1 . Forks trace their origins back to the ancient Greeks. Forks at that time were fairly large with two tines that aided in the carving of meat in the kitchen. The tines prevented meat from twisting or moving during carving and allowed food to slide off more easily than it would with a knife.

By the 7th century A.D., royal courts of the Middle East began to use forks at the table for dining. From the 10th through the 13th centuries, forks were fairly common among the wealthy in Byzantium. In the 11th century, a Byzantine wife brought forks to Italy; however, they were not widely adopted there until the 16th century. Then in 1533, forks were brought from Italy to France. The French were also slow to accept forks, for using them was thought to be awkward.

In 1608, forks were brought to England by Thomas Coryate, who saw them during his travels in Italy. The English first ridiculed forks as being unnecessary. “Why should a person need a fork when God had given him hands?” they asked. Slowly, however, forks came to be adopted by the wealthy as a symbol of their social status. They were prized possessions made of expensive materials intended to impress guests. By the mid-1600s, eating with forks was considered fashionable among the wealthy British.

Early table forks were modeled after kitchen forks, but small pieces of food often fell through the two tines or slipped off easily. In late 17th century France, larger forks with four curved tines were developed. The additional tines made diners less likely to drop food, and the curved tines served as a scoop so people did not have to constantly switch to a spoon while eating. By the early 19th century, four-tined forks had also been developed in Germany and England and slowly began to spread to America.

1. What is the passage mainly about?

A．The different designs of forks.

B．The spread of fork-aided cooking.

C．The history of using forks for dining.

D．The development of fork-related table manners.

2. By which route did the use of forks spread?

A．Middle EastGreeceEnglandItalyFrance

B．GreeceMiddle EastItalyFranceEngland

C．GreeceMiddle EastFranceItalyGermany

D．Middle EastFranceEnglandItalyGermany

3. How did forks become popular in England?

A．Wealthy British were impressed by the design of forks.

B．Wealthy British thought it awkward to use their hands to eat.

C．Wealthy British gave special forks to the nobles as luxurious gifts.

D．Wealthy British considered dining with forks a sign of social status.

4. Why were forks made into a curved shape?

A．They could be used to scoop food as well.

B．They looked more fashionable in this way.

C．They were designed in this way for export to the US.

D．They ensured the meat would not twist while being cut.

2 . Directions: Complete the article with the words or phrases in the box.Each word or phrase can only be used once.There is one extra that you do not need.

A.led       B.forcing       C.having       D.planned E.performing       F.limited       G.monitoring       H.announcing

New Year’s Eve celebrations will still be on in Times Square, but with smaller crowds

NEW YORK — Revelers(狂欢者)will still ring in the new year in New York’s Times Square next week, there just won’t be as many of them as usual under new restrictions announced Thursday as the city struggles with a spike in COVID-19 cases.

Viewing areas that normally accommodate about 58,000 people will be    1    about 15,000 to allow for more distancing, and everyone in attendance must show proof of vaccination(接种疫苗)and wear a mask, Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a news release    2    the changes.

“There is a lot to celebrate and these additional safety measures will keep the fully vaccinated crowd safe and healthy as we ring in the New Year,” de Blasio said, noting the city’s success in getting residents vaccinated while also keeping businesses open.

The added precautions for New Year’s Eve in Times Square were spurred by the rapid spread of the omicron variant in the Big Apple, where lines for testing have snaked around blocks in recent days.

On Wednesday, the city set yet another one-day testing record with 22,808 new cases, though a true comparison to the number of cases during the initial COVID-19 surge in spring 2020 is impossible because tests were very limited at the time.

Because of vaccinations, hospitalizations and deaths from the current surge are far fewer than at the pandemic’s height.

The new wave of cases has    3    to the cancellation of concerts, sporting events and Broadway shows, but de Blasio has shown a strong preference for having the annual Times Square ball drop go on as    4    — the last major event of his eight-year tenure(任期), which ends Jan.1.

Little more than a month ago, de Blasio gladly announced that a fully vaccinated crowd of hundreds of thousands of people would be back at the iconic celebration — dressing goofy 2022-themed glasses and watching a crystal-clad ball drop at midnight — after it was limited last year to small groups of essential workers.

But that was before omicron caught fire,     5    city officials and event organizers to rethink just how many people they wanted to squeeze into the bright, billboard-lined tourist haven known to some as the Crossroads of the World.

On Tuesday, the Fox network gave its decision, pulling the plug on a planned live broadcast from the New Year’s Eve event.Other networks plan to air the festivities, including Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve on ABC, the loyal program now hosted by Ryan Seacrest.

De Blasio said along with Thursday’s announcement that the city is    6    the COVID-19 situation and could impose additional precautions if needed.Among the other changes announced Thursday, revelers won’t be allowed into viewing areas until 3 p.m., much later than in past years.

On New Year’s Eve last year, Times Square was mostly empty, with Jennifer Lopez and other artists     7    behind police walls. After vaccines became widely available in the U.S., the city allowed crowds back to the Macy’s Fourth of July fireworks, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade and other events.

“New York is the best place in the world to celebrate New Year’s Eve and now it will be one of the safest against COVID as well,” Mayor-elect Eric Adams said in a written statement supporting the new precautions.

“New Yorkers and visitors alike can now enjoy Times Square and the rest of our city as we ring in 2022.”

3 . Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize in no more than 60 words the main idea of the passage and how it is illustrated. Use your own words as far as possible.

Brainpower: Use It or Lose It?

Where brainpower is concerned, the old rule of ‘use it, or lose it’ holds true from the start. Babies who receive love and encouragement from their parents develop the neural (神经的)connections they need to get on in life. But what happens to those who fail to get this support?

It would be comforting to believe that such children escape long term damage by being too young to speak, or know any different, but the evidence suggests otherwise.

At a recent meeting of the Royal Society of Medicine, the participants were shown slides taken with a powerful scanner comparing the brains of ‘normal’ three-year-old with those who had been raised in poverty or in orphanages. The work was done by Bruce Perry of the Child Trauma Academy in Houston, Texas. The scans showed that the frontal-temporal areas of the brain, those responsible for personality and enabling a person to display and regulate emotions, showed little activity.

For years it has long been known to scientists that animals brought up in enriched environment have larger and more complex brains than animals that grow up in disadvantaged situations, so experts like Perry assumed that the same would hold true for humans. However, it is only now, thanks to powerful scanners that allow this theory to be put to the test, that the damage is clearly visible. Perry explains the reason for the abnormality is that the brain develops in a ‘use-dependent’ way, growing, organising and working according to experience. With the right stimulation, the brain makes the connections it needs. Without it, synapses (突触), junctions between the neurons used to transport the brain’s messages, actually dissolve. “Negative experiences play a vital role in organising the neural system in the developing brain,” says Perry; in other words, ill-treatment in infancy leads to faulty wiring in the brain.

4 . Trading Ages

It took five hours every morning to make Karoline and Nick look like elderly people in their seventies. They were given a synthetic wrinkled skin, false teeth and false hair. They also wore body suits to make them look fatter and contact lenses to make their eyes look older. The discomfort of the makeup, the heavy suits, and the contact lenses (which made their eyesight worse)gave them a small taste of the physical problems of old age. They were also coached to walk and speak like people in their seventies.     1    . There was a video diary to record their experiences and hidden cameras to record how other people reacted to them.

    2     Karoline was astonished to be ignored by some workmen, who only hours before had been whistling at her when she had been an attractive young woman. Nick said, “I learned that how people treat you depends on what you look like.” On one occasion a bus driver treated him very rudely when he tried to pay his fare with a large bill. “I was amazed. He wouldn’t have talked like that to my young self.”

There is a point in the documentary when Karoline breaks down and cries. It comes at the end of a day out with her two new senior citizen friends, Betty and Sylvia. It is partly because she feels guilty that she is tricking them, but mainly because she realizes that they are individuals, and not just members of what she had previously thought of as “the elderly.” “They were talking about real things and I felt unqualified. They had been through so much.     3    . It was as if I was seeing the young people inside them. Before I would have just seen the wrinkles.”

    4     Nick said, “I’d never thought about getting old before.” Karoline said, “The whole experience of living as an old person helped me to understand them far better and also to understand myself. I felt in a way that they were just young people in an old body trying to deal with the problems of old age. I’m not ready to be 73, but I’m not scared like I was.”

A．It made me realize how ignorant I was.

B．Though she loved her 86-year- old grandmother she had found it hard to visit her.

C．Both Karoline and Nick found making the program life changing.

D．Afterward, both of them described the “invisibility” of being old.

E．Then they had to live each day, for a month, as an old person.

F．Nick was also nearly robbed when he was taking money out of an ATM.

5 . It seems difficult to explain the persistent success of scientific theories at describing nature. I explore this challenge in my book, What Science Is and How It Really Works. If the history of science teaches us anything, it is that the ability of a theory to predict unobserved phenomena and lead to amazing new technologies is no proof that said theory is “true”.

For example, Isaac Newton’s mechanics enabled surprisingly accurate predictions of other astronomical phenomena, such as Halley’s comet （哈雷彗星） arriving later than normal in 1759 due to the gravitational effects of passing close to Jupiter. Even more impressive, in the early 1800s when astronomers determined that the orbit （轨道） of Uranus failed to match Newtonian predictions, they concluded that Newton’s theory was not wrong; rather, the existence of a previously unobserved planet was proposed and was later found exactly where it was expected to be （and named Neptune）.

Such successes of the scientific revolution were so impressive that philosophers developed whole new theories of knowledge to try to explain how scientists appeared to have used observation and reason to discover fundamental truths. In doing so, scientists attempted to dismiss what logicians have known for long: that no amount of correctly predicted effects can prove a supposed cause.

But don’t the successes of Newtonian mechanics prove that the laws Newton proposed must really be true? Otherwise how could the theory have picked a single spot in the vast expanse of the universe and found exactly where Neptune was?

Things do not always work out this way, however. In 1859, astronomers determined that the orbit of Mercury was not behaving, over time, as Newtonian mechanics predicted. So another new planet （named Vulcan） was proposed. Unlike the prediction of Neptune’s existence, this supposition did not pan out; rather, Newtonian mechanics was an incorrect theory in this context. A different scientific theory- Einstein’s theory of relativity—was required to later explain Mercury’s movement.

So, what really helps credibility more? To insist that we know that atoms, black holes, and dark matter are real because of how many observations we can explain and predictions we can make by supposing their existence? Or to simply admit that science cannot support a claim of absolute truth regarding the abstract, unobserved scientific objects and laws that are proposed to govern this world?

One could argue that if scientists don’t bang the gong （锣） of “truth”, then it may only quicken the dismissal of science as just another opinion. However, I would argue that this position does not give the intended audience enough credit, and that claiming absolute truth does more harm than good, not only for the interaction of science with the public, but for the practice of science. If data are important to the sciences, then let us accept the historical data on science itself.

1. Which of the following did the laws of Newton fail to provide accurate predictions for?

A．The planet of Mercury varied in its composition.

B．Halley’s comet arrived later than normal in 1759.

C．Neptune was located where it was expected to be.

D．The Sun had another planet named Vulcan.

2. Why does the writer mention logicians in paragraph 3?

A．To introduce another way of scientific thinking.

B．To imply what mistake scientists may have made.

C．To make a comparison between logicians and scientists.

D．To help explain the cause and effect of certain phenomena.

3. The phrase “pan out”（in paragraph 5） most probably means ______.

A．appear

B．be divided

C．shrink

D．be proved

4. Which of the following statements is the writer most likely to agree with?

A．Only by enough observations can a theory be proved true.

B．Never can we rule out the possibility that a theory is wrong.

C．Einstein’s theory of relativity works better than any other theory in astronomy.

D．Newtonian mechanics doesn’t fit today s context because it was established long ago.

6 . It was one of the most destructive days in the history of our planet, and now we know how it played out. Scientists have pieced together the first day of the dinosaurs’ extinction, by drilling into the crater(火山口)that formed from the asteroid(小行星)that caused their downfall.

The asteroid, which led to the extinction of all dinosaurs that can’t fly, crashed into the Gulf of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula some 66 million years ago. In 2016, a scientific drilling project by the International Ocean Discovery Program got rocks from the impact site, which has been underwater for a long time. Now, scientists have analysed these rocks to travel back in time to that particular day itself.

“It’s an expanded record of events that we were able to recover from within ground zero,” said Dr Sean Gulick, a geophysicist at the University of Texas at Austin and leader of this study. “It tells us about impact processes from an eyewitness location.”

In just 24 hours following the impact, a layer of material 130m thick was deposited. This include charcoal, which provides evidence for the intense wildfires that are thought to have been caused by the crash.

Meanwhile, the impact also led to a huge tsunami, an extremely large wave in the sea caused by an earthquake, as evidenced by layers of rocks and sand in the core samples, which appear to have been deposited by flooding waters.

One thing conspicuously missing from the samples, though, is the element of sulphur(硫磺). Although the surrounding area is full of sulphur-rich rocks, the crater is unusually sulphur-free. This supports the idea that the asteroid impact instantly vaporised sulphurous rocks, releasing the sulphur into the atmosphere, where it remained and reflected away the Sun’s light, cooling the Earth’s climate.

Although the impact had destructive effects on a regional level, it’s this large-scale global cooling that’s thought to be behind the dinosaurs’ eventual extinction, as well as that of countless other plant and animal species.

“The real killer has got to be atmospheric,” said Gulick. “The only way you get a global mass extinction like this is an atmospheric effect.”

1. Dr Sean Gulick is quoted in paragraph 3 in order to ______.

A．stress the impact of the crash

B．illustrate the significance of their study

C．explain what they did in their study

D．state the reason for dinosaurs’ death

2. The word “conspicuously”(in paragraph 6)is closest in meaning to“______”.

A．obviously

B．restlessly

C．occasionally

D．potentially

3. Which of the following is a cause of the dramatic drop in temperature mentioned in the passage?

A．The tsunami.

B．The wildfires.

C．The vapourised sulphur.

D．The deposit of rocks.

4. Which of the following might be the best title of the passage?

A．Touching on the dinosaur’s time

B．Drilling into the day the dinosaurs died

C．Why we need to study the atmospheric effect

D．What we should know about the history of our planet

7 . What Are the Limits of Human Endurance?

Paragraph 1:______

When it comes to running, how far and how fast you can go is determined by a number of physical factors, including your VO₂ max (the volume of oxygen you can pump round your body) and your lactate (乳酸盐) threshold, which is the point at which your body produces more lactate than it can break down (a build-up of this chemical makes you run less efficiently). Some of this is genetic, some of it comes from training. But in recent years, sports scientists have also come to recognise the importance of mental strength. The longer you run, the more important a well-thought-out mental strategy is. Common strategies for coping with pain include motivational self talk and distraction techniques to help block negative thoughts.

Paragraph 2:______

Thirty years ago, scientists calculated that the fastest possible marathon, in perfect conditions and with the perfect athlete, would be 1 hour 58 minutes. And we’re getting close. This September, Kenyan long-distance runner Eliud Kipchoge set a new world record of 2:01:39 at the Berlin Maraton—a race ideally suited to fast times because of its flat course, few corners, and typically good weather conditions. Sports physiologists think that the two-hour limit could be broken in the next few decades, as a bigger talent pool of runners, plus advances in training technology, create ever more ideal combinations of athlete and running conditions.

Paragraph 3: ______

Long-distance running stresses the body; recent research from the University of the Peloponnese in Greece found that post-race levels of inflammation(炎症) in the blood of ultra endurance runners (those who run races longer than a marathon)showed similar descriptions to people with cancer or cirrhosis. However, over the next few days, the runners’ levels returned to normal, suggesting that they have a remarkable ability to recover after an extreme workout. Good training is partly about helping you know when, for instance, you’ve crossed the line from ‘good pain’ into ‘bad pain’.

1. Match each paragraph with one of the following questions, and then make the choice.
①Is endurance in the mind or in the muscles?
②Is endurance running bad for you?
③Will endurance running become a hit?
④Will anyone ever run a two-hour marathon?

A．Paragraph l:①; Paragraph2:②; Paragraph3:③

B．Paragraph 1:④; Paragraph 2:①; Paragraph3:②

C．Paragraph 1:④; Paragraph 2:②; Paragraph3:③

D．Paragraph 1:①; Paragraph2:④; Paragraph3:②

2. According to the research, how can distraction techniques help long distance runners?

A．By raising their VO2 max.

B．By helping them concentrate.

C．By lowering their lactate threshold.

D．By preventing them feeling discouraged.

3. What can be learned from the passage?

A．Good training can help you find out your limits.

B．The world marathon record is 1 hour 58 minutes.

C．Marathon training technology hasn’t changed a lot.

D．Long distance running causes lasting harm to our health.

8 . Hugely ambitious in scope, The Lord of the Rings occupies an uncomfortable position in 20th century literature. This book of J.R.R.Tolkien’s poses a challenge to modern literature and its defenders. (Tolkien on his _______: “Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, ridiculous, or annoying; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently _________.”) Yet The Lord of the Rings has enjoyed massive and enduring popularity. It would seem that Tolkien’s work supplied something that was _________ among the formal innovations of 20th century fiction, something for which readers were hungry. But what was it, and why was it important?

It seems that the key point lies in Tolkien’s wholehearted rejection of modernity and modernism. This is what so powerfully _________ some readers, and just as powerfully drives away others. In his book J.R.R.Tolkien: Author of the Century, T.A. Shippey expands on this idea by arguing that Tolkien saw his story of Middle-earth not as fiction or invention, but as the _________ of something genuine that had become buried beneath the fairy tale and nursery rhythm.

“However fanciful Tolkien’s creation of Middle earth was,” Shippey writes, “he did not think that he was entirely _________. He was ‘reconstructing’, he was harmonizing conflicts in his source-texts, sometimes he was supplying entirely new concepts, but he was also reaching back to an imaginative world which he believed had once really _________, at least in a collective imagination.”

The book is also deeply grounded in Tolkien’s linguistic expertise （语言专长） —he _________ whole languages for his characters. Sometimes he became so absorbed in the creation of languages, in fact, that he _________ the story itself for months or years at a time, believing he could not continue until some inconsistency（不一致）in his invented world had been resolved. But Tolkien’s great intellect and knowledge is not the source of his ____________; without his storytelling gift, The Lord of the Rings would be little more than a curiosity. And this gift seems to originate straight from his ____________ to break from classical and traditional forms.

Tolkien himself often spoke of his work as something ‘found’ or ‘discovered’, something whose existence was ____________ of him. It’s wise to be careful with this sort of interpretation, but it seems ____________ that he believed his work to be something given, something revealed, which contained a kind of truth beyond measure. ____________, his details have the weight of reality, and because of this his great sweep of story feels real as well; you might say that his ____________ castles are built with a certain amount of genuine stone.

1.

A．books

B．critics

C．readers

D．ambitions

2.

A．dislike

B．challenge

C．review

D．prefer

3.

A．common

B．possible

C．missing

D．funny

4.

A．annoys

B．influences

C．attracts

D．concerns

5.

A．recovery

B．designing

C．analysis

D．questioning

6.

A．taking it down

B．making it up

C．turning it down

D．looking it up

7.

A．remained

B．struck

C．moved

D．existed

8.

A．spoke

B．invented

C．neglected

D．recalled

9.

A．put aside

B．set up

C．look into

D．get along

10.

A．style

B．tension

C．success

D．tradition

11.

A．decision

B．request

C．struggle

D．refusal

12.

A．representative

B．independent

C．conscious

D．thoughtful

13.

A．clear

B．weird

C．unfair

D．pitiful

14.

A．As a result

B．On the contrary

C．Even so

D．What’s worse

15.

A．ancient

B．broken

C．imaginary

D．foreign

9 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. abandoned；B. adventure；C. allow；D. appreciate E. curving；F. effortlessly；G. exploring；H. outlines I. relatively；J. territory；K. winds

Marvelous Mallorca

Located off the southern coast of Spain, the island of Mallorca is often praised as one of the jewels of the Mediterranean. As the Spanish royal family’s preferred summer vacation spot, Mallorca     1     charms visitors with its beautiful villages and mountains covered in orange and lemon trees.

Since it is a(n)     2     small island, Mallorca is best seen by bicycle. The Serra de Tramuntana Mountain range runs along the island’s north-western coast and covers nearly 30 percent of the island’s     3    , which makes it a cyclist’s dream.The     4     roads that cross the tall peaks and rocky cliffs provide some of the most challenging cycling on the island.

However, most of the island’s visitors come to see Mallorca’s splendid coast. Though there are several busy beach resorts built specifically for tourists, you’re better off     5     the 260 beaches around the island on your own. Along the south coast, you’ll find white sands and clear blue waters seemingly made just for diving. In the east, keep an eye out for hidden bays that     6     for peaceful swimming even in high season.

Although Mallorca’s beaches have been its main attraction for many years, more recently, visitors have begun to appreciate the island’s cultural attractions too. Many of Mallorea’s grand old houses and     7     farms are being turned into resorts where visitors can enjoy the relaxed lifestyle of the Mallorcan countryside.

Palma, Mallorca’s lively capital, is also home to many museums, historic buildings, and galleries. Here you’ll be able to     8     paintings by great Spanish master such as Picasso, Dali, and Miro, whose former house in the city’s western district is open to visitors.

As the day     9     down, spend an evening enjoying a freshly caught supper in one of Palma’s oceanfront restaurants while taking in a beautiful Mallorcan sunset. What better way to wrap up your Spanish     10    ?

10 . For the longest time, the predominant description about renewable energy featured awkward technologies, high costs, and burdensome allowance. In the _______ of strict and far-reaching policy changes, the chances for mass adoption seemed slim. Electric vehicles (EVs) simply couldn’t go the distance, and LED lights were unattractive and _______.

But now that these technologies have come of age, a new story is being written. Around the world, businesses, governments, and households are taking advantage of more cost-effective low-carbon technologies.

_______ advances in information technologies (IT), green solutions can be introduced into business operations successfully. And as public support for these technologies has grown, so have the _______ for scaling up to a fully sustainable energy system.

As in any rapid transition, a full understanding of what is happening has _______ events. Many present energy producers find it hard to believe that their world is undergoing a revolutionary change, so they insist that their heavily polluting technologies will remain _______ and necessary for some time to come. Journalists, too, describe the transition with a degree of _______, because it is their job to be suspicious. And politicians and regulators are cautious to adopt a new perspective, _______ they are already struggling to keep up with the pace of change in the energy industry.

To be sure, _______ doesn’t come without setbacks, as the recent growth in energy-related greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions shows. Yet there is no doubt that the future of energy will be __________ different from the recent past. In fact, the __________ is happening even faster than we think, for example, coal-fired power plants are shutting down faster than ever, and plans for new natural-gas plants are being replaced with more cost-effective wind and solar options. And as the shift toward renewables gains good trends, it will be easier for elected officials to pursue more climate-friendly policies and regulations, thereby creating a(n) __________ circle of change.

As the green transition comes of age, it will offer solutions to all of humanity’s energy needs, placing a clean, prosperous and secure low-carbon future well within reach. Yet even as we hug __________, we must not lose sight of the fact that climate change is speeding up. With GHG emissions __________ to rise, the future of humanity hangs in the balance. One hopes that the shift to __________ energy will tip the scale in our favor.

1.

A．license

B．absence

C．application

D．promotion

2.

A．invisible

B．unbelievable

C．inevitable

D．unaffordable

3.

A．Instead of

B．Owing to

C．In case of

D．According to

4.

A．resources

B．revolutions

C．prospects

D．priorities

5.

A．caught up with

B．compared with

C．taken place of

D．fallen behind

6.

A．relevant

B．inferior

C．synthetic

D．experimental

7.

A．mixture

B．caution

C．conflict

D．approval

8.

A．in case

B．so that

C．even though

D．the moment

9.

A．significance

B．invention

C．happiness

D．progress

10.

A．dramatically

B．economically

C．independently

D．equivalently

11.

A．interaction

B．modernization

C．motivation

D．transformation

12.

A．natural

B．potential

C．positive

D．original

13.

A．influence

B．optimism

C．estimation

D．extension

14.

A．starting

B．failing

C．emerging

D．continuing

15.

A．sustainable

B．traditional

C．available

D．industrial