A Fuxing train departed from Nanning City, the capital of south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on Thursday morning,
The 482-kilometer railway, which connects Nanning with Guiyang, the capital of Southwest China's Guizhou Province, is designed
This railway is the first of its kind to be built in either Guizhou
2 . When I was in my thirties, I had a good job in the marketing division of a Fortune 500 company. However, after working for this first-class company for fourteen years, I got to thinking about what it would be like to design a job around what I enjoyed most while using my strongest skills. I hoped to spend the next stage of my career doing what I loved most and spend more time with the people I loved most—my wife and sons.
Then at 37, I had a window of opportunity to chase my dream—to run a home-based business. Without hesitation, I pulled the plug and started my advertising and speechwriting business in June 1991. My wife was a stay-at-home mom, so I would sacrifice (牺牲) our only income and insurance (保险) for nothing more than a dream. Yet, after conducting lots of research, reading books on how to start this type of business, calling the authors for additional details, and freelancing (从事自由职业) for ad agencies and design firms to ensure I could write on any subject, this goal slowly went from impossible to possible.
Looking back, I think it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. While working with different clients (客户) and sharpening my writing skills on various subjects, I watched my sons grow up for ten years, played hundreds of unscheduled backyard baseball games, and enjoyed countless father-son chats while walking around the block.
Henry David Thoreau once said, “The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.” Now, based on my own experiences, I understand how plausible this statement is. Life provides windows of opportunity—but they close quickly. For me, to remain in my former company during this “window” came at a price too high. Never will I be willing to exchange more of my family life for my professional life.
1. Why did the author decide to start a home-based business?| A．To make more money. | B．To spend more time with his family. |
| C．To share the housework with his wife. | D．To prove himself a successful businessman. |
| A．He took a writing course. | B．He attended a business school. |
| C．He sought advice from his family. | D．He talked with some book authors. |
| A．Funny. | B．Reasonable. | C．Surprising. | D．Unbelievable. |
| A．Work can bring a better life | B．Every job is worthy of respect |
| C．Every decision comes with a price | D．Opportunities and risks go hand in hand |
3 . Four best Broadway shows
HAMILTONThe show tells the story of the Founding Fathers of the USA, specifically Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury. It’s a completely fresh take on history, with a hip-hop flavor. Sung and rapped (说唱), the wordplay is super impressive. Hamilton has become one of the most popular Broadway musicals, with eight awards, including a Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Location: Richard Rodgers Theatre Price:$176+THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
The Phantom of the Opera is the longest-running show in Broadway history. If you love drama, romance, and musical theater, it won’t disappoint you. It has won seven Tony Awards and seven Dram a Desk Awards. While the show is one of the best things for a couple to enjoy in New York City, it’s also suitable for kids 10 and up.
Location: Majestic Theatre Price:$74+COME FROM AWAY
Come From Away is one of the most touching Broadway plays, based on a true story. The show is about a group of 7,000 air passengers stranded (被困) in a small town in Newfoundland due to the 9/11 attacks. It focuses on how the locals sprang into action, preparing to house, feed, and comfort the passengers. The play has won nine theater awards and got a Grammy nomination (提名) for Best Musical Theater Album.
Location: Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre Price: $100+BEETLEJUICE
Remember the 1988 movie Beetlejuice starring Alec Baldwin and Michael Keaton? It’s now onstage at the Marquis Theatre in New York. This fantasy-horror musical is one of the newest theater shows in NYC, but it maintains the appeal of the original film. With its memorable characters, humor, and hopeful messages, Beetlejuice is one of the best Broadway shows for families.
Location: Marquis Theatre Price: $132+1. What is the feature of HAMILTON?
| A．Suiting audiences with kids. |
| B．Telling history in musical ways. |
| C．Winning recognition across the world. |
| D．Targeting people interested in romance. |
| A．Consequences of 9/11 attacks. | B．Importance of daily necessities. |
| C．Human kindness in dark times. | D．Customs of Newfoundland people. |
| A． HAMILTON. | B．COME FROM AWAY. |
| C． BEETLEJUICE. | D． THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. |
In a refreshing shift from conventional methods, some post-90 teachers in China are using memes (表情包), cute comments, and personalized feedback in their grading practices,
Gone are the days of impersonal and serious
The use of memes and hand-drawn images in marking papers
As these innovative practices gain
6 . The problem with a catchy name is that sometimes it catches on too well. Take the hygiene hypothesis (卫生说) outlined in 1989 by David Strachan of St George’s, a hospital and medical school in London. It suggests that the rise of allergenic (致敏的) sensitivity observed in rich countries over the course of the 20th century may have been caused by a shift from rural to urban living, so that children are no longer routinely exposed to farm animals.
Dr Strachan’s work still has much to recommend it. What the catchy label has encouraged, however, is a false belief that cleanliness is not necessarily a health benefit. In reality, says Thomas Marrs, an allergist at King’s College, London, hygiene is usually about bacteria (细菌) causing infection—and the bacteria that may be beneficial are different from those which do that. But it is plain to see why alternative descriptions, such as “the high turnover and diversity hypothesis” or the “the microbial deprivation hypothesis (微生物剥夺假说)”, have not caught on, more accurate though they may be.
In an attempt to collect further data on the matter, Hisao Okabe of Fukushima Medical University and his team have looked through the Japan Environment and Children’s Study, which tracked over 100,000 births between 2019 and 2022.
Pursuing the animal connection, they looked for correlations between household pet ownership before and immediately after a child’s birth, and any food allergies found in that child’s first three years.
Of the 66,000 or so children they chose to look at, 22% had been born into households with pets. Children in households with dogs, the researchers found, had lower rates than average of allergies to eggs, milk and nuts. Those cohabiting with cats seemed more tolerant of eggs, wheat and beans. However, children whose parents kept turtles (龟) appeared unaffected. And, curiously, those exposed to hamsters (仓鼠) appeared more likely than average to be allergic to nuts.
Confirming or denying this will need more study. Nevertheless, Dr Okabe’s contribution is an interesting addition to the debate about Dr Strachan’s brainchild.
1. What does the hygiene hypothesis suggest?| A．Children in rich countries are more likely to have allergies. |
| B．Urban living leads to less exposure to allergens. |
| C．Allergies are linked to bacteria that cause infection. |
| D．Farm animals reduce childhood allergies. |
| A．Doubtful | B．Favorable | C．Critical | D．indifferent |
| A．pet ownership and uncomfortable childbirth | B．pet ownership and child food allergies |
| C．environments and animals | D．food and allergies |
| A．Dogs and cats | B．Dogs and turtles | C．Cats and hamsters | D．Turtles and hamsters. |
7 . Your social circle may be the reason you are overweight, a study has suggested. Experts have warned that obesity can spread through communities like a “social contagion (接触传染)”
Researchers studied hundreds of military families—who can’t choose where they lived—across the US. Their results revealed if you move to an area with a high rate of obesity. it increases your risk of becoming obese, too. For every percentage-point increase in the local obesity rate, the chances a person would be overweight or obese increased by up to six percent.
The researchers said people adopt behaviors of others subconsciously. Dr Ashlesha Datar and colleagues recruited families of US Army personnel at 38 military bases across the country. Their rates of obesity were reflective of the national rates. The study showed when assigned to bases in countries with higher rates of obesity, residents were more likely to become overweight or obese. For every single percentage-point increase in obesity rate of local people, the chances that a teenager would be overweight or obese went up by four to six percent, while the odds that a parent would be obese went up by five percent. The longer the families lived there, the more likely they were to see the weight pile on.
Dr Datar said, “Social contagion in obesity means that if more people around you are obese, then that may increase your own chances of becoming obese. Subconsciously, you are affected by what people around you are doing. We accounted for things that researchers in this field typically measure and found that shared environments did not play a critical role in explaining our results.”
Co-author Dr Nancy Nicosia said, “Although we could not measure social contagion directly, our findings support a role for social contagion in obesity.”
Obesity can be caused by many variables, and the association has been challenging for scientists to explain. One possibility is that people with similar interests and backgrounds tend to locate in similar areas. Another explanation may be that people are all influenced by the shared environment, such as opportunities for exercising and healthy eating. A third explanation may be that obesity is transmitted through social influence.
1. Which of the following is false?| A．One is more likely to become overweight in areas with a higher rate of obesity. |
| B．Social environment has nothing to do with being obese. |
| C．The length of time you stay in an area may affect your physical condition. |
| D．The researchers have confirmed that there might be connection between environment and obesity. |
| A．Evidence. | B．Rate. | C．Possibility. | D．Difficulty |
| A．A health magazine. | B．A police report. |
| C．An advertisement | D．A government information booklet. |
| A．People are easily affected by others. |
| B．The chance of being fat increases if you have a good friend |
| C．Humans like to live an imitation of somebody else’s life. |
| D．Shared interests can affect your health condition. |
8 . During my first year in China, some friends who’d been around a little longer than me introduced me to the concept of “House Plant Syndrome”.
Imagine you are at a party at someone’s house. You’re hanging out when suddenly a house plant starts talking to you. Now, there are several ways you could respond to this. Perhaps you would ignore it. Perhaps you would ask the person next to you if they heard it as well. Perhaps you would try talking back to the house plant and engaging it in conversation.
I am that house plant.
The story of the talking house plant explains what can happen here when a white person unexpectedly speaks Chinese. It’s especially true with Chinese who haven’t met foreigners before.
Over time I learned to deal with House Plant Syndrome by talking without being looked at. I visited a restaurant at least once a week. Waitresses there would often stare blankly at me, not even hearing what I was saying when I tried to ask for things. So I leaned to speak clearly while looking in another direction. Without the “foreigners don’t speak Mandarin” filter, the waitresses heard and understood me easily and responded immediately.
A few years later, as my Mandarin became more fluent, and my foreign accent diminished (减少), people could hardly realize I was actually a house plant. This happened a lot with taxis. A lot of the time after I called a taxi, I would get a call from the driver, who would confirm my location. This meant I had a short conversation with the driver long before they saw me. Then I would get in the taxi, say where I wanted to go, and we would drive off in silence. Twenty seconds later, he would burst out “You speak such good Mandarin: I thought you were Chinese!”
I am rarely seen as a talking house plant anymore. The more I work on my accent and fluency, the less I am seen as a house plant. Definitely a good reason to keep working on my language!
1. What does “House Plant Syndrome” refer to?| A．A cultural practice in Chinese households. |
| B．A disease that house plants often suffer from. |
| C．Foreigners’ preference for Chinese house plants. |
| D．Chinese people’s reaction to a foreigner speaking Chinese. |
| A．Lack of confidence in her Chinese. | B．Discomfort with looking at strangers. |
| C．Desire to hide her identity. | D．Ease of speaking Mandarin when looking away. |
| A．Astonished | B．Embarrassed | C．Confused | D．Annoyed |
| A．The silent conversations of a foreigner in China | B．The journey to reveal the secrets of language. |
| C．Tackling cultural challenges in China. | D．Chatting with house plants. |
The summer vacation had just begun, and Alex and Maria were ready to spend all day outside. They decided to walk to the neighborhood park, where there was a river that they liked to swim in when it was particularly hot.
When they got to the river, they saw that it was too deep to swim in. Alex and Maria were disappointed. On the other side of the river, about fifty yards away, there was a fountain from which the water is flowing out. “We should go to play in the fountain,” Maria said. “How will we get there?” asked Alex.
Maria looked around the grassy riverbank and noticed a few logs and branches lying close to the water. “We could build a bridge!” she said. She ran over to a thick log that looked long enough to be placed across the river. Together, she and Alex lifted the log onto their shoulders and walked to the water. Here, they stopped. How would they get the log across?
Maria suggested throwing it down into the water and seeing if it reached the other side. That seemed improper to Alex-what if the log did not reach the other side of the river, and got stuck or swept away by the water? Then they would be unable to walk all the way across the river.
Maria wondered if they could measure the distance from the riverbank they stood on to the other shore. They put the log carefully down and decided to test the distance with lighter, thinner branches. They found a few branches and they tied the branches together using hair bands.
At their first attempt, they tied two branches together and went back to the river to test the length. The branches only reached the center of the water. After tying two more branches together to the initial branches, Alex and Maria were able to get the thin model bridge to touch the far bank, “Hooray!” Maria said. “Now we know how long the log needs to be.”
注意：续写词数应为150左右。They set the tied branches on the ground next to the log.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Alex and Maria managed to get to the other side of the river.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________10 . Why Traveling Is Essential for Personal Growth
There’s something about traveling that stirs up a sense of adventure within us all. It’s like a call to explore new places, meet new people, and create unforgettable memories.
Giving you confidence
Traveling, especially for the first time, can be challenging. If you stay in the same place for a long time you become fearful of any change.
Redefining your comfort zone
It’s easy to get stuck in a routine and stay within your comfort zone.
Taking risks and facing challenges
While traveling, it’s not uncommon to encounter obstacles, but it’s all about how we overcome them and accept changes as part of the journey.
It can be easy to get caught up in busy daily life. When you travel, you’re forced to slow down and really enjoy each experience. You get to enjoy all the little moments that make life so special, like sunsets in a new city or quiet conversations with strangers. Traveling helps us appreciate the beauty of the world around us and be grateful for what we have right here, right now.
| A．Appreciating the present moment |
| B．Connecting with different cultures |
| C．Naturally, we appreciate what we have already accomplished |
| D．But traveling isn’t just about having fun and taking pretty pictures |
| E．We need to adapt and find creative solutions to unexpected situations |
| F．As a result, new places, faces or routines don’t seem as profitable as they really are |
| G．But pushing yourself outside of those boundaries can lead to rewarding experiences |
