1 . In 2016, Mark Raymond learned the hard way that life can change in a split second(一瞬间). One day, Raymond went boating with his friends. He jumped off the back of the boat and hit a sandbank, leading to a severe injury to his neck. He became paralyzed(瘫痪的)and spent months in the hospital receiving treatment. When he was allowed to leave the hospital, he realized that the hard part was just beginning. He still needed to exercise to recover his strength after finishing the outpatient(门诊病人)treatment.
However, when Raymond returned home, he realized there was a serious lack of accessible gyms or facilities that could help people with different abilities work out and improve their health in his community. The lack of them caused Raymond to take action. In 2018, he established the Split Second Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides treatment that takes up from where outpatient treatment left off.
“The Split Second Foundation has equipment for people who have different disabling conditions,” Raymond explained.“Our specially trained staff will evaluate(评估)disabled customers’ physical needs and limitations and then provide recovery, education, and ongoing fitness classes suitable for them. We’re able to push them in a recovery driven fitness environment to be their best selves.”
Raymond’s goal is to open more accessible gyms, not just in New Orleans where he lives. He hopes the Split Second Foundation can help even more people get their lives back after disastrous accidents. “People with disabilities should also be thought of as productive members of society,” said Raymond. “Anybody’s life can change in an instant due to some kind of injury or disabling condition, and we are providing what’s next.”
When Raymond couldn’t find the services he needed, he made some for himself and others. This is the sort of cleverness we love to see in the world.
1. What does the underlined part “the hard part” in Paragraph 1 refer to?| A．The mental problem. | B．The process of recovery. |
| C．The high pressure of work. | D．The treatment in the hospital. |
| A．His love for a variety of sports. |
| B．His dream of becoming a businessman. |
| C．A boating accident that happened to his friend. |
| D．A lack of accessible exercise resources in his community. |
| A．It provides treatment by cooperating with hospitals. |
| B．It focuses on holding basic classes for poor children. |
| C．It offers fitness and recovery services to the disabled. |
| D．It creates plenty of job opportunities for disabled people. |
| A．Mark Raymond’s Journey from Paralysis to Recovery |
| B．Mark Raymond: Help the Disabled Rebuild Their Lives |
| C．The Importance of Accessible Gyms for Disabled People |
| D．Split Second Foundation: Offer Patients Postoperative Treatment |
2 . Nick Rose-Stamey is a lot like Jack Black’s character in School of Rock- a guitarist who discovers a passion for making music accessible to children. Working in the nonprofit arts education sector over the last 10 years raised his awareness of the lack of music programs in public schools, and later inspired his nonprofit, Band in a Bus. “The original idea was to take an old school bus and turn it into the best band class on wheels,” he says.
In fact, activities of Band in a Bus don’t actually happen on a bus. It provides instruments, courses, and staffing to students. Kids 18 and under can also participate in enriching summer programs through Band in a Bus, such as Bucket Brigade, five weekly classes where grades K-4 learn rhythm (节奏) and STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, mathematics) principles through contemporary music. There are also teen bands for grades 7-12 where kids learn to play pop music and develop social and team work skills.
When schools went virtual during the COVID-19 period, Rose-Stamey thought it was a shame that instruments were left sitting on shelves instead of in the hands of kids. So he created and distributed more than 1,000 “Band in a Box” DIY kits. Each kit contains small noise makers like kazoos, drumsticks, and shakers, with the intention of introducing a modernized music class experience that meets kids where they are.
“It is reported that if a kid has 30 minutes of a performing arts or creative elective every singleday, then that’ll help them develop their social, emotional and leadership skills, because there’s a lot of team work when it comes to making music. You have to learn how to work well with others,” Rose-Stamey says.
In the last year, Band in a Bus has worked directly with more than 500 students. “Music is a win-win for everybody,” Rose-Stamey says. “I just hope that someday we can stop making it the first kid out in the dodge ball (躲避球) game.”
1. What motivated Rose-Stamey to establish Band in a Bus?| A．The movie School of Rock. | B．The band classes in public schools. |
| C．His music learning experiences. | D．Insufficient music education. |
| A．They mainly focus on pop music. | B．They are usually organized on a bus. |
| C．They encourage team-building activities. | D．They combine music with other subjects. |
| A．To promote noise making instrumental kits. |
| B．To help students gain access to music at home. |
| C．To lift students’ mood during the COVID-19 period. |
| D．To enable students to take creative electives every day. |
| A．We should treat every student equally. |
| B．We should give music enough importance. |
| C．We should reconsider the rules of the dodge ball game. |
| D．We should encourage fair competition in various activities. |
3 . 听下面一段较长对话，回答以下小题。
1. Which family holiday does the man recommend?| A．The one on the 18th. | B．The one on the 19th. | C．The one on the 20th. |
| A．France. | B．Spain. | C．Greece. |
| A．It is a five-star hotel. | B．It has its own beach. | C．It has a swimming pool. |
4 . The Music Educator Award, this year, went to Annie Ray, an orchestra(管弦乐队)director at Annandale High School.She was recognized for her efforts to make music accessible to all students, particularly those with disabilities.Ray got to attend the awards ceremony in Los Angeles and bring home a $10,000 prize.
Ray created the Crescendo Orchestra for students with severe intellectual and developmental disabilities, as well as a parent orchestra that teaches nearly 200 caregivers a year to play the same instrument as their child.Ray also works with a local charity to give damaged instruments a second life in her classroom.
The orchestra is about much more than just making music.The most important is to give students a chance to develop their cooperation skills, make mistakes and learn the art of refining something.Ray pushes her students to be brave, go outside their comfort zone and realize they have to learn how to make bad sounds before learning how to make good sounds.And they teach her a lot in return.” They changed my educational philosophy.I understand what it truly means to meet a student where they’re at and apply that elsewhere,” she said.
The warm reception on the ceremony was meaningful.Actually, not many people understand what exactly music educators do or how much their work matters.While her administration is supportive, that lack of understanding is a problem facing the profession in general.Another is resources.She says her school “desperately” needs new instruments.She will use some of her prize money to buy more.
Ray also plans to put some of the money towards an ongoing scholarship for students who want to pursue music when they graduate.She knows of several, those particularly interested in music, and aims to offer financial support needed to realize their musical dreams” It is hard but truly satisfying,” Ray said.“And there’s nothing else like it for them.”
1. What can we learn about Ray from the first two paragraphs?| A．She hosted the award ceremony. | B．She brought music to more people. |
| C．She gave away instruments to the poor. | D．She founded a local charity for children. |
| A．They acquire in-depth musical knowledge. | B．They make friends with the like-minded. |
| C．They gain personal growth from playing music. | D．They improve their connections with educators. |
| A．The reception on the ceremony. | B．Importance of music education. |
| C．Challenges for music educators. | D．Plans to obtain resources. |
| A．Winning a scholarship. | B．Developing interest in music. |
| C．Making musical achievements. | D．Transforming dreams into reality. |
5 . Dallas-based Knit Wits is made up of a group of grandmothers with a strong love for knitting (编织) who tum their love for crafting into a purposeful attempt. Meeting regularly, they pour their collective love into every stitch (针法) they make. The group has been working for over ten years, meeting every Friday, to support organizations that help others, locally and around the world. Over the years, they’ve crafted thousands of items insupport of the important things.
Recently the Knit Wits member Mary Ann Stover was inspired to have the group knit hats for infant (婴儿) patients with heart disease at Children’s Health Hospital. The hats, each a unique work of art, designed with holiday themes, reflect the skill of the Knit Wits. More importantly, the special of Knit Wits is its understanding of the emotional effect these small objects can have on the infants experiencing medical treatments.
Bealle, a certified child life specialist at Children’s Health Hospital, explained how the hats are making a difference to the tiny patients and their families. “Caregivers are able to wear the hats on their body to move their smells before placing the hats back on the infants, encouraging connecting and making the infants less stressful,” he said.
Throughout the infants’ admission, many holidays are celebrated. At times, some infants are seriously ill and unable to dress up for holiday photos the families have planned. Thanks to the donations from Knit Wits, the hospital team is able to prove the family with a suitable themed infant hat the family can use for their photos and holiday celebrations.
1. What do we know about the hats from paragraph 2?| A．They centre on spiritual comfort. |
| B．They have holiday food subjects. |
| C．They are knitted by the caregivers |
| D．They are worn on child parents’ birthdays. |
| A．To hold an artistic activity. |
| B．To see off the recovered patients. |
| C．To relax the infants for treatments |
| D．To welcome the arrival of various holidays. |
| A．Why some holiday celebrations are held. |
| B．What the hats can be used as on holidays. |
| C．Why some special photos are important. |
| D．What the hats can be matched with. |
| A．Unsuccessful | B．Impractical. | C．Warm-hearted | D．Dishonest. |
6 . Mary Shelley bends over her latest creation. Although the carving is only half complete, the image of a waitress holding a plate of eggs comes out from the board. Of Shelley’s nearly seven hundred carvings, many show scenes with cows on farms and people in restaurants.
From memories to carvings
“My work is a visual diary, ” Shelley says. “The carvings describe things I have experienced and felt at different times in my life.”
Every one of her carvings tells a story. Many of the stories in Shelley’s woodcarvings come from memories of her childhood in a rural (乡村的) area outside of Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Shelley’s family managed a small farm. Mary was a serious girl who spent a lot of time raising animals, exploring outdoors, and reading. Although Shelley never felt especially artistic as a child, there was always an art project in the works in the Shelley household. Her grandmother painted. Her father was a commercial artist, who drew and wrote to make a living.
______
Shelley attended Cornell University and hoped to become a writer, but an unusual present took her in another direction. At age 23, she received a gift her father had made-a woodcarving of her as a girl on the farm. The gift caught her interest. After gathering boards from a building site where she worked as a carpenter, Shelley bought some tools and taught herself to carve.
Shelley soon realized that she loved the slow, thoughtful process of working with wood and painting. “A carving is like a jigsaw puzzle (拼图游戏),” she explains. “I didn’t know how it would all fit together, but the process of solving the puzzle kept me going.”
The Shelley style
Early in her career, people hired Shelley to carve special pieces that took four or five weeks to complete. The money she received motivated her to try more complicated scenes created by carving deeper in the wood. Over time, Shelley’s art began to have its own style. In a typical Shelley woodcarving, some objects seem to reach out of the frame while others drop back, creating a feeling of depth.
1. What can we infer from the “From memories to carvings” part?| A．Art is from but beyond life. | B．Life is short and art is long. |
| C．It is great art to laugh at your own misfortune. | D．Knowledge without practice makes but half an artist |
| A．Life in School | B．A Dream Come True |
| C．A Life-Changing Gift | D．Jigsaw Puzzles and Carving |
| A．The dream to be an artist in her childhood. | B．Her father’s low-relief carving for her. |
| C．The rugs hooked by her grandmother. | D．Her school life in Cornell University. |
| A．is very popular | B．is very expensive |
| C．has simple scenes | D．creates a feeling of depth |
7 . A working semiconductor (半导体) has been created from graphene(石墨烯), potentially laying the foundation for a new type of computer with greater speed and efficiency than today’s silicon chips(硅基芯片) allow.
Graphene, a material made from a single layer of carbon atoms, is a good electrical conductor resistant to heat and acids. But a working graphene semiconductor which can be controlled to conduct or separate electricity at will, has evaded scientists. Such semiconductors are key to creating the logic chips that power computers.
The problem has been the lack of what is known as a bandgap. Semiconductors have bands of higher and lower energies and a point—the bandgap—at which excited electrons can jump from one to the other. This effectively allows the flow of current to be switched on and off, so it is either conducting or not conducting, creating the binary system of zeroes and ones used in digital computers.
Now, Walter de Heer at the Georgia Institute of Technology and his colleagues have created graphene with a bandgap and demonstrated a working transistor, an on/off switch that either prevents or allows current to flow through it. De Heer said the electrical properties of a graphene semiconductor were far better than those of silicon chips. “It’s like driving on a rocky road versus driving on a freeway,” he said.
Silicon chips are cheap to make and backed by extensive production facilities, but we are reaching their limits. Moore’s law states the number of transistors in a circuit will double roughly every two years, but the rate of downsizing has slowed recently as engineers reach circuit concentration beyond which electrons can’t be reliably controlled.
“You can use all the technology the whole semiconductor industry is totally comfortable with to scale up this process,” says David Carey at the University of Surrey, UK. But he suspects the world will soon shift to graphene chips, because silicon has such a head start. “Most people working on silicon are bombed daily by new, wonderful materials that are about to replace it and none of it’s ever happened,” he says.
1. What does the underlined word “evaded” probably mean in paragraph 2?| A．Surprised. | B．Attracted. | C．Annoyed. | D．Puzzled. |
| A．It excites the jump of electrons. | B．It creates the system of zero s and ones. |
| C．It balances the higher and lower energies. | D．It allows the on and off of the current flow. |
| A．Superior electrical characteristics. | B．Stronger production support. |
| C．Lower development cost. | D．Slower downsizing rate. |
| A．Uncaring. | B．Favorable. | C．Doubtful. | D．Disapproving. |
8 . London Theatre Shows
Alice In Wonderland
Each ticket to the show includes free entry to Kew Gardens., Alice in Wonderland is playing at the Kew Gardens from 22 July to 28 August 2023.
Running time: 1 hour 10 minutes with no interval (幕间休息)
Performance days
Matinees (日场): Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday
Important information: Children under 2 years old go free.
Back To The Future: The Musical
It is based on the iconic Back ta the Future films. Back to the Future: The Musical tickets at the Adelphi Theatre, London are available to book for performances up to 11 February 2024.
Age restrictions: Suitable for general audience aged 6+. Children under 3 will not be admitted.
Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes (including interval)
Performance days
Evenings; Monday, Wednesday. Thursday. Friday, Saturday, Sunday
Matinees: Thursday, Saturday, Sunday.
Blippi: The Wonderful World Tour
This show sees Blippi in the ultimate curiosity adventure. Dance, sing, and learn with Blippi as he discovers what makes different cities unique and special. Blippi: The Wonderful World Tour runs at Rose Theatre, Kingston from 29 August to 9 September 2023.
Age restrictions: Recommended for ages 2+.
Running time: 1 hour (no interval)
Performance days
Matinees: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday
Dinosaur World Live
Join our brave explorers across unchartered territories to discover a pre-historic world of remarkably life-like dinosaurs. Dinosaur World Live runs from 11 August to 3 September 2023 at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, London.
Age restrictions: 3+
Running time: 50 mins + a 15-minute post show
Performance days
Matinees: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday
1. What do we know about Back to the Future: The Musical?| A．It has no performances on Tuesdays, |
| B．Booking starts on 11 February 2024. |
| C．Children under 3 years old can go free. |
| D．It lasts 2 hours 40 minutes without intervals. |
| A．Kew Gardens. |
| B．Adelphi Theatre. |
| C．Rose Theatre, Kingston. |
| D．Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre. |
| A．Alice In Wonderland |
| B．Dinosaur World Live |
| C．Back To The Future: The Musical |
| D．Blippi: The Wonderful World Tour |
9 . Science fiction has long entertained the idea of artificial intelligence becoming conscious (有意识的). Many researchers say that AI systems aren’t yet at the point of consciousness, but the pace of AI evolution (发展) has got them considering: how would we know if they were?
To answer this, a group of 19 neuroscientists (神经系统科学家), philosophers and computer scientists have come up with a checklist of standards that, if met, would indicate whether a system has a high chance of being conscious. The authors made the effort because “it seemed like there was a real lack of detailed, thoughtful discussion of AI consciousness,” says co-author Robert Long, a philosopher at the Center for AI Safety.
The team says that a failure to identify whether an AI system has become conscious has important moral implications. If something has been labelled “conscious”, according to co-author Megan Peters, a neuroscientist at the University of California, “that changes a lot about how we as human beings feel that entity (独立存在的个体) should be treated”. Long adds that, as far as he can tell, not enough effort has been made by the companies building advanced AI systems to evaluate the models for consciousness and make plans for what to do if that happens.
One of the challenges in studying consciousness in AI is defining what it means to be conscious. Peters says that for the report, the researchers focused on “phenomenal consciousness”.
Many neuroscience-based theories describe the biological basis of consciousness. But there is no agreement on which is the right one. To create their framework, the authors therefore used a range of these theories. The idea is that if an AI system functions in a way that matches aspects of many of these theories, then there is a greater likelihood that it is conscious.
They argue that this is a better approach to assessing consciousness than simply putting a system through a behavioural test — say, asking ChatGPT whether it is conscious, or challenging it and seeing how it responds. That’s because AI systems have become remarkably good at mimicking (模仿) humans.
1. What does Robert Long say about present research on AI consciousness?| A．It is far from enough. |
| B．It is progressing rapidly. |
| C．It has shown promising insights into it. |
| D．It has learnt a lot from previous research. |
| A．Their final applications. |
| B．How humans treat them. |
| C．Their moral responsibilities. |
| D．How humans make future; plans. |
| A．Providing a definition of it. |
| B．Uncovering the reason behind it. |
| C．Measuring AI’s ability to mimic humans. |
| D．Comparing AI consciousness and human consciousness. |
| A．By observing its responses to digital signals and online questions. |
| B．By checking its understanding of some neuroscience-based theories. |
| C．By comparing its functional patterns with neuroscience-based theories. |
| D．By conducting experiments and tests to measure its level of self-awareness. |
10 . The Most Beautiful Train Stations in the World
Tokyo Station Marunouchi Building
The wide-open entrance square on the Marunouchi side of Tokyo’s main train station would look more at home in Amsterdam or Paris. Kingo Tatsuno’s classical European design took over six years to complete, finally opening in 1914. The statin has received several facelifts since the Second World War, most recently in 2012. It’s one of the biggest and busiest train stations in the world.
Beijing West Railway Station
The idea of building this station in the capital of China was put forward as early as 1959 but didn’t come to reality until 1996. It was the largest station in Asia at the time, although Shanghai’s Hongqiao Station has since surpassed it. The station itself has a unique architectural (建筑的) style, with the main body of the building having quite a functional Russian look, but the rooftop is decorated with three amazing Chinese pagodas.
Duoliang Station, Taiwan
This is the smallest station on this lit by a distance. In fact we’re not really choosing Duoliang for architectural reasons. This station is all about location, location, location. Surrounded by hi top greenery on one side and amazing Pacific Ocean scenery on the other, it’s one of the most scenic spots in all of Taiwan. This isn’t even a working station anymore, but the platforms have been adapted into viewing spots, extremely popular with local train spotters.
Stazione Milano Centrale in Milan
Milan’s central train station looks pretty much exactly as you’d imagine it. There are a mix of styles at play here, from Art Nouveau to Art Deco, but the entire building is filled with a classic sense of Roman monumentality. The outer look is guarded by two statues, while its insides are equally impressive, as grand stonewalls curve (弯曲) into the station’s glass ceilings.
1. What do Tokyo Station and Beijing West Railway Station have in common?| A．Both have European features. |
| B．Both were built in the early 1990s. |
| C．Both have been rebuilt several times. |
| D．Both are the largest domestic stations. |
| A．Its distance. | B．Its small size. |
| C．Its surrounding scenery. | D．Its architectural style. |
| A．Roman buildings | B．Its various styles. |
| C．Statues on the walls | D．The curving ceilings. |
