1 . My teacher held up a piece of broken glass and asked, “Who broke this window?”
Thirty boys tried to think about not only what they had done, but also what the teacher might have found out. She seldom became angry, but she was this time.
“Oh,” I thought. I was the one who broke the window. It was caused by a naughty throw of a baseball. If I admitted guilt, I would be in a lot of trouble. How would I be able to pay for a big window like that? I didn’t even get an allowance. “My father is going to have a fit as a result of it,” I thought. I didn’t want to raise my hand, but some force much stronger than I was pulled it skyward (朝向天空). I told the truth, “I did it.” It was hard enough to say what I had done.
My teacher took down a book from one of our library shelves and I had never known my teacher to strike a student, but I feared she was going to start with me.
“I know how much you like birds,” she said as she stood looking down at my guilt-ridden face. “Here is the field guide about birds that you are constantly checking out. It is yours now. It’s time we got a new one for the school anyway. You will not be punished, but remember that I am not rewarding you for your misdeed (恶行), but I am rewarding you for your truthfulness.”
I couldn’t believe it! I wasn’t being punished and I was getting my own bird field guide — the very one that I had been saving up money to buy.
The lesson my teacher taught me stays with me every day, and it will echo forever.
1. From the story, we can learn that the boy .| A．didn’t break the window on purpose |
| B．lacked the courage to admit his guilt |
| C．tried to think about what he had done |
| D．didn’t know what the teacher had found out |
| A．be punished by the teacher |
| B．make his father angry |
| C．pay for the broken window |
| D．get a bird field guide |
| A．Afraid—Surprised—Thankful. |
| B．Frightened—Amazed—Proud. |
| C．Regretful—Guilty—Excited. |
| D．Nervous—Afraid—Satisfied. |
| A．Every coin has two sides. |
| B．Honesty is always valued. |
| C．Bad luck never comes alone. |
| D．You can’t be too careful. |
2 . What is the best sleep position for your health?
It’s difficult to control what sleeping position we naturally fall into, as our body will subconsciously all into the most comfortable position for us. However, some positions are better for you than others and come could hold back your health and wellbeing.
If you sleep on your side
More than 60 per cent of people sleep on their side. Often our body naturally moves to this position, which is linked to when we were in the womb in the foetal(胎儿的) position.
If you sleep on your back
Lying on your back is the second most popular sleeping position and offers just as many benefits as side sleeping. When you’re sleeping on your back, it’s easy to keep alignment and to also evenly distribute your weight.
If you sleep on your stomach
Sleeping on your stomach is the least common sleeping position.
| A．This also helps to prevent any neck and back pain. |
| B．Sleeping on your side is probably the best position |
| C．Side sleeping would be particularly beneficial for older people. |
| D．There are more negatives to this position compared to positives. |
| E．Determining the sleeping position for you is personal preference. |
| F．Here, this article reveals exactly how your sleep position is affecting your health. |
| G．This is mostly likely because it is one of the most comfortable sleeping positions. |
3 . Peru is famously known as the “land of the Incas”. Á trip to Peru has been on my wish list for quite a while. It was finally time for me to visit the country.
My first day started in Lima, the capital of Peru. I met with the G Adventures representative(代表) here about the tour. G Adventures is an organization that helps you to connect with other like-minded people in small group-based travel activities. They played a big part in helping to make Peru an unforgettable experience for me! In Lima, my representative discussed the plan of my tour, and I also had the chance to explore Lima in my own time, with many activities, including a city tour, show, biking tour, and more.
Day two had me taking a flight from Lima to Cusco. Many people visit Cusco for shopping but for me the main reason for spending a day or two in Cusco was to acclimatize(适应)to the altitude(海拔). As I’d decided to reach the wonder of Machu Picchu, acclimatizing had become important to avoid altitude sickness. I was happy to spend a day exploring Cusco. Cusco was once the capital of the Inca Empire. Today, it’s famous for its artists, paintings, clothing and traditional instruments. There’s something for everyone in this city.
The day finally came! Day three had me enjoying a lovely guided visit to Machu Picchu at sunrise. I had free time to explore these ruins(遗迹) on my own as well as with my guide. It was a lot to take in! I had to stop for a moment and felt the energy(能量) of such an ancient city. The history here was unbelievable and I will never forget my time here for as long as I live!
1. What is the author’s attitude to G Adventures?| A．Doubtful. | B．Satisfied. | C．Uninterested. | D．Hopeful. |
| A．To go shopping. |
| B．To find a local guide. |
| C．To get used to the high altitude. |
| D．To do research about the Inca Empire. |
| A．Full of excitement. | B．Out of place. |
| C．Terribly tired. | D．Very regretful. |
| A．My love of traveling | B．My wonderful trip to Peru |
| C．Peru: the “land of the Incas” | D．Traveling: the future of Peru |
4 . A method to transform a commonly thrown-away plastic to a resin (树脂) used in 3D printing could allow for making better use of plastic waste. A team of Washington State University researchers developed a simple and efficient way to transform polylactic acid (PLA)(聚乳酸), a bio-based plastic used in products such as filament, plastic silverware and food packaging to a high-quality resin.
“We found a way to immediately turn this into something that’s stronger and better, and we hope that will provide people the inspiration to upcycle this stuff instead of just throw it away,” said Yu-Chung Chang, a postdoctoral researcher in the WSU School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering and a co-corresponding author on the work. “We made stronger materials just straight out of trash. We believe this could be a great opportunity.”
Although it’s bio-based, PLA, which is categorized as a number 7 plastic, doesn’t break down easily. It can float in fresh or salt water for a year without degrading (降解). It is also rarely recycled because like many plastics, when it’s melted down and re-formed, it doesn’t perform as well as the original version and becomes less valuable.
“It’s biodegradable and compostable, but once you look into it, it turns out that it can take up to 100 years for it to rot away in a landfill,” Chang said. “In reality, it still creates a lot of pollution. We want to make sure that when we do start producing PLA on the milliontons scale, we will know how to deal with it.”
While the researchers focused on PLA for the study, they hope to apply the work to poly-ethylene terephthalate (PET) (涤纶树脂), which is more common than PLA and has a similar chemical structure and presents a bigger waste problem. They have filed a temporary patent and are working to further optimize (优化) the process. The researchers are also looking into other applications for the upcycling method.
1. What can the method help do according to paragraph 1?| A．Solve financial crisis. | B．Change waste into wealth. |
| C．Control plastic production. | D．Determine 3D printing skills. |
| A．Promising. | B．Unrealistic. | C．Imaginable. | D．Reliable. |
| A．Invaluable to recycle. | B．Easy to deal with. |
| C．Hard to break down. | D．Difficult to sort out. |
| A．Applications for an upcylcing method. |
| B．A better method to break down plastic. |
| C．3D printing with newly found materials. |
| D．A new way to turn plastic into valuable products. |
5 . Bangkok (曼谷) developed around the Chao Phraya River. Many of the city’s hotels sit along the river. The areas of Siam and Ratchaprasong are the core of tourist Bangkok. Sukhumvit Road is home to mall after mall filled with every kind of shop.
For the best value, luxury (奢华的) hotels in the Bang Rak and Sathorn Districts are great choices since the area is more popular for office buildings than tourists. The Sathorn Vista, Bangkok is a perfect example. There are several restaurants, a full gym, a beautiful pool and outdoor areas.
Traditionally, the Khao San Road area has been the center of Bangkok budget lodging (住宿) and this is still true today. The Dang Derm Hotel on Khao San Road has clean, large rooms and a really nice rooftop pool. If you’re on a budget but want to stay riverside, try the Ibis Bangkok Riverside, whose contents are always clean and well-managed. The riverside location is close to the ferry, and its location a bit south of the main tourist area gets you very low prices.
Mandarin Oriental, Bangkok is a great family hotel. The hotel, which has buildings on both sides of the Chao Phraya river, has been providing accommodation to travelers since 1876. For families there are a number of connecting room choices, and the hotel is also responsible for bringing in extra beds for children. There is a kids’ club on-site, and parents can even sign older kids up for cooking classes. Another good option for families is Ariyasomvilla. This downtown Bangkok small hotel also offers a pleasant place in the city. It is set inside a beautiful garden and is a lovely change from the disorder of the city.
1. In which area of Bangkok can you find a hotel on a budget?| A．The Sukhumvit Road. | B．The Khao San Road area. |
| C．The Siam and Ratchaprason areas. | D．The Bang Rak and Sathorn Districts. |
| A．A quiet garden-like environment. | B．Room-connecting choices . |
| C．Registered kid schooling classes. | D．Wonderful economical lodging. |
| A．Two. | B．Three. | C．Four. | D．Five. |
6 . The flower doesn’t use verbs or adjectives to tell a pollinator (传粉昆虫) that it looks pretty when the pollinator flies by, at least not as far as we know. But plants do respond to the sound of bees buzzing through the air, greeting them with more sweet nectar (花蜜) in hopes of attracting them to land. It is a poetic and practical language that increases everyone’s chances of survival. Scientists increasingly believe that animals and plants communicate with each other. Thanks to a new study on “natural language”, now there’s additional evidence that measures how evening primroses (月见草) respond to sound.
The research team played sounds like that of bees’ wings beating to evening primroses. The flowers vibrated (振动) when they heard the sounds. It’s as if they were listening. Other sounds, played at different frequencies, didn’t lead to the same result. The flowers vibrated, but didn’t increase the sweetness of their nectar production. The average sugar concentration was 20% higher in flowers exposed to pollinator-like frequencies, but remained stable at the sound of higher frequency recordings and silence.
These findings led the researchers to argue that flowers function as a plant’s ears, informing the plant as a whole of what’s going on nearby and when it’s time to attract a pollinator. Plants have to be sensitive to the sound of pollinators because they have an interdependent relationship with one another. The plants rely on the pollinators for reproduction, so they produce a sweeter nectar as a kind of seduction. And the bees eat the nectar, which means they’ll be adjusted to what the flowers are doing and drawn to the sweeter food. It pays for flowers to be able to distinguish between the sound of bats as compared to bees, for example, and for the pollinators, it’s worthwhile to find the best food in the least amount of time.
While this study is just a first step in understanding how plants respond to sound, and studies on other species must be done next to better understand how flowers listen.
1. How did the researchers do the experiment?| A．By vibrating the flowers. | B．By exposing plants to pollinators. |
| C．By imitating the sound of insects. | D．By increasing the sweetness of nectar. |
| A．Production. | B．Attraction. | C．Value. | D．Adjustment. |
| A．Saving resources. | B．Providing more food. |
| C．Knowing different species. | D．Promoting the reproduction. |
| A．How certain plants react to sound. | B．How to interact with plants. |
| C．The languages used in nature. | D．The methods of survival for plants. |
7 . It can be tough to pull kids away from their computers and mobile devices these days. While they’re playing games, wouldn’t it be great if they could be learning at the same time? Good educational apps offer fun challenges that teach specific grade-level skills. Here are four that combine fun and learning.
Understanding Math($3.99; iOS)
Understanding Math goes beyond basic comprehension to gain a deeper understanding of the whys and hows of math. The app tracks your child’s progress to determine strengths and weaknesses in different skill areas, and you can customize(订制)your child’s learning experience to suit the needs.
Word Creativity Kit($2.99; iOS)
Word Creativity Kit aims not only to make creative writing fun but also build up grammar rules. The app presents a series of words from seven categories, such as space or fantasy. Kids add their own words to finish the complete thoughts that these words have inspired.
Barefoot World Atlas($4.99; iOS)
Barefoot World Atlas helps kids learn about geography and world cultures with a touch of the screen. Each region features a set of sub-topics, from wildlife and natural features to native people, landmarks, and architecture. These facts and illustrations are delivered in photographs, sounds, and hundreds of mini videos.
My Grades & Homework($0.99; iOS)
A combination of grades and homework tracker, My Grades & Homework can help your child stay organized and on top of the progress in school. A convenient calendar and course list format and offer a glance at your child’s assignment schedule that he or she might not normally get from standard homework planners.
1. Which app is beneficial to children’s writing skills?| A．Understanding Math. | B．Word Creativity Kit. |
| C．Barefoot World Atlas. | D．My Grades & Homework. |
| A．They need purchasing when downloaded. |
| B．They help children improve their grades. |
| C．They make studies fun because of mini videos. |
| D．They inform parents of their children’s progress. |
| A．To wish readers to bring in more similar apps for children. |
| B．To encourage parents to allow their students to play apps. |
| C．To design the educational apps to combine fun and learning. |
| D．To introduce four educational apps for readers to buy and use. |
8 . An artificial intelligence can decode (解码) words and sentences from brain activity with surprising—though still limited—accuracy. Using only a few seconds of brain activity data, the AI guesses what a person has heard. It lists the correct answer in its top 10 possibilities up to 73 percent of the time, researchers found in a study.
Developed at the parent company of Facebook, Meta, the AI could eventually be used to help thousands of people around the world unable to communicate through speech, typing or gestures, researchers report on August 25 at arXiv.org.
Most existing technologies to help such patients communicate require risky brain surgeries to implant electrodes. This new approach “could provide a practical path to help patients without the use of invasive methods,” says neuroscientist Jean-Rémi King, a Meta AI researcher in Paris.
King and his colleagues trained a computational tool to detect words and sentences on 56,000 hours of speech recordings from 53 languages. The tool, also known as a language model, learned how to recognize specific features of language. With the help of a computational method, the team tried to decode what participants had heard using just three seconds of brain activity data from each person. The team instructed the AI to match the speech sounds from the story recordings to patterns of brain activity that the AI computed as corresponding to what people were hearing. It then made predictions about what the person might have been hearing during that short time, given more than 1,000 possibilities. The correct answer was in the AI’s top 10 guesses up to 73 percent of the time, the researchers found.
The new study is “decoding of speech perception, not production,” King notes. Though speech production is the ultimate goal, for now, “we’re quite a long way away.”
1. What is the main idea of paragraph 1?| A．The principle of human brain activity. |
| B．The limitation of human brain activity. |
| C．The definition of the artificial intelligence. |
| D．The new function of the artificial intelligence. |
| A．People unable to hear. | B．People who can’t move around. |
| C．People who are unconscious. | D．People unable to communicate normally. |
| A．To analyze the features of the study. | B．To state the significance of the study. |
| C．To introduce the process of the study. | D．To present the achievement of the study. |
| A．It performs well in the speech production. |
| B．Its accuracy is far from the researchs’ satisfaction. |
| C．It will help patients avoid dangerous brain surgeries. |
| D．Its language learning ability is beyond expectation. |
9 . Zheng Qinwen announced herself as a major new force in women’s tennis with an important French Open debut(首秀) last month. Now the Chinese teenager hopes the fighting spirit she showed at the Grand Slam (大满贯) tournament can encourage kids starting out in the sport to chase their dreams on the court with the same determination.
“If tennis is your dream, I think you always have to fight for your dream. Because we only have one life, you shouldn’t have any regrets,” Zheng said last week in an interview.
The 19-year-old showed she possesses the talent to be a contender at the very top level of tennis with a breakout campaign at French Open.
Accounting for two-time Grand Slam winner Simona Halep along the way, Zheng’s journey was ended in the fourth round by a three-set defeat to eventual champion Iga Swiatek. Zheng, though, gave the Polish world No. 1 a big scare, battling back from 3-0 down in the first set to force and win a tiebreak(平分决胜局).
“That was the first time I had played against the world No.1, so I really wanted to grab this chance so I could judge her level and test myself,” said Zheng. “I didn’t want to give her the match so easy like that. It was pretty difficult for me to hold on in that match because of what my body was going through, but I wanted to show her I’m not easily beaten.”
Looking back at Zheng Qinwen’s performances in this year’s French Open, there’s no doubt that she’s a true fighter. Zheng says she avoids being discouraged by higher-ranked opponents by simply focusing on the next point, one shot at a time. Supported by her team, she hopes she can one day win a Grand Slam title.
Zheng’s impressive French Open run has inevitably(不可避免地) led to comparisons with China’s solitary Grand Slam singles champion Li Na, who won the 2011 French Open and 2014 Australian Open titles.
“When I was a kid, Li Na showed that Asian people also can do something really good in tennis. She was the first one. I will just focus on my own game and then let’s see if I can really compete at the highest level,” said Zheng.
1. What does the underlined word “contender” in paragraph 3 mean?| A．Competitor | B．Announcer. | C．Campaigner. | D．Designer. |
| A．Iga Swiatek beat Zheng easily. |
| B．Zheng lost to Iga Swiatek at last. |
| C．Zheng won the match despite her pain. |
| D．Iga Swiatek lost because of her mistakes. |
| A．To show how excellent Zheng Qinwen is. |
| B．To prove failure is the mother of success. |
| C．To explain why Li Na has achieved a lot. |
| D．To compare the difference between Zheng Qinwen and Li Na. |
| A．Optimistic and generous | B．Adventurous and realistic. |
| C．Independent and helpful | D．Struggling and determined. |
10 . Nobody knows the value of a good doll better than Jandrisevits. “Dolls have a power we don’t completely understand,” she said. It’s a conclusion she came to while working as a social worker using dolls to help her young clients adapt to their changing medical situations. Many of the kids saw themselves in those dolls. But for the kids missing a limb or who had lost their hair, there were none they could relate to.
So, seven years ago, when a friend revealed that her child was stuck in self-doubt and self-distrust, Jandrisevits, now 49, knew what might help the youth through this potentially challenging period. “It’s hard to tell a kid, ‘You are perfect the way you are,’ and to build self-esteem (自尊) that way, but never offer them anything that looks like them,”she says.
Jandrisevits went about changing that. She crafted a doll by hand — using fabric, stitching, and markers — that resembled (像) her friend’s child and sent it off. After the friend posted a photo online of the happy child and doll, another woman asked Jandrisevits to make a doll that looked like her baby, who was missing a leg.
Word spread, and soon Jandrisevits was making dolls for children with scars, birthmarks, facial deformities(畸形), — in short, a doll that looked like them. She quit her job and started a nonprofit, A Doll Like Me.
Working out of her home in Milwaukee, from photos sent by parents or caregivers, it takes Jandrisevits roughly three days to craft only one doll. A GoFundMe page helps her cover costs and allows her to donate her services. She hasn’t charged for a doll since she began her nonprofit.
In all, she’s made more than 400 dolls. The waiting list is long, but Jandriscvits will never give up. As she explains on her GoFundMe page, “Every kid, regardless of gender, ethnicity, age, medical issue, or body type, should look into the sweet face of a doll and see their own.”
1. What made Jandrisevits realize the value of dolls?| A．The influence of dolls on her. | B．Her working experience. |
| C．The changing medical situations. | D．Her relation to the unlucky kids. |
| A．Children’s concern about their looks. |
| B．The problems faced by the child of a friend. |
| C．The challenging period the youth are going through. |
| D．The fact that words alone fail to help build self-esteem. |
| A．It targets children with mental problems. | B．It is time-consuming but meaningful. |
| C．It is thought poorly of by people. | D．It brings in a good fortune. |
| A．Creative and caring. | B．Ambitious and devoted. |
| C．Considerate and sensitive. | D．Knowledgeable and generous. |
