1 . 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.

2 . To a chef, the sounds of lip smacking, slurping and swallowing are the highest form of flattery (恭维). But to someone with a certain type of misophonia (恐音症), these same sounds can be torturous. Brain scans are now helping scientists start to understand why.

People with misophonia experience strong discomfort, annoyance or disgust when they hear particular triggers. These can include chewing, swallowing, slurping, throat clearing, coughing and even audible breathing. Researchers previously thought this reaction might be caused by the brain overactively processing certain sounds. Now, however, a new study published in Journal of Neuroscience has linked some forms of misophonia to heightened “mirroring” behavior in the brain: those affected feel distress while their brains act as if they were imitating the triggering mouth movements.

“This is the first breakthrough in misophonia research in 25 years,” says psychologist Jennifer J. Brout, who directs the International Misophonia Research Network and was not involved in the new study.

The research team, led by Neweastle University neuroscientist Sukhbinder Kumar, analyzed brain activity in people with and without misophonia when they were at rest and while they listened to sounds. These included misophonia triggers (such as chewing), generally unpleasant sounds (like a crying baby）, and neutral sounds. The brain’s auditory (听觉的) cortex, which processes sound, reacted similarly in subjects with and without misophonia. But in both the resting state and listening trials, people with misophonia showed stronger connections between the auditory cortex and brain regions that control movements of the face, mouth and throat, while the controlled group didn’t. Kumar found this connection became most active in participants with misophonia when they heard triggers specific to the condition.

“Just by listening to the sound, they activate the motor cortex more strongly. So in a way it was as if they were doing the action themselves,” Kumar says. Some mirroring is typical in most humans when witnessing others’ actions; the researchers do not yet know why an excessive(过分的) mirroring response might cause such a negative reaction, and hope to address that in future research. “Possibilities include a sense of loss of control, invasion of personal space, or interference with current goals and actions,” the study authors write.

Fatima Husain, an Illinois University professor of speech and hearing science, who was not involved in the study, says potential misophonia therapies could build on the new findings by counseling patients about handling unconscious motor responses to triggering sounds—not just coping with the sounds themselves. If this works, she adds, one should expect to see reduced connected activity between the auditory and motor cortices.

1. It can be learnt from the new study that ______.

A．misophonia sufferers can’t help imitating the triggers

B．people with misophonia are more likely to flatter chefs

C．the brains of people with misophonia overreact to sounds strongly

D．misophonia sufferers tend to have similar annoying activities in their brains

2. Compared with people without misophonia, people with misophonia ______.

A．suffer less severely at the resting state	B．own markedly different brain structures
C．react more negatively at a mirroring response	D．lose control of their facial movements easily

3. What might be the significance of the study?

A．Improving speech and hearing science.	B．Developing a treatment for misophonia.
C．Drawing people’s attention to misophonia.	D．Promoting human brain structure research.

3 . Once upon a time, we were all question-asking experts. We started asking our parents numerous questions as kids. By preschool, our inquiries even reached the depths of science, philosophy, and the social order. Where does the sun go at night? Why doesn’t that man have a home like we do? Why do rocks sink but ice floats?     1    

Why does the child’s urge to ask questions grow inactive in so many adults? An important factor is how the social environments surrounding us change as we age. Schools transform from a place for asking questions to one funded by our ability to answer them.     2     And we recognize that society rewards the people who propose to have the answers.

    3     We can be braver about asking questions in public and encouraging others to pursue their curiosity, too. In that encouragement, we help create an environment where those around us feel safe to ask questions.

When it comes to how we phrase questions, we are advised to open with less sensitive questions, favor follow-up questions, and keep questions open-ended. We can also practice asking questions of and for ourselves by keeping a running list of questions in a journal.     4     Finally, we could set aside time to ask absurd questions like “How would you accomplish a week’s work in two hours?” This type of questions forces us to break the boundaries of our comfort zone.

In the world that does not look much as it did years ago, we must ask questions.     5     Great questions can open up our capacity to change because they allow us to draw people in, opening them up to sharing knowledge, ideas, and opinions. And they are also our primary means of learning about the world. In short, asking questions is the best way to deepen our understanding of the things that matter to our life. As any child could probably tell us if we asked.

A．Then, at some point, our inquiring desires disappear.

B．It is a high-payoff behavior especially in times of change.

C．The questions we ask depend on our attitudes as well as the situations.

D．But as we grow up, asking questions fills us with worry and self-doubt.

E．As such, one way to renew our inquiring spirit is to change the atmosphere.

F．We learn to sell ourselves on the job market by what we know, not what we don’t.

G．It not only removes the publicity from question asking, but offers us a place to experiment.

4 . 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.

5 . When you’re behind the wheel, distractions (分心) cost lives. Nevertheless, drivers take selfies, and respond to text messages.     1    

Smartphones are often at the root of these tragedies. As Big Tech sets its sights on modern vehicles, it’s appropriate to ask if it’s time to limit attention-stealing technology that distracts the driver.

Big Tech wants to take on the automotive industry. And it is good at grabbing both attention and information from users. At first, the goal of these technology companies was to give away services at no cost, simply to attract a customer base.     2     Their increasing thirst for valuable user information has led them to the automotive industry, where a whole new world of data awaits. Location data, frequent destinations, passenger preferences — such data is found in family cars.     3    

Mobile tech is walled off from vehicle operating systems by software that keeps infotainment (information and entertainment) features away from the mission-critical driving electronics. If auto makers give up their core operating system to tech powerhouses, they will essentially become hardware suppliers to Silicon Valley.

    4     Their responsibility is to keep attention on the road, providing vehicle information and a small amount of entertainment options while getting passengers from place to place as safely as possible. Smartphone makers and digital-media providers don’t have this priority. They want eyes on their products, not on the road.

With electric vehicles transforming the auto industry, and artificial intelligence more common than ever, we’re at a dangerous moment.     5     Because their hardware is wrapped around families, they have a duty to keep them safe. The only way they can do that is to maintain control of the driver’s seat.

The quality, safety and security will make or break trust in auto makers. Without it, cars will be simply one more intrusive and risky mobile device.

A．Car companies have priorities opposed to those of Big Tech.

B．Now they exist to sell information about their users to advertisers.

C．They enjoy the convenience and fun brought by modern technology.

D．Car makers are, and should be, the most trusted technology companies in the world.

E．Currently video-streaming services are starting to be built into car operating systems.

F．And operating systems and autonomous-driving software are all gateways for this information.

G．Statistics show that an average of eight people a day die in accidents caused by distracted driving.

6 . Is fashion important to you?    1    From those who wear trendy ripped jeans and loose-fitting T-shirts to those who wear smart tailored suits and expensive designer outfits, each individual can have their own style.

    2    And what impact can this have on their self-expression?

Arguably, one factor that influences what people wear is the need to impress others. People who dress well and keep up with the latest styles seem to be more noticed than those who are not concerned about their appearance.     3    In this way they assume an identity which makes them feel they impress. Yet, by copying general looks, people actually can’t show their individuality.

At the same time, fashion is perceived by some as a tool for success and one that represents wealth or respectable social position. For instance, people intentionally try to raise their status by wearing famous brands or expensive clothes which are admired by others.    4    They are just the means to promote a specific image of power and control. In this case, fashion does not express personal individuality but could perhaps be said to give a false impression of appearance for a specific purpose.

That being said, following fashion may not have anything to do with copying current trends but with using them as an inspiration to create outfits expressing individuality.    5    Adding glam here and there, rolling up a pair of trousers or even wearing two different shoes can be considered a form of self-expression demonstrating originality.

Having considered all this, to my way of thinking, fashion can be used as a means of communication and a way to communicate your self-image to people around you. As a famous designer once said, “Fashion is instant language.”

A．Is it a trend we must follow?

B．But why are people following fashion?

C．For most people it is, at least to some extent.

D．For this reason, people wear fashionable clothing.

E．These clothes are not actually giving a personal statement of the wearer.

F．There are always fashion followers, even though fashion is constantly changing.

G．An example of this is reforming fashionable pieces and making small personalized changes.

7 . Both misinformation, which includes honest mistakes, and disinformation, which involves an intention to mislead, have had a growing impact on teenage students over the past 20 years. One tool that schools can use to deal with this problem is called media literacy education. The idea is to teach teenage students how to evaluate and think critically about the messages they receive. Yet there is profound disagreement about what to teach.

Some approaches teach students to distinguish the quality of the information in part by learning how responsible journalism works. Yet some scholars argue that these methods overstate journalism and do little to cultivate critical thinking skills. Other approaches teach students methods for evaluating the credibility of news and information sources, in part by determining the incentive of those sources. They teach students to ask: What encouraged them to create it and why? But even if these approaches teach students specific skills well, some experts argue that determining credibility of the news is just the first step. Once students figure out if it’s true or false, what is the other assessment and the other analysis they need to do?

Worse still, some approaches to media literacy education not only don’t work but might actually backfire by increasing students’ skepticism about the way the media work. Students may begin to read all kinds of immoral motives into everything. It is good to educate students to challenge their assumptions, but it’s very easy for students to go from healthy critical thinking to unhealthy skepticism and the idea that everyone is lying all the time.

To avoid these potential problems, broad approaches that help students develop mindsets in which they become comfortable with uncertainty are in need. According to educational psychologist William Perry of Harvard University, students go through various stages of learning. First, children are black-and-white thinkers—they think there are right answers and wrong answers. Then they develop into relativists, realizing that knowledge can be contextual. This stage is the one where people can come to believe there is no truth. With media literacy education, the aim is to get students to the next level—that place where they can start to see and appreciate the fact that the world is messy, and that’s okay. They have these fundamental approaches to gathering knowledge that they can accept, but they still value uncertainty.

Schools still have a long way to go before they get there, though. Many more studies will be needed for researchers to reach a comprehensive understanding of what works and what doesn’t over the long term. “Education scholars need to take an ambitious step forward,” says Howard Schneider, director of the Center for News Literacy at Stony Brook University.

1. As for media literacy education, what is the author’s major concern?

A．How to achieve its goal.	B．How to measure its progress.
C．How to avoid its side effects.	D．How to promote its importance.

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

A．Importance.

B．Variety.

C．Motivation.

D．Benefit.

3. The author mentions stages of learning in Paragraph 4 mainly to________.

A．compare different types of thinking

B．evaluate students’ mind development

C．explain a theory of educational psychology

D．stress the need to raise students’ thinking levels

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

A．Media Literacy Education: Much Still Remains

B．Media Literacy Education: Schools Are to Blame

C．Media Literacy Education: A Way to Identify False Information

D．Media Literacy Education: A Tool for Testing Critical Thinking

8 . “I can’t connect with your characters.”

I kept hearing the same feedback and was unable to understand why and not sure what to do. I was a character-driven writer. How could I mess up the one thing I was supposed to be good at? I was determined to convince my agent that these characters were real. After all, I knew they were real. My main character Lotus had lived inside me for years. I just needed to clarify her on the page.

I wrote and edited for a year, trying to respond to this agent’s feedback. But Lotus’ personality began to disappear. I tried to have her make “better” decisions, wear smarter fashion, and have more friends, as my agent said she acted “immature” and was “isolated”. And when this agent ultimately parted ways with me, I felt like I had failed. Now with time and distance, I realize I tried to fit Lotus into a neurotypical style to please my agent. And as a result, Lotus lost her Lotus-ness.

When that agent discouraged me from writing Lotus as autistic(自闭的), he said that would make Lotus seem more “vulnerable(脆弱的)” or an “obvious victim”. I didn’t want Lotus to seem vulnerable. Lotus’ autism is what makes her powerful, I tried to explain. But from a neurotypical perspective, Lotus’ autism could only be seen as a weakness.

Unsure of how to convince my agent of the strength and power autistic women hold, I began to write Lotus as “neurotypical”. And I failed miserably. After all, what do I know about being neurotypical? My whole life, autism was my default. Not being diagnosed until 2020, I assumed the way I saw the world was “normal”.

My current agent encourages me to write from my neurodivergent(神经多样性的) experience. With this invitation, I revisited Lotus and saw her the way I first wrote her. And when I did, the characters and the entire narrative began to make more sense.

Identifying my characters as neurodivergent not only gives me joy as a writer, but it has produced my strongest writing. For so long, I’ve combatted the advice to “write what I know”, in part because I didn’t know what I actually knew. I didn’t know I was neurodivergent. But as I mine the specificity of my lived experience, my writing is stronger. There is a power to our lived experience. It’s not a limitation on our craft, but a swinging open of the gates.

1. How did the author feel when receiving the repeated response from the first agent?

A．Confused.

B．Convinced.

C．Determined.

D．Disappointed.

2. Lotus’ personality got lost because ______

A．Lotus no longer lived inside the author	B．the author attempted to please the agent
C．the agent failed to sympathize with Lotus	D．Lotus was considered childish and lonely

3. What do we know about the author?

A．She regretted parting with the agent.

B．She owed her success in life to autism.

C．She was aware of her autism in the early years.

D．She was empowered by her autistic experience.

4. What has the author learned from her own experience?

A．Stick to your dream despite discouragement.

B．Be true to yourself and write from your heart.

C．Giving in to authority is the barrier to success.

D．Everyone is born an original instead of a copy.

9 . When evaluating people on various psychological tests, psychologists often distinguish between markers of absolute performance and relative performance. Absolute performance reflects the raw measurement of something, like the time it takes to run a mile. Relative performance is how a person rates in relation to their peers, as in what place a runner gets in a race.

The standards we use to evaluate ourselves are almost always relative, as we compare ourselves to our peers and the standards that are most familiar to us. For instance, in my private practice, I have one patient I will call “Omar” who is dependent on social services and makes less than $30,000 per year at his job. While this level of poverty would lead most people to wake up depressed each day, Omar is one of the most optimistic and appreciative individuals I know. Why? Because most of his closest peers — his siblings and friends from childhood — have lives far worse than his.

In contrast to Omar, I have another patient, an adolescent I’ll call “Lena”, whose family has property over $5 million. Lena, however, lives in an upper-class neighborhood where her family is at the lower end of the income level. Though Lena's family allows her to enjoy possessions and experiences that less than I percent of her peers across the world can share, she consistently feels “less than”. Why? Because Lena doesn't compare herself to the rest of the world; This is too abstract an exercise for her, as it would be for most of us.

Accordingly, whether a psychologist is psychodynamic or cognitive-behavioral, therapy (疗法) with individuals struggling with situational or psychological depression aims to solve the problems associated with basing one's self-worth on comparisons with others. Psychologists try to help people focus on personal growth around the achievement of concrete goals in line with their values. independent of the achievement of others. For all of us, defining these goals, especially during Periods of emotional calm, can go a long way in helping us to avoid the trap of relativity that often leads to situational and psychological depression.

1. What is the function of Paragraph 1?

A．To show the significance of evaluating people.

B．To motivate readers to study psychological tests.

C．To help people perform well in psychological tests.

D．To provide some background information on evaluating people.

2. Why does the author mention his two patients?

A．To measure different achievement.

B．To introduce the standards to evaluate people.

C．To explain relative performance with examples.

D．To contrast relative performance and absolute performance.

3. What does the last paragraph mainly talk about?

A．Setting goals in life is essential for everyone.

B．It's important to avoid unhealthy comparisons.

C．A sense of achievement can affect one's happiness,

D．Improving self-worth can help get rid of depression.

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．Happiness: Is it all relative?

B．Self-worth: Is it measurable?

C．Self-worth: Is it based on efforts?

D．Happiness: Is it associated with achievement?

10 . Yuan Longping devoted his life to the research and development of high－yielding rice, making outstanding contributions to China’s food ________.

A．lack

B．cuisine

C．security

D．purchase