1 . With egg shortages already a familiar sight on supermarket shelves, farmers are warning that vegetables and grains could be next, because environmental plans take out large areas of land that are used for food production.

Stephen Holt, who owns 670 acres in Northamptonshire, said farmers were being incentivized (刺激) by the government subsidy to reduce food production in favour of wildlife. He has signed up to an environmental plan which is being carried out in England under the concept of “public money for public goods”.

“Instead of 1,300 tonnes of product, we will produce 900 tonnes of product from our farm,” Holt said. Under the new plan, his input costs will be reduced and he will be paid a guaranteed (有保证的) sum.

“In my view, the huge danger is that there will be a serious decrease in agricultural output,” he said. “We are not helping but we can't have the whole food system of the UK on our shoulders, because everyone has to act in their individual best interests.”

James Williams, who farms in Oxfordshire, said the environmental plans will reduce the risks in his farm business and that he will not be affected by the weather and international markets. “It does mean that we will be taking perhaps 30 per cent of our wheat land out of production for a season or two, or more,” he said. “What has not been mentioned is that if some disaster fell and our imports were disrupted (扰乱), growing wheat to produce bread could not be turned on like a tap. It will take several years and a significant increase in prices to get production back up to today’s levels.”

The UK produces about 60 per cent of its food consumption, including the majority of grains, meat, dairy and eggs. However, seasonal labour shortages have led many British farm businesses to reduce their production by as much as 20-30 per cent since 2020. Egg production has dropped to its lowest level in nine years.

Liz Webster, a farmer in north Wiltshire, said, “There just doesn't seem to be any thought or concern for food security and food supply. They’ve just left it up to the supermarkets.” The farmers’ concerns include imported food produced in countries with lower welfare (福利) standards, and labelling of food origins. “These imports are packaged here, and if they’re packaged or processed here they can have a British flag, which is absolutely dishonest,” Webster said.

1. The word “subsidy” in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to ______.

A．ban

B．warning

C．permission

D．award

2. What can we learn from paragraph 5?

A．Reducing wheat production may cause negative impacts.

B．The environmental plans can improve the farm business.

C．The international markets will affect the farmers' interests.

D．A recovery in wheat production will come soon after disruption.

3. What is Liz Webster’s opinion on food safety?

A．Supermarkets are responsible for food safety.

B．The safety of imported food cannot be guaranteed.

C．A British flag on food package ensures food safety.

D．Food safety and supply issues have been addressed.

4. What is the main idea of this article?

A．Seasonal labour is in short supply.

B．Imported food prices are on the rise.

C．Farmers fear food shortage caused by green plans.

D．Government worries about the slow agricultural development.

2 . There isn’t much doubt that one of the most influential people in my life was my grandmother Lizzie Kerns.

My brother Mike started the family custom of moving in with Granny Kerns during our high school years. I lived with her all through my senior year. She lives very close to the school, so I’d come over and eat lunch with her. On game days, I’d come over and take a nap from about four o’clock to seven-thirty, since game time was eight o’clock. I’d just go there, lie on the floor and go to sleep. Granny would come in at seven-thirty and say, “You’d better get up. You'll be playing in half an hour.” We used to shoot free throws every morning at six o'clock. One day I just wanted to sleep in. Granny woke me up and said, “Larry, those other boys are down there. You should be down there with them.” I got up and went to free throw practice.

Mark and I would be at Granny's for supper and later on, just before it was time to go to bed, Mark would say, “Mmm, some popcorn would taste good right now. Larry, what would you think about some popcorn?” Granny wouldn’t say a thing. But the next thing you knew, she’d have that pan out and you’d hear that popping sound in the kitchen.

We started moving in with her because we just didn’t have enough room. It was always a problem. After Mike started it, Mark did it for a while and then me. Later on, Eddie used to eat lunch there every day.

Granny was proud of all her grandkids. Oh, she read everything about me she could get her hands on and she knew I’d signed contracts (合同) for big money, but she never discussed it. None of us got special treatment. Granny loved all of us and that's the way it should be.

I’d have given her anything, but what she really wanted was security. Granny just wanted to know she had enough to get by. She always told me one thing, “I’m not afraid to die. When I get old and can’t do it anymore, I'm not going to be afraid to die.” That showed me a lot. Unfortunately, Granny passed away while I was writing this, so she was never able to see that I dedicated (献给) my book to her.

1. What can be inferred from paragraph 2?

A．Both Mike and the author were lazy and playful.

B．Granny always had a nice way of handling things.

C．The author preferred sleeping to playing basketball.

D．Granny was good at controlling her grandchildren's life.

2. According to the passage, which words can best describe Granny Lizzie Kerns?

A．Strict and tough.	B．Determined and fair.
C．Loving and considerate.	D．Optimistic and tolerant.

3. Why did Granny never mention the author’s success at home?

A．She didn’t take pride in the author's success.

B．She was trying to treat all grandchildren equally.

C．She didn’t know the author had made a good fortune.

D．She was afraid that the author would be too proud of himself.

4. Why did the author feel regretful when writing the book?

A．Granny didn’t know he wrote a book.

B．Granny didn’t know how much she meant to him.

C．Granny died and couldn’t take care of him any more.

D．Granny couldn’t read the book written in honor of her.

3 . Dror Angel, an ecologist, had for years heard his archaeologist (考古学家) colleagues talk about ancient shipwrecks on the bottom of the Black Sea that were perfectly preserved by the low-oxygen environment. “You can see ropes,” Angel says. “It’s something which is quite amazing.” Now, Angel wants to fight climate change by purposefully adding to the wreckage (残骸) , sinking waste wood to the sea floor, where carbon that the trees stored up can remain locked away for centuries.

Angel is a scientist for a company that could help limit global warming by drawing carbon out of the atmosphere and locking it up. However, some carbon capture (捕获) strategies require expensive machines and complex chemistry, burying waste wood at sea is extremely simple: All it takes are tugboats and woody waste from forestry and agriculture.

The approach has advantages over another popular ocean-based carbon capture strategy: growing massive amounts of seaweed. Because the plant material is grown on land rather than in the ocean, it is less likely to rob nutrients from the surrounding water and upset the ecology. Industrial agriculture and forestry could grow, process, and transport plants, in contrast to marine farming, which has never been attempted at scale. And because woody plants are tough and unlikely to break down, they are good at hanging on to their carbon.

At the same time, the approach may fall short of what’s needed to fight climate change. To keep global warming below 2°C, the world needs to capture and store about 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year by midcentury. But waste wood can be sunk only where supplies of it are located near suitable bodies of water. By one recent study, the approach could lock a few tens of billions of tons of carbon dioxide in total — just a little of the need.

“This approach is not going to solve the full problem,” says ocean engineer Kate Moran. “It’s going to be a small piece of the pie if it is considered to be more beneficial than risky.” But the urgency of carbon removal demands that every possible approach be explored thoroughly, she adds, “Anyway, we need all the tools in the toolbox.”

1. Why did the author cite “You can see ropes” in paragraph 1?

A．Angel dropped the ropes into the deep sea for experiment.

B．Things can be well preserved in the low-oxygen environment.

C．Carbon that the ropes stored up can be locked away for a long time.

D．Angel’s archaeologist colleagues were studying the deep sea environment.

2. Why is the approach of sinking waste wood better than that of growing seaweed?

A．It is supported by mature techniques.

B．It requires cheap machines and simple chemistry.

C．Woody plants are more environmentally friendly.

D．Waste wood takes in lots of carbon from the surroundings.

3. What message does paragraph 4 convey?

A．The strategy alone isn’t enough to fight climate change.

B．The strategy can capture and lock the carbon dioxide needed.

C．The global warming can’t be kept below 2°C with the strategy.

D．Supplies of waste wood are available near suitable bodies of water.

4. What is Kate Moran’s attitude toward the strategy according to the last paragraph?

A．Doubtful.

B．Negative.

C．Supportive.

D．Unconcerned.

4 . I did not discover I could not read until after I had left college. I found it out only _________ tried to teach others how to read.

As a student, I had read all the books I was now going to teach but, being very young and _________ I decided to read them again just to brush up each week for class. To my growing _________. I discovered that the books which I thought I had “_________” thoroughly were almost brand new to me.

As time went on, I found out not only that I did not know very much about any of these books, but also that I did not know how to read them very well. To _________ my ignorance (无知) and incapacity, I did what any young teacher might do who was_________ of both his students and his job. I used secondary sources, encyclopedias (百科全书), commentaries, all sorts of books about these books. In that way, I thought, I would _________ to know more than the students. They wouldn’t be able to tell that my questions or points did not come from my better reading of the book they too were _________ .

Fortunately for me I was found out, or else I might have been _________ with getting by as a teacher just as I had got by as a student. My good fortune __________ the particular group of students who formed that first class. They knew how to use the secondary __________, encyclopedia, or a commentary, or the editor’s introduction, just as well as I did. One of them, who has __________ fame as a critic, was particularly outstanding. He took endless delight in __________ various aspects about the book, which could be __________ from secondary sources, always to show me and the rest of the class that the book itself __________ remained to be discussed.

After the first year of teaching, I had few illusions (错觉) left about my literacy.

1.

A．if

B．before

C．after

D．once

2.

A．honest

B．earnest

C．ignorant

D．energetic

3.

A．relief

B．delight

C．sorrow

D．surprise

4.

A．mastered

B．sorted

C．revised

D．possessed

5.

A．cut back on

B．make up for

C．stand up for

D．get rid of

6.

A．aware

B．tired

C．afraid

D．certain

7.

A．need

B．pretend

C．happen

D．appear

8.

A．working on

B．depending on

C．thinking about

D．caring about

9.

A．angry

B．careful

C．satisfied

D．disappointed

10.

A．lay in

B．resulted in

C．brought in

D．called in

11.

A．answers

B．sources

C．technology

D．information

12.

A．hunted

B．damaged

C．quitted

D．achieved

13.

A．adapting

B．rereading

C．discussing

D．designing

14.

A．acquired

B．balanced

C．reflected

D．tracked

15.

A．even

B．still

C．also

D．always

5 . 阅读下面材料，根据其内容和所给段落开头语续写两段，使之构成一篇完整的文章。

I checked my phone again. Still nothing from my 13-year-old granddaughter, Noe Why won’t she return my text messages? I wondered.

Noe was my grandchild. For years, Noe and her family lived close by and she and I spent a lot of time together. It made my day to see Noe’s face light up whenever I arrived. Then my husband and I moved to a different part. Actually it wasn’t an impossible distance. But with traffic it now took up to two hours to drive to Noe’s house. So, my regular visits with Noe came to a sudden end. The last time I saw her, she was excited about the latest addition to her life: Golden, a puppy (小狗). Golden was just like her name, a fluffy (毛茸茸的) ball of bright yellow down. For a while, Noe and I kept in touch via text messages and phone cells. Gradually, her text replies took longer to arrive. Phone calls became brief.

“How’s school going?”

“Okay.”

“What’s your favorite subject?”

“Dunno.”

Nothing I tried seemed to break through Noe’s sudden wall of indifference (漠不关心), Was she okay? Did she even miss me? I asked about Golden every time we talked. But caring for Golden seemed more interesting to her than talking to me. She was often busy with him and didn’t come to the phone when I called.

Was I being replaced by the puppy? My cell phone rang. Noe! But there were no words in the text. Just photos. Noe on her bike with Golden on her lap. Noe and Golden walking on the street with a shining leash(狗绳) in hand. Obviously, it was carefully selected. I don’t want to be jealous (嫉妒的) of a puppy. Months passed with seldom a word from Noe. At last, I couldn’t wait. I decided to pay a visit to Noe’s house.

Upon my arrival, I said to Noe, “show me your puppy.” She was stunned (惊呆) but quickly led me to the backyard and introduced me to her fluffy friend, giving detailed descriptions of his preferences. It was more words than we’d exchanged in a year,

注意:
1.续写词数应为150左右；
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。

Then, Noe asked me whether we could walk Golden together.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

We understood each other better after much conversation and now it’s time to say goodbye.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

8 . One thing you’ll probably notice about being a teenager is that your body isn’t completely used to the changes. In fact, the changes in your brain don't completely settle in most people until their mid-20s. Your body changes in many ways and most of these changes are brought about because of chemicals released in the body.     1    This can be unsettling, as anything happening beyond your control can be.

First, take the moment when no one is talking to you to think about your breathing. By asking that step back from how you’re feeling and examining why you’re feeling it, it is easier to process these emotions. If you’re feeling awkward and embarrassed at school, the easiest thing to do is to ride that emotional wave even if it means a private release of emotions.    2    

Fortunately, this isn’t the only way. A mindful approach can be one of the best tools you have. When your mind feels more settled, allow one of the emotions to approach you .    3     If you are feeling stable, perhaps consider why you are feeling it, reminding yourself of the situation—your brain is changing. You’re in a stressful situation, and your body is full of new chemical levels that are creating a mess.     4     You can process it later, when you’re at home, or somewhere more peaceful.

Now, you’ve let it go! It doesn’t need to be a part of you, or control any part of you right now. This can be a very hard trick to master, because your brain is used to being affected by the emotion, and you’re trying to change course now,

    5     Even by practicing, you’re acknowledging to yourself that you want to be in control, and that’s the most important first step.

A．Don’t be depressed if it takes practice.

B．Admit what it is, but don’t be controlled by it.

C．As you focus on the present, try focusing on your breathing.

D．Having a sincere conversation with yourself is also a good idea.

E．Letting your tears flow can be a useful and mindful activity.

F．If, after all that, you still feel a need to blame yourself, simply let the emotion go.

G．This means your emotions can be unstable, making your mood change suddenly.

9 . Why not take a guided tour of Hong Kong with us? Here are some fantastic events of Hong Kong,

Horizon of Khufu

Put on your VR headset and fasten your seat belt! With The Horizon of Khufu, travel back thousands of years to the heart of ancient Egypt: the immersive (沉浸式的) journey. Discover the Great Pyramid of Giza as it was more than 4500 years ago. Walk through its mysterious corridors and try to explore some secrets during a one-of-a-kind experience in Hong Kong.

Dates: select your own dates
Accessibility: the venue is wheelchair accessible
Accidentally Wes Anderson

Prepare to be transported into the world of Accidentally Wes Anderson. Discover the stories behind each real-life location. This unique photography exhibition features a worldwide collection of pictures, sharing warm colors and moments of delight. During the exhibition, you can create and enjoy your own Accidentally Wes Anderson moments.

Dates: the exhibition has been extended until Sunday April 14
Accessibility: the venue is wheelchair accessible
Avora

The new world of Avora is ready and waiting to be explored! Pop on your jumpsuit and have a taste of three delicious coffees, which help you get used to the new planet's atmosphere. Step through the gateway into the ecosystem of Avora and admire the world of amazing beauty while enjoying two more coffee surprises.

Dates: select your own dates
Accessibility: this experience involves multiple steps and is only accessible in parts
Disney100

It all began with a mouse and a dream; a dream that became a story. A story now being told. Dive into the world of The Walt Disney Company and experience 100 years of magic like never before! Wonder at rare, original artefacts and props, see original costumes from your favourite Disney classics, and explore revolutionary exhibits that bring the magic of Disney to life. Click here now 10 get your tickets to Disney100 in Hong Kong!

Dates: select your own dates
Accessibility: the venue is wheelchair accessible
1. Which event can you choose to explore the history of ancient times?

A．Horizon of Khufu.	B．Accidentally Wes Anderson.
C．Avora.	D．Disney100.

2. What can we infer from the passage?

A．If disabled, the visitor can also take part in Avora feely.

B．The visitor can enjoy Accidentally Wes Anderson at any time.

C．When visiting Disney100, the visitor can learn about its story.

D．The visitor can touch the real Great Pyramid in Horizon of Khufu.

3. Where is this passage most probably taken from?

A．A website.

B．A newspaper.

C．A travel brochure.

D．A magazine.

10 . 阅读下面材料，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

During the May Day holiday, many Chinese people went out for travel,     1    (show) the potential of the country’s holiday economy. Guangzhou and Chongqing were among the top domestic (国内的) cities in terms of consumer    2     (popular). In the meantime, Thailand, Japan and South Korea became some of the     3     (hot) overseas destinations during the five-day holiday.

Aside from traditional popular destinations, county tourism has developed into a new fashion and brought in new vitality (活力) into the tourism market. The tourism growth rate of small counties and towns is higher. Data from Alipay showed that many young     4     (generation) chose to go to attractions in small towns. Yili in Xinjiang, Yanbian in Jilin, Diqing and Pu’er in Yunnan have seen the largest year-on-year increase in cross-regional payments.

Tourists’ continuous enthusiasm for domestic travel is also proved by other factors, such as the number of short videos     5     (publish). During the holiday,     6     total number of posts on WeChat video accounts increased. Among them, scenic spots like West Lake     7     (become) popular destinations for video account users recently. Concerts, art exhibitions and other cultural activities have also played a significant role     8     improving cultural and tourism consumption. Cities such as Changzhou, Hefei, Beijing, and Yantai received high attention during this time period,     9     drove growth in local hotel, transportation, and dining services.

Furthermore, the inbound (入境的) tourism market is further heating up as visa-free policies and easy payment services provide     10     (convenient) for foreigners traveling to China.