The Hangzhou Asian Games were opened on September 23, 2023, drawing worldwide attention. They are not only a grand sports event,
One of
Known as the world’s largest sporting gala, the Hangzhou Asian Games serve as a platform for the athletes to compete. Most importantly, it’s a stage for people’s communication and
2 . My father brought home a sailboat when I was ten, and almost each Sunday in summers we would go sailing. Dad was quite skilled in sailing, but not good at
The last time Dad and I set sail together was really unforgettable. It was a perfect weekend after I graduated from university. I came home and
“John!
In my memory he could fix any
Before I could respond, a wave of water got into the boat. I rushed to the tiller
I swam to Dad quickly and assisted him in climbing onto the hull（船壳）of the boat. Upon sitting on the hull, Dad was a little awkward about his flash of
That was the first time Dad had counted on me in a moment of emergency. More importantly, I found it was my turn to start
| A．boating | B．running | C．swimming | D．teaching |
| A．enjoyed | B．desired | C．hated | D．learned |
| A．sent | B．ordered | C．invited | D．allowed |
| A．calm | B．icy | C．stormy | D．thundery |
| A．repeatedly | B．lightly | C．hardly | D．violently |
| A．danger | B．place | C．sport | D．job |
| A．suffered | B．fell | C．froze | D．quit |
| A．Look | B．Help | C．Run | D．Jump |
| A．problem | B．relationship | C．machine | D．boat |
| A．turned to | B．lived with | C．argued with | D．objected to |
| A．if | B．for | C．after | D．but |
| A．got through | B．poured into | C．turned over | D．lifted up |
| A．ashamed | B．protective | C．tired | D．afraid |
| A．pain | B．anger | C．fear | D．shame |
| A．making up | B．getting ready | C．paying off | D．looking out |
| A．At about 7:50 a.m. | B．At about 8:10 a.m. | C．At about 8:45 a.m. |
4 . People who give, live longer, studies have shown. Now, a new study by University of Michigan shows that why people volunteer—not whether they volunteer—is what really counts.
For the study, Konrath and colleagues analyzed data collected in 2008 and 2012 aiming at the same random samples of 3,376 people. Overall, they found that just 2.3 percent of those who once worked as volunteers had died, compared to 4.3 percent of non-volunteers. They further found that how much people volunteered mattered as well—only 1.8 percent of regular volunteers died, compared with 2.5 percent of occasional volunteers.
But what really made a difference were people’s motives for volunteering. The researchers asked people to rate how important they found various reasons for volunteering, and they found that the more important people rated reasons such as feeling pity for people in need, the more likely they were to be alive. Those who rated motives related to personal benefit as more important were more likely to have died, and just as likely to die as those who didn’t volunteer at all. These reasons included volunteering because they enjoyed the social contact, to escape their own problems, or to explore their own strengths.
Konrath says the current findings suggest it may be a poor idea to encourage people to volunteer because it’s good for them. “Volunteering is increasingly being encouraged in schools and organizations. Some groups say that it’s okay to want benefits for yourself, and encourage people to think of volunteering as an exchange for personal interests. Some groups emphasize the health benefits received through volunteering.” Konrath added, “Of course, it’s reasonable for volunteers to expect benefits for themselves. But the potential health benefits of volunteering are significantly reduced if self-benefit becomes a person’s main motive.”
1. What does the new study mainly find?| A．How we volunteer makes sense to others. | B．How often we volunteer makes a difference. |
| C．Whether we volunteer decides our well-being. | D．Why we volunteer has an impact on our health. |
| A．By analyzing statistics. | B．By rating volunteers’ performances. |
| C．By doing lab experiments. | D．By grouping participants randomly. |
| A．To develop abilities. | B．To make more friends. |
| C．To help the poor people. | D．To solve personal problems. |
| A．Practical suggestions on further studies. | B．A further explanation of the current findings. |
| C．Potential applications of the research method. | D．A reasonable doubt about the research results. |
5 . When it comes to hiking, Greece has something for every kind of walker. The mainland boasts (拥有)well-maintained routes, while on the country’s islands you’ll find ancient paths dating back to Byzantine times connecting sleepy villages with beautiful sandy coves (小海湾). Here’s our pick of Greece’s best hikes.
Samaria Gorge(峡谷), Crete16 kilometers(10 miles), 4 hours
Hiking the 16-kilometer Samaria Gorge is considered one of Crete’s must-do experiences, which is why you’ll rarely be without company. Nevertheless, there’s an undeniable raw beauty to Samaria, where vertical (垂直的) walls soar up to 500 meters and are just 3.5 meters apart at the narrowest point (150 meters at the broadest).
The hike begins at 1,230 meters at Xyloskalo just south of Omalos and ends in the coastal village of Agia Roumeli. It’s especially scenic in April and May, when wildflowers brighten the route.
Mt Ohi summit hike, Evia8 kilometers(5 miles), 3 to 4 hours
The summit of Mt Ohi (Profitis Ilias; 1,398 m), lesser-visited Evia’s third-highest peak, is crowned by mysterious ancient dragon houses: 7th century BC architecture, made from rocks weighing several tons. From Myli, it’s an 8-kilometer hike to the summit (three to four hours).
It’s possible to stay overnight at the 1,000-meter-high refuge then hike up Mt Ohi to catch the sunrise(30 minutes), which makes for a magical experience. Contact South Evia Tours or Evia Adventure Tours for details.
Delphi to Kirra Walk, Central Greece14 kilometers (9 miles), 3 to 4 hours
This 14-kilometer downhill hike follows a centuries-old pathway from historic Delphi to the ancient port of Kirra, just east of modern Itea on the southern coast of mainland Greece.
The hike starts from the E4 long-distance starting point 100 meters east of the Hotel Acropole. Skirting the village of Crissa, it goes to the gulf (海湾) through Greece’s largest olive garden. After your three-to-four-hour hike, and lunch or a swim, you can return to Delphi by bus (around 2 euros).
Hike to the Tomb of Kleobolus, Rhodes5 kilometers(3 miles), 2 hours
An easy, enjoyable 5-kilometer(two-hour)round-trip hike escapes Lindos to reach the so-called Tomb of Kleobolus. Starting alongside Car Park 1 above the main beach, the route ends at a rocky hill topped by a circular tomb actually built during the 2nd century BC, long after Kleobolus ruled Rhodes.
1. What is the raw beauty of Samaria?| A．High and narrow gorges. | B．Magical sunset. |
| C．Wildflowers throughout the year. | D．Mysterious large rocks. |
| A．Ancient buildings. | B．Evia’s highest peak. |
| C．A circular tomb. | D．Greece’s largest olive garden. |
| A．It lets visitors experience the modern world of Greece. |
| B．Visitors are recommended to get back to Delphi by ship. |
| C．The route connects two places with a long history. |
| D．It is a challenging route through a rocky hill. |
6 . Jamil Jan Kochai, the author of 99 Nights in Logar, searched for more than a decade for Susan Lung — the second-grade teacher who had changed his life over 20 years earlier. On Saturday night, the two were finally reunited at one of his book-reading events.
The writer was born in a refugee camp for Afghans in Peshawar, Pakistan, and his family moved to California when he was just a year old. At home, they spoke mostly Pashto and some Farsi, so by the time he reached first grade, he was at a total loss because he could hardly speak English. Then came Mrs. Lung, who quickly realized that Kochai was deeply struggling at Alyce Norman Elementary School.
The two got to work, meeting for one-on-one lessons nearly every day after school. At the end of the school year, Kochai won reading-comprehension competitions.
Lung and Kochai lost touch when Kochai’s father got a job in another city and the boy moved on, with a new love of reading and writing. When he grew older, Kochai’s parents encouraged him to find his former teacher to thank her. But despite his efforts, he failed to track her down.
“I didn’t know her first name. She was always just Mrs. Lung to me, so when I called places to ask about her, they couldn’t find any records of her,” Kochai said.
Then, while promoting his first novel, he wrote an essay for Literary Hub magazine touching on the transformative impact that Lung had on his life. Lung’s doctor happened to read it, and told the now-retired educator about that.
Lung’s husband saw a Facebook post about Kochai’s reading event on Saturday in Davis, California and suggested he drive his wife there.
“I had no idea they were going to be there,” Kochai said. “It was just like a sweet dream. Mrs. Lung was sitting in the front row. She was just the same Mrs. Lung. Just as sweet, kind and warm as ever.”
Kochai and Lung hugged, and Kochai finally got the chance to express to her how much he still thought of her and how much she meant to him.
1. How did Mrs. Lung help Kochai?| A．By dropping by his house regularly. | B．By asking him to read more in class. |
| C．By spending extra time tutoring him. | D．By saving him out of a refugee camp. |
| A．There were few records about her. | B．His parents provided little support. |
| C．He was too young to remember her. | D．He had limited information about her. |
| A．Surprised and delighted. | B．Discouraged and frustrated. |
| C．Uneasy and curious. | D．Alarmed and awe-inspiring. |
| A．A Distinguished Guest Showed Up at a Reading Event |
| B．A Writer Was Finally Reunited With His Former Teacher |
| C．A Famous Teacher Saved a Poor Student’s Whole Life |
| D．A Book Changed a Celebrity and a Retired Teacher |
7 . Do you think you are guided by a celebrity in your navigation app? Of course not. The voice you hear in the navigation software was actually synthesized (合成). To find out what’s involved in the process of reproducing human voices, I approached Speech Morphing, a natural language speech synthesis company, about creating a digital double of my own voice.
Given the complexities of speech synthesis, it’s quite a shock to find out just how easy it is to order one up. For a basic conversational model, all I have to do is record myself saying a few hundreds of phrases for roughly an hour. The phrases seem very random: “That’s what Carnegie did.” “I’d like to be buried under Yan kee Stadium with JFK.” and so on.
But they aren’t as random as they appear. “We choose spoken words that will produce a wide enough variety of sounds across a range of emotions, such as sadness and anger, to feed an AI training system. It then teaches itself the specific patterns of a person’s speech,” says Speech Morphing founder Fathy Yassa.
Yassa says there are around 20 tones to choose from, and some of these can be used interchangeably, or not at all. “Not every tone is needed for every client,” he says. “The choice depends on the target application and use cases. Banking is different from reporting and broadcasting.”
The possibilities for my digital double are limitless. At a training session with Speech Morphing, I get to hear my digital voice double. The voice comes at me through a pair of speakers connected to a laptop. The laptop has software into which whatever text I want it to say is typed. The software includes tools to make adjustments to the tone, speed and other vocal features that might need to be adjusted if my digital double doesn’t come out sounding exactly right.
“We can already make you sound sad. We can also make you act like you’re reporting and broadcasting now,” Yassa says. “We can make you sound like acting in the theatre, eventually, though we’re not yet there. It is too advanced.”
1. What does the second paragraph mainly talk about?| A．The steps of data processing. | B．The goal of the experiment. |
| C．The process of data collecting. | D．The complexities of the speech. |
| A．It must cover different kinds of daily topics. |
| B．The sounds can express a wide range of feelings. |
| C．Every person needs to produce around 20 tones. |
| D．It has to be collected according to strict guidelines. |
| A．A typing software. | B．A pair of loudspeakers. |
| C．A recording machine. | D．An AI training system. |
| A．Speech synthesis products are easy to order but complicated to create. |
| B．We must teach the AI training system patterns of people’s speech. |
| C．The digital double can’t be adjusted once made. |
| D．The current technology can make you sound like performing in a theater. |
8 . With visitor numbers around the world increasing towards pre-pandemic levels, the issue of overtourism is once again rearing its head. When locals in the charming Austrian lakeside village of Hallstatt staged a blockade(封锁)of the main access tunnel, asking visitors to “think of the children”, it highlighted what can happen when places start to feel overrun by tourists.
The term “overtourism” is relatively new, having been invented over a decade ago to highlight the increasing numbers of visitors taking a toll on cities, landmarks and landscapes. In essence, it is too many people in one place at any given time. There are the wide-reaching effects, such as climate change. Coral reefs, like the Great Barrier Reef and Maya Bay, Thailand are being degraded from visitors diving and touching the corals. More localized issues are affecting locals, too. Renters are being driven out by landlords in favour of turning properties into holiday lets, and house prices are escalating as a result. As visitors and rental properties outnumber local residents, communities are being lost.
Overcrowding is an issue for both locals and tourists. It can ruin the experience of sightseeing for those trapped in long queues, unable to visit museums, galleries and sites without advance booking, rising costs for basics like food, drink and hotels, and faced with the inability to experience the wonder of a place in relative solitude. Justin Francis, co-founder and CEO of Responsible Travel, a tour operator that focuses on more sustainable travel, says “Social media has concentrated tourism in hotspots and worsened the problem, and tourist numbers globally are increasing while destinations have a finite capacity. Until local people are properly consulted about what they want and don’t want from tourism, we’ll see more protests.”
Of the 800 residents in the UNESCO-listed village of Hallstatt, around 100 turned out in August to show their displeasure and to push for a limit on daily visitors and a curfew(宵禁)on tour coach arrivals. Elsewhere, residents in Venice fought long and hard for a ban on cruise ships, with protest flags often hanging from windows. In Rome, sitting at popular sites, such as the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps, has been restricted by the authorities.
There are ways to better manage tourism by promoting more off-season travel, limiting numbers where possible and having greater regulation within the industry. Encouraging more sustainable travel and finding solutions to reduce friction between residents and tourists could also have positive impacts. Promoting alternative, less-visited spots to redirect travelers may also offer some benefits.
1. What is the function of the first paragraph?| A．An introduction to the main topic. | B．A tale to attract readers’ attention. |
| C．The background information of a story. | D．The explanation of the term “overtourism”. |
| A．The environment. | B．The local communities. |
| C．The landowners. | D．The renters. |
| A．Overcrowding merely causes trouble for the locals. |
| B．Social media contributes to overtourism in a sense. |
| C．Scenic spots can receive infinite tourists as long as locals don’t protest. |
| D．Tourists are banned to stay at the Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps. |
| A．Some wonderful tourist destinations around the world. |
| B．Comparison of tourism before and after the pandemic. |
| C．The harm to locals’ life caused by overcrowding. |
| D．The damage and possible solutions of overtourism. |
1. Where are the speakers?
| A．On the third floor. | B．On the fourth floor. | C．On the fifth floor. |
| A．Next to a play area. | B．To the left of the lift. | C．At the end of the first floor. |
| A．Visit the play area. | B．Buy a child’s shirt. | C．Withdraw some money. |
1. What did the study in the U.K. find out?
| A．Five people got hurt while doing DIY. |
| B．Half of the people planned to do DIY in the future. |
| C．Many people failed to complete some DIY tasks. |
| A．She was worried. | B．She was annoyed. | C．She was shocked. |
| A．He repaired his shelves. | B．He wasn’t badly hurt. | C．He finished his DIY work. |
| A．Unexpected mistakes. | B．House repairs. | C．DIY troubles. |
