1 . It is no secret that play-based learning improves the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of children. Researchers now believe that certain board games, like Chutes and Ladders and Monopoly, can also help enhance their math skills.

The team at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago, Chile, came to this conclusion after analyzing the results of 19 studies. They were conducted between 2000 and2023. All but one of the studies focused on the relationship between math skills and board games.

In these studies, kids aged 3-9 played board games under the supervision (监督) of teachers or trained adults. The 20-minute sessions were held twice a week for about six weeks. In some cases, one set of kids (the intervention group) played number-centric board games, while the other (the control group) played board games that did not require math skills. in other studies. both the intervention and control groups played number-based games. They were, however,   given different games, like Monopoly and Dominoes.

The participants’ math skills were assessed before and after each study. The researchers looked for improvement in four key categories. They included the ability to name numbers and demonstrate simple number knowledge-such as “nine is greater than three.” Changes in the kids’ abilities to add and subtract and their interest in math were also noted.

The results of the study were published in the journal Early Years on July 6, 2023. It revealed that playing board games helps improve the children’s math skills in over half of the four areas. Additionally, nearly a third of the children in the intervention groups scored higher on math tests than those in the control groups.

The researchers hope their findings will inspire the creation of new board games specially designed for classroom learning. Meanwhile, boost your math skills by organizing a game a night or two with family and friends this summer—it all adds up!

1. What’s the researchers’ attitude towards the relationship between play-based learning and children’s well-being?

A．Negative.

B．Indifferent

C．Doubtful.

D．Positive.

2. How were the participants’ math skills assessed?

A．By giving examples.	B．By asking questions.
C．By making comparisons.	D．By providing definitions.

3. What do the researchers hope their findings will inspire?

A．The improvement of social and emotional well-being in children.

B．The creation of new board games for classroom learning

C．The introduction of play-based learning in schools.

D．The use of board games for physical development

4. What is the main focus of the text?

A．The benefits of play-based leaning to children.

B．The solution to improving children’s math skills.

C．The results of a study on board games and math skills

D．The need for new board games for classroom learning.

4 . 假如你是李华，你的美国朋友Tom向你发来e-mail，询问我支持新疆棉花吗。请你给他回信，内容包括：
1. 民众对于知名运动品牌（sportswear brands）禁用新疆棉（a ban on Xinjiang cotton）的不同看法并陈述理由；
2. 你对于民众中抵制（boycott）知名运动品牌的看法并陈述理由。
注意：
1. 词数100词左右；
2. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
Dear Tom,

How are you doing?

I’m glad to share with you

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I’m looking forward to your reply.

Yours,

Li Hua

6 . After more than a year of pandemic, after months of an aggressive vaccination campaign, the United States should finally be better prepared to protect itself against the coronavirus. Nearly all of our long-term-care residents are vaccinated. Tens of millions of other people have been vaccinated, and tens of millions more have some level of immunity from previous infection. With more people protected, a new surge could behave differently, but early signals from the states with rising case numbers suggest that this will not universally be the case.

Just look at Michigan, the leading edge of this new surge. Cases are going up quickly, and hospital admissions are moving in lockstep (步伐一致) —just as they have in past surges. This is a bit of a surprise. The United States is entering a new phase of the pandemic. Although we’ve previously described the most devastating (毁灭性的) periods as “waves” and “surges,” the more proper metaphor now is a tornado: Some communities won’t see the storm, others will be well fortified against disaster, and the most at-risk places will be crushed. The virus has never hit all places equally, but the remarkable protection of the vaccines, combined with the new attributes of the variants. has created a situation where the pandemic will disappear, but only in some places. The pandemic is or will soon be over for a lot of people in well-resourced (实力雄厚的), heavily vaccinated communities. In places where vaccination rates are low and risk remains high, more people will join the 550,000 who have already died.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky spent her weekly press conference on Monday pleading with the American people, noting “the recurring feeling I have of coming doom (厄运).” She asked the country to “work together to prevent a fourth surge.” Three distinct factors are now shaping this country’s pandemic experience.

First, the United States did a terrible job preventing transmission (传染) of the disease. The country’s level of excess death has been high, signaling that the pandemic’s true toll has been even steeper than the officially released COVID-19 deaths. Most other countries did not experience the same levels of consistent transmission. Most estimates place the number closer to 100 million, and possibly tens of millions more.

Second, the U.S. is vaccinating people quite efficiently. It has given out the largest absolute number of doses (药的一剂) in the world. Almost three-quarters of the U.S. population over 65 has received at least one dose of the vaccine, with nearly half now fully vaccinated. On a percentage basis, the U.S. has immunized nearly three times the number of people that Germany, Italy, and France have, and in two months, the U.S. will almost certainly have a very large percentage of vaccinated adults.

Third, the virus has had staggeringly unequal effects on the American population. For a person of a given age, the risk for certain racial and ethnic groups is several times that of a white person. Native American, Latino, Pacific Islander, and Black communities have suffered large and deadly outbreaks across the country. Racialized economic hierarchy (等级制度) as well as, perhaps, distrust of the medical establishment-are holding down vaccination rates in poorer places with less access to care. So some communities have both higher risk and fewer fully protected people.

This all makes for an extremely messy and volatile (不稳定的) current situation. The first two factors mean that some places, such as California, will see the pandemic’s worst pressures fade. But where the virus is already spreading quickly, the danger is still high, and the days are running out to slow transmission via vaccination. So far, the fatality (死亡) numbers have not turned upward. Now we can only wait to see if deaths will follow hospital admissions at the pace of past surges—or if something has changed.

1. It can be inferred from the case of Michigan that _________.

A．Michigan has an edge in bringing the pandemic under control

B．more patients are receiving proper medical treatment in hospitals

C．a new surge in cases and hospital admissions is unexpected and scary

D．a growing number of residents have been immune to the infection

2. The new phase of the pandemic is described as a tornado because _________.

A．the tornado that strikes during the pandemic makes people suffer more

B．the measures to fight the coronavirus produce uneven results in different areas

C．some poor communities are protected while some areas most at-risk are crushed

D．the crushing effects of the pandemic will last as long as the tornado effects do

3. What factors are shaping American’s pandemic experience?
①less access to medical care
②inaccurate estimates of death tolls
③distrust of governmental policies
④disadvantaged socio-economic status of ethnic groups
⑤a larger percentage of vaccinated adults
⑥efficient prevention of the transmission

A．①②③④⑤

B．①②③④

C．①②④⑤

D．①②③④⑥

4. Wat’s the author’s attitude towards the present situation of the pandemic?

A．Frustrated.

B．Optimistic.

C．Indifferent.

D．Desperate.

8 . We all want to keep fit and stay healthy, but a few things may prevent it: laziness, a busy schedule, and maybe even a limited spend.     1    . You can even make a bit of money on a few of these activities.

Babysit.

If you have your own kids, you’ll probably agree that looking after kids can help keep you fit. If you don’t, you can experience the wonderful world of toddlerhood by volunteering or signing up for a babysitting job. The best ages to babysit are those toddler years (2 through 5). Why?     2    .

Care for your yard.

    3    . Work on your yard all year long and you’ll have more than your heart going — best exercise of all is to push that lawnmower (除草机) around especially if you have a large lawn. Or even better, put in your own waste water system. All that digging should be great for upper body strength and patience.

    4    .

Have you checked your storeroom, basement and kitchen lately? Well, moving small items from their storage areas and turning them into boxes for sale, donation pick-ups or just further storage will get your blood exciting. Even just pushing around a dust cleaner, or sweeping your garage floor should oil your joints (关节).

Use someone else’s sports or exercise equipment (设备).

Have you checked under your bed lately? All around the nation, there is a flood of unused exercise equipment sitting around in garages and hiding in spare rooms and basements.     5    — if not at your own home, they could be sitting somewhere in a friend’s or relative’s home, sadly unused. It may be a good idea to reuse them.

A．Be your own gardener

B．Volunteer or get active work

C．Clean out or organize your house

D．Actually there are some free ways to move your body!

E．You could have these things right under your very nose.

F．It doesn’t really take much to get yourself into better shape.

G．In that case, you have to carry, lift, run and follow them around all day.

9 . Everywhere I look, there are new buildings under construction. The neighborhoods that I knew as a boy, filled with beautiful old buildings, have mostly disappeared, and in their place, modern, high-rise buildings have appeared. There is good reason for this. Residents want all the conveniences of modern living. However, how can our children understand and maintain their cultural identity if we erase so much of the physical evidence of it?

The arguments for preserving historic buildings are not simply about an emotional attachment to the past. There are also good economic arguments in favour of preservation. The renovation (修缮) and preservation of historic districts can become an economic engine, drawing tourists and small businesses to the area. For example, in Dubai, the historic Al Bastikiya district draws thousands of tourists every year from all over the world. It also attracts local residents, eager to learn about their city's past.

Some have argued that historic preservation is too expensive, but many recent projects have demonstrated that this is not necessarily the case. In fact, renovation of an existing structure for adaptive reuse can cost about £40 per square metre less than even the most basic new construction, while preserving the beauty of the original building. And, although it is often claimed that old buildings have a more significant environmental footprint than new construction because they aren’t very energy efficient, architects and environmental experts maintain that the greenest building is the one that is already built. New construction almost always has a more serious environmental impact (影响) because it requires the use of all-new materials that must be transported, often over long distances, instead of recycled materials that are already on site. We recycle so many other things. We can and should recycle buildings, too.

Historic preservation is an option that opens many possibilities; demolition (拆毁), in contrast, is irreversible. Once these treasures are lost, they are lost forever, an important link in our heritage that can never be recovered.

1. What drives people to replace old buildings with new ones?

A．Their dislike of old buildings.	B．Their pride in cultural identity.
C．Their concern about young generations.	D．Their desire for modern comforts.

2. What does the example of Al Bastikiya show?

A．Historic renovation costs much money.

B．Local governments support small businesses.

C．Historic preservation brings economic benefits.

D．International tourism promises economic recovery.

3. What can be inferred about renovating old buildings from paragraph 3?

A．It uses green materials.	B．It damages architectural beauty.
C．It reduces enviromental impact.	D．It worries environmental experts.

4. What is the author’s attitude towards historic preservation?

A．Positive.

B．Doubtful.

C．Disapproving.

D．Objective.