1 . Hilde’s father was a reporter. He often took her to work with him, and she developed a strong interest in news stories and reporting.
The newspaper suddenly became famous when a murder happened in the town, and Hilde was the first person to report it. Soon, news organizations around the country were doing stories on Hilde.
Others criticized Hilde for “pretending to be a reporter’’. Some people even suggested she should be playing with dolls.
That wasn’t the last time Hilde had trouble getting people to take her seriously. Sometimes, it was because of her age. Other times, it was because she was a girl.
Now Hilde has published a book telling her own story and the challenges she has faced. Some of those challenges came from Hilde herself, struggling to figure out who she was as she grew older.
| A．But she never let that stop her. |
| B．Hilde was upset by the complaints. |
| C．For now, Hilde says she has given up reporting. |
| D．When she was 8, Hilde started her own newspaper. |
| E．Her great success in reporting has changed her life. |
| F．Not everyone was happy about Hilde’s efforts, though. |
| G．She was clearly in a dilemma about how to solve the crisis. |
2 . ChatGPT, designed by OpenAI to carry on conversations just like humans, has become a viral excitement. The AI-powered tool went from zero to a million users in just five days! Its ability to provide in-depth answers to user questions has even drawn the attention of distinguished technology companies.
The intelligent robot understands what the user says or types and then responds in a way that makes sense. Its vast body of knowledge has been gathered from the internet and archived books. It is further trained by humans. This makes ChatGPT a useful tool for researching almost any topic.
“We have a lot of information on the internet, but you normally have to Google it, then read it and then do something with it,” says Ricardo, chief science officer and co-founder of AI company Erudit. “Now you’ll have this resource that can process the whole internet and all of the information it contains for you to answer your question.”
ChatGPT cannot think on its own. It depends on the information that it has been trained on. As a result, the AI tool works well for things that have accurate data available. However, when unsure, ChatGPT can get creative and flow out incorrect responses. OpenAI cautions users to check the information no matter how logical it sounds. Also, ChatGPT has only been trained with information till 2021. Hence, it cannot be relied upon for anything that happened after that.
Experts believe ChatGPT has limitless potential to solve real-world problems. It can translate long texts into different languages, create content on almost any topic, and even summarize books.
However, ChatGPT has received mixed reactions from educators. Some believe it could serve as a valuable tool to help build literacy skills in the classroom. It could also be used to teach students difficult science or math concepts. But other educators think ChatGPT will encourage students to cheat. They fear this will prevent them from building critical thinking and problem-solving skills. As a result, many districts are starting to ban its use in schools.
1. What is the unique feature of ChatGPT?| A．It has artificial intelligence. | B．It can answer users’ questions. |
| C．It has the largest number of users. | D．It can engage in meaningful conversations. |
| A．Its capability of information processing. | B．Its accurate information. |
| C．Its availability of up-to-date data. | D．Its vast body of questions. |
| A．ChatGPT is unable to think itself. | B．ChatGPT lacks creativity. |
| C．ChatGPT offers illogical information. | D．ChatGPT is not properly trained. |
| A．Favorable. | B．Disapproving. | C．Objective. | D．Intolerant. |
3 . Museums can be overwhelming. With thousands of pieces there, how do you know which to focus on? And once you see a piece you like, how do you interact with it? Here is some advice on how to have a meaningful connection when you look at art.
Get up close and personal.
Stand back. Next, take a few steps back, stand in the center — and observe what’s happening in the big picture. What’s going on in the piece?
Look at it from an angle. Then try looking at an artwork from its sides, because you might catch something you might not have seen straight on. If it’s something like The Ambassadors by Holbein at The National Gallery in London, and if you stand to the side, you’ll see something that from front on looks very different.
Move your body. If you’re looking at a painting, you can take a finger to the air and trace the outline of the figure or the movement of the brushstrokes.
Consider the subject of the art. That can have a profound effect on how you feel about the work and perhaps you can learn something from it. Take the example of Andrew Wyeth’s famous painting, Christina’s World, which depicts (描绘) a girl with a muscle disease crawling across a field to get to her home in the distance. The painting personifies (体现) determination.
| A．So just keep an open mind. |
| B．What have they gone through? |
| C．When you stand to the side, it changes. |
| D．How are the figures in the piece arranged? |
| E．We have the luxury of seeing the real thing at a museum. |
| F．When looking at sculptures, try the poses with your body. |
| G．It can in a way relieve your stress to know we have this inner strength. |
4 . The UK, Finland, Germany, and Sweden are consistently the top performers in European tech ecosystems. These countries also have the largest economies in Europe.
Finland is second in digital life overall, and first in cashless payment. This is because the internet plays a vital role in Finland’s digital life. High-speed internet access and freedom of speech make the Finnish ecosystem more sustainable, with good internet access and mobile coverage in remote areas.
Since the beginning, Germany’s industry has supported scientific research. German society and economy take pride in their research-development efforts.
Sweden is a leader in technological innovation, with remarkable achievements in web development and mobile apps. For years, Ericsson and other large tech companies dominated the market.
Above are some European countries with the most advanced technological and digital expertise. As we know, the race for technological progress between countries is never over.
| A．Here comes the truth. |
| B．The tide has turned today. |
| C．Most residents there can switch on easily. |
| D．We want to see how Europe’s tech countries compare. |
| E．Not all the countries experienced the smooth development. |
| F．This is supported by evidence from global automotive brands. |
| G．The British Empire was once the most developed country in the world. |
5 . What is heritage? The word can be difficult to define. Heritage is always something that is passed down by families or other groups for many years.
Many parts of the natural world are also important to cultural heritage. This can include bodies of water, plant life, landforms and more. One example is the Nile River.
The intangible group includes any part of cultural heritage that you can’t feel through touch. Maybe you’ve read about forms of dance, like Flamenco dancing. You might know about the music of Mariachi Bands or holidays like Eid. These are all examples of intangible heritage.
Exploring your own heritage can be fun. It can help you learn about yourself, your family, and your ancestors. But it’s also important to learn about the heritage of others.
| A．They are treasures that can be touched. |
| B．What tangible items can be part of heritage? |
| C．However, heritage isn’t limited to concrete objects. |
| D．Languages, holidays and customs also make the list. |
| E．Therefore, it’s difficult to protect them from fading away. |
| F．Doing so can help you build a stronger understanding of other cultures. |
| G．It has been part of cultural heritage in many African nations for centuries. |
6 . Living in a city is a well-known risk factor for developing a mental disorder, while living close to nature is largely beneficial for mental health and the brain. A central brain region, the amygdala (大脑杏仁核) involved in stress processing, has been shown to be less activated during stress in people living in rural areas, compared to those who live in cities, hinting at the potential benefits of nature. “But so far the hen-and-egg problem could not be resolved, namely whether nature actually caused the effects in the brain or whether the particular individuals chose to live in rural or urban regions,” says Sonja Sudimac.
To achieve causal evidence, the researchers from the group examined brain activity in regions involved in stress processing in 63 healthy volunteers before and after a one-hour walk in Grunewald forest or a shopping street with traffic in Berlin. The results revealed that activity in the amygdala decreased after the walk in nature, suggesting that nature elicits beneficial effects on brain regions related to stress.
“The results support the previously assumed positive relationship between nature and brain health, but this is the first study to prove the causal link. Interestingly, the brain activity after the urban walk in these regions remained stable and showed no increases, which argues against a commonly held view that urban exposure causes additional stress,” explains Simone Kühn, head of the group.
The authors show that nature has a positive impact on brain regions involved in stress processing and that it can already be observed after a one-hour walk. This contributes to the understanding of how our physical living environment affects brain and mental health. Even a short exposure to nature decreases amygdala activity, suggesting that a walk in nature could serve as a preventive measure against developing mental health problems and reducing the potentially disadvantageous impact of the city on the brain.
In order to investigate beneficial effects of nature in different populations and age groups, the researchers are currently working on a study examining how a one-hour walk in natural versus urban environments impacts stress in mothers and their babies.
1. What does the hen-and-egg problem mean by Sonja Sudimac?| A．Living in rural areas actually affects brain activity. |
| B．People in cities tend to have a higher risk of mental problems. |
| C．It’s unnecessary to work out the complex issue of stress and health. |
| D．It’s hard to clarify the impact of living environment on mental health. |
| A．By quoting authoritative experts. |
| B．By interviewing healthy volunteers. |
| C．By researching on a previous theory. |
| D．By comparing volunteers’ amygdala activities. |
| A．Confirming the assumption of nature’s benefits to brain health. |
| B．Supporting a commonly held view of urban exposure. |
| C．Revealing the link between age and mental health. |
| D．Identifying the causes of mental health problems. |
| A．Benefits of a regular walk in nature. |
| B．The focus of the follow-up research. |
| C．An appeal for living in urban regions. |
| D．Nature’s positive effects on women and children. |
7 . Brazilian artist Néle Azevedo is best known for big public art pieces. The artist carves hundreds of 20 -centimeter-tall ice figures seated with their ankles crossed and places them atop outdoor steps and puts them in city squares all over the world, where they quickly melt. The faceless sculptures drip and pool into small puddles as time passes. Her works have been adopted by environmentalists as a kind of activist art against climate change.
But is it? Yes and (mostly) no.
The mass of melting bodies makes a natural connection to the threat humankind faces due to rising global temperatures. “Its close link with that subject is evident,” said the artist. In addition to the threat of global warming itself, the sheer number of sculptures sitting together also calls attention to the fact that we humans are all in it together. “Such kind of threats also finally put man in his place, his fate is along with the destiny of the planet, and he is not the ‘king’ of nature, but an essential element of it,” continues Azevedo on her website.
“I took every characteristic of traditional monuments and made the opposite,” she says. “I made small figures that sit on the floor. It doesn’t honor anybody. It does honor the unknown.”
Azevedo explains, “In a few-minute action, the rules of the monument are inverted: in the place of the hero, the unknown; in the place of the solidity of the stone, the momentary process of the ice; in the place of the monument size, the minimum size of the perishable (易毁坏的) bodies.” Originally Azevedo wanted her art to get people thinking about impermanence, and the sight of ice transforming into a puddle of water certainly does that brilliantly.
1. What can we learn about Néle Azevedo’s artworks?| A．They are put in public places for artists to appreciate. |
| B．They are adopted as a way of showing artistic talents. |
| C．They are linked with the threat of climate change. |
| D．They are considered as a symbol of unity. |
| A．kept track of | B．turned upside down |
| C．laid emphasis on | D．taken into account |
| A．It is permanent by nature. |
| B．It lacks practical influence. |
| C．It takes long to see the results. |
| D．It conveys the artist’s exact intention. |
| A．Public Interest in Contemporary Art |
| B．Ice Figures Transforming into Water |
| C．Responsibility Demanded of Activist Artists |
| D．Mini Sculptures Echoing the Climate Crisis |
8 . Have you ever walked through a door and thought to yourself, “What was I going to do?” If you have, you are not alone. Psychologists believe that walking through a door and entering another room creates a “mental block” in the brain. This is generally referred to as the doorway effect.
In the early years of brain research, scientists thought that human memory was like a closet, with many sections in which we could store little boxes of experiences from our lives. Boxes would remain there forever, and whenever we had to look into them, we could just go to that particular section and find that box of memory.
Beautiful as this description of human memory formation sounds, it is not true. Our brain is much more complex than that. Psychological studies suggest that our memories are episodic(情节性的)in general. If you think back on anything, you’ll probably quickly realize our memories don’t function as clear narratives. Instead, they’re more episodic and divided into parts.
A new research led by psychologist Oliver Baumann from Bond University in Australia suggests that it’s not so much the doorways that cause a memory wipe, as moving from one location to a significantly different one—it’s the abrupt change of scene that prepares our minds for something new. “A good example is moving around in a department store,” says Baumann, “Taking the elevator between floors may have no effect on our memory, but moving from the store to the parking lot might cause us to forget something that we need to buy.”
Baumann also points out that a busy and perhaps overloaded brain does seem to play some part in this phenomenon. In other words, walking through open doors is thought to reset memory to make room for a new episode.
The good news is that experiencing such forgettable episodes after entering another room does not tell you anything about your memory and intelligence. So when you enter a room and suddenly forget why you are there, you should not think that Alzheimer’s disease is creeping up on you!
1. Which of the following would most probably be “doorway effect”?| A．You missed a call and forgot to ring back. |
| B．You read a book and forget what it is about. |
| C．You entered the office and forgot what to get. |
| D．You saw a man years ago and forget who he is now. |
| A．All memories are linked in the brain. |
| B．Memories are clearly separated in the brain. |
| C．Not all the memories can be found in the brain. |
| D．Memories are stored in particular sections of the brain. |
| A．Taking an elevator stimulates new memory. |
| B．Walking through open doors results in memory loss. |
| C．A sudden change of the scene boosts intelligence development. |
| D．An overloaded brain increases the possibility of doorway effect. |
| A．Insignificant. | B．Beneficial. |
| C．Influential. | D．Damaging. |
9 . Scientists have solved a puzzle about modern humans, after research showed that a famous skull of a human ancestor found in South Africa is a million years older than experts thought. This discovery has changed what we know of human history.
The skull, which scientists have named “Mrs Ples”, is from an ape-like human relative from a species called Australopithecus africanus (南方古猿). It was found near Johannesburg in 1947 and, based on evidence from its surroundings, was thought to be between 2. 1 and 2. 6 million years old. This puzzled scientists, because although Mrs Ples looks like a possible early ancestor of early humans, the first true humans had already evolved by the time she apparently lived. For this reason, scientists had decided that Australopithecus afarensis, a similar species from East Africa that lived about 3.5 million years ago, was our most likely ancestor instead.
To get a more accurate age for Mrs Ples, a team led by Professor Darryl Granger of Purdue University in Indiana, US, used a new method to date the sandy rocks where the skull lay. They measured the amount of certain chemicals in rocks, which form at a steady rate when they are exposed to cosmic rays (宇宙射线) on Earth’s surface. Once rocks are buried, these chemicals stop forming and slowly disappear;the surviving amount reveals how much time has passed since the rock (or bones) were on the surface.
The new study shows that Mrs Ples and other australopithecine bones nearby are between 3.4 and 3.7 million years old. This means they lived at the same time as their East African relatives, so that either group could have given rise to modern humans. However, team member Dr Laurent Bruxelles pointed out that over millions of years, at only 2,500 miles away, these groups had plenty of time to travel and to breed with each other. In other words, the groups could quite easily have met, had children together and both been part of the history of modern humans.
1. What can we learn about Mrs Ples from the first two paragraphs?| A．It is a skull found in East Africa. |
| B．It is the most possible ancestor of humans. |
| C．It is a million years older than scientists expected. |
| D．It is proved to live between 2.1 and 2.6 million years ago. |
| A．By studying the effect of cosmic rays. |
| B．By calculating the forming rate of chemicals. |
| C．By locating the sandy rocks where the skull lay. |
| D．By measuring the surviving amount of chemicals. |
| A．Modern humans came into being in East Africa. |
| B．Mrs Ples travelled and had children with East African relatives. |
| C．The history of modern humans might begin 3.5 million years ago. |
| D．Ape-like species from Africa could have interacted with each other. |
| A．Historical Puzzle Unsolved | B．Ancestor Mystery Solved |
| C．Mrs Ples: The Earliest Human Being | D．Mrs Ples: A Famous Skull |
10 . That youngsters were glued to online games on their smart phones was a great concern for Ngurang Meena, a school teacher in Nirjuli.The 30yearold social science teacher, who ran the Ngurang Learning Institute, an adult literacy centre, said that she felt disheartened when she read student papers.“The graph of student performance is falling every year.It breaks my heart whenever I see answer sheets — basic grammar skills are missing and there’s an absence of any cohesive (连贯的) expression.They lack guidance and their reading culture is almost zero,” Meena said.When her school and the centre she ran had to close due to infectious diseases, she planned to do something to address the problem.
Inspired by a similar proposal in Mizoram, Meena set up a bookshelf with around 80 books as well as some benches on the side of the road in Nirjuli on 30 August 2020, where passersby could spend time reading.The selections included motivational books, biographies and novels as well as comics for young children.“I have to please the minors with sweets to sit and read, but that is okay,” she laughed.
Meena’s bookshelf became a hit among youngsters who spent hours in the reading corner.Within two months, her effort became the talk of the town.
Now, generous contributions of books come in from the public and she is even receiving requests to set up such libraries in other parts of the state, including one in the capital, Itanagar.Since the tiny libraries are far from the main town, she also lends books out to those who want to read at home.
“I never thought that this would become such a big inspiration,” Meena said.“Since childhood, we have been told that books are our best friends.The next generation of kids is focused on games and other things.I don’t want them to head on the wrong track,” she added.
1. What’s the aim of Meena’s reading program?| A．To care for youngsters lacking in reading. |
| B．To help adults learn some cohesive expression. |
| C．To keep Ngurang Learning Institute running well. |
| D．To highlight the importance of reading for adults. |
| A．She offered some rewards to them. |
| B．She provided them with transportation. |
| C．She chose novels with beautiful covers. |
| D．She selected books covering every category. |
| A．Small and useless. |
| B．Influential and meaningful. |
| C．Large but impractical. |
| D．Widespread but unwelcome. |
| A．Books：Sources of Knowledge |
| B．The Roadside Reading Corner |
| C．The Library：an Ideal place for the Young |
| D．New Ideas about Setting a Reading Plan |
