1. What makes the woman worried about acting in the play?
| A．Performing badly. |
| B．Getting an unimportant role. |
| C．Taking up too much of her study time. |
| A．Twice a week. | B．Three times a week. | C．Four times a week. |
| A．A big part. | B．A small part. | C．A funny part. |
1. When were the speakers supposed to meet?
| A．At 3:20 p.m. | B．At 3:30 p.m. | C．At 3:40 p.m. |
| A．She was busy moving house. |
| B．She couldn’t find anywhere to park. |
| C．She went to the former location of the café. |
| A．Milk. | B．Juice. | C．Coffee. |
| A．They just had a baby. |
| B．They got married last week. |
| C．They opened a new restaurant. |
4 . Personality has been described in all sorts of animal species. Some are shy while others are active. Now a new study suggests experts can reliably measure animal personality simply from the way animals move, and that the method could be used to help scientists and mathematicians from Swansea University and the University of Essex filmed the movements of 15 three-spined stickleback fish (三刺鱼) swimming in a tank which contained two ,three or five plastic plants in fixed positions. Using the high-resolution tracking data from video recordings, the team measured how long and how often the fish turned, and how long they stopped and started moving.
The data showed that each fish’s movements were very different, and that these differences were highly repeatable—so mush so that the researchers could identify a fish just from its movement data.
Dr Ines Furthbauerm, a co-author of the study from Swansea University, said, “These personalities in fish are like signatures—different and unique to an individual. We found the fish’s signatures were the same when we made simple changes to the fish tanks, such as adding additional plants. However, it is possible that these signatures change gradually over an animal’s lifetime, or suddenly if an animal meets something new or unexpected in its environment. Tracking animals’ movements over longer periods and in the wild will give us this sort of insight and help us better understand not only personality but also how flexible an animal’s behavior is.”
Dr Andrew King, lead author from Swansea University, said, “The research is significant because it suggest we might be able to quantify personality differences in wild animals.
1. What did the research team do to the fish?| A．They kept measuring their sizes. | B．They fed them with real plants. |
| C．They recorded their movements. | D．They put them in different tanks. |
| A．They remained relatively stable. | B．They changed easily accordingly. |
| C．They proved difficult to detect. | D．They were the same as others’. |
| A．Positive. | B．Disapproving. |
| C．Conservative. | D．Unclear. |
| A．Personality Determines Movements. | B．How Animals Move Seems Similar. |
| C．Personality Is Not a Secret. | D．Animals’ Movements Tell Personality. |
5 . I was 18 when I first went to sea as a tourist. As a teenager who always looked for novelty and a real adventure, I joined the Merchant Navy immediately after school. I got a round-the-world journey as my first trip we went to South Africa, Australia and New Zealand and sailed down the Panama Canal. Over the next 15 years, I enjoyed a joyful life as a steward, working long hours but playing hard during my time of. Then on the evening of my 33rd birthday in November 1983, we stopped in Trinidad and a group of us went to the land to celebrate. But when I opened my eyes at noon the next day, I knew I was suffering from more than just the typical effects of being drunk and staying up all night-I found I could see nothing.
As I was helped off the ship, I tried to calm down, assuming the situation was temporary. Later, I flew back to the UK and was examined by a specialist. He told me I had a rare serious medical condition,which could make me blind for the rest of my life. I couldn’t process what I’d heard at first; it just didn’t seem to make sense.
In the following months, I felt my life was over. I had lost not only my sight but also my independence-I was trapped in my house with no income. At first, I found it difficult to make my way from one room to another, and the thought of going outside filled me with anxiety.
The turning point came when I went on a camping holiday wit other visually impaired people-it made such a difference to be able to talk to people who understood my situation. Later, I started a two-year course at the Royal National Institute for the Blind, learning new skills. Halfway through the course, I got my first guide dog, Otis, which changed everything. I had a friend who always stayed with me-it was as if all the difficulties had disappeared and the sense of regained freedom was exciting.
Shortly after that, I started working again, and have since enjoyed a rewarding career with organizations that help visually impaired people.
1. What kind of life did the author live before his 33rd birthday?| A．Hard but rewarding. | B．Regular and boring. |
| C．Lonely but peaceful. | D．Adventurous and happy. |
| A．Shocked. | B．Relaxed. |
| C．Regretful. | D．Disappointed. |
| A．The company of a guide dog. |
| B．A course in special education. |
| C．A talk with others having similar struggles. |
| D．A rewarding job helping other blind people. |
| A．Knowledge has no limit |
| B．Losing sight doesn’t end my life |
| C．Regained freedom is more valuable |
| D．Guide dogs help rebuild my confidence |
6 . Even before Molly Johnson-Jones graduated from Oxford University in 2015, she felt professional pressure to land a “prestigious (享有声望的)” job in a high-powered industry. She says she and her university friends felt there were professions that carried prestige—particularly the fields of finance, medicine and law. That’s why Johnson-Jones ended up in investment banking for two years once she graduated, even though it didn’t feel like quite the right fit.
These kinds of “very traditional industries” have indeed carried prestige, says Jonah Stillman, co-founder of GenGuru, a firm that focuses on different generations in the workplace. As Gen Z joins the workforce, however, experts and younger workers say what’s considered a “prestigious” job may be expanding. Some younger workers do still report making money is prestigious, especially as cost of living shoots up; and working for certain firms or in specific industries can make a career. But many also place equal stress on other elements, such as values of the company, flexibility, and freedom from long, intense work hours.
And some data indicates that Gen Z are indeed turning to more meaningful work. April 2023 data from LinkedIn of more than 7,000 global workers shows 64% of Gen Zers in the UK, Germany and Ireland now consider it important to work for companies that share their values. The data also shows these young workers highlight work-life balance and career growth as top draws for potential workplaces.
This change in Gen Z’s attitude towards work may be in part because mechanisms (机制) behind finding jobs and seeing other possible career paths are changing, says Josh Graff, managing director of EMEA and LATAM at LinkedIn. With a greater number of jobs being posted online, “people have so much more access to information today than we did when we were applying for a job 20-plus years ago … This allows you to have much better visibility into a wealth of roles,” he says. “That change in the workplace, in the workforce … is leading people to understand there’s a wider range of options out there.”
1. Why did Johnson-Jones end up in investment banking?| A．She had a passion for finance. | B．She wanted to make a lot of money. |
| C．She found herself well suited for the career. | D．She felt pressure to take up a highly-regarded job. |
| A．Making money is still the main concern of younger workers. |
| B．Gen Zers are not interested in traditional “prestigious” jobs. |
| C．The definition of a “prestigious” job is changing for younger workers. |
| D．Short-time work is still considered prestigious for younger workers. |
| A．Whether they can have a good job title. |
| B．Whether they can receive a good salary. |
| C．Whether companies’ values are in line with theirs. |
| D．Whether they have enough opportunities to socialize. |
| A．The changing job search methods. |
| B．A lack of high-paying jobs in traditional industries. |
| C．A growing stress on companies’ social responsibility. |
| D．Increased access to information about potential career paths. |
7 . It was the middle of the night when Bibi Bahrami’s father awoke her and the rest of the family, telling them they must leave their home immediately because her country, Afghanistan, was being invaded. Bahrami, only a teenager at the time, remembers being in a state of shock. “We just put our shoes on and we were all crying. We didn’t want to leave home. We didn’t know where we were going to end up,” Bahrami said.
The family spent the next six years living in a refugee (难民) camp in Pakistan. Life was hard, but Bahrami’s family made the most of it. They eventually made a sort of “mud house”. Much like life in Afghanistan, however, girls in the refugee camp did not attend formal school.
After getting married, Bahrami moved to the US, which provided Bahrami with a lot of experiences that wouldn’t be available to her back home. “I had day care for my children, and I could still study and go to school. I was so inspired by the opportunity. And I say I want to do this for the girls who are left behind,” she said. Hence Afghan Women’s And Kids’ Education & Necessities (AWAKEN) was founded. The first project was building a school that both boys and girls could attend. “I feel girls’ education is so important. They can educate their children and then society,” she continued.
In 2021, Bahrami started a new project MARRC, which helps Afghan refugees find housing, jobs and support. So far they have taken in around 28 families.
Frima, 26, just arrived in Muncie with her 2-year-old son. Her life was in danger because she worked at a family-focused non-profit — which was strictly forbidden then. She left her husband behind, not knowing when they would meet again. But thanks to Bahrami, the young mother is hopeful for the future. “In Afghanistan, and in many other countries, women have suffered. It’s time for the world to recognize the values of women,” Bahrami said. “I feel that sometimes women are disadvantaged and not respected in societies and those things hurt my heart. We have our rights and this should be appreciated.”
1. How did Bahrami feel after hearing her father’s words?| A．Calm and speechless. | B．Excited and hopeful. |
| C．Surprised and upset. | D．Confused and regretful. |
| A．To increase job opportunities. | B．To provide childcare for refugees. |
| C．To help girls receive an education. | D．To help refugees move to America. |
| A．She has found a job at a non-profit. | B．She has been positive about her life. |
| C．She has gained a sense of achievement. | D．She has been reunited with her husband. |
| A．Women should be treated fairly. | B．Women make a difference in society. |
| C．Women can be role models in society. | D．Women in Afghanistan suffer the most. |
8 . For decades linguists have argued over how children learn language. Some think that babies are born as “blank boards” who pick up language simply from experience — hearing, seeing and playing with the world. Others argue that experience is not enough and that babies’ brains must be hardwired to make acquiring language easy.
AI models such as GPT-4 have done little to settle the debate. The way these models learn language — by collecting lots of text data from millions of web pages—is greatly different to the experiences of babies.
A team of scientists at New York University examined the question by training an AI model on the experiences of a single baby. Between the ages of six and 25 months, a young child called Sam had a head-wearing camera for an hour a week-around one of his waking hours. The camera recorded everything he saw and heard while he played with toys, enjoyed days at the park and interacted with his pet cats. The recordings and audio were fed into an Al, which was set up to know that images and words that appeared at the same time were related, but was otherwise left to make sense of the mess of colors and speech that Sam experienced.
Despite the limited training data, the AI was able to pick out objects and learn the matching words. The researchers tested the model by asking it to identify objects that Sam had seen before, such as a chair from his home or one of his toy balls. Given a list of four options the model picked the correct word 62 of the time, far above the chance level of 25%. To the researchers’ surprise, the model could also identify chairs and balls that Sam had never seen. The AI learned at least 40 different words, but it was far from matching Sam’s vocabulary and language abilities by the end of the experiment.
The researchers recently argue in the journal Science that, to match words to objects, learning from experience may well be enough. Doubters, however, doubt that the AI would be able to learn abstract nouns or verbs, and question how similar the learning processes really are. The mystery of language acquisition lives on.
1. What does the underlined word “hardwired” in Paragraph 1 probably mean?| A．Organic. | B．Average. | C．Born. | D．Reliable. |
| A．AI models can understand babies’ speech. |
| B．AI models can enrich their vocabulary by themselves. |
| C．AI models can remember more objects but can’t pick them out. |
| D．AI models can learn more words but can’t match babies’ abilities. |
| A．Leaning from experience is far from enough. |
| B．Language abilities of babies are born in nature. |
| C．How the AI is developed proves easy for scientists. |
| D．How the AI picks up the language remains unknown. |
| A．Positive. | B．Doubtful. | C．Unclear. | D．Subjective. |
My best friend had dropped me off in front of the church. I found myself inside a small entrance, facing a locked door. As I turned to leave, I noticed a man, a vagabond (流浪汉), asleep in a corner, his head resting on an old bag.
My meeting with the man brought to mind an interview with a pastor (牧师) who had spent a day walking around downtown Toronto, handing out change to everyone who asked. The lesson he wanted to convey with his story was that we shouldn’t show so much limit about giving to those in need, because none of us will lose our wealth if we part with a couple of dollars now and then.
I could see the wisdom and truth of his words, but I still mistakenly believed that giving them money would only worsen the condition. When faced with a similar question, the pastor pointed out that we must try to offer charity in whatever manner we can to whomever is in need. That last message was now causing me to re-examine my beliefs towards homeless people.
“Miss? You wouldn’t happen to have a bit of money to spare, would you? Enough to buy breakfast?” the man asked. I hesitated a few seconds before offering, “I have a McDonald’s gift card. I could buy you something for breakfast.” “Thank you,” he replied.
We came to the nearest McDonald’s. After ordering breakfast and a coffee for himself, the man asked me to have time for a coffee, as the buildings don’t open for another hour. His comment caught me off guard, and I was unable to find a polite reason to excuse myself, so I ordered a tea and resolved to sit with him for a while. When we left, the man thanked me again for the breakfast and offered to show me around to thank me for my generosity.
注意：1.续写的短文词数应为150左右；
2.请按如下格式在答题纸的相应位置作答。
I didn’t want to be impolite despite my hesitation.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________When leaving, the man took a delicate stone out of his bag.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________1. Where is the speaker?
| A．In a museum. | B．In a forest. | C．In a park. |
| A．Birds. | B．Bears. | C．Fish. |
| A．Red. | B．Blue. | C．Black. |
| A．It is too wet. | B．It is too high. | C．It is too old. |
