1 . There are few natural sounds more uplifting to my spirit than the bright and cheering calls and songs of black-capped chickadees (山雀). One of my morning routines is to step outside the house and listen for the voices of black-caps.

There is something comforting to me in black-caps’ presence.     1     Sometimes they are the only birds I’ll hear on my local woodland walks and for me the forest would be a lonelier place without them.

After I’d moved into a house on Anchorage’s Hillside, I placed a makeshift feeder on my home’s back.     2     For each, the routine was similar: dashed in, looked around, pecked (啄) at the tray, looked around again, and dashed out. Nervous little creatures, full of bright energy, they soon had me laughing at their funny way, By the time they moved on, I sensed an all-too-rare upwelling of fascination and joy.

Within days, a whole new world opened up as woodland neighbors I’d never known, or even imagined, joined the black-caps at my feeders: red-breasted nuthatches, common redpolls…What was remarkable was that all of those species were common residents of the Anchorage area.     3    

My newfound interest in birds grew quickly, surprising even me.     4     I visited bookstores in search of birding guidebooks. Excitedly exchanged bird descriptions with a stranger. Purchased 50-pound bags of sunflower seeds. All of this seemed very strange to a middle-aged guy who’d never been attracted by birds. Even more, I had previously judged bird watchers to be rather dull sorts.

    5     They’ve reminded me how my world can expand and become enriched when I make the effort to pay attention. What else awaits me in our world, I wonder, that I haven’t yet discovered or noticed?

A．Nature always amazed me in its own way.

B．Yet in prior days and years, I had no idea.

C．Black-caps are a sign of good environment.

D．Within a day, black-caps accepted my invitation to dine.

E．Black-caps have had a special place at the top of my affections.

F．What started as mere curiosity flowered into a consuming passion.

G．And much more often than not, they are heard before they’re seen.

2 . Any schoolchild knows that a whale breathes through its blowhole. Fewer know that a blowhole is a nostril (鼻孔) slightly changed by evolution into a form more useful for a mammal that spends its life at sea. And only a dedicated expert would know that while toothed whales, such as sperm whales, have one hole, baleen (鲸须) whales, such as humpback and Rice whales, have two.

Even among the baleen whales, the placing of those nostrils differs. In some species they are close together. In others, they are much further apart. In a paper published in Biology Letters Conor Ryan, a marine biologist at the Scottish Association for Marine Science, suggests why that might be. Having two nostrils, he argues, helps whales smell in stereo (立体空间).

Many types of baleen whales eat tiny animals known as zooplankton (浮游动物), which they catch by filtering (过滤) them from seawater using the sheets of fibrous baleen that have replaced teeth in their mouths. But to eat something you first have to find it. Toothed whales do not hunt by scent. In fact, the olfactory bulb—the part of the brain that processes smell—is absent in such creatures. But baleen whales still have olfactory bulbs, which suggests smell remains important. And scent can indeed give zooplankton away. Zooplankton like to eat other tiny creatures called phytoplankton (浮游植物). When these are under attack, they release a special gas called dimethyl sulphide, which in turn attracts baleen whales.

Most animals have stereoscopic senses. Having two eyes, for instance, allows an animal to compare the images from each in order to perceive depth. Having two ears lets them locate the direction from which a sound is coming. Dr Ryan theorized that paired blowholes might bring baleen whales the same sorts of benefits.

The farther apart the sensory organs are, the more information can be extracted by the animal that bears them. The researchers used drones to photograph the nostrils of 143 whales belonging to 14 different species. Sure enough, baleen whales that often eat zooplankton, such as the North Atlantic right whale, have nostrils that are farther apart than do those, such as humpback whales, that eat zooplankton occasionally. Besides allowing them to breathe, it seems that some whales use their blowholes to determine in which direction dinner lies.

1. What do we know about whales’ nostrils according to the first two paragraphs?

A．They are adapted ones.	B．They are developed merely for smell.
C．They are not easy to detect.	D．They are fixed universally in numbers.

2. What plays a role when baleen whales hunt zooplankton?

A．The teeth that baleen whales have.

B．The smell that phytoplankton send.

C．The sound waves that zooplankton create.

D．The chemical signals that zooplankton give off.

3. How is the concept of stereoscopic senses explained in paragraph 4?

A．By quoting a theory.	B．By using examples.
C．By making contrast.	D．By making inferences.

4. What is the position of nostrils related to according to the last paragraph?

A．The sense of smell.	B．The possibility to attract food.
C．The ability to locate food.	D．The ability to communicate.

3 . People have come to understand the enormous impacts-beneficial as well as harmful- plastics have on human lives and the environment. As polymer (聚合物) scientists committed to inventing sustainable solutions for real-world problems, we set out to tackle the issue of plastic waste by rethinking the way polymers are designed so we could make plastics with recyclability built right in.

Everyday items including milk jug, grocery bags, and takeout containers are made from a class of polymers called polyolefins. These plastics are really durable (耐用的) because the chemical bonds in those polymers are extremely stable. In a world set up for disposable (一次性的) items, durability is no longer a design feature but rather a design drawback. Imagine if half the plastics used today were recyclable through twice as many processes as they are now. Also conventional recycling requires careful sorting of all the collected materials, which can be challenging with so many different plastics. For example, separating paper from metal doesn’t require complex technology, but sorting a container from a milk jug of a different polyolefin is difficult to do without the occasional mistake.

In a study published in Science in October 2023, we described a series of polymers with only two building blocks-one soft polymer and one hard polymer-that behave like polyolefins but could be chemically recycled. Connecting two different polymers multiple times until they form a single, long molecule (分子) creates what’s called a multiblock polymer. By changing how much of each polymer type goes into the multiblock polymer, our team produced a wide range of materials with properties that covered all polyolefin types.

Using the same strategy but by adding hydrogen, we could disconnect the polymers back into their building blocks and easily separate them to use again. When we made new polymers out of these recycled plastics, they performed just as well as the original materials even after several rounds of chemical recycling. So we were able to create materials with similar properties of the plastics the world relies on. We believe this work is a step toward more sustainable plastics.

1. What is paragraph 2 mainly about concerning plastics?

A．Their multiple uses.	B．Their chemical properties.
C．Their recycling challenges.	D．Their classification criteria.

2. A key factor of producing diverse multiblock polymers is ______.

A．mixing building blocks with long molecules

B．integrating chemicals into the two polymers

C．combining two different multiblock polymers

D．adjusting the percentage of the two polymers

3. Which is a feature of multiblock polymers?

A．They are made from sustainable materials.

B．They can be recycled by adding hydrogen.

C．Their reliability outperforms traditional plastics.

D．Their properties change with rounds of recycling.

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

A．Designing for Recycling	B．Classifying Plastic Waste
C．Replace Plastics with Polymers	D．Technology Creates the Future

4 . A six-year-old longing to keep a unicorn in her backyard figured she’d get the hard part out of the way first.

Last November, Madeline wrote a letter to the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control with a straightforward request. “Dear LA County, I would like your approval if I can have a unicorn in my backyard if I can find one. Please send me a letter in response.”

Director Mayeda replied two weeks later. The department does in fact license unicorns, she said, under certain conditions. Those include polishing the unicorn’s horn at least once a month with a soft cloth, feeding it watermelon at least once a week, covering it with only nontoxic and biodegradable sparkles and giving it regular access to sunlight, moonbeams and rainbows. And, because unicorns are indeed very rare to find, the department is also giving Madeline a toy unicorn to keep her company during her search, as a token of appreciation.

“It is always rewarding to hear from young people who thoughtfully consider the requirements of providing a loving home for animals,” Mayeda wrote in the letter. “I like your sense of responsible pet ownership to seek permission in advance to keep a unicorn in Los Angeles County.”

Mayeda told the Washington Post that this is the first time the department has received a request for a license for a unicorn or any mythical creature. They were impressed with the first-grader for wanting to ask permission in the first place, and doing her research to work out how to go about that. She and her colleagues deal with a lot of “life-and-death” issues on the job, whether that’s seeing cases of animal abuse or animals hurting people or making decisions about having to put down dangerous or sick animals. So Madeline’s letter has considerably brightened their spirits, and she is due to visit the department this week to discuss her unicorn license application. Safe to say, she’s in for a magical surprise.

1. Why did Madeline write the letter?

A．To apply to visit a unicorn.	B．To learn to provide animal care.
C．To ask permission to keep a pet.	D．To figure out how to find a unicorn.

2. What can we learn from paragraph 3?

A．Her application was disapproved.	B．Requirements should be met for the license.
C．She was presented with a live unicorn.	D．Guidance was given for her search.

3. Which of the following best describes Mayeda?

A．Imaginative.

B．Sensitive.

C．Flexible.

D．Convincing.

4. Why does the department think the letter “has brightened their spirits”?

A．Because it is the first application letter for a pet.

B．Because animal protection is a life-and-death issue.

C．Because they are worn out with their daily work.

D．Because they are touched with the girl’s deeds.

5 . Anuar Abdullah is a 61-year-old diving instructor in Malaysia. When he isn’t ________ he’s back out in the water ________, studying, and restoring coral reefs (珊瑚礁).

Now, as climate change becomes an ________ threat, governments, corporations, and others are coming to him for ________.

Abdullah has no degree in marine biology or ________ training — just an amount of experience. In just the past decade, thousands have ________ to him to learn how to grow corals, and he now has around 700 volunteers ________ and has already restored hundreds of acres of coral reefs.

In 2017, Thailand’s government asked Abdullah to ________ the recovery of one of its most famous tourist attractions, Maya Bay, because it had ________ half its coral population. ________ were kept out of the site for three years while Abdullah led a team of 120 people in ________ new corals.

In 2021, after Typhoon Rai, the island of Cebu in the Philippines asked Abdullah to save what was ________ of the shoreline’s coral reefs. And earlier this year, Abdullah launched a new effort to build the world’s largest coral nursery in the Red Sea. There was a ________ on the nursery at the U.N. climate change summit (峰会), COP27, but Abdullah did not attend. He ________ conferences, he says. And he had ________ to do.

1.

A．teaching

B．diving

C．learning

D．reporting

2.

A．picking

B．judging

C．describing

D．observing

3.

A．early

B．artificial

C．apparent

D．uncertain

4.

A．help

B．money

C．power

D．honor

5.

A．temporary

B．formal

C．natural

D．complex

6.

A．devoted

B．led

C．backed

D．traveled

7.

A．at once

B．at first

C．in demand

D．in action

8.

A．initiate

B．evaluate

C．highlight

D．justify

9.

A．regained

B．lost

C．increased

D．removed

10.

A．Visitors

B．Researchers

C．Volunteers

D．Officials

11.

A．guarding

B．decorating

C．planting

D．maintaining

12.

A．hidden

B．left

C．preserved

D．ruined

13.

A．contest

B．presentation

C．course

D．topic

14.

A．witnesses

B．records

C．schedules

D．hates

15.

A．interviews

B．trips

C．work

D．trade

8 . A new study reveals that pigeons (鸽子) can tackle some problems just like artificial intelligence, enabling them to solve difficult tasks that might challenge humans. Previous research has theorized that pigeons employ a problem-solving strategy, involving a trial-and- error approach, which is similar to the approach used in AI models but differs from humans’ reliance on selective attention and rule use. To examine it, Brandon Turner, a psychology professor at the Ohio State University, and his colleagues conducted the new study.

In the study, the pigeons were presented with various visual images, including lines of different widths and angles, and different types of rings. The pigeons had to peck (啄) a button on the right or left to indicate the category to which the image belonged. If they got it correct, they received food; if they were wrong, they received nothing. Results showed that, through trial and error, the pigeons improved their accuracy in categorization tasks, increasing their correct choices from about 55% to 95%.

Researchers believed pigeons used associative learning, which is linking two phenomena with each other. For example, it is easy to understand the link. between “water” and “wet”. “Associative learning is frequently assumed to be far too primitive to. explain complex visual categorization like what we saw the pigeons do,” Turner said. But that’s exactly what the researchers found.

The researchers’ AI model tackled the same tasks using just the two simple mechanisms that pigeons were assumed to use: associative learning and error correction. And, like the pigeons, the AI model learned to make the right predictions to significantly increase the number of correct answers. For humans, the challenge when given tasks like those given to pigeons is that they would try to come up with rules that could make the task easier. But in this case, there were no rules, which upsets humans.

What’s interesting, though, is that pigeons use this method of learning that is very similar to AI designed by humans, Turner said. “We celebrate how smart we are that we designed artificial intelligence: at the same time, we regard pigeons as not clever animals,” he said.

1. What is the purpose of the new study?

A．To test a theory.	B．To evaluate a model.
C．To employ a strategy.	D．To involve an approach.

2. What were the pigeons expected to do in the experiment?

A．Draw circles.

B．Correct errors.

C．Copy gestures.

D．Identify images.

3. What do pigeons and AI have in common according to the study?

A．They are of equal intelligence.

B．They are good at making rules.

C．They respond rapidly to orders from humans.

D．They employ simple ways to get things done.

4. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A．Pigeons’ trial-and-error method is revealed

B．Pigeons outperform humans in tough tasks

C．“Not smart” pigeons may be as smart as AI

D．AI models after pigeons’ learning approach

9 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a health care system in which patients     1     (treat) with natural plant, animal, and mineral remedies (药物). It is assumed, for a person to be healthy,     2     yin and yang forces should he in balance. Imbalance causes illness or injury. TCM is about     3     (restore) the balance between yin and yang forces in patients. It has been a major part of traditional Chinese culture and continues to play     4     vital role in medical treatment in China today.

According to the World Health Organization, nearly 80 percent of the world's population depends for its primary health care needs    5     medicines from plants and animals. This is especially true in countries where traditional medicines are     6     (wide) used.

Increasingly, however, modern medicines also contain substances from animals and plants. Given growing populations, increasing wealth, and the spreading    7     (popular) of natural remedies around the world, the demand for these medicines and remedies     8     (rise) now. The rising demand,     9     (combine) with reduced habitat, has caused an alarming increase in the number of plant and animal species used for medicinal purposes at risk for many years. For instance, TCM uses about 1,000 plant and 36 animal species, including the tiger, rhinoceros, and sea horse,     10     are all in danger.

10 . 阅读下面材料，根据其内容和所给段落开头语续写两段，使之构成一篇完整的短文。

Sam was a junior high school student. He lived in a community in Charlotte and usually had little exposure to country life. So much of what he knew about plants came from text-books. Sam was a kind-hearted person. He longed for a chance to explore nature and he wanted to do his part to beautify the world.

Finally, the opportunity came. On Arbor Day (植树节), his class organized a trip to a local village to plant trees. Sam was excited about it and couldn’t wait to tell his mom the good news. So the next day, Sam and his mom went to buy some tools for planting trees, including a shovel(铲), a bucket, gloves and so on.

On the day of the event, Sam and his classmates arrived early at the starting point. It was a beautiful day and everyone looked particularly happy. With the tools in hand, Sam got into the bus with everyone else and headed off to their destination.

As soon as they reached the village, all the students were divided into three teams by their teacher. One team was responsible for planting the trees, one team for shovelling the soil and one team for watering the trees. At the teacher’s command, everyone started to do their job.

However, it was the first time that many of the students had taken part in planting trees, so they had no idea about how to start. Of course, Sam was one of them. Fortunately, their teacher was a middle-aged man from the countryside who had some knowledge of planting trees. In order to set an example to the students, the teacher started to plant trees himself. After watching the teacher plant the trees, everyone also became busy. Before long, they planted hundreds of trees. Sam watched very carefully, not wanting to miss any of the details. Finally, Sam learned how to plant trees by himself and felt happy.

注意：
1.续写词数应为150左右;
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。

A few days later, a storm damaged some young trees in the community.

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The neighbours praised Sam for what he had done.

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