1 . What distinguishes an outstanding city? The Global Cities Index assesses cities based on diverse criteria, including:
·Business – The presence of multinational corporations. How many global companies are in the city? Does the city do a lot of international business?
·People – The city’s ability to attract talents globally. Does the city attract talented people from around the world? What’s proportion of residents with higher education?
·Media – The accessibility of varied information channels. How many residents have Internet access?
·Entertainment – The availability of leisure and cultural activities. Does the city have many entertainment options: museums, sports, music, and different types of restaurants?
Future Leaders
Most cities on the Global Cities Index are strong in certain areas. Beijing’s strength, for example, is business, while Los Angeles’s strength is people. Which cities will become more powerful in the future?
·Asia: Beijing and Shanghai are both business centers and will continue to grow. In a few years, they will potentially match New York’s influence. Indian cities such as Mumbai and New Delhi have a lot of business potential, too.
·South America: urban centers like Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo in Brazil will gain influence. In these cities, the middle class is growing, and life for many people is improving.
·The Middle East: Istanbul in Turkey, Cairo in Egypt, and the cities of the United Arab Emirates such as Dubai will hold more power in international politics and business, especially in helping East and West work together.
In 10 years, the top cities on the index may be different, but one thing is certain: With over 50 percent of the world’s people now living in urban areas, tomorrow’s global cities will be more powerful than ever.
1. Which aspect is considered in the Global Cities Index?| A．Education. | B．Climate. | C．Transportation. | D．Location |
| A．Asia and Europe. | B．Asia and South America. |
| C．Asia and the Middle East. | D．South America and the Middle East. |
| A．Similarities between top cities. | B．The ways to become global cities. |
| C．Daily life in fastest-growing cities. | D．Forecast on future influential cities. |
2 . The COVID-19 pandemic has changed everyone's daily life. While our experiences were
Salons (美发厅) were closed for months, but our
We had
And I wasn't surprised when she said she was
When the salon finally
Any
She wanted a
Days later, as we stood in line at the post office to mail her hair, I looked at my daughter and felt
| A．useful | B．important | C．interesting | D．different |
| A．hair | B．population | C．weight | D．business |
| A．remembered | B．continued | C．learned | D．decided |
| A．kept on | B．succeeded in | C．talked about | D．benefited from |
| A．knew | B．imagined | C．agreed | D．wondered |
| A．safe | B．nervous | C．ready | D．busy |
| A．thick | B．long` | C．strong | D．straight |
| A．opened | B．moved | C．disappeared | D．failed |
| A．hopelessly | B．carefully | C．regretfully | D．confidently |
| A．guide | B．visit | C．help | D．invite |
| A．worries | B．dreams | C．difficulties | D．comments |
| A．silent | B．satisfied | C．frightened | D．strict |
| A．bag | B．reply | C．job | D．change |
| A．traveled around | B．walked out | C．ran away | D．broke in |
| A．proud | B．tired | C．shy | D．ashamed |
For many of us in the UK and other parts of the world, having an electric kettle plugged in in the kitchen is a part of everyday life. But for people in America, it’s unusual
Sophie lived in America for 10 years before
In America, homes only have a voltage (电压) of 100-127,
When I was in high school, like many other teenage boys, I played in a band. Most of our families came from South Africa, so, we mixed our favorite hard rock and heavy metal songs with elements of South African rhythms and melodies. Although our band didn’t achieve widespread success, we had a special night that I would never forget, when we realized the unique impact of music on lonely hearts.
At our school’s talent show, we weren’t the best, but we were good enough to come in third place, which made us more confident. Then, we decided to test the waters beyond our classmates. When we were booked for a charitable event at a large hospital, we were delighted. This opportunity was a thrilling breakthrough. Yet, beneath our excitement, we felt a sense of anxiety to perform for strangers-could our tunes really touch an audience unfamiliar with our sound?
For two weeks, we threw ourselves into intense practice sessions, meeting daily after school to practice hard and learn enough songs to fill a one-hour show.
On the concert day, we arrived early to check the stage. We felt nervous as we stood there and looked out at the hundred or so empty chairs lined up below us. After setting up and doing a quick sound check, we went backstage to have a soda and rest, doing anything to calm our nerves. While we were back there the hospital’s entertainment director came over to chat with us.
“Okay, boys, there are a couple of important details you should know,” she began. “Many in the audience today are suffering from severe physical and/or mental disabilities. Don’t be surprised by that. These patients have very few chances to see live entertainment of any kind, so they enjoy any kind of musical act that we can provide. Just go ahead and play your regular show, and you’ll do fine.” After saying that, she left, joining into the theatre to help the volunteers and staff who were assisting the patients to their seats.
注意：1.续写的词数应为 150 左右；
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Before long, it was time to begin our show.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________“Don’t go! You don’t understand—they love your performance!” said the director.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Dragons, a famous
In traditional Chinese culture, a dragon is a symbol of luck, power and high ‘status. They can cause weather changes and bring rainfall to the fields
Today, dragons continue to evolve, exceeding traditional boundaries and finding new significance in global culture. No longer
A. Specifically, the Internet and mobile devices have completely changed the way people interact with each other.
B. While technology has developed over thousands of years, the last century has seen an explosion in it that has influenced fundamental changes in how humans see the world and interact with others.
C. Technology is more than an abstract concept associated with advanced tools and systems. It also shapes the way people behave, grow and develop, both within their own lives and in their relationships with others.
D. However, technology is sometimes considered to disconnect people from others around them. With cell phones, most people think that it’s easier and more convenient to text instead of meeting in person. An article shows that almost 60 percent of people feel disconnected from others around when they are on their phones.
E. Technology is helping people build newer and necessary communication skills in this sense. Office employees and managers use technology to send e-mails to one another in business. On social media, just share a few of your images and people start communicating on and about your images according to their viewpoint.
1. Question 7: (录音)
Answer:
2. Question 8: (录音)
Answer:
3. Question 9: (录音)
Answer:
4. Question 10: (录音)
Answer:
8 . Social media can lead to mental exhaustion (疲惫). And when mentally exhausted, you are more likely to be influenced by a high number of likes on posts - even to the point of clicking on ads for products you don’t need.
As a professor of advertising, I have studied social media behaviors for years. In late 2022, my colleague Eric Haley and I conducted three online studies on Americans aged 18-65 to test how people under various mental loads respond to ads differently.
The control group in each study were given no introductory task- we just had them look at an ad. A second group had to memorize a nine-digit number and then look at the ad. The third group looked through the Internet for 30 seconds and then looked at the ad. Participants randomly saw an ad with a few hundred likes or tens of thousands of likes. After viewing the ad, each participant rated how willing they would be to buy the product, and how much mental effort it took to think about the information.
The group that used the Internet first were the most likely to want to buy the featured product when there were lots of likes or comments, and they also reported using the most mental effort to assess the ad. Researchers refer to this mentally exhausted state as “cognitive (认知的) overload”. Using social media puts them in this state because they are constantly evaluating different types of texts, photos and video posts from so many different people. All of this evaluating leaves them feeling frazzled.
Imagine asking your roommate if they want to get pizza. Under normal conditions, the roommate might consider several factors such as cost, hunger, timing or their schedule. Now imagine asking your roommate the same question while they are on the phone with a sick relative. They no longer have the mental energy to logically consider whether pizza for dinner is a good idea. They might just yell “Yeah, sure!” while running inside to clean their shoes.
By understanding how social media influences them, consumers can be more thoughtful in regulating their use and hopefully will not buy yet another water bottle they don’t need.
1. How did the author conduct the studies?| A．By questionnaire. | B．By interview. | C．Through the Internet. | D．Through observation. |
| A．Excited. | B．Depressed. | C．Annoyed. | D．Tired. |
| A．To further explain cognitive overload. |
| B．To stress the importance of relationships. |
| C．To strongly call on people to eat healthily. |
| D．To remind people not to rely on mobile phones. |
1. Question 1:
| A．Ballet. | B．Modern dance. | C．Tango. |
| A．Tom. | B．Shelley. | C．Mary. |
| A．To improve her dance skill. | B．To teach others to dance. | C．To enjoy the free lessons. |
10 . Polar bears normally need sea ice to hunt seals, but an isolated (孤立的) group of polar bears living on the mountainous coast of southeast Greenland have figured out how to make a living, even though the sea ice there melts away early in the year.
These bears have found a way to supplement (补充) their limited sea ice supply by hunting on freshwater ice that comes from glaciers on land. The glacial ice falls off in pieces into fjords (峡湾), where the pieces get together into a floating platform that the polar bears use to catch seals, according to a report in the journal Science.
Climate change is making sea ice less and less. “Loss of sea ice is the primary threat to polar bears,” says Kristin Laidre of the University of Washington, lead author of the new study. But, she says, this new work suggests some bears might be able to deal with a decreased amount of sea ice - at least for a while - in places like Greenland where they can take advantage of floating glacier ice.
While local people have long known that bears live in southeast Greenland, it’s a remote, challenging environment that’s not frequented by humans. “It’s a coastline with huge mountain peaks, lots of winds, extreme conditions and plenty of fogs.” says Laidre, who has spent years working with colleagues to survey polar bears living on Greenland’s 1,800-mile-long east coast.
To see what they could find in southeast Greenland, the team had to take helicopters from the nearest settlement and fly for two hours in a straight line to the coast. “We arrived in these fjords, very isolated fjords, and there’s essentially no sea ice or very poor sea ice offshore,” says Laidre, explaining that the researchers expected to find few bears. “But there were a lot of bears in these fjords,” she says. “It was clearly just a unique habitat.”
The sea ice continues to exist in these fjords for only around a hundred days a year, she notes, meaning that bears don’t have much time to use it as a hunting ground.
1. What will happen to pieces of glacial ice after falling off?| A．They will gather to block some fjords. |
| B．They will exist in fjords for only a hundred years. |
| C．They will float into cold places and never disappear. |
| D．They will form a platform used by polar bears for food. |
| A．Lack of food sources. | B．Loss of freshwater ice. |
| C．Human activities in their habitats. | D．Decrease of sea ice due to climate change. |
| A．Polar Bears Use Floating Glacial Ice to Hunt | B．The Exploration of Southeast Greenland |
| C．Polar Bears Can Survive in Isolated Areas | D．The Importance of Sea Ice to Polar Bears |
