An organization has taken measures
Chopstick culture in Shanghai
After opening as a commercial port, Shanghai is proud of
At present, at least 1.8 billion people use chopsticks worldwide. Chopsticks, though small, serve as
2 . Social media is one of the fastest-growing industries in today’s world. A study conducted by the US think tank (智囊团) Pew Research Center showed that 92 percent of teenagers go online daily.
The wide spread of social media has changed nearly all parts of teenagers’ lives.
Changing relationshipsHigh school student Elly Cooper from Illinois said social media often reduces face-to-face communication.
“It makes in-person relationships harder because people give attention to their phones instead of their boyfriends or girlfriends,” Cooper said.
There’s also a greater possibility of things getting lost in translation over social media.
“If half of your relationship is over social media, you don’t really know how the other person is reacting,” Sienna Schulte, a junior student from Illinois, said.
Yet, some people believe social media has made it easier to start relationships with anyone from anywhere. Beth Kaplan from Illinois met her long-distance friend through social media. He currently lives in Scotland, but they’re still able to frequently communicate with one another.
“I can feel close to someone that I’m talking to via (通过) FaceTime,” Kaplan said.
Wanting to be “liked”The rise of social media has changed the way teenagers see themselves.
The 19-year-old Essena O’Neill announced on the social networking service Instagram that she was quitting social media because it made her obsessed (痴迷) with appearing perfect online.
Negative comments also can do great damage to a teenager’s self-esteem (自尊).
In particular, anonymous (匿名的) social media apps such as Yik Yak may provide opportunities for cyber bullying (网络欺凌).
The app allows users within 5 miles (8 km) to create and add comments to everything. Teenagers who get negative comments on these sites can’t help but feel hurt.
Opening new doorsHowever, Armin Korsos, a student from Illinois, takes advantage of the comments he receives over social media to improve his videos on the social networking site Youtube.
“Social media can help people show themselves and their talents to the world in a way that was never possible before,” Korsos said.
But Korsos recognizes that social media has become a distraction (让人分心的事). “Social media, though it helps people connect with their friends and stay updated, is not all necessary.”
1. What is the article mainly about?| A．The major problems with social media. | B．The effect of social media on teenagers. |
| C．How teenagers benefit from social media. | D．Why social media appeals so much to teenagers. |
| A．It pushes people to meet their friends more often offline. |
| B．It encourages people to pay more attention to those around them. |
| C．It enables users to understand accurately what others are talking about online. |
| D．It allows people to keep in touch with their friends who live far away more easily. |
| A．The use of social media taught him to turn negative comments into motivations. |
| B．Social media can easily become an addiction (着迷), despite its benefits. |
| C．Social media is mostly a distraction to teenagers, so it is unnecessary for it to exist. |
| D．If used well, social media can create opportunities for teenagers to develop themselves. |
For those looking to escape the concrete jungle, maybe it’s time to dive into the bamboo forests of southern Sichuan.
A natural forest that people in Sichuan province tend
Known as one of the country’s 10 most beautiful forests, it
Two years later, the bamboo forest received world-wide
The Bamboo Sea covers Changning and Jiang’an, two counties under the authority of Yibin. Amazed at its vast expanse (浩瀚), Huang Tingjian,
4 . Museum Day
Museum Day is here for one day and one day only — so you’ll need to hurry if you want to take advantage of the chance to get free Saturday admission to one of the hundreds of participating museums.
This event is hosted annually by Smithsonian Magazine and involves museums and cultural institutions coming together to offer free admission for visitors who would otherwise have to pay for entry.
You just need an email address to get a free ticket.To get a ticket you’ll need to go to the Smithsonian Magazine website and pick which museum you want to go to. You’ll be able to search to see which museums near you are participating, and you just have to put in your email address and name. After that, you can download your ticket and head out for some fun.
A lot of museums are still feeling financial stress from the pandemic.The event is happening as museums are still struggling from the hits they took during the first few years of the pandemic.
The American Alliance of Museums estimated it will take years for museums to fully recover. In February, the group released survey results that detailed those financial losses.
But there’s hope that a free day at the museums might contribute to more future visits.
1. How often is Museum Day held?| A．Once a week. | B．Once a day. | C．Once a year. | D．Once a month. |
| A．By writing an email. | B．By signing up on the Internet. |
| C．By visiting the nearest museum. | D．By downloading Smithsonian Magazine. |
| A．It will help people deal with stress. | B．It will make museums more famous. |
| C．It can help museums to fully recover. | D．It may attract more visitors to museums. |
5 . My daughter overbought over the last two months so her food pantry (储存室) was full. She asked me to
Money was
The world we live on is one huge circle of love. Take your place in the circle. Never
| A．show | B．donate | C．lend | D．sell |
| A．cut them up | B．hold them back | C．left them out | D．took them over |
| A．confused | B．freed | C．impressed | D．doubted |
| A．corrected | B．convinced | C．tested | D．thanked |
| A．useful | B．magical | C．tight | D．abstract |
| A．away | B．long | C．down | D．past |
| A．energy | B．food | C．patience | D．time |
| A．wife | B．husband | C．mother | D．father |
| A．bored | B．proud | C．nervous | D．responsible |
| A．advice | B．help | C．outcome | D．protection |
| A．cold | B．hungry | C．tired | D．thirsty |
| A．gratitude | B．leisure | C．motivation | D．recognition |
| A．anger | B．regret | C．disappointment | D．smile |
| A．commented | B．investigated | C．prayed | D．requested |
| A．hesitate | B．negotiate | C．pretend | D．threaten |
6 . Artists everywhere are getting “understandably nervous” about recent advances in artificial intelligence. Last month, a winner of an art prize at the Colorado State Fair “sparked a violent protest” when he posted the news and explained that he’d created his image using an AI program. Critics quickly accused 39-year-old Lance Allen of cheating. To be fair, Allen had won in the digital art category and made no secret of how the image had been produced. But the rules of art making are clearly changing.
Allen’s creative process, to be clear, “was not a push-button operation, ”said Jason Blain in Forbes. He claims to have spent 80 hours on his entry, first on fine-tuning his text prompts (提示), then by touching up the final image using Photoshop and similar tools, then arranging to print the image on canvas. He made the finished product using AI much as a photographer creates an image using a camera.
But Allen, a tabletop game developer, is awed by AI’s capabilities and urges artists and illustrators to welcome the technology rather than fight it. “Art is dead,” he says. “AI won. Humans lost.” A more inspiring lesson to take from his victory, though, is that image generators are likely to “expand the appreciation for and creation of art” by opening the field to people, like him, who could never draw anything as detailed as his award-winning image. “If anything, we will have more artists,” and as the technology progresses, “we might see the emergence of art styles that none have seen before.”
You can’t blame traditional artists if they’re unhappy. Image generators work their magic, after all, by analyzing the aesthetics (美学) of millions of pre-existing images. One of the most complicated image generators “makes crystal clear just how destructive this technology will be,” said Loz Eliot in New Atlas. Given a specific prompt, it can produce an image of just about anything you can imagine and even follow the style of a favorite artist’s work. Its arrival marks “an incredible popularization of visual creativity” while aiming “a knife to the heart of anyone who’s spent decades improving their artistic techniques hoping to make a living from them.”
1. Why are artists getting nervous about AI recently?| A．A winner of an art prize used AI. | B．Lance Allen cheated in the art competition. |
| C．The digital art will soon dominate. | D．There will be great changes in art creation. |
| A．It was no easy work for Allen even with Al. | B．Allen worked as a photographer creating an image. |
| C．AI played a key role in Allen’s art creation. | D．Although with AI, Allen’s creation counted a lot. |
| A．Human has been beaten by AI. | B．AI will make art more popular. |
| C．Greater artists and new art styles will appear. | D．AI enables amateurs to win art competitions. |
| A．It works by analyzing images created by human. |
| B．It can produce images beyond people’s imagination. |
| C．It makes artists’ long-time effort meaningless. |
| D．It makes it impossible for artists to make a living. |
1. 发出邀请；
2. 介绍活动安排（时间，地点和具体安排等）。
注意：
1. 词数80左右；
2. 为使行文连贯，可适当增加细节。
Dear Mike,
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Hua
8 . Waiting for the airplane to take off, I was happy to get a seat by myself. Just then, an air hostess approached me and asked, “Would you mind
The girl was named Kathy. She had been in a car accident and now was on her way for
I was very glad I had reached beyond my comfort zone to sit next to Kathy and feed her. Love sometimes flows beyond human borders and removes the fears that keep us
| A．changing | B．losing | C．taking | D．giving |
| A．comfortable | B．suitable | C．favorable | D．available |
| A．wanted | B．decided | C．regretted | D．promised |
| A．pleasure | B．travel | C．treatment | D．business |
| A．know | B．say | C．realize | D．recognize |
| A．eat | B．choose | C．feed | D．support |
| A．offering | B．needing | C．stopping | D．trying |
| A．fast | B．far | C．close | D．impolite |
| A．girl | B．neighbor | C．passenger | D．stranger |
| A．unusual | B．important | C．direct | D．shameful |
| A．refused | B．wondered | C．cried | D．did |
| A．warmed | B．jumped | C．broken | D．cheered |
| A．money | B．time | C．life | D．energy |
| A．separate | B．independent | C．silent | D．upset |
| A．happen | B．stretch | C．wait | D．continue |
9 . “Why does grandpa have ear hair?” Just a few years ago my child was so curious to know “why” and “how” that we had to cut off her questions five minutes before bedtime. Now a soon-to-be fourth grader, she says that she dislikes school because “it’s not fiun to learm.” I am shocked. As a scientist and parent, I have done everything I can to promote a love of learning in my children. Where did I go wrong?
My child’s experience is not unique. Developmental psychologist Susan Engel notes that curiosity defined as “spontaneous (自发的)” investigation and eagerness for new information-drops dramatically in children by the fourth grade.
In Wonder: Childhood and the Lifelong Love of Science, Yale psychologist Frank C. Keil details the development of wonder — a spontaneous passion to explore, discover, and understand. He takes us on a journey from its early development, when wonder drives common sense and scientific reasoning, through the drop-off in wonder that often occurs, to the trap of life in a society that devalues wonder.
As Keil notes, children are particularly rich in wonder while they are rapidly developing causal mechanisms (因果机制) in the preschool and early elementary school years. They are sensitive to the others’ knowledge and goals, and they expertly use their desire for questioning. Children’s questions, particularly those about “why” and “how” support the development of causal mechanisms which can be used to help their day-to-day reasoning.
Unfortunately, as Keil notes, “adults greatly underestimate young children’s causal mechanisms.” In the book, Wonder, Keil shows that we can support children’s ongoing wonder by playing games with them as partners, encouraging question-asking, and focusing on their abilities to reason and conclude.
A decline in wonder is not unavoidable. Keil reminds us that we can accept wonder as a desirable positive quality that exists in everyone. I value wonder deeply, and Wonder has given me hope by proposing a future for my children that will remain wonder-full.
1. What is a common problem among fourth graders?| A．They upset their parents too often. | B．They ask too many strange questions. |
| C．Their love for fun disappears quickly. | D．Their desire to learn declines sharply. |
| A．They control children’s sensitivity. | B．They slightly change in early childhood. |
| C．They hardly support children’s reasoning. | D．They develop through children’s questioning. |
| A．By monitoring their games. | B．By welcoming inquiring minds. |
| C．By estimating their abilities. | D．By providing reasonable conclusions. |
| A．A book review. | B．A news report. | C．A research paper. | D．A children’s story. |
10 . Art comes in two main categories: realistic and abstract. Realistic art aims to show real-life scenes, people, and objects exactly as they appear. It involves paying close attention to details, making things look like photographs.
Realistic art is easy to understand. Viewers can easily recognize what is portrayed. Take the Mona Lisa, for example—it’s a realistic painting of a lady with a mysterious smile.
Unlike realistic art, abstract art is more about being creative.
As for personal preference, some people prefer the clear stories of realistic art while others are attracted to the mystery of abstract art, interpreting meanings in the shapes and forms. Together, the two kinds of art make the art world diverse and engaging.
| A．Both types of art take skills to make |
| B．Photographs preserve faces of folks from long ago |
| C．Grasping abstract art demands more artistic training |
| D．Both ways of creating art have their own value and beauty |
| E．In contrast, abstract art focuses less on realistic appearances |
| F．Artworks like this tell stories about history and everyday life |
| G．Artists have the freedom to go beyond real-life representations |
