1 . If you’ve ever emerged from the shower or returned from walking your dog with a clever idea or a solution to a problem you’d been struggling with, it may not be an unusual thing.
Rather than constantly wearing yourself out at a problem or desperately seeking a flash of inspiration, research from the last 15 years suggests that people may be more likely to have creative breakthroughs or insights when they’re doing a habitual task that doesn’t require much thought — an activity in which you’re basically on autopilot. This lets your mind wander or engage in spontaneous cognition or “stream of consciousness” thinking, which experts believe helps recollect unusual memories and generate new ideas.
“People always get surprised when they realize they get interesting, novel ideas at unexpected times because our cultural narrative tells us we should do it through hard work,” says Kalina Christoff, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. “It’s a pretty universal human experience.”
Now we’re beginning to understand why these clever thoughts occur during more passive activities and what’s happening in the brain, says Christoff. The key, according to the latest research, is a pattern of brain activity — within what’s called the default mode network — that occurs while an individual is resting or performing habitual tasks that don’t require much attention.
Researchers have shown that the default mode network (DMN) — which connects more than a dozen regions of the brain — becomes more active during mind-wandering or passive tasks than when you’re doing something that demands focus. Simply put, the DMN is “the state the brain returns to when you’re not actively engaged,” explains Roger Beaty, a cognitive neuroscientist and director of the Cognitive Neuroscience of Creativity Lab at Penn State University. By contrast, when you’re trapped in a demanding task, the brain’s executive control systems keep your thinking focused, analytical, and logical.
A cautionary note: While the default mode network plays a key role in the creative process, “it’s not the only important network,” Beaty says. “Other networks come into play as far as modifying, rejecting, or implementing ideas.” So it’s unwise to place blind faith in ideas that are generated in the shower or during any other period of mind wandering.
1. When do people expect to get an innovative idea according to the research?| A．When doing routine work. |
| B．When working attentively. |
| C．When tackling tough problems. |
| D．When desperately seeking inspirations. |
| A．Getting by good luck. |
| B．Getting by great efforts. |
| C．Getting by unexpected accident. |
| D．Getting by universal experience. |
| A．A student who is playing football. |
| B．A student who is focusing on papers. |
| C．A student who is closely monitoring his research. |
| D．A student who is fully engaged in math questions. |
| A．We can get novel ideas by the default mode network. |
| B．We should take the idea popped in the shower seriously. |
| C．Believe in ideas that are generated by the default mode network. |
| D．Think twice before putting ideas playfully crossing your mind into practice. |
2 . We’ve seen photographs that seem to show unbelievable images, thanks to photo editing software. But do you know you can create images that look impossible without any fancy software or computer effects?
Playing with perspective
One of the easiest tricks is called forced perspective.
Flying superheroes
How can you take a photograph of a friend so that they seem to be flying superheroes? Have your friend dress up in a superhero costume, especially one with a cape (斗篷). You can pose them outside against the open sky, and have another friend hold the cape out so it looks like they’re flying. Position yourself low and take the photo looking slightly upward so the ground isn’t visible. After you take the photo, you can cut it,
Other tricks
You can have several of your friends lie flat on a solid-colored sheet so they’re arranged to look like they’re piled in a human pyramid.
| A．so the hand holding the cape out isn’t visible. |
| B．so your friends look like they are trapped inside. |
| C．You can create your own trick photos by exploring other ways to use all these tricks. |
| D．You can also take a photo of your friend jumping up into the air. |
| E．Here are some easy tricks that can create images fooling your eyes. |
| F．The other method is to take a sheet, lay it flat on the ground, and decorate it with buildings. |
| G．To do this, you set up a camera shot with someone close to the camera and someone farther away. |
My teenage son, Jordan, always complained about having to be home earlier than all his friends. He would tell me that he was already seventeen, but still had a curfew (宵禁). He believed he was practically an adult. I pointed out that he was not an adult as he was still in high school.
“You don’t trust me!” he yelled. Before I continued, he rolled his eyes, slammed the door and walked away. I sighed. How could I make Jordan see that I only wanted to keep him safe?
I decided to go for a walk, hoping the December air would clear my head. I opened the front door and nearly stepped on her: a small black cat, just like a meatball. “Hi, Meatball,” I said, bringing her into my arms. I walked back in, touching her neck gently. Meatball seemed happy enough to come in the house, but after an hour or two, she sat by the door, meowing to go back outside.
“Why won’t she just stay in with us all the time?” Nathan, my youngest son asked.
I explained to him that she was happy here but she liked being able to come and go as she pleased.
“That must be nice,” Jordan muttered from the other room, complaining why the cat, not him, could come and go. He even asked me to give Meatball a curfew.
Meatball became a regular.
One night, temperatures were unusually low. Meatball stood at the door, meowing to go outside.
I shook my head at her, afraid that she might freeze to death. She stared at me and meowed again. I patted her head, “I know you’re not happy, but it’s for your own good.”
“Mom’s not being mean to you,” Nathan told the cat. “She’s just trying to keep you from turning into a frozen meatball.” We both laughed at his joke.
The next morning, I couldn’t find Meatball. I asked the kids if anyone had seen her.
注意：1.续写词数应为150左右;
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Jordan nodded, “I let her out last night.”
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________As I drove to the animal hospital, Jordan sat in the back, holding Meatball inside his coat.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________1. What did John enjoy doing in his childhood?
| A．Touring France. | B．Playing outdoors. | C．Painting pictures. |
| A．He did business. | B．He studied biology. | C．He worked on a farm. |
| A．For food. | B．For pleasure. | C．For money. |
| A．American birds. | B．Natural scenery. | C．Family life. |
5 . From cottages surrounded by impressive gardens to days spent exploring sandy beaches and deep woods filled with wildlife, in My Family and Other Animals, English writer Gerald Durrell provided a vivid account of his family’s time on the Greek island of Corfu in the 1930s.
Come for the arresting descriptions of Corfu landscapes and stay for Durrell’s laugh-out-loud tales of his unusual family. This book, Durrell wrote humorously in the introduction, “was intended to be a nostalgic(怀旧的)account of natural history, but in the first few pages, I made the mistake of introducing my family.”
Durrell, later known for his zoo keeping and the preservation of wildlife, was just a child during his family’s five-year stay in Corfu. He is 10-year-old Gerry in the book—curious, passionate about animals and a detailed storyteller of his strange family: his imaginative elder brother Larry with his literary ambitions, lovestruck sister Margo, sporty brother Leslie and his ever-calm, loving mother.
Durrell’s attention to detail is what makes the book so winning, with every sight, sound and smell of the island brought to life. One minute you’ll be laughing as Larry’s clever literary friends walk down to the daffodil-yellow cottage, the next you’ll be catching your breath as Durrell describes swimming at night in the Ionian Sea: “Lying on my back in the silky water, staring at the sky, only moving my hands and feet slightly, I was looking at the Milky Way stretching like a silk scarf across the sky and wondering how many stars it contained.”
My Family and Other Animals is quite difficult to classify, being one part travel, one part autobiography, one part natural history, and one part comedy, with a thread of descriptive language running throughout that sometimes raises it nearly to poetry.
As a real delight to read, it’s the perfect literary escapism for any adult or older teenager who is currently walking down a tough road in life.
1. Which word best describes Durrell’s life in Corfu?| A．Diverse. | B．Busy. | C．Risky. | D．Tough. |
| A．I just introduced my family by mistake. | B．I shouldn’t have introduced my family. |
| C．I gave false information about my family. | D．I couldn’t help introducing my family. |
| A．Durrell’s rich imagination. | B．Some interesting plots of the book. |
| C．The book’s writing feature. | D．Some vivid descriptions of the island. |
| A．To share an experience. | B．To introduce a writing style. |
| C．To recommend a book. | D．To describe an unusual place. |
6 . It is that time of the year, when a handful of world’s leading scholars, social activists and researchers are rewarded with what is often cited as the most prestigious acknowledgement of human effort-the Nobel Prize. Here’s a look at who has won the prize and for what.
Physiology or Medicine
Swedish geneticist Svante Peabo won the first Nobel of the year, for starting the field of ancient DNA studies. He is well-known for extracting, sequencing, and analyzing ancient DNA from Neanderthal bones.
Physics
Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger’s work in quantum (量子) technology landed them the second Nobel Prize announced in 2022. Although Aspect is from France, Clauser from the U.S, and Zeilinger from Austria, the three separately performed “groundbreaking experiments” as one team. “Their results have cleared the way for new technology,” the committee stated.
Chemistry
The Nobel Prize for chemistry went to another trio, Carolyn R. Bertozzi from the U.S., Morten Meldal from Denmark and K. Barry Sharpless from the U.S. “for the development of click chemistry and biorthogonal chemistry,” the committee stated. Dr. Bertozzi is the eighth woman chemist to be awarded the prize, while Dr. Sharpless is the fifth scientist to be awarded two Nobel Prizes.
Economics
The Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded to three American economists, Ben S. Bernanke, Douglas W. Diamond and Philip H. Dybvig “for research on banks and financial crises,” the Nobel Prize committee announced on Monday. By studying the history of American economics, particularly the Great Depression of the 1930s,they improved how we understand the role of banks during times of hardship and the bank’s impact on societal functions.
1. What prize is related to the research with bones?| A．Physiology. | B．Chemistry. | C．Physics. | D．Economics. |
| A．About societal functions. | B．About the history of America. |
| C．About banks and financial crises. | D．About the Great Depression of the 1930s. |
| A．Their winners are from different countries. | B．They have three winners. |
| C．They improve new technology. | D．They help people understand hardship. |
7 . When the company OpenAI developed its new artificial intelligence (AI) program, ChatGPT, in late 2022, educators began to worry. ChatGPT could create text that seemed like a human wrote it. How could teachers discover whether students were using language created by an AI chatbot to cheat on a writing task?
As a linguist who studies the effects of technology on how people read, write and think, I believe there are other more pressing concerns besides cheating. These include whether AI, more generally, threatens student writing skills, the value of writing as a process, and the importance of regarding writing as a tool for thinking.
As part of my research on the effects of AI on human writing, I surveyed young adults in the U.S. about some issues related to those effects. One participant said that at some point if you depend on predictive text, you’re going to lose your spelling abilities. Enter “Was Rom” into a Google search and you’re given a list of choices like “Was Rome built in a day”. Type “ple” into a text message and you’re offered “please” and “plenty”. These tools complete our sentences automatically, giving us little chance to think about our spelling, and continuously asking us to follow their suggestions.
Evan Selinger, a philosopher, worried that predictive texting reduces the power of writing as a form of mental activity and personal expression. “By encouraging us not to think too deeply about our words, predictive technology may change how we deal with each other,” Selinger wrote. “We give others more algorithms (算法) and less of ourselves. Automation can stop us thinking and the resulting text didn’t feel like mine anymore.”
I asked ChatGPT whether it was a threat to humans’ motivation to write. The bot responded: “There will always be a demand for creative, original content that requires the unique viewpoint of a human writer.” It continued: “Writing serves many purposes beyond just the creation of content, such as self-expression, communication, and personal growth, which can continue to encourage people to write even if certain types of writing can be automated.”
I was glad to find the program had seemingly admitted its limitations.
1. What is the author’s main concern about ChatGPT?| A．Whether it will lead to students’ cheating. |
| B．Whether it will shape students’ writing style. |
| C．How students will make use of it at school. |
| D．What effects it will have on students’ writing. |
| A．Give us more creative ideas. | B．Make us write like a machine. |
| C．Encourage us to think more deeply. | D．Make us tend to ignore grammatical mistakes. |
| A．Writing will become completely automated. | B．Robots will work with humans in writing. |
| C．Robot writing will become more creative. | D．Human writing will still matter a lot. |
| A．What impact will AI bring to writing? | B．What is the future of modern literature? |
| C．How to improve writing with AI’s help? | D．How to apply AI technology to education? |
8 . It was summer, and my dad wanted to treat me to a vacation like never before. He decided to take me on a trip to the Wild West.
We took a plane to Albuquerque, a big city in the state of New Mexico. We reached Albuquerque in the late afternoon. Uncle Paul, my dad’s friend, picked us up from the airport and drove us up to his farm in Pecos.
His wife Tina cooked us a delicious dinner and we got to know his sons Ryan and Kyle. My dad and I spent the night in the guestroom of the farm house listening to the frogs and water rolling down the river nearby. Very early in the morning, Uncle Paul woke us up to have breakfast. "The day starts at dawn on my farm," he said. After breakfast, I went to help Aunt Tina feed the chickens, while my dad went with Uncle Paul to take the sheep out to graze(吃草). I was impressed to see my dad and Uncle Paul riding horses. They looked really cool.
In the afternoon, I asked Uncle Paul if I could take a horse ride, and he said yes, as long as my dad went with me. I wasn’t going to take a horse ride by myself anyway. So, my dad and I put on our new cowboy hats, got on our horses, and headed slowly towards the mountains. "Don’t be late for supper," Uncle Paul cried, "and keep to the track so that you don’t get lost!" "OK! " my dad cried back. After a while Uncle Paul and his farm house were out of sight. It was so peaceful and quiet and the colors of the brown rocks, the deep green pine trees, and the late afternoon sun mixed to create a magic scene. It looked like a beautiful woven(编织的) blanket spread out upon the ground just for us.
Suddenly a little rabbit jumped out in front of my horse.
注意：
（1）所续写短文的词数应为l50左右；
（2）至少使用5个短文中标有下划线的关键词语：
（3）续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好；
（4）续写完成后，请用下划线标出你所使用的关键词语。
Paragraph 1: Suddenly a little rabbit jumped out in front of my horse. ____________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Paragraph 2: We had no idea where we were and it was getting dark. _____________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
9 . Some bacteria(细菌)have a superpower that scientists would love to use. These bacteria gain energy from light, just as plants do.Scientists have wanted to use cyanobacteria(蓝藻菌)to make electricity. But in previous research, they didn’t survive long on artificial surfaces. Researchers have now moved them to a living surface — a mushroom. Their creation is the first mushroom to make electricity.
Applied Physicist Simon Jackson and his team turned that mushroom into a mini energy farm. This bionic(生物电子的)mushroom combines 3D printing, conductive ink and bacteria to generate electricity. Its design could lead to new ways of combining nature with electronics.
Like plants, cyanobacteria make their own food from sunlight, releasing electrons(电子). When enough electrons build up in one place, they can create an electric current.
The researchers needed to bring a lot of these bacteria together. They decided to use 3D printing to place them precisely onto a surface.Jackson’s team chose mushrooms for that surface. After all, they realized, mushrooms naturally host communities of bacteria and other microbes. Finding test subjects for their tests was easy. Jackson simply went to the grocery store and picked up white button mushrooms.
Printing on those mushrooms, though, turned out to be a real challenge. 3D printers have been designed to print on flat surfaces, but mushroom caps are curved. The researchers spent months writing computer code to solve the problem. Eventually, they came up with a program to 3D print their ink onto the curved mushroom tops.
The researchers printed two“inks”onto their mushrooms. One was a green ink made of cyanobacteria. They used this to make a spiral pattern on the cap. They also used a black ink made of graphene, which is great at conducting electricity. They printed this ink in a branching pattern across the mushroom top.
Then it was time to shine.
“Cyanobacteria are the real heroes here,”says Jackson. When his team shone light on the mushrooms, the bacteria gave out electrons. Those electrons flowed into the graphene and created an electric current.
1. What was the problem in previous research?| A．Cyanobacteria didn’t produce electrons. |
| B．Cyanobacteria couldn’t get enough light. |
| C．The researchers chose the wrong bacteria. |
| D．No suitable home was made for cyanobacteria. |
| A．They are convenient to find. |
| B．They can produce electric currents. |
| C．They are where bacteria can naturally grow. |
| D．They can be easily combined with 3D printing. |
| A．To feed bacteria. |
| B．To deliver electrons. |
| C．To produce electricity. |
| D．To reshape mushroom tops. |
| A．Who are the real heroes? |
| B．New application of 3D printing |
| C．Nature combined with electrons |
| D．Bionic mushroom makes electricity |
10 . Around the globe, about 1 in 4 adults says they’re lonely. And the consequences of long-term social disconnection can be everything from an increased risk of heart attacks to dementia (痴呆). The following offers a road map to make connections.
Be curious. It’s easier to connect with people if you have shared interests or experiences, so start paying attention to what’s in your mind. What motivates you? What excites you?
Make something. When experts advise making something, people will say, “Well, I’m not Picasso. I don’t know how to do a fancy painting. ” Of course, you’re not!
Find a group that matches your interests. Whether it’s volunteering fora cause or playing frisbee (飞盘), try to find others who share your interests. There’s even an online group that has a quirky shared interest: a fascination with brown bears in Alaska, which led to Fat Bear Week. In interactions with others, you can begin to reveal yourself and share the unique things that matter to you.
Other people’s loneliness matters too.
| A．Pour out your hard feelings. |
| B．Loneliness can be infectious. |
| C．Take a risk by having conversations. |
| D．You should tolerate the risk of being lonely. |
| E．But the opportunities for creative expression are endless. |
| F．Knowing yourself can be a first step to bonding with others. |
| G．Then, other people recognize that and share their story in return. |
