounds, relationships and potential storylines. The plot develops as the players go around the table, talking in character, taking clues from the script and the host. In the end, they vote on     2     they think the murderer might be.

The whodunits may be imaginary,     3     they provide a real-world alternative for young Chinese people who spend increasing amounts of time on their screens. The country’s one billion Internet users spend much of their time on their phones,     4     (cause) worries from the public and the government alike about too much screen time. The government’s concerns over children in particular     5     (lead) it to restrict video game time for minors recently.

The games also provide free-flowing opportunities for young people to get together, something     6     can be rare in China, according to Kecheng Fang, an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. The games provide “    7     participatory experience and a way of socializing, which is     8     (miss) from the life of many Chinese young people,” Dr. Fang said. They are     9     (lack) in participation in civic affairs, community     10     (engage) and meaningful socialization.