1 . The idea of humans causing earthquakes may seem strange at first. After all, you can run around your backyard and jump up and down all you want, and the ground isn’t going to start shaking. However, scientists have identified over 700 places where human activity has brought about earthquakes over the last century.
While many human-caused earthquakes are mild and don’t cause much damage, some of them can be serious and dangerous. In fact, scientists believe human activity has caused earthquakes with magnitudes as high as 7.9 on the Richter scale.
Scientists believe most human-caused earthquakes are the result of mining. As companies drill deeper and deeper below Earth’s surface to take out natural resources, holes left behind can cause instability which leads to a sudden falling down that causes earthquakes. Building large dams can also cause earthquakes. For example, about 80,000 people died in China in 2008 as a result of a 7.9-magnitude earthquake caused by 320 million tons of water that had been collected in the Zipingpu Reservoir after a large dam was built over a known fault line(断层线).
Anther human activity leading to earthquakes is hydraulic fracturing (水力压裂) for oil and gas. In this process, water, sand, and chemicals are forced to flow underground under high pressure to fracture rocks to let natural resources out. As those resources, such as oil and natural gas, make their way to the surface, so do the water and chemicals that were injected to begin the process. This wastewater is collected and often transported to deep underground again. Both the fracking process and wastewater have been shown to cause earthquakes.
These aren’t the only human activities that can cause earthquakes, though. Scientists point out that earthquakes can also be caused by other human activities.
1. How does human activity cause earthquakes according to the text?| A．Large dams are built away from the fault line. |
| B．The wastewater of hydraulic fracturing joins large rivers. |
| C．Mining leads to the deeper holes left below the Earth’s surface. |
| D．Hydraulic fracturing makes natural resources flow underground. |
| A．By giving examples. |
| B．By making comparisons. |
| C．By presenting opinions. |
| D．By providing instructions. |
| A．To remind people to stop the above-mentioned activities. |
| B．To inform readers of human activities causing earthquakes. |
| C．To explain the reasons for many earthquakes in recent years. |
| D．To present the damage of human-caused earthquakes to the earth. |
2 . There are many ways to travel within a city. We can walk, cycle, or take a bus. But no matter which way we travel, we have to follow the route (线路) the city planners laid down for us.
Parkour practitioners (跑酷爱好者), however, see the city in a completely different way. To them, there are no designed routes. There are no walls and no stairs — they jump, climb, roll and crawl to move across, through, over and under anything that they find in their path. The city is their playground.
The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) has noticed that this activity is drawing more and more people to it — there are 100, 000 people taking part in parkour today in the UK alone, according to The Guardian — and how it is helpful for people to be much stronger: It trains coordination and balance. So the FIG is thinking about recognizing parkour as a new sport and adding it to the Olympics by 2024.
But parkour practitioners themselves don’t seem to be happy with the idea. They see parkour as “a lifestyle”, wrote the website NextSportStar. “It’s a competition against the conditions rather than just a sport.”
Indeed, many do parkour just to “escape the daily routine and experience the city in different ways”, wrote reporter Oli Mould on The Conversation. They see parkour as a way to express themselves through relaxing moves and creative routes while freeing themselves from the pressure.
It’s great that the FIG wants to develop a new sport and stay close to a new cultural form. But it would be greater if they knew that not everything in life is a competition.
1. How do the parkour practitioners do parkour?| A．They plan the way themselves. |
| B．They move on as they wish. |
| C．They run faster than others. |
| D．They follow certain routes. |
| A．It’s a special way of life. |
| B．It draws their attention. |
| C．It helps balance people’s life. |
| D．It’s good for people to keep healthy. |
| A．It is more exciting than other sports. |
| B．It is worth adding to the sporting event. |
| C．It is more a lifestyle than a competition. |
| D．It encourages people to challenge themselves. |
| A．Parkour practitioners |
| B．Making the city their own |
| C．Training in a different way |
| D．A new sports competition |
1. What do we know about David?
| A．He has just changed jobs. |
| B．He has taken a lot of fancy pictures. |
| C．He has been working hard recently. |
| A．Make more money. | B．Have a nice holiday. | C．Travel to more new places. |
| A．Swim in the sea. | B．Walk on the beach. | C．Enjoy the sea wind. |
| A．Sun cream. | B．Swim shorts. | C．Towels. |
4 . Some places can create strong memories. We often clearly remember important events in our lives and link them with the places where they happened. Many people remember exactly where they were when they heard very good or very bad news. The following are a few special places that are important to Americans who look to the past, but also are thinking of the future.
New Orleans Streetcars
Many American cities once had streetcars, but not anymore.
“First of all, it’s one of the most, the oldest rail lines in the world.
Historic Houses
Historic homes can interest people seeking to connect with the former owners. Barbara Klein tells us about three such homes, including a very simple, white house in Virginia.
This simple house in Winchester, Virginia, opened its doors to the public in August. It was home to singer Patsy Cline, who died at the age of 30.
Patsy’s first cousin, Patricia Brannon, shows the house to visitors.
Havre de Grace
Havre de Grace is a town in the American state of Maryland. This part of Maryland is famous for its wildlife. Hunters use decoys(用于诱捕鸟兽的动物或仿制物)to get ducks and geese to come close enough to shoot. The wooden birds are so highly respected here that Havre de Grace calls itself the decoy capital of the world. It also has a museum with more than 1,000 decoys.
| A．Most of them were hand made. |
| B．And second of all, it’s just part of being part of history. |
| C．I’s convenient, cheap and it gets you where you need to go. |
| D．Yet streetcars have been running in New Orleans for over 150 years. |
| E．It is where a famous singer of the nineteen. fifties and sixties once lived. |
| F．Her childhood memories helped return the house to the condition it was in in the late 1940s. |
| G．Vincenti hopes more young people become decoy carvers so the tradition will continue in Havre de Grace. |
5 . It’s recognized that people think that they pick what they like when making choices. However, research suggests that we like something because we have chosen it. In other words, we dislike things we don’t choose.
In an experiment, Lisa Feigenson’s team brought some 10 to 20 months’ old babies into a lab and gave them two same bright and colorful soft blocks to play with. They set each block far apart, so the babies had to crawl(爬)to one or the other—a random(随机的)choice. After the baby chose one of the toys, the researchers took it away and came back with a new choice. The babies could then pick either the toy they didn’t play with before, or a new toy. It turned out that the babies chose to play with the new toy instead of the one they had not chosen. “As if they say were saying, ‘Hmm, I didn’t choose that toy last time, I guess I didn’t like it very much’,” said Feigenson.
This is a common phenomenon(现象)in life. Adults will less like the thing they didn’t choose, even if they had no real preference in the first place. It looks like babies do just the same. It shows that the act of making choices changes how we feel about our choices. The random choices might become our preferences.” They are really not choosing based on their preference,” said Alex Silver, co-author of the study.
This new finding explains why adults build unconscious biases(无意识偏见)when they make choices between the same things. “I chose this, so I must like it. I didn’t choose this other thing, so it must not be so good. Adults make these inferences unconsciously,” Feigenson said.
This also makes sense for us as we live in a consumer(消费者)culture and must make so many choices every day, between everything from tooth-paste brands to styles of jeans.
1. What was most probably the aim of the experiment done by Lisa Feigenson’s team?| A．To check if babies like new toys instead of old ones. |
| B．To test if babies prefer the things they have chosen. |
| C．To explain how babies and adults make choices differently. |
| D．To study if too many choices could create problems for babies. |
| A．Babies preferred bright and colorful toys. |
| B．Babies’ choices influenced their preference. |
| C．Babies preferred adults to help them make choices. |
| D．Babies’ preference influenced how they make choices. |
| A．The value of the experiments. |
| B．The source of adults’ unconscious biases. |
| C．The problems with adults’ unconscious biases. |
| D．The wise ways of making choices in a consumer culture. |
| A．Random Choices Matter |
| B．Preference Affects the Choice |
| C．Babies Like What They Choose |
| D．Too many Choices Confused the Adults |
6 . Rural homestays (民宿) have become the fastest-growing part in the bed-and-breakfast market since the COVID-19 pandemic, fueled by travelers who seek a more relaxing, pleasant and experiential lifestyle that is close to nature, a recent report found.
Tujia, a domestic online homestay service provider, said there are nearly 800,000 domestic rural homestays available online nationwide. Most people who took rural trips are urbanites (都市人), and most of them come from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou of Guangdong province, Chengdu of Sichuan province and Chongqing.
Among those who booked rural homestays, more than 60 percent of the total were born in the 1980s and 1990s.
Zhou Cheng,a 33-year-old rural homestay operator, has been involved in the business for more than a decade.
The development of rural homestays has changed the trend of previous one-day tours to suburbs into more in-depth trips.
| A．He witnessed (见证) the fast growth of the domestic bed-and-breakfast sector. |
| B．Besides accommodations, catering services are also provided to customers. |
| C．These urbanites have driven the rapid growth of rural homestays. |
| D．In 2021, the booking volume of rural homestays in Beijing increased by 10 percent year-on-year, and revenue jumped 38 percent year-on-year. |
| E．An effective way to increase consumption is to convince travelers to stay overnight. |
| F．Consumers’ frequent short trips to suburban areas have driven the growth of rural homestays. |
| G．Tourists can have more in-depth trip experiences and improve the quality of their trips. |
7 . As the new year approaches, crowds around the world may be expecting whizzes and bangs to light up the sky. The appeal of fireworks could fizzle out with the growing use of drones (无人机) for light shows, though.
Ollie Howitt, a leader of SkyMagic, which used a team of 300 drones to create a display for London’s new year celebration last year, said demand had increased substantially. “We do think it’s going to be something that’s ever catching on, as opposed to it being a short-lived sort of fashion people have suddenly got interested in. Drones are reusable and there’s no fallout. In that sense they’re a very good, sustainable option,” she said.
But not everyone agrees. A spokesperson from the British Fireworks Association said drones could also pose environmental problems. “Suggestions are that drones have less of an impact on the environment, but we have serious concerns about electrical demand and use of lithium batteries which are known not to be all that ‘green’,” they said.
An RSPCA spokesperson said that while drones were a possible idea to try to reduce the impact of displays on animals, there were downsides. “Drones are not without their own negative issues such as scaring horses or crashing into birds, and can cause disturbance to animals and members of the public. It’s therefore important for their effects to be fully considered and measures taken to minimize the chance of accidents,” they said.
Some express the opinion that the use of fireworks and drones don’t exclude each other. The sight, sound and gunpowder smell of fireworks will always provide its own unique thrill.
“We find fireworks work really well when teamed up with drones. But we don’t really see it as a one-replacing-the-other at all. We feel as if it’s just another tool in the chest for how you enliven the sky and what you want to do with the show you’re putting on,” said Howitt, noting that while fireworks give a loud, emotive, big performance, drones offer the chance to tell stories in the sky by using a series of images.
1. What does the underlined phrase “fizzle out” in paragraph 1 mean?| A．Catch on. | B．Wind up. |
| C．Spring up. | D．Cancel out. |
| A．It’s definitely an upward trend. |
| B．It’ll get us to reflect on energy crisis. |
| C．It’s nothing but a temporary phenomenon. |
| D．It’ll fuel the public curiosity about science. |
| A．Promoting the production of drones. |
| B．Diversifying the functions of drones. |
| C．Prohibiting the displays of fireworks. |
| D．Staging drone shows as an alternative. |
| A．Advertisement. | B．Business. |
| C．Health. | D．Environment. |
8 . Last summer, two nineteenth-century cottages were rescued from remote farm fields in Montana, to be moved to an Art Deco building in San Francisco. The houses were made of wood. These cottages once housed early settlers as they worked the dry Montana soil; now they hold Twitter engineers.
The cottages could be an example of the industry’s unusual love for “low technology”, a concept associated with the natural world, and with old-school craftsmanship (手艺) that exists long before the Internet era. Low technology is not virtual (虚拟的) —so, to take advantage of it, Internet companies have had to get creative. The rescued wood cottages, fitted by band in the late eighteen-hundreds, are an obvious example. Other companies are using a broader interpretation (阐释) of low technology that focuses on nature.
Amazon is building three glass spheres filled with trees, so that employees can “work and socialize in a more natural, park-like setting. ” At Google’s office, an entire is carpeted in glass. Facebook’s second Menlo Park campus will have a rooftop park with a walking path.
Olle Lundberg, the founder of Lundberg Design, has worked with many tech companies over the years. “Our tech engineers are the ones who feel impoverished(贫乏的), because they’re surrounded by the digital world, ” he says. “We’ve found that introducing real crafts is one way to regain their individual identity. ”
This craft-based theory is rooted in history. William Morris, the English artist and writer, turned back to pre-industrial arts in the eighteen-sixties, just after Industrial Revolution. The Arts and Crafts movement defined itself against machines. “Without creative human occupation, people became disconnected from life. ” Morris said.
Research has shown that natural environments can restore(恢复) our mental abilities. In Japan, patients are encouraged to “forest-bathe”, taking walks through woods to lower their blood pressure.
These health benefits apply to the workplace as well. Rachel Kaplvin, a professor of environmental psychology, has spent years researching the restorative effects of natural environment. Her research found that workers with access to nature at the office - even simple views of trees and flowers - felt their jobs were less stressful and more satisfying. If low-tech offices can potentially benefit the brains and improve the mental health of employees then, fine, bring on the cottages.
1. The writer mentions the two nineteenth-century cottages to show that ________.| A．Twitter is having a hard time |
| B．Old cottages are in need of protection |
| C．Early settlers once suffered from a dry climate in Montana |
| D．Internet companies have rediscovered the benefits of low technology |
| A．is related to nature | B．is out of date today |
| C．uses too much energy | D．exists in the virtual world |
| A．confused | B．positive | C．worried | D．doubtful |
| A．Past Glories, Future Dreams |
| B．The Virtual World, the Real Challenge |
| C．High-tech Companies, Low-tech Offices |
| D．The More Craftsmanship, the Less Creativity |
9 . A couple of weeks ago, my grandfather was explaining his favorite expression, “Nothing is ever easy.” The following day, as I tried to complete my work, I happened to
In our daily lives,we often think that we can solve problems just by taking the time. Besides, we often imagine what can work in our favour but we
If you can
Of course, there should be preparations made to account for expenses or time. Doing so can help you
| A．meet | B．catch | C．notice | D．attract |
| A．exploring | B．moving | C．killing | D．removing |
| A．cleared | B．failed | C．ended | D．changed |
| A．cleaning up | B．looking up | C．turning up | D．making up |
| A．anxious | B．tiny | C．annoyed | D．curious |
| A．always | B．never | C．seldom | D．often |
| A．registered | B．impressed | C．planned | D．promised |
| A．actually | B．perfectly | C．obviously | D．partly |
| A．accept | B．concentrate | C．design | D．challenge |
| A．take | B．listen | C．keep | D．revise |
| A．office | B．hospital | C．college | D．prison |
| A．frightened | B．advanced | C．organized | D．improved |
| A．forward | B．complete | C．achieve | D．quit |
| A．age | B．path | C．plate | D．view |
| A．bee | B．bird | C．adult | D．volunteer |
1. What will the woman do this afternoon?
| A．Watch a movie. | B．Study. | C．Hang out with the man. |
| A．Laugh happily. | B．Cry sadly. | C．Feel terribly frightened. |
