1 . Discovering Your True Self Is Vital to Happiness!

Have you found focusing on yourself is at the bottom of the to-do list, because you feel everyone else in your life comes first?    1     Now is exactly the perfect time to get to know yourself in order to understand yourself.

This isn’t just about identifying your favorite outfit, haircut or flavor of ice cream.    2     It’s an opportunity for personal growth that can help you make better choices for your wellbeing and lifelong happiness.

There are many tools to help you develop a deeper sense of yourself, including journaling and other forms of creative expression. You can use a guided journal to explore your thoughts and feelings or just free write whatever comes to mind. It’s up to you what you want to do.    3    .

    4     Take note of how you respond to people, what makes you happy, and what makes you unhappy. This can help you identify patterns that are holding you back, such as feeling insecure or being easily angered. Once you’ve identified these patterns, you can work to change them.

An often overlooked yet very important factor in self-discovery is having healthy boundaries in your personal life.    5     Clearly communicating your boundaries is also a way to show others that you are in control of your own behavior and can expect the same from them. This is a sign of maturity and respect, two characteristics that are key to having healthy relationships.

A．It’s one thing to know your personality type.

B．It’s a great way to show that you care about others.

C．Taking time for ourselves has been looked down upon.

D．Another way is to observe your behavior in different situations.

E．It allows you to focus on the needs of yourself without ignoring others.

F．But try not to get caught up in the criticism or judgment of your writing.

G．It’s about understanding your inner world and how you fit into the outer world.

2 . Physicist and Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman developed a clever learning method known as the Feynman Technique. It involves explaining what you're learning to others. By teaching what you’ve learned from memory, you engage in active recall.     1     It also ensures that you understand the topic, because you can only explain an idea if you truly understand it. The technique consists of four repeatable steps.

To begin, choose a concept or topic you wish to fully understand.     2     The more interested you are, the faster you’ll grasp it. Moreover, a personally interesting topic will keep you motivated and engaged.

    3     Write notes and explain it in a way that makes sense to a five-year-old. If you’d rather avoid actually teaching someone, you can just teach it to an imaginary audience. But it works much better if you use a real person. They’ll be able to let you know when something isn’t clear.

While teaching you may discover gaps in your understanding.     4     Review your notes, reread books, or seek external help to ensure you have a complete understanding of the context before moving forward.

Now that you fully grasp the concept, test your understanding by trying to teach it to another person. This will help you identify any remaining areas of uncertainty you need to revisit.

The Feynman Technique is a great way for kids and grown-ups to learn.     5     You need to actively think about the problem instead of passively reading or listening to someone else. However, with great efforts in mastering this method, you’ll see your learning results improve quicker than ever before.

A．It is mentally demanding.

B．This helps the information stick in your mind better.

C．Teach it to a five-year-old, who would give you direct feedback.

D．Your curiosity about it will determine the pace of your learning.

E．Once you have chosen a topic, you can teach it to someone else.

F．Active engagement plays a key role in promoting deeper learning.

G．When this happens, refer back to the original material for the missing pieces.

3 . How does it feel when you solve your problem by yourself? Things may not always go as planned, but being resourceful can help you stay calm and work your way out of tricky situations.

Being resourceful means finding smart and creative ways to solve a problem, using whatever resources you have at the time.     1     They can also be anything else that’s useful, such as information, advice or your own experience. It also means trusting your instincts, the ability you’re born with, rather than through training and being confident about your ability to face challenges. A resourceful person is not the one getting cross or panicking when something goes wrong. They’re thinking about how to solve the problem.

    2     when we learn to problem solve for ourselves rather than immediately going to others for help, it can help to build our confidence, help us feel more independent, and feel better about making decisions. Being resourceful may not help you avoid problems, but thinking creatively about how you can deal with them will make you feel less stressed and more prepared next time.     3     This can boost self-esteem, that is, how you feel about yourself.

When you’re facing a challenge, try to focus on the actual problem rather than how you feel about it. Think about where and when it happened and what the causes are. Next, think up as many solutions to the problem as you can.     4     Finally, review what has and hasn’t worked, so you’re equipped to deal with a situation next time.

And remember, if you have a tricky problem that you’re unable to solve, then ask a trusted adult for help.       5    

A．You also learn what you’re good at.

B．Here is how you can be more resourceful.

C．These may be practical things like pens and paper.

D．No one is expected to solve all problems by themselves.

E．Resourcefulness is a skill that’s good for you in lots of ways.

F．They can be famous mottos that always inspire us to move on.

G．Weigh up what’s good and bad about each one and choose the best.

4 . At a museum in Vietnam, Lena Bui’s film Where Birds Dance Their Last reflected on the beauty and vulnerability of Vietnamese feather farms after Bird Flu. During a festival in Rwanda, Ellen Reid’s audio experience Soundwalk was shared in a hopeful discussion about music, parks and mental health. These are a few of the things I have helped bring to life over the years, working at the intersection of scientific research, the arts and advocacy to support science in solving global health challenges.

Science is key to addressing these issues. But it isn’t the only key. To achieve its potential and for its advances to be implemented and reach all who could benefit, science depends on trust and good relationships. People might not always see science as relevant, trustworthy or meaningful to their lives. There are reasons why some see science as having a chequered past, from nuclear weapons to eugenics, and are therefore uninterested in, or suspicious of, what it proposes. Others feel excluded by the incomprehensibility of hyper specialist knowledge.

In its capacity to build upon and test an evidence base, science is powerful, but researchers and funders haven’t been as good at ensuring this evidence base responds to the needs and interests of diverse communities, or informs policy makers to take action. Science might be perceived as distancing itself from the personal, the poetic and the political, yet it is precisely these qualities that can be most influential when it comes to public interest in atopic or how a government prioritizes a decision.

A moving story well told can be more memorable than a list of facts. This is where the arts come in. Artists can give us different perspectives with which to consider and reimagine the world together. They can redress the proclaimed objectivity in science by bringing stories —subjectivities —into the picture, and these can help foster a sense of connection and hope.

In 2012, I set up artist residencies in medical research centres around the world. Bui was attached to the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Vietnam. The head of the research team was delighted, finding that Bui, as a Vietnamese artist, had license to be in, and to share useful insights from, villages where infectious disease researchers weren’t welcome. Six years later, I led Wellcome’s Contagious Cities program, which established artist residencies worldwide to support locally led explorations of epidemic preparedness. The recent pandemic made this work more noticeable, and has informed our Mindscapes program which is currently sharing experiences of mental health through the work of artists.

With pandemic, climate and mental health crises upon us, rising inequality and what feels like an increasingly broken world, never has there been more need to build and nurture hopeful and imaginative spaces to grow human connection and shared purpose for the common good. Science and the arts can work hand in glove to achieve this.

1. The author lists two works in Paragraph 1 mainly to ______.

A．reveal the gap between science and art	B．prove his competence in both science and art
C．introduce successful science-related artworks	D．show that science can be promoted in art forms

2. What does the underlined word “chequered” in Paragraph 2 probably mean?

A．Recent and remote.	B．Good and bad.
C．Usual and unusual.	D．Peaceful and scary.

3. Which of the following would the author agree?

A．Policy-makers base their decisions on science.	B．Researchers popularize science effectively.
C．Science is well received among the public.	D．The arts help people build connections.

4. Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?

A．The Value of the Arts to Science	B．Where Do Science and the Arts Meet?
C．A New Way to Fight Pandemic—the Arts	D．Which Matters More, Science or the Arts?

5 . The teenage years are probably the most unsettled and stressful years in a person’s life. Teens experience significant physical, emotional, social and cognitive changes. And teens of today face more challenges as they go through more uncertain times of the 21st century.     1    

As teens experience massive physical, social and emotional changes, the challenges are managing social expectations of ideal body images, developing their identity and finding their place in the world. In the past, a teen who was criticized for his or her larger figure or pimpled (有粉刺的) face, might feel embarrassed and dejected in school.     2     Constant comparison and endless posts of picture — perfect images and lives give teens greater pressure to follow current fashion trends. The Wall Street Journal reported that Instagram made body images worse for one in three teenage girls.

    3     Statistics show that most cases of cyber bullying take place on popular social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchats and Twitter, where cyber bullies make emotionally scarring comments. These can be made publicly on a teen’s social media account.     4     As a result, cyber bullying can be more threatening than traditional bullying because it can be shared and viewed repeatedly on social media. In this age of social media, it is also important for teens to learn to cultivate positive, and healthy relationships with people.

There have been many discussions about new technologies and ways of working, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, which will impact future jobs.     5    . Unlike in the past, the situation is different today as AI and automation are causing some jobs to disappear. Teens will have to meet this challenge by adopting an attitude of lifelong learning, and keeping paces with technology.

A．They can also be spread quickly by sharing with others.

B．Furthermore, social media has taken bullying to a new level.

C．The future has always been a dreamland for teens to anticipate.

D．Today, these same sufferings can be expanded by social media.

E．Social media, and technological advances are posing new challenges.

F．Additionally, social media is a strong tool for a teen to defend himself.

G．The challenge for a teen today is preparing for a largely unknown future.

6 . Arguably, the biggest science development of the year to date has been the images of the very depths of the universe taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Those images beg a comparison between the external and internal universes that science is bent on observing and understanding.

Decades ago, astrophysicist Carl Sagan famously said, “The universe is also within is. We’re made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself. ” He was commenting then on the reality that our internal universe was as complex and as fantastic as the outer space.

There are many similarities between the progress we’ve made in understanding the universe and in piecing together life’s inner workings. Like the technological developments that took us from Galileo’s telescope to the Hubble to the JWST, life science tools have also improved rapidly. From early light microscopes to modern super-resolution ones, these developments have afforded researchers a deep look into biology’s infinitesimal (无限小的) landscape. Learning that living things were composed of cells was, not a terribly long time ago, a revolutionary observation. Since then, scientists have been able to dive ever deeper into the components of life.

Going beyond merely observing the complicated makeup of organisms, life scientists can now discover the workings of molecules (分子). And that is where scanning the universe differs from peering into biology. Understanding the universe, especially from a functional standpoint, is not necessarily an immediate urgency. Understanding biology on that level is. Simply observing the amazing internal structure of cells is not enough. Biologists must also characterize how all those parts interact and change in different environments and when faced with various challenges. Being able to image a virus or bacterium is nice at the level of basic science. But knowing how viruses gain entry into cells and spread, infect, and disable can literally save lives. Through time, biology has risen to this mechanistic challenge. Not only can life science tools produce images of cell components, even more importantly, they can help predict the effects of drugs on receptors, of immune cells on foreign invaders (入侵者), and of genetic perturbations (基因干扰) on development and aging.

This is not to belittle the work of scientists researching into universe. They should rightly be praised for delivering views of impossibly distant, impossibly massive phenomena. My aim is to celebrate these accomplishments while at the same time recognizing that science’s inward search for detail and insight is equally impressive and, in my view, more urgent. The output of both the outward and inward explorations should stimulate wonder in everyone. After all, it’s all star-stuff.

1. Why does the author quote Carl Sagan’s comment in Paragraph 2?

A．To introduce the background.	B．To prove an assumption.
C．To make a comparison.	D．To present an idea.

2. Like the study of the universe, life science has been advancing in ________.

A．study approaches	B．system management
C．research facilities	D．technology integration

3. We can infer from Paragraph 4 that biologists’ work is ________.

A．practical

B．risky

C．flexible

D．popular

4. As for life science, which would the author agree with?

A．It has received universal recognition.	B．It should enjoy priority in development.
C．It can be applied in the majority of areas.	D．It is more complicated than space science.

7 . Humans have long tried to conquer water. We’ve straightened once-winding rivers for shipping purposes. We’ve constructed levees (防洪堤) along rivers and lakes to protect people from flooding—We’ve erected entire cities on drained and filled-in wetlands. We’ve built dams on rivers to store water for later use.     1     But it’s not, argues environmental journalist Erica Gies,author of Water Always Wins.

Levees, which narrow channels causing water to flow higher and faster, nearly always break. Cities on former wetlands flood regularly—often disastrously. Dams starve downstream areas of sediment (沉积物) needed to protect coasts against rising seas. Straightened streams move faster than winding ones, giving water less time to flow downward. And they wash away riverbed ecosystems.

In addition to laying out this damage done by supposed water control, Gies takes readers on a hopeful global tour of solutions to these problems. Along the way, she introduces “water detectives” —scientists,engineers,urban planners, and many others.     2    

These water detectives have found ways to give the slippery substance the time and space it needs to flow slowly underground. Around Seattle’s Thornton Creek, for instance, reclaimed land now allows for regular flooding, which has renewed riverbed habitat and created an urban oasis. In California’s Central Valley, scientists want to find ways to move unpolluted storm water into subsurface valleys that make ideal aquifers (含水层).     3    

While some people are exploring new ways to manage water, others are leaning on ancient knowledge. Researchers in Peru are now studying old-style methods of water storage, which don’t require dams, in hopes of ensuring a steady flow of water to Lima—Peru’s populous capital that’s periodically affected by water shortage.     4     “Decision makers come from a culture of concrete,” Gies writes, “in which dams, pipes and desalination factories are standard.”

Understanding how to work with, not against, water will help humankind weather this age of drought and flood that’s being worsened by climate change.     5     Instead, we must learn to live within our water means because water will undoubtedly win.

A．Controlling water, Gies convincingly argues, is a false belief.

B．Instead of trying to control water, they ask: What does water want?

C．It seems that water is cooperative and willing to flow where we direct it.

D．These old-style underwater concrete techniques pave the way for the construction of dams.

E．To further understand the whole ecosystem, they believe effective water control requires effort.

F．The study may help convince those who favor concrete-centric solutions to try something new.

G．Feeding groundwater supplies will in turn sustain rivers from below, which helps to maintain water levels and ecosystems.

8 . Technology seems to discourage slow, immersive reading. Reading on a screen, particularly a phone screen, tires your eyes and makes it harder for you to keep your place. So online writing tends to be more skimmable and list-like than print. The cognitive neuroscientist Mary Walt argued recently that this “new norm” of skim reading is producing “an invisible, game-changing transformation” in how readers process words. The neuronal circuit that sustains the brain’s capacity to read now favors the rapid absorption of information, rather than skills developed by deeper reading, like critical analysis.

We shouldn’t overplay this danger. All readers skim. Skimming is the skill we acquire as children as we learn to read more skillfully. From about the age of nine, our eyes start to bounce around the page, reading only about a quarter of the words properly, and filling in the gaps by inference. Nor is there anything new in these fears about declining attention spans. So far, the anxieties have proved to be false alarms. “Quite a few critics have been worried about attention span lately and see very short stories as signs of cultural decline,” the American author Selvin Brown wrote. “No one ever said that poems were evidence of short attention spans.”

And yet the Internet has certainly changed the way we read. For a start, it means that there is more to read, because more people than ever are writing. If you time travelled just a few decades into the past, you would wonder at how little writing was happening outside a classroom. And digital writing is meant for rapid release and response. An online article starts forming a comment string underneath as soon as it is published. This mode of writing and reading can be interactive and fun. But often it treats other people’s words as something to be quickly harvested as fodder to say something else. Everyone talks over the top of everyone else, desperate to be heard.

Perhaps we should slow down. Reading is constantly promoted as a social good and source of personal achievement. But this advocacy often emphasizes “enthusiastic”, “passionate” or “eager” reading, none of which adjectives suggest slow, quiet absorption.

To a slow reader, a piece of writing can only be fully understood by immersing oneself in the words and their slow comprehension of a line of thought. The slow reader is like a swimmer who stops counting the number of pool laps he has done and just enjoys how his body feels and moves in water.

The human need for this kind of deep reading is too tenacious for any new technology to destroy. We often assume that technological change can’t be stopped and happens in one direction, so that older media like “dead-tree” books are kicked out by newer, more virtual forms. In practice, older technologies can coexist with new ones. The Kindle has not killed off the printed book any more than the car killed off the bicycle. We still want to enjoy slowly-formed ideas and carefully-chosen words. Even in a fast-moving age, there is time for slow reading.

1. What is the author’s attitude towards Selvin Brown’s opinion?

A．Favorable.

B．Critical.

C．Doubtful.

D．Objective.

2. The author would probably agree that          .

A．advocacy of passionate reading helps promote slow reading

B．digital writing leads to too much speaking and not enough reflection

C．the public should be aware of the impact skimming has on neuronal circuits

D．the number of Internet readers is declining due to the advances of technology

3. What does the underlined word “tenacious” in Paragraph 6 probably mean?

A．Comprehensive.

B．Complicated.

C．Determined.

D．Apparent.

4. Which would be the best title for the passage?

A．Slow Reading Is Here to Stay

B．Digital Technology Prevents Slow Reading

C．Screen vs. Print: Which Requires Deep Reading?

D．Reading Is Not a Race: The Wonder of Deep Reading

9 . “Just think positively!”

“It could be worse.”

“You should look at the bright side!”

We’ve all heard (and maybe used) these phrases without much thought. But they could be contributing to a culture of toxic(有毒的) positivity. For those new to this term, it might sound like an oxymoron(矛盾修辞法). How can positivity be toxic? Isn’t it supposed to be helpful, or “positive”, as the name suggests?     1    

“Toxic positivity is when somebody avoids all negative thoughts or feelings, pretending everything is going well when it is not,” explains Melissa Dowd, a therapist at PlushCare, a virtual health platform for primary care and mental health services.Whitney Goodman, the author of Toxic Positivity describes toxic positivity as the “endless pressure to be happy and positive, no matter what the circumstances are.”     2     It’s also something we can cause other people to experience.

Expressing toxic positivity to others may look like offering them a simple solution to a complicated problem that we know nothing about, or not allowing people around you to appropriately express negative emotions.

Toxic positivity causes us to suppress our emotions, which can make them worse.     3     “Although it can be helpful to look on the bright side when facing challenges,” Dowd says, “not coping with negative feelings in a healthy way in the moment can lead to those feelings resurfacing later in different areas of your life or as a form of anxiety.”     4     “If I feel like you’re going to dismiss me, I’m going to stop sharing how I’m feeling,” Goodman adds.

    5     If you’re using toxic positivity against yourself, Goodman suggests remembering it’s OK if you’re upset about something. It’s valid if something annoys you. “Allow ourselves and other people to share when they’re going through a difficult time,” she says. Dowd adds that it’s essential that “we all learn to cope with and process our emotions in a healthy way as opposed to avoiding how we feel” as life’s stressors continue to rise. For example, instead of simply saying “Just think positively,” we’d better say “Sometimes bad things happen. How can I help?”

A．Are there ways to avoid toxic positivity?

B．Toxic positivity also disrupts connection.

C．It can harm people who are going through difficult times.

D．This can come up in different situations when we are dealing with pressure.

E．They become more intense and can cause long-lasting health concerns in the future.

F．Experts say constant forced positivity can lead to the opposite, and have a negative effect.

G．This is what we may bring on to ourselves by not allowing negative thoughts and feelings.

10 . The 24 solar terms were created thousands of years ago in China to guide agricultural production. They also reflect China’s rich history through the seasonal festivals, special foods, cultural ceremonies, family gatherings and even healthy living tips that correspond with each solar term.    1    

Rain Water signals the increase in rainfall and rise in temperature. With its arrival, lively spring-like scenery starts blossoming: the river water defreezes, wild geese move from south to north and trees and grass turn green again.

    2    In northern China, the spring drought is common and the precipitation of this season accounts for only 10 to 15 percent of annual average rainfall. At this time of year, farmers begin to plough their fields. It’s the right time to prepare for spring sowing when the day gets warmer.    3    

During Rain Water period, extra care is needed to deal with a returning cold spell and humidity, which is the amount of water in the air.    4    It is strongly advised not to take off the thick coats too early and to keep warm, especially the elderly and children.

The wet and humid weather during Rain Water period is considered harmful for people’s spleen and stomach according to Chinese medical practice.    5    People in Beijing often eat porridge (粥) cooked with a kind of Chinese herb medicine to resist cold and wet weather. Honey, dates and Chinese yam are also very good nourishment (营养) to put in the porridge.

A．With Rain Water coming, insects become more active.

B．A bowl of nutritious porridge is the best choice to nourish the body.

C．Therefore, Rain Water is considered as a key period to water the fields.

D．According to an old Chinese saying, the rainfall in spring is as precious as oil.

E．The temperature in most of the basin areas increases quickly during Rain Water.

F．One of the 24 solar terms, which is very important in spring, is called Rain Water.

G．The fast increase in air humidity due to rainfall can result in lower temperature and wet weather.