1 . 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。

Recently, many netizens posted videos on social media claiming that Harbin has launched a “photo shoot with a white fox” project to entertain tourists. The white fox in the video     1     (have) a soft and cute appearance, and after being artificially raised and managed, its fur is clean and odorless (无气味), providing tourists with a good experience and     2     (frequent) appearing on the hot search list.

For this project, some people believe it is     3     innovative tourism experience that can increase the interactivity and participation of tourists, while others are concerned about the safety and health of the white fox. In fact, these white foxes are professionally trained to have close contact     4     humans, and they do not bite. In addition, the scenic area has taken multiple     5     (measure) to ensure the welfare and safety of the white fox.

Mr. He, the person in charge of Harbin Songhua River Ice and Snow Carnival, said that the scenic area has introduced this project to     6     (well) meet customer needs. These white foxes have been bred (饲养) and domesticated (驯化), so there is no need to worry about     7     (catch) and bitten by foxes.

Mr. He said that due to the continuous     8     (popular) of the White Fox on social media, more and more tourists are taking photos with it.     9     (welcome) tourists, the scenic area often takes care of the white fox, keeping its fur clean and fresh,     10     providing visitors with a better experience.

2 . 阅读下面材料，在空白处填入适当的内容（1个单词）或括号内单词的正确形式。

At first glance, the words alligator, bedroom, eyeball, gossip, hurry, and kissing may not have anything obvious in common,     1     they do — William Shakespeare. They are among up to 1,700 words     2     first recorded use is in the collected     3     (work) of the most important writer in the history of the English language.

More than four centuries after his death in 1616, Shakespeare’s plays remain     4     unique source of artistic inspiration far beyond the land of his birth,     5     (endless) performed, studied, and adapted for countless languages and audiences. From Disney’s The Lion King to Feng Xiaogang’s film The Banquet, the story of a young man     6     (face) the challenge of growing up to seek revenge for his murdered father, is one of his most famous works. The     7     (forbid) love of Romeo and Juliet has been the inspiration for everything from Oscar-winning musical West Side Story to Chloe Gong’s novel series These Violent Delights, and Macbeth, with its tale of a man destined for greatness ruined by ambition,     8     (adapt) into Li Jianwu’s play Wang Deming in 1944, and classic Japanese film Throne of Blood in 1957.

The collection of Shakespeare’s plays     9     (remain) at the heart of the study of English literature worldwide, and also provides the backbone of the tourist industry in Stratford-upon-Avon, his birthplace in England’s West Midlands, which is also home     10     the Royal Shakespeare Company theater.

3 . When a marketing genius walks into your store, it might benefit you to pay attention, even if that genius is only a small child. When a store owner saw a young girl playing an imaginary hopscotch(跳房子) game using his wood flooring, it sparked (引发) a brilliant idea.

The store owner marked out a hopscotch board in multi-colored tape leading to the sales window. When the girl returned, she immediately began using the new store hopscotch board.

Once the board was in place, the store owner noticed an amazing thing happening in the store. It started with a grown man looking a little nervous and glancing (瞥) around the store. The owner thought he might be checking for cameras to steal something. But what he did next shocked the owner. The man started jumping along the hopscotch board!

With total ignoring “how it looked,” the grown man hopped along the hopscotch board like a seasoned professional! And he smiled! But that was just the beginning of the surprise for the store owner. As more people entered the store, more and more of the adult customers took the opportunity to hop to the cash register.

The simple addition of a hopscotch board brought smiles, laughter, and true joy into the tiny convenience store. People were smiling and feeling happier. The in-store cameras record the hoppers merrily jumping along.

Big, small, men, women, old, and young: everyone seems to enjoy the opportunity to be a kid again. The feeling may only last for a few seconds, but if it brings joy to your life, do it!

Some customers carefully walk around the board. However, many enjoy those few seconds of being a kid again. The response delighted the store owner. If you’re the type of person who would hop along the board, share the hopscotch game with your fellow hoppers!

1. What did the girl inspire the store owner to do?

A．He invited the girl to return to the store.	B．He also jumped along the hopscotch board.
C．He prevented a man from stealing something.	D．He created a hopscotch board in the store.

2. What did the grown man do in the store?

A．He tried to steal things from the store.	B．He encouraged others to join the game.
C．He laughed at the girl playing the game.	D．He played the game after some hesitation.

3. Why do customers seem to be enjoying hopscotch?

A．Because they all cared for the girl.	B．Because they could get joy from it.
C．Because the game was fit for them.	D．Because the game was easy to learn.

4. Which words can best describe the store owner?

A．Considerate and creative.	B．Knowledgeable and honest.
C．Humorous and outgoing.	D．Modest and ambitious.

4 . 听下面一段较长对话，回答以下小题。
1. What will Edward be responsible for?

A．Doing online marketing.

B．Organizing the musicians.

C．Sending out the invitations.

2. What is the woman going to do first?

A．Draw the posters.

B．Make the guest list.

C．Design the invitations.

3. Who will be in charge of making the room reservations?

A．Nancy.

B．John.

C．Tim.

4. Where is Nancy now?

A．In a hotel.

B．On a train.

C．In the hospital.

5 . Take a period of limited rainfall. Add heat. And you have what scientists call a ‘hot drought’ — dry conditions made more intense by the evaporative power of hotter temperatures.

A new study, published in the journal Science Advances, Wednesday, finds that hot droughts have become more common and severe across the western U.S. as a result of human-caused climate change. “The frequency of compound warm and dry summers particularly in the last 20 years is unprecedented,” said Karen King, lead author of the study and an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

For much of the last 20 years, western North America has been under the control of a huge drought that has strained crop producers, city planners and water managers. Scientists believe it to be the driest period in the region in at least 1,200 years. They reached that determination, in part, by studying the rings of trees collected from thousands of sites across the Western U.S..

Cross-sections or cores of trees, both living and dead, can offer scientists windows into climate conditions of the past. Dark scars can show where fires have burned. Pale rings can indicate insect outbreaks. “Narrow rings mean less water,” said King, a dendrochronologist, who specialized in tree ring dating. “Fatter rings, more water.” Scientists have looked at tree ring widths to understand how much water was in the soil at a given time. King and fellow researchers did something different. They wanted to investigate the density (密度) of individual rings to get a picture of historical temperatures. In hotter years, trees build thick walls to protect their water.

By combining that temperature data with another tree-ring-sourced dataset looking at soil moisture (湿度), the researchers showed that today’s hotter temperatures have made the current western huge drought different from its past ones.

It also suggests that future droughts will be worsened by higher temperatures, particularly in the Great Plains, home to one of the world’s largest aquifers, and the Colorado River Basin, the source of water for some 40 million people.

1. What led to hot droughts?

A．Abundant rainfall.	B．Climate change.
C．Appropriate temperatures.	D．Dry summers.

2. What does the underlined word “strained” in paragraph 3 probably mean?

A．Protected.

B．Surprised.

C．Stressed.

D．Helped.

3. What do the researchers find about hot droughts?

A．They will not happen in the future.	B．They are affected by those tree rings.
C．They are similar in intensity to past droughts.	D．They have become more frequent and severe.

4. What is the author’s purpose in writing the text?

A．To entertain readers with a fictional story.	B．To persuade readers to protect environment.
C．To inform readers of severity of hot droughts.	D．To share personal experiences and reflections.

6 . The older you are, the less likely you are to swear (except in the car—studies say most people swear when driving). As we get older, swearing becomes part of the rich lexicon of language that we use to express ourselves, and while we might associate swear words with negative communication. Only eight percent of people actually swear to cause offence. “There are many other reasons that we swear, including positive uses like expressing excitement, emphasis.” says Dr Karyn Stapleton, a senior lecturer in Communication at Ulster University. “And there’s cathartic (宣泄的) swearing, which provides a means of releasing strong emotions, or feelings like anger, pain or frustration.”   

Cathartic swearing fascinates scientists as it shows some really interesting facts about bad language. Studies at the UK’s Keele University revealed that when under stress, a person can think of considerably more swear words than someone asked to do the same task when relaxed, and it’s now suspected that rather than being controlled by the normal part of the brain that handles language (the left cortex), swear words are actually processed by the limbic (边缘的) system that normally controls emotional thoughts. Be warned though—the more you swear in general speech, the less effective the cathartic effects of swear words are when you really need them!

What makes a word offensive is also very interesting. “The two main categories of swear words are bodily functions and religion—and that’s not just in English, it’s observed across many languages,” says Dr Robbie Love, lecturer in English Language at Aston University in Birmingham. “It’s like the brain has encoded these words with a special meaning so that it knows they are different in some way. I think there’s almost an innate human need to have some linguistic items that can be used to process intense moments.”

Generally though, we’re swearing less than we used to. Dr Love’s research found the use of 16 common swear words has declined by 27 percent over the last 20 years. According to a survey by the British Board of Film Classification, only 12 percent of those aged 55-64 swear regularly compared to 46 percent of 20-somethings. “It’s possible that as we get older we might have fewer uses for swearing. We don’t need it to bond with coworkers. Also, older adults have often had to spend some time restraining their language around children—no matter how our own feelings about swearing change, we still don’t want to expose children to it,” says Dr Love.

1. What can we learn from the first paragraph?

A．People swear more easily as they get older.	B．People swear merely to release negative emotion.
C．Swearing often offends others.	D．Swearing is a way of expressing ourselves.

2. Which of the following facts about swearing is not correct?

A．person can think less swear words in relaxation than in pressure.

B．Swear words come from the brain system that controls emotional thought.

C．Bodily functions and religion are two types of swear words just in English.

D．People swearing more in daily life may not release their emotions well on necessary occasions.

3. How does Dr. Love feel about swearing?

A．Helpful

B．Offensive

C．Special

D．Indifferent

4. What can we infer from the last paragraph?

A．Young people swear in order to connect with their coworkers.

B．Older people may swear less to create better language setting for children.

C．There are fewer swear words people use.

D．People swear less than they used to.

7 . It was meant to connect us, make us smarter and our lives easier. And it has. But there’s at least one comer of life where the Internet has made things so much more difficult: gift giving.

Once upon a time, if you were struggling to find a present for a loved one, there were easy options to fall back on-DVDs, CDs, video games and other physical media. This wasn’t even that long ago, but now it’s been snatched from our grasp by the Internet offering us the chance, at a relatively low cost, to watch, listen to or read whatever we want, whenever we want. With everything already watched, listened to, or read, buying a present has become near impossible.

Therefore, we all have to work at becoming perfect gift givers, taking all factors into consideration and searching high and low to seek out the ideal present. If we go the extra mile, there’s less chance that the person we have in mind has already bought what we’re considering online.

But as I now consider this exact plan of action, I’m thinking perhaps it’s not all that bad. Maybe the Internet is delivering us a lesson, firm but fair: the era of half-baked present purchasing is over and it’s time to go hard or go home.

In this era of immediate satisfaction, if you want to give someone a useful present, you do have to actually go to the effort of sourcing something nice for them. Perhaps that’s making for a more rewarding gift experience for all involved. And perhaps it also means fewer gifts that are given as an excuse and end up being unused.

1. How is the topic of gift giving introduced in Paragraph 1?

A．By demonstrating the prospect of the Internet.

B．By showing the difficulty in using the Internet.

C．By pointing out the shortcoming of the Internet.

D．By arguing about the possible benefits of the Internet.

2. What might be a reason for gift giving being difficult according to Paragraph 2?

A．Numerous gift options.	B．Relative high cost for presents.
C．Limited offer from digital giants.	D．Easy access to the Internet versions.

3. What does the author suggest readers do?

A．Purchase satisfactory gifts.	B．Try to select a present.
C．Buy fewer gifts as an excuse.	D．Make more valuable presents.

4. What might be the author’s attitude towards nowadays gift giving?

A．Confused.

B．Critical.

C．Neutral.

D．Acceptable.

8 . In the United States alone, 119 billion pounds of food is wasted each year according to the nonprofit organization Feeding America. Yet, over 44 million Americans go hungry every day. If this seems like a huge gap, this is due both to the process of distributing the food and to the food waste that affects the world’s ability to sufficiently raise its entire population. However, several New York City(NYC) communities have found an effective way to reduce food waste—community fridges.

These fridges represent a grassroots way to increase access to food and fight against food waste. The community fridges offer a way for people to give fresh food that they will not eat to others who need it. They first surfaced in New York City in 2020. These community fridges offer a ray of hope to people who were struggling to afford or find food during supply chain issues and rising food prices.

Community fridges offer a way for food that would otherwise be wasted to be redistributed. However, another wonderful effect of reducing food waste is the ability to reduce emissions that contribute to climate change. As food gets bad in landfills, it gives off methane, which is the second most common greenhouse gas. This means that food waste is responsible for up to ten percent of global emissions—which is a pretty large number! Placing food that would otherwise go uneaten in a community fridge can help to reduce these emissions.

Although there are some negative side effects of community fridges, their benefits usually outweigh their negatives. Volunteers clean and maintain the fridges. Some community fridge nonprofits even use renewable energy to power the refrigerators. Although the community fridge may be misused by some, these instances are sparse. Now, the idea of the community fridge has spread. These fridges, also known as “friendly fridges”, will be found in cities throughout the United States.

1. Why is “a huge gap” mentioned in paragraph 1?

A．To seek for ways to feed the hungry.	B．To lead in the problem of food waste.
C．To point out the population crisis in the US.	D．To show the effect of reducing food waste.

2. What is a benefit of the community fridge program according to the text?

A．It helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

B．It motivates companies to make energy-saving fridges.

C．It is the best solution to global climate change.

D．It brings down food prices by offering more supplies.

3. What does the underlined word “sparse” mean in paragraph 4?

A．Ordinary.

B．Serious.

C．Reasonable.

D．Rare.

4. What is the author’s attitude towards community fridges?

A．Unclear.

B．Doubtful.

C．Hopeful.

D．Indifferent.

9 . Why do we talk the way we do? It might date back to when our ancestors left the jungle for the open plain. Between 5.3 million and 16 million years ago, Africa’s landscapes changed from thick, leafy forests to wide-open grasslands. This environmental change pushed our ancestors out of the trees and onto the ground. Along with all of the physical and behavioral changes this may have caused, researchers also believe it may have changed the way we speak.

“Open landscapes provide us with fewer objects to affect signal communication, meaning our voices can travel further compared with that in thick forests,” Charlotte Gannon, a researcher who studies language development, told Newsweek. “The move to these open spaces may have increased the effectiveness of our communication.”

By comparing the vocal calls of the orangutan (大猩猩) , Gannon and her team were able to establish how different calls could travel across different landscapes. In their study, the team played 487 calls from orangutans and measured their audibility (可听度) at set length over an overall distance of over 1,300 feet in the South African plain.

“Our results were surprising,” Gannon said, “The rule of sound spread suggests that lower-frequency (低频率) sounds (the grumphs) would have traveled further than higher-frequency sounds (the kiss squeaks). Our results actually found the opposite to this.” In these environmental settings, consonant (辅音)-like calls traveled a lot further than vowel (元音) -like calls. Actually, around 80 percent of consonant-based calls were audible at 1,300 feet, compared to only 20 percent of vowel-based calls.

Gannon said these results highlight the importance of studying living orangutan to learn about our species’ history. “We can view them as time machines that allow us to recreate key moments of our history so we can learn more about the development of our language,” Gannon said. “Despite their popularity in modern languages, consonants have often been forgotten when discussing speech development. Our research highlights not only their presence in ancient times but their importance to the development of language.”

1. What led to the speech development?

A．Behavioral change.	B．Time development.
C．Physical development.	D．Environmental change.

2. What makes communication happening 10 million years ago more effective?

A．Less block.

B．Better tools.

C．Louder voice.

D．Larger vocabulary.

3. What is paragraph 3 mainly about?

A．The results of the study.

B．The process of the research.

C．The purpose of the program.

D．The participants of the project.

4. What can be inferred from the last two paragraphs?

A．The living orangutan can recreate our language.

B．Consonants are significant in language development.

C．The sound of grumphs travels further than that of kiss squeaks.

D．Consonant-like calls travel four times further than vowel-like calls.

10 . Via Rail

Train Tickets from New York to Washington

Station	Departure	Arrival	Price
Penn Station—Union Station	12:20 am	3:57 am	$19
Penn Station Union Station	4:20 am	8:33 am	$29
Penn Station—Union Station	6:02 am	10:14 pm	$60
Penn Station—Union Station	8:00 am	10:58 am	$70

Discount Policies

Seniors (above 60 years old) can benefit from a 20% discount offered by Via Rail, making it a cost-effective choice for their travel needs.

Luggage(行李) Allowance and Restriction

Via Rail allows passengers to bring up to four pieces of luggage. Carry-on items must not exceed (超过) 50 pounds and checked luggage must not weigh more than 50 pounds per item.

Passengers are allowed to bring bicycles and sports equipment on Via Rail trains.

Food and Drink Service

Via Rail provides food and drink service for purchase, offering a variety of dining options to passengers.

Payment

Via Rail accepts various payment methods, including credit cards, Interac Online, and pre-paid credit cards. It is advisable to check the website for the most up-to-date information on accept able payment methods.

Facilities for Passengers with Special Needs

Via Rail is committed to providing accessibility for all passengers. The trains are equipped with accessible restrooms, seating areas, and boarding assistance for passengers with mobility issues. Additionally, staff members are trained to assist passengers with disabilities to ensure a comfortable travel experience.

E-ticketing

Via Rail offers the option to use the e-ticketing system, allowing passengers to present their ticket on a mobile device without the need for printing.

1. Which train takes the least time?

A．The 12:20 am one.

B．The 4:20 am one.

C．The 6:02 am one.

D．The 8:00 am one.

2. How much should a couple in their seventies pay if they take the 6:02 am train?

A．$60.

B．$96.

C．$112.

D．$120.

3. What can we learn about Via Rail from the text?

A．It serves food and drink for free.	B．It is developing a new e-ticketing system.
C．It doesn’t allow sports equipment on board.	D．It provides convenient access to the disabled.