1 . Who says you have to stay indoors when the temperatures drop? Here are favourite places to explore this winter.
Athens, Greece
In Athens, every November temperatures stay around the mid-20s, so have a trip to the Parthenon and Acropolis. A full afternoon is also necessary for exploring the Museum of Cycladic Art and its exhibitions — recently it has hosted Picasso’s.
In the streets of the Pysrri district is a hidden hole in the wall, from which one can go down to the basement restaurant, Diporto.
Huaraz, Peru
To some, Peru gives people images of students in printed shorts on a tour of Machu Picchu. There’s obviously so much more to do in the UNESCO World Heritage (遗产) site. Any hike through the surrounding Huascaran National Park will make you feel like you’ve stepped into The Lord of the Rings.
April and November are considered “shoulder season”, which means fewer clear days but you can enjoy the trails (路线) with fewer people.
Edinburgh, UK
Yes, it’s probably going to be freezing cold. Hot coffee steam up in a pleasing, romantic fashion in cafes. People can take a few minutes’ walk from the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.
For simple Scottish dishes there’s neighbourhood inn, the Little Chartroom. And the Sheep Heid Inn has been long enough to have served Mary, Queen of Scots. In the eight bedrooms at the 18th century Rock House, each is a mixture of ancient details and current fashion.
Valletta, Malta
Flights from the UK to Malta’s capital are only around £30, making it one of the best destinations for a November trip. This tiny city has a temperature of 17 or so and has changed itself into a year-round city break with artistic cafes, hotels and newly opened galleries — Muza opened last year and houses the former National Gallery collection.
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1. Which place has exhibited Picasso’s works lately?| A．Muza. | B．National Gallery. |
| C．The Museum of Cycladic Art. | D．Scottish National Portrait Gallery. |
| A．You can appreciate ancient culture. | B．The Lord of the Rings was filmed here. |
| C．It’s a good place for hiking. | D．There are fewer people on April. |
| A．Athens. | B．Valletta. | C．Huaraz. | D．Edinburgh. |
| A．It served the Queen of Scotland. | B．It combines ancient and modern styles. |
| C．It has at least eight kinds of rooms. | D．It offers Scottish local specialties. |
2 . I’ve learned a lot in my many years in the gym, and beginner-me would be shocked by the things present-me does during the workouts.
Rest days are a convenient tool for making sure you’re not overworking yourself, but that’s all. Organizations like the American College of Sports Medicine recommend leaving 48 hours between intense strength-training periods for a given muscle.
The “10% rule” is a not-terrible guideline for figuring out how quickly to improve your training.
| A．But if you look at where they get that number |
| B．You can just eat more protein-containing foods |
| C．There are a few supplements that can help you in your fitness journey |
| D．Or they may keep you at the same mileage for weeks at a time |
| E．But it’s a suggestion, not a rule to be strictly obeyed |
| F．And finally, drinks can give you more energy in the gym |
| G．With the benefit of experience, I now do exercises I used to think one should “never” do |
3 . Artificial intelligence (AI) plays an important role in the Asian Games Hangzhou 2022 and Asian Para Games. AI usually refers to the advanced technologies, such as the naked-eye 3D, VR, AR and so on. These terms might sound familiar, but how smart are they when applied to the 56 Asian Games venues (场地)?
Their smartness can be found in running the venues with less human labor forces and with more connections between man and machines. At the Huanglong Sports Center, a system called Smart Stadium Brain is 1debuilt. The Brain, a 25-square-meter high-definition screen in the venue’s information center, displays the entire venue in 3D visualization to keep an eye on the temperature, the lighting, the energy consumption, and the facilities to ensure a friendly environment for the athletes and audiences. For the benefit of audiences, a small screen on each seat is designed to be at the audience’s service. By finger touching, the audience can control it from three parts—angle, speed, and size to watch and keep contact with the event. What’s more, supported by the 5G technology, a 360° playback function is fixed.
AI also means further protection on environment. At the Fuyang sports Center, although it has been raining for days, the roof of the venue still remains dry. And the secret lies in its attractive sky garden. The garden, covering the roof, is not only eye-catching but also useful. It allows the greening rate of the entire stadium to reach as high as 45%, being energy-saving. Under the cobblestones (鹅卵石) of the sky garden, a recovery system is filtering (过滤) and collecting rainwater for the venue’s water system, fountain, and irrigation water.
Smart devices are employed both inside and outside the venues. For example, the Tonglu sports Center starts a WeChat mini-program for any follower to learn about the venue through VR games and videos before the Hangzhou Asian Games. During the Games, the program will allow the athletes and audiences to place orders online, waiting in the venue for a robot waiter to deliver and serve their food.
1. Which of the following can replace the underlined word “ensure” in Para2?| A．guarantee. | B．grab. | C．involve. | D．proceed. |
| A．The audience can’t see the whole venue on the large screen. |
| B．The stadium is environmentally friendly and advanced but costly. |
| C．The audience can control small screens on their seats as they wish. |
| D．Small screens make the game watching enjoyable and convenient. |
| A．By saving energy. | B．By using the cobblestone of the sky garden. |
| C．By recycling the rainwater. | D．By improving the greening rate. |
| A．Asian Games with Artificial Intelligence. | B．A Sports Center with Smart Stadium Brain. |
| C．More Connections with Smart Devices. | D．Smart Asian Games with High-tech Venues. |
4 . Maybe your mom or dad has told you, “Turn that down before you go deaf!”
Temporary (暂时的) hearing loss can happen after you’ve been exposed to loud noise. You also could have tinnitus (耳鸣), which is a medical term for ringing in the ears.
If someone is exposed to loud noise over a long period of time, permanent hearing loss can occur. This means the person’s hearing won’t ever be as good as it once was.
You can help keep your hearing in good shape on your own. Save your ears by wearing ear protection when you’re using machinery. You also might want to give your ears a rest once in a while if you like wearing headphones.
| A．Not just noise is harmful. |
| B．Your ears can feel “full”, too. |
| C．Of course, they have a point. |
| D．However, pleasant sounds, like music, do less harm to hearing. |
| E．Doing these will surely save you from saying “What?” later on. |
| F．That’s why factory workers sometimes need to wear ear protection. |
| G．Hearing protection devices come with different noise reduction ratings. |
5 . Is future you? It might seem like a strange philosophical question. But the answer to how you think about your future self could make the difference between decisions you ultimately find satisfying and ones you might eventually regret.
The brain patterns that emerge on an MRI (核磁共振成像) when people think about their future selves most like the brain patterns that arise when they think about strangers. This finding suggests that, in the mind’s eye, our future selves look like other people. If you see future you as a different person, why should you save money, eat healthier or exercise more regularly to benefit that stranger?
However, if you see the interests of your distant self as more like those of your present self, you are considerably more likely to do things today that benefit you tomorrow. A paper in the journal PLoS One revealed that college students who experienced a greater sense of connection and similarity to their future selves were more likely to achieve academic success. Relationships with our future selves also matter for general psychological well-being. In a project led by Joseph Reiff, which includes 5, 000 adults aged 20 to 75, he found that those who perceived a great overlap (重叠) in qualities between their current and future selves ended up being more satisfied with their lives 10 years after filling out the initial survey.
So how can we better befriend our future selves and feel more connected to their fates? The psychological mindset with what we call ”vividness interventions“ works. We have found, for instance, that showing people images of their older, grayer selves increases intentions to save for the long term. Besides, you might try writing a letter to-and then from-your future self. As demonstrated by Yuta Chishima and Anne Wilson in their 2020 study in the journal Self and Identity, when high-school students engaged in this type of ”send-and-reply“ exercise, they experienced elevated (升高的) levels of feelings of similarity with their future selves.
Letter-writing and visualization exercises are just a couple of ways we can connect with our future selves and beyond, but the larger lesson here is clear: If we can treat our distant selves as if they are people we love, care about and want to support, we can start making choices for them that improve our lives-both today and tomorrow.
1. What’s the function of paragraph 2?| A．Generating further discussion. | B．Introducing a research result. |
| C．Showing the effect of the finding. | D．Concluding various viewpoints. |
| A．By offering relevant statistics. | B．By using quotations. |
| C．By referring to previous findings. | D．By making comparisons. |
| A．Benefits of befriending our future selves. |
| B．Ways of connecting with our future selves. |
| C．Methods of changing psychological mindsets. |
| D．Possibilities of us becoming our future selves. |
| A．Making future plans makes a difference. |
| B．Our future selves look like other people. |
| C．Getting to know your future self benefits. |
| D．Your choice affects the fates of strangers. |
6 . Mu Sa, a livestream host of the Hui ethnic group from Zhongning, Ningxi a Hui autonomous region, demonstrated how the Internet had transformed many young unemployed people into useful talents contributing to society.
After graduating from university majoring in sociology, Mu worked as an office clerk in Shanghai, a marketing assistant in Beijing and a data analyst in Hangzhou. Each time he struggled to realize his dream in big cities. Mu returned home at 25 after losing his job during the COVID-19 pandemic in November 2021.
However, he was not overcome by his failures and quickly lifted himself up. Mu decided to pick up his cell phone and begin creating short videos about local people's daily lives at home and uploading them online.
A video clip showing his mother cooking local food turned out to be a surprise hit. Even his mother was shocked that so many viewers, who commented that the video aroused memories of their own moms and hometowns, could be interested in a daily routine.
Mu said it was the success of this video clip that inspired him to carry on. He gradually found that village-related content was popular among his followers. “The more local the content, the more universal its appeal is,” he said. Mu started promoting local specialties on his account on April 1 last year, which turned out to be another success.
Ma Rui, a middle school classmate of Mu's, also posted about local life on his social media, which had 150,000 followers. He helped Mu with framing, composition, transitions and music.
Apart from his rural angle, Mu also attributed the popularity of his short videos to the empathetic effects they produced in the viewers, particularly young people. “The uncertainty of the future often makes young people feel confused to varying degrees,” he said. “I gave my answer to the confusion with my own practical actions: There is not a uniform norm of life for young people, including college graduates. Dreams will lead everyone to where they should go.”
1. What is the direct reason for Mu Sa to start creating short videos?| A．His strong interest in sociological major. | B．His unemployment due to the pandemic. |
| C．The popularity of village-related content. | D．The success of a video clip about his mother. |
| A．By shooting the videos for him. | B．By producing music for the videos. |
| C．By promoting the videos on social media. | D．By providing assistance in making videos. |
| A．There is no regular formula for success. |
| B．Short videos should be centered on rural life. |
| C．Influencers should show pity for the viewers. |
| D．The young are supposed to experience hardship. |
| A．Assistance from friends ensured success | B．Videos about farmers gained popularity |
| C．An unemployed man became a local hit | D．A live streamer turned failure into success |
7 . There are many differences in ways of thinking between East and West. Many of them are reflected in daily behaviour. In particular, Chinese people sometimes attach more importance to their appearance and social status than to their inner qualities, while Westerners think the opposite. However, Socrates (Ancient Greek philosopher) and Confucius share significant similarities that are universal.
Both philosophers share several teachings in common; for example, their understanding of the nature of knowledge and their opinions on education. Socrates believed “There is only one good, knowledge;and only one evil, ignorance.” Similarly, Confucius said, “Isn’t it a pleasure to study and practice what you have learned?” But both also acknowledge the limits of knowledge. Socrates said: “All I know is that I know nothing.” Similarly, Confucius said, “When you know a thing, to hold you know it; when you don’t know a thing, to allow you don’t know it-this is knowledge.”
However, there are important differences in their understanding of morality. Confucius believed each person should follow certain regulations according to virtue(德行). Everyone should play their role in a society where people are interdependent in order to achieve harmony in the whole society. For instance, when asked how to govern a country, Confucius stated “An emperor should act like an emperor, a subject should act like a subject.” Socrates, however, places self-knowledge over social knowledge.
Another difference between them is their attitude towards political domination(支配). Confucius believed the best way to govern a country isn’t through legal system, but through virtue. Socrates, by contrast, declared that “nothing is more important than justice”.
Why have East and West developed such different cultural values? A widely accepted theory holds that Eastern civilization was an agricultural civilization. Hence the need for a collective society and friendly relations with neighbors was strong. Western civilization, however, was nomadic(游牧的). Their mobility makes them less dependent on society after migration.
In spite of their differences, the two cultures have more in common than differences. The shared concern for moral values in the teachings of Socrates and Confucius also shows us more fundamental similarities between Eastern and Western cultures in their pursuit of virtuous lives.
1. What do the two philosophers share about knowledge?| A．The learning of knowledge is easy. | B．The learning of knowledge is endless. |
| C．A man without knowledge is foolish. | D．A man shall not pretend to understand. |
| A．Nothing is more important than a legal system. |
| B．I am not a Chinese, but a citizen of the world. |
| C．Not everyone should play his own role in society. |
| D．A man does what is proper to the position he is in. |
| A．The difference in political atmosphere. | B．The difference in the length of history. |
| C．The difference in economic development. | D．The difference in levels of social dependency. |
| A．Reasons for similarities of Eastern and Western cultures. |
| B．The introduction of great figures of two different cultures. |
| C．Comparisons of the thoughts of the two great philosophers. |
| D．The contributions of two great philosophers to civilization. |
8 . The first apes evolved 20 million years ago in the forests where they would go up a tree to get their food, and then come back down to move on to the next tree. Getting out of a tree presents all kinds of new challenges. Big apes can’t afford to fall because it could kill or badly injure them. Natural selection would have favored those with body structures that allowed them to descend safely.
Dartmouth researchers report in the journal Royal Society Open Science that apes probably evolved free-moving shoulders and flexible elbows to slow their descent from trees as gravity pulled on their heavier bodies. These flexible body parts passed on from ancestral apes would have allowed early humans to climb trees at night for safety and comedown in the daylight unhurt. When early humans transitioned from forests to open savannas (热带稀树草原), flexible shoulders and elbows were crucial for gathering food and using tools for hunting and defense.
The researchers used sports analysis and statistical software to study how primates(灵长目动物) like chimpanzees and small monkeys called mangabeys climbed in the wild. They found that chimps and mangabeys scaled(攀爬) trees similarly, with shoulders and elbows mostly bent close to the body. When descending, however, chimpanzees extended their arms above their heads to hold on to branches, much like a person using a ladder, to counteract(抵消) their heavier weight pulling them downward.
Luke Fannin, the lead author of the study, emphasized that their findings highlight the importance of “down climbing” in the evolution of apes and early humans. He explained, “Our research introduces the idea that down climbing played a significant role in shaping the structural differences between monkeys and apes, which eventually manifested in humans.”
“Our field has thought about apes climbing up trees for a long time, but we’ve been ignoring the second half of this behavior,” said Professor Jeremy DeSilva, “The findings are among the first to identify the significance of “down climbing” in the evolution of apes and early humans.
1. According to paragraph 1, apes would have been favored by natural selection if .| A．they have sufficient food resources. |
| B．they come down from trees securely. |
| C．they master skills of climbing up trees. |
| D．they cure themselves when they’re injured. |
| A．The similarity of two primates in tree climbing |
| B．The evolution of two primates’ adaptation to nature. |
| C．The analysis of primates’ tree scaling and descending |
| D．The application of different research methods and tools. |
| A．Descending trees has been neglected by researchers for a long time. |
| B．The study is the first to recognize the significance of down climbing |
| C．The evolution of apes and early humans is a result of down climbing. |
| D．Studies on climbing down trees are more likely to have new findings. |
| A．Chimpanzees and Mangabeys: Researches in Natural Settings |
| B．Apes and Humans: A Comparative Study of Climbing up Trees |
| C．Shoulders and Elbows: Evolved as Brakes for Downclimbing Apes |
| D．Apes’ Climbing Strategies: How to Use Different Body Parts Flexibly |
9 . When we open a news app, we’ll notice that every second, we are presented with so much information that our brain just can’t keep it. The matter is made worse by our belief in “multi-tasking” which is, more often than not, simply another term for divided attention.
Control the information flow
Set up a new account on social media and follow only accounts or people that are really valuable.
It is unnecessary to throw away the phone but do give ourselves a time limit, Say, “I will only use this app for 20 minutes” or “I will only read this magazine after dinner.”
Acknowledge our limits
We’ll never read all the news. We’ll never read all the “must-read” articles.
| A．Set a time limit |
| B．Focus on one task |
| C．Pick only the content which entiches us |
| D．In other words, our brain is better than we think it is |
| E．Accept the fact that we can only choose two or three |
| F．After all, we are human beings who can only take in so much a day |
| G．Actually, it’s much better to have a little remembered than a lot forgotten |
10 . IT’S A TYPICAL morning: you wake up, take a shower, brush your teeth, and then prick (刺; 扎) your arm with a tiny needle. Wait, what? Unless you have a serious disease such as diabetes, you probably haven’t ever tested your own blood. But in the future, that might change.
The company Cor already sells a system for home blood testing. You stick your arm using a supposedly painless, one-off , blood-drawing cartridge (针筒) about the size of a lipstick. Then you stick the cartridge into a device that looks like the base for an electric toothbrush. A few minutes later, an app on your phone buzzes with updated information, including your current health data and tips on what to eat and how to exercise during the day.
It’s true that blood contains a wealth of information about a person’s health. Blood tests can show if a person is infected with a disease or at risk for a variety of problems, including a heart attack or a stroke. But most people don’t test their own blood until a doctor says it’s time. Healthy young adults get regular blood tests about every five years. These tests happen at a lab, where a technician or a nurse sticks a long needle into the arm to draw out several tubes full of blood. Cor and similar companies, such as WellnessFX, are trying to change all that. They think people deserve access to more information about their own health.
But not everyone is convinced that regular blood testing for healthy people is a great idea. Cor’s system is expensive and may not offer much benefit. “The lightest result here is that you lose your money and then you’re reminded to get more sleep and to eat more fruits, vegetables, and fish,” Pieter Cohen of Harvard Medical School told the New York Times. “The worst result is that you end up getting frightened by probably abnormal results that are actually completely normal for you.”
Plus, the results of a home blood test might be wrong. It’s hard to get accurate results from a tiny amount of blood. So what do you think? Is monitoring your own health via pinpricks the way of the future? Or is it better to leave blood testing to medical professionals?
1. Why does the author mention the typical morning in the first paragraph?| A．To explain a scene. | B．To introduce the topic. |
| C．To make a comparison. | D．To provide an example. |
| A．It is painless and cheap to use. |
| B．It has won popularity among people. |
| C．It offers accurate health information about our body. |
| D．It may give advice on our diet according to the health data. |
| A．Objective. | B．Subjective. | C．Supportive. | D．Negative. |
| A．Home blood tests: yes or no? | B．Should blood tests be allowed at home? |
| C．A new system of improving your health. | D．Home blood testing: your health monitor! |
