1 . 听下面一段独白，回答以下小题。
1. What is the speaker mainly talking about?

A．A search engine.

B．A language-learning website and app.

C．A free lesson website for teachers.

2. How many people use Duolingo currently?

A．Over one hundred million.

B．A few hundred thousand.

C．Several thousand.

3. Where is Luis von Ahn from?

A．Switzerland.

B．Guatemala.

C．Costa Rica.

4. How was Duoling o originally funded?

A．By big websites.

B．By an actor.

C．By school.

2 . To produce the classic clothing, blue jeans, producers rely on indigo dye (靛蓝染料), the only molecule known to provide jeans’ unique, beloved color. While indigo itself naturally comes from a plant, growing demand for blue jeans throughout the 20th century gave rise to synthetic (合成的) indigo, which is now more commonly used.

Indigo is the dye that makes jeans blue, but it doesn’t mix with water. To dye clothes, usually, chemicals are needed to make the color stick to the cloth. But in Denmark, scientists have created a new way to dye clothes using an enzyme (酶), which is a kind of protein that can cause chemical reactions, instead of harmful chemicals. This new method is better for the environment and doesn’t use poisonous stuff.

The chemical process for dyeing blue jeans has persisted for the last century. Workers are exposed to the poisonous chemicals, which also pollute the environment near factories. Waste water from those factories often ends up in waterways, decimating local ecosystems and even dyeing rivers blue.

Ditte Hededam Welner, the study’s lead researcher, says their new enzyme works really well and is strong enough for making lots of jeans without breaking down. This enzyme makes dyeing with indican, which is like indigo, much less harmful to the planet — about 92% better than the old way.

However, the new method doesn’t fix all the environmental problems of making jeans. Making a single pair of jeans uses a lot of water — enough to fill many bathtubs — from growing the cotton to putting the final touches on the jeans.

Even though the new dyeing process is better for the environment, it’s not always easy or cheap to change to it. Welner’s team isn’t sure if jeans companies will find it easy or affordable to switch to this method. It costs a little bit more — just seven cents extra per pair of jeans — to use the enzyme for dyeing. But Welner believes it’s worth it because it’s much better for the environment.

1. Why was synthetic indigo created in the 20th century?

A．It made jeans’ color unique.	B．It was easy to dye cloth with it.
C．People liked jeans made from it.	D．People were in greater need of jeans.

2. What does the underlined word “decimating” in paragraph 3 mean?

A．Troubling.

B．Entering.

C．Destroying.

D．Defeating.

3. Which is an advantage of the new method?

A．The colour is more beautiful than the synthetic indigo.

B．The market can keep stable goods supplies.

C．Enzyme facilitates the advance of science.

D．The dye is more environmentally friendly.

4. What makes Welner worried about the new method?

A．Production costs.	B．Environmental benefits.
C．Water consumption.	D．Laborer shortage.

3 . Las Vegas can offer a lot more than you expect. Here are the best guided tours to help visitors make the most of their Sin City getaway.

Big Bus Las Vegas—Open Top Night Tour

Admire the glittering lights down town on this evening double-decker bus tour. Along the drive, you’ll pass well-known buildings before hopping off to enjoy the free light shows on Fremont Street. Tour-takers praise the guides for their informative, friendly account.

Passengers can board the buses at the LINQ Promenade starting at 7 p. m. each evening.

Cowboy Trail Rides—Red Rock Canyon Sunset Horseback Ride

When you need a break from the city life, put on a cowboy hat and boots for a sunset trail ride through Red Rock Canyon. On the ride, you’ll follow a guide through the picturesque desert landscape, watching for wildlife. Travelers warn that it can get chilly on the ride, so they advise wearing warm layers.

Trail Rides are offered Tuesday through Sunday.

Papillon Grand Canyon Helicopters—Grand Celebration Tour

Papillon Grand Canyon Helicopters’ Grand Celebration tour offers bird’s-eye views of sought-after sights, like Eagle Point and Lake Mead. The tour also includes a Champagne picnic. The pilots and staff earn praise for their friendliness and professionalism.

There are several daily departure options.

Secret Food Tours—Las Vegas Strip

Every day Secret Food Tours take groups of 10 participants to five-star restaurants on the Strip to sample a variety of cooking delights, including pizza, chocolates and lobster. During the walking tour, highly praised guides teach tourgoers about the city’s food and culture. Travelers say the food on the tour is plentiful and tasty, but they warn that you’ll be doing a lot of walking.

Tickets include all food tastings.

1. What can visitors do during the Open Top Night Tour?

A．Admire paid light shows.

B．Enjoy an evening double decker bus tour.

C．Board buses on Fremont Street.

D．Explore well-known buildings.

2. What do the Grand Celebration Tour and Las Vegas Strip have in common?

A．Visitors can try a horseback ride.

B．Visitors can enjoy views from high in the air.

C．Visitors can have some food to taste.

D．Visitors can learn about the history of Las Vegas.

3. Which tour is unlikely to offer services every day?

A．Secret Food Tours—Las Vegas Strip

B．Big Bus Las Vegas—Open Top Night Tour

C．Papillon Grand Canyon Helicopters—Grand Celebration Tour

D．Cowboy Trail Rides—Red Rock Canyon Sunset Horseback Ride

4 . The first time our fifth grader bought a salad for school lunch, she proudly told me the news as soon as she walked in the kitchen door. I didn’t share her delight.

“Honey, just so you know, salad isn’t a meal. It’s a side,” I said. “Vegetables won’t keep you full.”

“But a salad’s healthy, right?” she asked.

Of course the objective answer is yes. But my answer was more complicated. I couldn’t celebrate her otherwise healthy choice because I was worried she had begun to model my dieting and restrictive eating habits she saw as a younger child — habits that included lots of salad eating (and little else) and finally led to my anorexia (厌食症) nearly two years ago. Was this monkey see, monkey do?

Even though our daughters — who are now 10, 8 and 6 — are old enough to make their own regular food choices, what my husband and I have modeled for them will make a difference. I learned something about restrictive eating from watching my own father, who often struggled with his weight. Of course, I don’t blame him for my disorder — he never intended for his choices to be a weight-loss book for me, though sadly, they were. So knowing what I know now, it would be stupid, if not irresponsible for me to think that just because I never told our daughters to restrict or to spend hours each day exercising that they wouldn’t have understood what my “healthy” lifestyle really meant. To be clear, there are countless medical reasons why some parents chose restrictive diets, but when restriction or a diet becomes a way of life that starts to affect relationships, that’s not healthy.

I knew I was wrong to shame the salad our daughter bought for lunch, which is why I reconsidered my response and told her that salad for lunch was, indeed, a healthy choice, and that it should include cheese, meat or nuts, which would keep her brain focused for the rest of her school day. She smiled at my answer. “Well, I also have cheese, eggs and chicken on my salad.”

1. How did the author feel on hearing about her daughter’s lunch?

A．Unconcerned.

B．Relaxed.

C．Uneasy.

D．Delighted.

2. What can we infer about the author’s father?

A．He exercised a lot to keep fit.

B．He was often on a diet.

C．He once suffered from a disorder.

D．He was a good model for the author.

3. What was worrying the author?

A．Her kids at e too much fat every day.

B．Her kids were influenced by her lifestyle.

C．Her kids spent too little time exercising.

D．Her kids knew nothing about food choices.

4. What kind of lunch did the author’s daughter have that day?

A．Vegetarian.

B．High-fat.

C．Balanced.

D．Weight-loss.

5 . What is sustainable travel? Traveling sustainably means being aware of the impact of tourism on the environment and following good practices to reduce the negative effects. Planet Earth has limited resources and mass tourism puts their existence at risk.     1     Nature, culture and history should be preserved, not commercialized to attract tourists.

Let’s find out a few easy ways to travel in an eco-friendly way.

Stay in eco-friendly accommodations.

From renewable energy production to bio-architecture, eco-friendly accommodations focus on preserving the environment and have positive environmental effects.     2     Staying in eco-friendly accommodations also supports the local economy. In fact, most environmentally friendly accommodations offer zero-kilometer, organic food.

Take public transportation.

    3     By using public transport, the number of cars on the roads decreases and less carbon dioxide (二氧化碳) is released into the atmosphere. Also, fewer vehicle s reduce traffic congestion(阻塞) on the roads.

    4    

Interaction with locals is one of the most rewarding things about sustainable travel and preserves traditions passed down from generation to generation. It is essential to respect traditions as they form the identity of the local community and create a sense of unity among people.

Say NO to single-use plastics.

Saying NO to single-use plastics reduces pollution. The production of plastics uses fossil fuels(化石燃料) and therefore releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change.     5     As tourists, we should be mindful of how we travel and our impact when we arrive at a destination.

A．However, this is not all.

B．Buy from and support local businesses.

C．Respect the culture of local communities.

D．Therefore, sustainable travel is a way to preserve nature.

E．Traveling slow allows you to enjoy the scenery along the way.

F．This practice helps reduce air pollution and improve traffic flow.

G．In addition, numerous plastics end up in oceans every year, threatening sea life.

6 . Nature’s beauty is all around you. Wild flowers shine in bright blues, yellows, and reds. Trees, with unique shaped branches, and leaves, decorate the horizon. Under your feet, pine needles, leaves, and grass give their natural beauty on the earth’s surface. But how many of you take the time to notice all of nature’s wonders?

Hannah Bullen-Ryner is an artist who not only takes the time to “smell the roses”, but she uses them as a medium to craft stunning portraits of birds. Bullen-Ryner, a photographer by trade, began her artistic hobby shortly after her twin daughters were born. The young mother suffered from depression and anxiety. To seek a solution, she turned to nature.

Bullen-Ryner started spending time alone in the woods, foraging for materials: flowers, branches, leaves, and grass. On an impulse (冲动), she started forming a portrait of a bird with the items she had gathered. When her picture was finished, Bullen-Ryner realized that she felt calmand hopeful. The process had been healing and therapeutic (有疗效的).

Bullen-Ryner tells My Modern Met, “Finding the medium of land art has allowed my art and soul to connect to the earth. As a full-time Mama of nearly three-year-old twin girls, and someone who suffers from anxiety, my art is my quiet time, my peace.”

When Bullen-Ryner creates her artwork on the forest floor, she never uses glues or any other material to bond the foraged items. This means that a single breeze is able to carry away or scatter her portrait.

“People often ask me why I don’t make something more permanent or they say it’s such a shame that it’s temporary,” Bullen-Ryner explains. “But for me,” she continues, “it is the short-lived nature of what I do that has become therapy for my soul. I get to put down all my anxieties, my fears, and all the chaos from my brain and turn it into something beautiful to honor Mother Nature. I take some photos and then walk or cycle away, leaving it all behind and feeling calmer, more connected, and truly lighter.”

1. Why did Bullen-Ryner take up her artistic hobby?

A．To kill time.	B．To make more profits.
C．To serve as a treatment.	D．To entertain her daughters.

2. What does the underlined word “foraging” in paragraph 3 mean?

A．Making.	B．Answering.
C．Providing.	D．Seeking.

3. What do we know about Bullen-Ryner’s artwork?

A．It is well received with customers.

B．It cannot be preserved for a long time.

C．It stimulated the local tourism industry.

D．It won her widespread praise domestically.

4. What can we infer from the last paragraph?

A．Bullen-Ryner is grateful to nature.

B．Bullen-Ryner regrets what she has done.

C．Bullen-Ryner is into going to work by bicycle.

D．Bullen-Ryner persuades more people to participate.

7 . 为倡导“全民健康，快乐为本”的理念，你校将组织一场有关健康与生活的演讲比赛，请你根据下面内容， 准备一篇题为 How to Live a Healthy and Happy Life 的演讲稿， 词数100左右。

How to Live a Healthy and Happy Life
身体（physical）健康	心理（mental）健康
（1）健康饮食 （2）适当锻炼 （3）充足睡眠	（1）积极乐观 （2）与人为善 （3）……（至少一点）
希望……（至少一点）

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

8 . “The mountains are calling and I must go” — the famous quote is from John Muir(1838-1914), who is described as “the wilderness poet” and “the citizen of the universe.” He once jokingly referred to himself as a “poet-geologist-botanist and ornithologist (鸟类学家)-naturalist etc. etc.!” He is known as the Father of American National Parks.

Famed documentary filmmaker Ken Burns recently said, “As we got to know him… he was among the highest individuals in America; I’m talking about the level of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., and Thomas Jefferson— people who have had a transformational effect on who we are.”

So where is the quote from? Well, John Muir was a productive writer. Whether he was writing poetry or simply letters to his family, John Muir was always putting pen to paper. The quote is from within one of his many letters written to his sister:

September 3rd, 1873 Yosemite Valley Dear sister Sarah, I have just returned from the longest and hardest trip I have ever made in the mountains, having been gone over five weeks. I am weary, but resting fast; sleepy, but sleeping deep and fast; hungry, but eating much. For two weeks I explored the glaciers of the summits east of here, sleeping among the snowy mountains without blankets and with little to eat on account of its being so inaccessible. After my icy experiences, it seems strange to be down here in so warm and flowery a climate. I will soon be off again, determined to use all the season in carrying through my work—will go next to Kings River a hundred miles south, then to Lake Tahoe and surrounding mountains, and in winter work in Oakland with my pen. Though slow, someday I will have the results of my mountain studies in a form in which you all will be able to read and judge them. The mountains are calling and I must go, and I will work on while I can, studying incessantly (永不停息地). I will write again when I return from Kings River Canyon. Farewell, with love everlasting. Yours, John

1. What can we learn from John Muir’s self-description in paragraph 1?

A．He longed to expand his own career.

B．He enjoyed his involvement in nature.

C．He wanted to find his real advantage.

D．He valued his identity as a poet most.

2. What did Ken Burns mainly talk about?

A．Muir’s political influence.	B．A documentary film on Muir.
C．Muir’s historic significance.	D．The social circle around Muir.

3. How did Muir feel when writing the first paragraph of his letter?

A．Relieved but regretful.	B．Exhausted but content.
C．Excited but lonely.	D．Defeated but hopeful.

4. Why must John Muir go into mountains again?

A．To go on with his mountain studies.

B．To seek freedom from social connection.

C．To attend an appointment in Oakland.

D．To experience the hardship of wilderness.

9 . Teachers worried about students turning in essays written by a popular artificial intelligence chatbot now have a new tool of their own.

Edward Tian, a computer science major at Princeton University, has built an App called GPTZero to detect whether a text is written by Chat GPT, which is a popular chatbot that has caused fears over its possibility for immoral uses in American academic circles. His motivation to create the computer program was to fight what he sees as an increase in AI plagiarism (剽窃). Since the release of ChatGPT in 2022, there have been reports of students using the language model to pass off AI-written assignments as their own. Many teachers have reached out to him after he released GPTZero, telling him about the positive results they’ve seen from testing it.

To determine whether an essay is written by a computer program, GPTZero uses two indicators: “confusion” and “burstiness (突发性)”. The first indicator measures the complexity of text; if GPTZero is confused by the text, then it has a high complexity and it’s more likely to be human-written. However, if the text is more familiar to GPTZero — because it’s been trained on such data — then it will have low complexity and therefore is more likely to be AI-generated. Besides, the second indicator compares the variations of sentences. Humans tend to write with greater burstiness, for example, with some longer or complex sentences alongside shorter ones. AI sentences tend to be more uniform.

In a demonstration video, Tian compared the App’s analysis of a story in The New Yorker and a Linked In post written by ChatGPT. It successfully distinguished writing between human and AI. However, GPTZero isn’t foolproof, as some users have reported when putting it to the test. He said he’s still working to improve the model’s accuracy.

Tian is not opposed to the use of AI tools like ChatGPT. GPTZero is “not meant to be a tool to stop these technologies from being used,” he said. “But with any new technologies, we need to be able to adopt it responsibly and we need to have protections.”

1. What have some students done since ChatGPT was released?

A．They have built language models from ChatGPT.

B．They have copied AI-written text from ChatGPT

C．They have accessed their assignments through ChatGPT.

D．They have passed their writing exams through ChatGPT.

2. What can be inferred about the two indicators of GPTZero?

A．The more uniform the text is, the more likely it is to be AI-generated.

B．The less complex the text is, the more likely it is to be human-written.

C．GPTZero sometimes confuses human-written texts with AI-generated texts.

D．GPTZero is more familiar with human-written texts than with AI-generated texts.

3. What does the underlined word “foolproof” mean in the fourth paragraph?

A．User-friendly.	B．Time-efficient.
C．Perfectly legal.	D．Completely reliable.

4. What maybe Tian’s attitude to the use of AI tools?

A．Favorable.

B．Disapproving.

C．Objective.

D．Ambiguous.

10 . 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。

In November 2023, China launched a three-year action plan to promote the use of bamboo as a replacement     1     plastic. Actually, I’ve been using bamboo products more often over the years.

The look and feel of bamboo are absolutely above and beyond plastic,     2     there must be more positive aspects to bamboo other than just aesthetics (美学). When compared to    3     (healthy) plastic, bamboo is a highly renewable, natural material that is biodegradable (可生物降解的) and     4     (become) the “green gold” of modern times in recent years because it has so many good qualities.     5     (live) in a time when most of our homes are filled with plastic, I think it’s time     6     (wake) up to the green alternative and realize     7     (it) full potential as a planet protector.

This super-powered plant is actually a grass and looks like a weed in terms of     8     quickly it can grow and where it can live. The production costs of bamboo are     9     (extreme) low due to the easy availability of this material, and it requires almost zero adjustment when people produce bamboo products. From household objects to decorative settings, the quantity of uses bamboo has     10     (go) beyond our wildest dreams and I’d love to see it becoming more popular as time goes on.