1 . Whether you are travelling for business or pleasure, every trip needs a little planning. Travel planning doesn’t have to be stressful, though. Here are some simple steps for you.

Start planning in advance.

    1     International trips can take months to plan. Trips during high seasons, like summer vocations, need to be planned further out than trips during low seasons.

    2    

Before you do anything, you need to know how much money you will have for this travel. It is easy to overspend when you are travelling if you don’t plan ahead. So start your planning by working out how much you want to spend on transportation, food, sightseeing and hotels.

Make reservations.

Booking transportation and accommodations in advance is quite necessary. Things like flights, trains and even car rentals can be quite different depending on when and where you book them. It’s worth considering booking accommodations online. There are many reliable websites for booking hotels.     3    

Make a tour routine.

Make your routine simple and clear. You don’t need to plan out every minute of every day.     4     Researching and planning these before you leave allows you to see and do more of you want.

Pack your essentials.

    5     For example, your ID card and mobile phone charges. Check the night before you depart. Check the weather and pack proper clothing for your trip.

A．Get ready to go.

B．Set a travel budget.

C．See your doctor for health concerns before your trip.

D．The longer you wait, the more expensive these will get.

E．The further away you want to go, the earlier you need to plan.

F．But schedule time for the things you really want to see and do.

G．No matter where you’re going, there are some necessities to take.

2 . After years of writing papers and cramming for tests, many young travelers look forward to their cap toss and the celebratory trip, which serves the purpose of celebrating the completion of this phase of schooling.

Danube River, Europe

Experience Europe by booking your family on a Danube River Cruise to have a great trip with your college-age kids. You can visit eight cities in four different countries as you cruise from Germany to Hungary, having a peep into European history and culture.

New York City, New York

If your college-going kids are into theater, a visit to New York City’s Broadway will be the perfect family vacation destination you can gift them. There is some new show that’s happening there always and could even be on the bucket list of the young adults in your family!

London, England

If your young ones have been bitten by the Harry Potter bug, a visit to the Wizarding World in London will be irresistible for them. See Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in his West End home, and then proceed to the Palace Theatre.

Kruger National Park, South Africa

South Africa’s Kruger National Park covers nearly two million hectares of land with a wide diversity of life forms along with historical and archaeological sights. The Cape buffalo, African elephant, leopard, the fish eagle and Marula trees are within sight.

For more information, please refer to the chart below:

Ratings	Danube River, Europe	New York City, New York	London, England	Kruger National Park, South Africa
Activities Attractions	5/5	5/5	4/5	5/5
Affordability	3/5	4/5	4/5	4/5
Safety	4/5	3. 5/5	5/5	4/5
Accessibility	3/5	5/5	5/5	4/5
Accommodation Options	5/5	5/5	4/5	4/5

1. Which destination appeals to animal enthusiasts?

A．Danube River, Europe.	B．New York City, New York.
C．London, England.	D．Kruger National Park, South Africa.

2. What may concern travelers to New York City most?

A．Accommodation choices.	B．Financial costs.
C．Personal security.	D．Transport system.

3. Who is this passage targeted at?

A．Graduates.

B．Parents.

C．Travel bloggers.

D．Tour guides.

3 . A fisherman from Portland, Maine, the US, caught a very rare bright blue lobster (龙虾) off the coast of Maine but chose to set it free back into the ocean. The photo of the blue lobster was shared by tech enterpriser Lars-Johan Larsson. “This blue lobster was caught off the coast of Portland yesterday and returned to the water to continue to grow. Blue lobsters are one in two million,” he wrote.

While the shells of lobsters are generally red or brown in color, the blue shell is a result of gene mutation (基因突变), which causes the lobster to produce more of a particular protein than other lobsters, leading to the rare blue color, as reported by the Toronto Sun.

Yellow, orange and crystal-colored lobsters are considered even rarer than bright blue ones. According to the Lobster Institute, yellow lobsters account for about one in 30 million of the total population. Two fishermen in Dorset caught a crystal-colored lobster in 2011.

“Whatever the odds of catching different-colored lobsters, there’s no denying that bright blue ones are truly beautiful creatures,” said Rob Bayer, executive director of the University of Maine Lobster Institute. “They might not be the most unusual, but they’re undoubtedly the best to look at.”

It’s become something of a trend for restaurants to spare blue lobsters. Austin Hopley, a chef at “The Hare” in Rochdale, the UK, made the news for sparing a bright blue lobster. He gave it to Sea Life in Manchester, as reported by the BBC.

“Now it’s there for people to enjoy,” said Hopley. “I felt responsible. Something so rare didn’t require a place on the menu. Every species deserves a fair chance at survival.”

Expert Brendan Malone from Sea Life said, “It is certainly an extraordinary find and worth saving to try to educate the public about these amazing creatures in the ecosystem.”

1. What is the root cause for the color of blue lobsters?

A．Gene variation.	B．Adaptation failure.
C．A specific protein.	D．A mix of red and brown.

2. What does Rob Bayer think of blue lobsters?

A．They are the rarest.	B．They are easy to catch.
C．They are delicious to eat.	D．They are most beautiful.

3. Why was Hopley unwilling to cook the blue lobster?

A．It wouldn’t make a good dish.

B．He wanted to follow the trend.

C．He took on responsibility to save it.

D．It would bring him fame and profits.

4. Which can serve as the best title?

A．Blue Lobsters Rebound Suddenly

B．Chefs Take Action to Protect Lobsters

C．Gene Mutation Has an Effect on Lobsters

D．Man Catches a “One in Two Million” Blue Lobster

4 . Ready for a creative journey like never before? Welcome back to Axis Bank Splash! We are excited to invite you to dive into a world of imagination, where colors, words, and creativity come to life. But this year promises to be more exciting as entries showing your talents in drawing, craft, and literature are highly anticipated.

Themes

Choose the themes suiting yourself.

Group	Theme
Kids 7—10	Helping One Another
Kids 11—14	Making The World A Kinder Place

Prizes

The excitement doesn’t end with just showing your creativity. Winners in each age group have the chance to win fantastic prizes.

Cash Rewards: A generous reward awaits those whose creativity stands out.

Customized Campus Tours: Absorb yourself in the creative environment with a customized tour of noted art and design campuses.

Virtual Workshops from NID: Learn from the best! Winners will have the opportunity to attend virtual workshops conducted by the National Institute of Design (NID), a celebrated institution in design education.

Registration

Click on “Register”, add your phone number, and fill in the OTP (One-time Password). Fill in the “Submission Category” and attach your creative file. Need guidance? If yes, check out the sample submission here.

Don’t miss the chance to make a hit with your creativity. We are waiting for your masterpieces!

1. What is Axis Bank Splash?

A．An organization.

B．An art museum.

C．A tour.

D．A contest.

2. What will the winners get?

A．A check reward.	B．Admission to NID.
C．A visit to art colleges.	D．Access to design studios.

3. What is required for submission?

A．Completing the submission category.	B．Changing the password first.
C．Submitting the work by email.	D．Referring to the given sample.

5 . It is not hard to learn more about a piece of famous painting, but identifying an unknown painting can be tricky. What do you need to do to get its specific information? Here are tips to identify a painting.

·Use the signature or monogram (字母组合图案) to dig online and find the image. Look in the corners of the painting to see if there is a signature or monogram.     1     If it’s harder to read, see if you can break down the letters and read them. This will let you narrow down the search and figure out who the artist is.

·Turn to an image recognition app to identify the painting immediately. If you’re struggling to remember an artist’s name or you want additional information on a particular painting, download an image recognition app designed specifically for art. There are several apps for both Android and iPhone that allow you to snap a photo of a painting to search through museum catalogues, university databases, and art history texts.     2    

·Ask an expert to identify the era, style, or painter of an image.     3     The reason is that an expert like a professor in the field of art will be able to offer insights about the period, style, and give you a better sense for where to look. He may even know who the artist is as soon as he takes a look at it.

·    4     Contemporary painters may paint people or objects from the past, but they can’t time travel. If there’s a train, company logo or some other time-specific component of it, this is a great way to set a baseline (基准) for your search.

In a word, the tips above are helpful.     5     In this way, you will effortlessly identify the unknown painting.

A．This is the easiest way to find a specific painting.

B．Locate its exact location when you appreciate the painting.

C．If the name is easy to read, search the artist’s name up online to find it.

D．Email or visit an art history professor to ask whether he can look at the image.

E．Take advantage of obvious clues in the subject matter to narrow down the date.

F．Thus, you’ll find it easier than you think to find the information you’re looking for.

G．If the professor mainly focuses on newer artists, a contemporary abstract piece is going to be easier to identify.

6 . 6 Days Small Group Tour from Beijing to Xi’an

Tour Type: Small Group (max 18), guaranteed departures

Guide & Driver: An English-speaking guide, an experienced driver with an air-conditioned coach

Accommodation: 5 nights at good 5-star hotels

Day 1: Arrival in Beijing

Welcome your arrival anytime at the airport and transfer to the hotel.

Day 2: Beijing

· Visit the Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City including the Treasure Gallery;

· Enjoy à la carte (按菜单点菜) welcome lunch with authentic Peking Duck;

· Further explore royal culture at the Yonghe Temple and the Temple of Heaven;

· Watch Peking Opera and see artistic face painting.

Day 3: Beijing

· Visit the Great Wall by a round-trip cable car;

· Visit the Bird’s Nest;

· Take a rickshaw ride through hutong alleys and visit a local family in a traditional courtyard house.

Day 4: Beijing to Xi’an by flight

· Visit the Panda Hall and the Summer Palace;

· Taste local flavors for lunch;

· Fly to Xi’an and transfer to a hotel.

Day 5: Xi’an

· Visit Terracotta Army and the discoverer’s home;

· Have a unique experience to make your own mini clay warrior (陶俑);

· Continue to visit the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda;

· Enjoy a dumpling dinner and the Tang Dynasty Music and Dance Show.

Day 6: Departure from Xi’an

· Connect with local people at the City Wall Park and learn to practice tai chi from amaster, then visit the City Wall;

· Taste local flavors for lunch;

· Take a taxi to the airport by yourself.

A pleasant onward journey!

· $1,059 per person

Includes:

· Domestic airfare

· Hotel accommodation with breakfasts

· The à la carte lunches as route specifies

· Professional English-speaking guides

· Drivers & air-conditioned vehicles

· Entrance fees to tourist sites

· Tips or gratuities for hotel doormen

Excludes:

· International airfares

· Entry visa fees

· Personal expenses

· Tips or gratuities for guides and drivers

1. How can tourists get to the Great Wall?

A．By cable car.

B．By train.

C．On foot.

D．By water.

2. What can tourists do on Day 4?

A．Enjoy Peking Duck.	B．See lovely pandas.
C．Try artistic face painting.	D．Make a clay warrior.

3. Which of the following will cost extra?

A．Tips for hotel doormen.	B．Flying from Beijing to Xi’an.
C．Souvenirs for friends.	D．Air-conditioned vehicles fees.

7 . Efforts to restore forests have often focused on trees, but a new study in the journal Philosophical Transactions finds that animals play a key role in the recovery of tree species by carrying a wide variety of seeds into previously deforested areas.

Sergio Estrada-Villegas, a professor at the Yale School of the Environment, led the study with Liza Comita, a professor of tropical forest ecology. The project examines a series of regenerating forests in central Panama spanning 20 to 100 years post-abandonment. “When we talk about forest restoration, people typically think about going out and digging holes and planting seedlings,” Comita says. “That’s actually not a very cost-effective or efficient way to restore natural forests. If you have a nearby preserved intact (完整的) forest, plus you have your animal seed dispersers around, you can get natural regeneration, which is a less costly and labor-intensive approach.”

The research team analyzed a unique, long-term data set from the forest in Panama, to compare what proportion of tree species in forests were spread by animals or other methods, like wind or gravity, and how that changes over time as the forest ages. It proves that in tropical forests, more than 80% of tree species can be spread by animals.

The researchers say the findings can serve as a road map for natural regeneration of forests that preserve biodiversity and capture and store carbon at a time when the UN Decade on Restoration is highlighting the need for land conservation, and the world is working to mitigate climate change stemming from fossil fuel emissions. Forests absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in biomass and soils. Tropical forests, in particular, play an important role in regulating global climate and supporting high plant and animal diversity, the researchers note.

Estrada-Villegas, says the study highlights how crucial animals are to healthy forests. “In these tropical environments, animals are very important to a speedy recovery of forests,” says Estrada-Villegas.

1. What does the study in the journal emphasize according to paragraph 1?

A．Soil conservation techniques.	B．Animal involvement in spreading seed.
C．Artificial methods of capturing carbon.	D．Planting a diverse range of tree species.

2. What does the third paragraph mainly talk about?

A．The author’s research methods and tools

B．The frequency of spreading seeds by animals.

C．The long-term data analysis by the research team.

D．The crucial role of animals in tropical forest recovery.

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

A．Reduce.

B．Increase.

C．Complicate.

D．Ignore.

4. What’s Estrada-Villegas’s attitude towards using natural regeneration methods?

A．Critical.

B．Indifferent.

C．Supportive.

D．Ambiguous.

8 . Islands not only have served as the settings for exotic holidays but also act as a dream for directors to use as a canvas for their stories. These are some of the most exciting film and TV locations you can visit today.

Death in Paradise (2011)

Guadeloupe, French Caribbean

The location: Guadeloupe’s landscapes are strikingly varied, ranging from the pearly white sand and deep blue waters of beaches to the volcanic, lunar-like interior.

While you’re there: Explore Deshaies, a town home to several Death in Paradise filming locations.

How to do it: Seven nights at Club Med La Caravelle from £2, 305 per person, all-inclusive, includes flights from Heathrow to Pointe-a-Pitrevia Paris.

Eat, Pray, Love (2010)

Bali, Indonesia

The location: Ubud, a town in the center of Bali, means “medicine” in Balinese, so locals have leng regarded it as a place for healing. That’s what it is most famous for. It impresses audience with stunning jungle scenery and a thriving arts scene.

While you’re there: Dive into Ubud’s rich cultural history on a walking tour, enjoying some of the region’s most striking architecture and history.

How to do it: A nine-day tour of Bali-including Ubud, Lombok and Seminyak-costs £5,300 per person. It includes flights, transfers, accommodation and excursions (游览).

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

Skellig Michael, County Kerry, Ireland

The location: Eight miles off the Irish coast, Skellig Michael is now better known as the hideout of Luke Skywalker.

While you’re there: Look out for the colony of puffins that nest on the island in the summer. The birds were digitally designed as a cute fictional species called porgs in a later sequel (续集).

How to do it: Tour Radar’s seven-day Hiking & Island Hopping-Cork and Kerry costs from £2,101 per person, which covers accommodation, meals and excursions.

1. Ubud is best noted for __________ according to the passage.

A．its amazing scenery	B．its magic medicine
C．its friendly locals	D．its spiritual significance

2. Where can you go if you are fond of science fiction films?

A．Guadeloupe.

B．Deshaies.

C．Bali.

D．Skellig Michael.

3. What is the purpose of the passage?

A．To tell three stories in brief.	B．To share three popular movies.
C．To introduce three destinations from the screen.	D．To offer some islands only for directors.

9 . We adopted Franny, our crazy and lovable Boston puppy, from a local rescue at the start summer in 2022. However, two weeks later she was nowhere to be found.

We often leave our yard doors open to allow Franny and our another dog, Olive, to visit enclosed backyard and lie on the deck (甲板). My heart sank severely when I failed to find any. No sooner had I sensed that than my wife and I charged to our car to comb for this missing dog swiftly. I was scanning the yards a few blocks over when my phone rang all of a sudden: A woman and her daughter had our dog. Franny had been jogging down the alley (小巷) behind their lawn when they grabbed her and called the number on her tag (标牌).

I located and blocked off the gap in the fence that Franny had squeezed through in case she went out secretly and got lost again. However, she was on the run again one month later.

This time she made it much farther — all the way to a high school, where a man found it eating lunch in the sun with some students. Franny was returned to us, her big brown eyes looking ashamed as the man handed her over to me.

These days, our backyard is secured like a maximum-security prison. We love this crazy dog more than ever, and Franny finally seems content to stay put now.

Mostly, I’m thankful for the kind folks who took the time to grab our adorable runaway and return her to us. All of them refused any recompense, regardless of how much I pushed. These minded our family that the world is filled with those who will go out of their way to lend others a hand.

1. Where did the woman first find the dog?

A．In the alley.	B．In the gap of the fence.
C．On her lawn.	D．On the deck of her backyard.

2. What did the author do to prevent his dog from getting lost for the second time?

A．He tied a tag to her.	B．He kept track of her.
C．He bridged the fence’s crack.	D．He rebuilt a firm new fence.

3. What does the underlined word “recompense” in the last paragraph mean?

A．Criticism.

B．Request.

C．Proposal.

D．Payment.

4. What is the author’s purpose to write the text?

A．To show off his puppy.

B．To extend his gratitude.

C．To call on us to care for the homeless animals.

D．To demonstrate the solutions to adopting dogs.

10 . Writer Andrew Leland started losing his sight 20 years ago, when he was in high school, as a result of a progressive eye disease called retinitis pigmentosa (色素性视网膜炎). His first experience of loss of sight happened temporarily at night, in which he was confused that everyone else seemed to see in the dark so much better than he did. Over the years, his disease has progressed gradually. He’s now legally blind, although he still has a narrow field of vision, which allows him to see about 6% of what a fully sighted person sees.

Leland analogized his vision to the view you might get by looking through a toilet paper tube or a keyhole. He said, “Imagine having that toilet paper tube tied to your head and trying to walk down the street; there’s a whole bunch of things you don’t see but that you really ought to, like dogs.”

In his new book, The Country of the Blind, Leland writes about losing his vision and preparing for blindness, how his condition impacts his identity, how the world sees him and his marriage, and something valuable he has learned.

He said he was not going to try to tell people that having vision was not an unbelievably useful thing for a human being for many reasons. When talking about the experience of being alive and being conscious, he referred to James Joyce — Joyce believed that he was only losing one world among many, and that vision was only a tiny part of experiences when he was going blind.

He thought if you looked at the things that blind people were capable of imagining, like John Milton writing Paradise Lost as a blind person, there was this unbelievable richness in humans’ consciousness that vision had nothing to do with. Other realms (领域) such as the mental and emotional realms were all so rich that they could also help unfold things on earth before you.

1. What do we know about Leland?

A．He went totally blind in high school.

B．He experienced night blindness at first.

C．He was born with a narrow field of vision.

D．He was aware of his condition throughout.

2. Which is closest in meaning to “analogized” underlined in paragraph 2?

A．Connected.

B．Reduced.

C．Compared.

D．Exposed.

3. Why is James Joyce mentioned?

A．To help explain an opinion.

B．To stress the value of good vision.

C．To state his considerable influence.

D．To show the inconvenience of blindness.

4. What message is conveyed in the last paragraph?

A．Practice is the best teacher.

B．The blind have more vivid imagination.

C．Things are not set in concrete.

D．Vision is not the only window in the world.