1 . In August, Jason M. Allen’s piece “Theatre D’opéra Spatial” — which he created with Al image generator Midjourney — won first place in the emerging artist division’s “digital arts photography” category at the Colorado State Fair Fine Arts Competition. The definition for the category states that digital art refers to works that use “digital technology as part of the creative process”.
Allen’s award-winning image has led to debates about what, exactly, it means to be an artist and whether AI can truly make art. “It felt bad for the exact same reason we don’t let robots participate in the Olympics,” one Twitter user wrote. “This is the literal definition of ‘pressed a few buttons to make a digital art piece’,” another tweeted.
Yet while Allen didn’t use a paintbrush, there was plenty of work involved, he said. First, he played around with phrasing that led Midjourney to generate images of women in elegant dresses and space helmets, in an attempt to mix Victorian-style costuming with space themes. Over time, with many slight changes to his written prompt (提示符), he created 900 different versions of what led to his final image. Then he improved its resolution through Gigapixel AI and finally had the images printed.
Allen is glad the debate over whether AI can be used to make art is attracting so much attention. “Rather than hating on the technology, we need to recognize that it’s a powerful tool and use it for good so we can all move forward,” Allen said.
Cal Duran, one of the judges for the competition, said that while Allen’s piece included a mention of AI, he didn’t realize that when judging it. Still, he sticks by his decision to award it first place. “I think the AI technology may give more opportunities to people who may not find themselves artists in the conventional way,” he said.
1. Why has Jason’s work led to debates?| A．It was a copy of a photograph. |
| B．He challenged the older artists. |
| C．It was created with the help of AI. |
| D．He broke the rule of the competition. |
| A．Cooperative. |
| B．Energy-consuming. |
| C．Straightforward. |
| D．Imagination-lacking. |
| A．It is a double-edged sword. |
| B．It attracts conventional artists. |
| C．It strikes art judges as no surprise. |
| D．It may open a new world to artists. |
| A．A trend to be AI artists. |
| B．An AI-generated art contest. |
| C．Responses to a winning AI artwork. |
| D．Curiosity about an image generator. |
1.比赛时间；2.演讲话题；3.报名方式。
注意:
1.词数80左右；
2.可适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
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Living in the shadow of my two elder sisters at college who already had their lives planned out since they were little, I was always undecided about everything. As a teenager, I was fickle (反复无常的). I would like one thing for a week and then hate it the next. But I was constantly searching for the beginning of the rainbow. Changing my dream from a vet to an astronaut, I thought there were various options available to me. However, my parents would shake their heads and repeatedly asked me such questions as, “Why can’t you be more like your sisters? What are you going to do with your life? Aren’t you interested in anything at all?” After a couple of shrugs (耸肩), my parents usually stopped talking. I was not sure if they gave up or anticipated my dull reactions. I often responded, “I couldn’t answer all of your questions now.”
Actually, my parents just had high expectations that never seemed to be fulfilled. Plus, like other parents, they just wanted to give the best to me and expected me to achieve success. The arguments with my parents seemed childish. One day, my mother made her thoughts clear, “Your grades aren’t high enough. No schools are going to want you, dear. We didn’t pay so much money for nothing.” Hesitating for a while, I said, “No matter what you say, I believe I will enter a good college.” Still, I let my emotions control myself.
Certainly, I had never planned not to go to college. After another debate with my mom, I decided to make a change. No longer would I sit back and let my parents mistake me for a bad boy. It was time to take action.
I knew it was a crucial year at high school. Releasing my feelings, I began to collect all the knowledge I had learned and review it with all my heart. I didn’t argue with my parents any more, but instead turned to my sisters for help and tried my best to study. Finally, I took the national college entrance examination with ease and confidence.
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。
A few days later, I received a call from my school, saying my college acceptance letter had arrived.
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My parents excitedly said behind me, “Well, open the envelop!”
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4 . Pacific Science Center Guide
◆Visit Pacific Science Center’s Store
Don’t forget to stop by Pacific Science Center’s Store while you are here to pick up a wonderful science activity or souvenir to remember your visit. The store is located(位于) upstairs in Building 3 right next to the Laser Dome.
◆Hungry
Our exhibits will feed your mind, but what about your body? Our café offers a complete menu of lunch and snack options, in addition to seasonal specials. The café is located upstairs in Building 1 and is open daily until one hour before Pacific Science Center closes.
◆Rental Information
Lockers are available to store any belongings during your visit. The lockers are located in Building 1 near the Information Desk and in Building 3. Pushchairs and wheelchairs are available to rent at the Information Desk and Denny Way entrance. ID required.
◆Support Pacific Science Center
Since 1962, Pacific Science Center has been inspiring a passion(热情) for discovery and lifelong learning in science, math and technology. Today, Pacific Science Center serves more than 1.3 million people a year and brings inquiry-based science education to classrooms and community events all over Washington State. It’s an amazing accomplishment and one we cannot achieve without generous support from individuals, corporations, and other social organizations. Visit pacificsciencecenter.org to find various ways you can support Pacific Science Center.
1. Where can you buy a souvenir at Pacific Science Center?| A．In Building 1. |
| B．In Building 3. |
| C．At the the Laser Dome. |
| D．At the Denny Way entrance. |
| A．Train Science teachers. |
| B．Distribute science books. |
| C．Inspire scientific research. |
| D．Take science to the classroom. |
| A．To encourage donations. |
| B．To advertise coming events. |
| C．To introduce special exhibits. |
| D．To tell about the Center’s history. |
Ali and his younger sister, Zahra, lived with their parents in a poor neighborhood. Their mother was very sick and their father was struggling to find a job, and they had only a little money with which to buy food. As they had not paid the rent for several months, the landlord was breathing down their necks.
One day, Ali took Zahra's shoes to a shoe repairman to be fixed, but he lost them on the way home. It wasn’t until he got home that he realized he had lost the shoes. He was afraid that his parents would be angry and disappointed, so he begged his sister to keep it a secret. Zahra agreed and the two decided to share Ali’s running shoes. Zahra's school hours were in the morning, so she would wear them first. After school, she would rush back and give them to Ali. He could then run to his school, which began in the afternoon. Although he ran as fast as he could, Ali often arrived late and was warned by the school.
Ali heard about a long distance race that was held for the boys in the city.When he learned that the third prize was a new pair of shoes, he decided to take part. He ran home excitedly and promised his sister that he would win her the new shoes.
The day of race arrived. Ali had a strong start, but halfway through the race he began to get tired and his legs began to ache. Getting more and more exhausted he thought only of Zahra and his promise to her. Dreaming of the new shoes he would win for his sister gave him strength, and he stayed right behind the two fastest runners, determined to finish third. Suddenly, as the finish line drew near, another runner collided(碰撞) with Ali from behind and he crashed to the ground.
Ali looked up and saw the other boys rushing ahead.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Filled with delight, Ali walked home quickly.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________6 . Metin Sitti at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Germany, and his colleagues have developed tiny robots called “microrollers” that can carry cancer drugs and selectively target human breast cancer cells. The team drew inspiration for the design of the robots from white blood cells in the human body, which can move along the walls of blood vessels (血管) against the direction of blood flow.
The microrollers are round and made from glass microparticles. One half of the robot was coated with a thin magnetic nanofilm (磁性纳米膜) made from nickel and gold. The other half was coated with the cancer drug doxorubicin as well as molecules that recognize cancer cells.
The team tested the robots using mouse blood and artificial channels lined with human endothelial cells—the kind of cells that line the inner walls of our blood vessels. The robots were exposed to a mixture of cancerous and healthy tissue. The microrollers selectively attached to the cancer cells and were activated using UV light to release the doxorubicin.
By applying magnetic fields, the team was able to control the movement of the microrollers, both with and against the flow of blood. The microrollers can reach a speed of up to 600 micrometers per second. “If you come to a spot where you need to take the right path and if you miss it, then you could go back and go to the right one,” says Setti.
In future, the researchers want to use other methods to start the drug release, such as heat or near-infrared light. They also plan to try making microrollers out of materials that would break down in the body over a few weeks or months.
The team hopes to test the microrollers in animals soon. “The rollers need to carry enough cancer drugs, which is why we need to have them in large numbers,” says Setti. “But since we can locally take drugs to the right target, we don’t need huge dosages (剂量).”
1. What can the microrollers be used for?| A．Repairing blood cells. | B．Delivering drugs. | C．Improving blood flow. | D．Performing operations. |
| A．Their shape. | B．Their advantage. | C．Their design. | D．Their application. |
| A．Their direction can be adjusted. | B．They might miss the target cells. |
| C．They might get stuck in the blood. | D．Their speed can change automatically. |
| A．Put the microrollers to clinical use. | B．Sell the microrollers in large quantities. |
| C．Tear the microrollers down in the body. | D．Experiment with the microrollers further. |
7 . It’s not easy to find a job. Many jobs have age or experience requirements that you might not meet. On top of that, you need to juggle(应付)schoolwork, extracurriculars, and your social life. Fortunately, there are still some good jobs for you to start gaining working experience.
Tutor
Straight-A student? Then a job as a tutor(家庭教师)might be the best option for you. Helping younger students with their homework is a great way to put what you’ve studied to good use and make some extra money. One of the easiest ways to show that you’re qualified to teach other students is by listing your GPA(Grade Point Average) on your tutor resume.
Dog Walker
Love dogs? Then a position as a dog walker is the perfect fit for you. Dog walking requires no work experience and has flexible hours. However, you may need to do some shadowing or an interview before people trust you with their pets.
Delivery Driver
If you’re 16+ years old and have a driver’s license, you could try working as a delivery driver. Driving is a great way to gain relevant experience and show future employers that you’re responsible and work well under pressure.
Call Center Representative
If you don’t mind talking on the phone, then a job as a call center worker is a good choice for you. Working as a call center representative can even teach you some useful customer service skills that will help your career later on. To land a job at a call center, highlight your customer service and interpersonal skills on your resume.
1. Who are the passage intended for?| A．Parents. | B．Teachers. | C．Students. | D．Employers. |
| A．Relevant experience. | B．Timely homework completion. |
| C．Flexible time schedule. | D．Impressive academic performance. |
| A．Tutor. | B．Dog walker. |
| C．Delivery driver. | D．Call center representative. |
8 . Consider the possibility that all human technology started with a mistake — or at least a lack of hand-eye coordination. In a new study published on Friday in Science Advances, Lydia Luncz and Tomos Proffitt, both at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, argue that mistakenly created flakes (薄片) may have been our ancient ancestors’ or other now-extinct early human relatives “first step toward creating the sharp-edged tools that they used to butcher animals and cut edible plants.
To do their research, Luncz and Proffitt traveled to an abandoned oil palm plantation near Thailand’s Phang Nga Bay and collected more than 1, 100 pieces of nut-cracking stones used by a troop of long-tailed macaques (猕猴). Macaques crack open oil palm nuts by placing them on a flat stone and striking their shell with another stone. These monkeys often miss the nut and accidentally break the stones, producing sharp flakes. Luncz and Proffitt analyzed these stones, which revealed a surprising fact: The flakes that the macaques unintentionally produced looked a lot like the oldest stone tools that were intentionally made by hominins (古人类).
Macaques don’t use the sharp flakes they create for anything, Luncz adds, noting that the monkeys have sharp teeth and don’t need cutting tools. The similar ancient stone tools collected from some of the earliest known sites, however, show evidence of being used for cutting tasks. For example, in Oldowan, a site dating between 3.3 million and 1.5 million years ago, researchers analyzed use-wear patterns on the tools and found that some of the flakes showed damage along their edges, indicating that they had been used for cutting. Cut marks on some fossils revealed that hominins had used stone tools for butchering the animals, making it clear that the sharp stone tools were anything but unintentional by-products of other pounding activities.
Despite the findings, to reveal the mechanism for the emergence of flake technology, researchers still need to learn how hominins made the leap from accidentally producing sharp flakes to picking them up and using them. Luncz and Proffitt hope to find the missing link in further studies.
1. What can we learn from paragraph 2?| A．The two researchers went to Thailand and collected 1, 100 flakes. |
| B．Long-tailed macaques used the flakes to crack open oil palm nuts. |
| C．Macaques deliberately produced flakes for cutting by breaking stones. |
| D．The flakes produced by macaques were similar to hominins’ stone tools. |
| A．To provide specific proof. | B．To clarify a complex concept. |
| C．To present an interesting fact. | D．To make a detailed comparison. |
| A．Why macaques create flakes. | B．Why hominins used stone tools. |
| C．How macaques cut food with flakes. | D．How hominins began using flakes. |
| A．A mistake: the origin of human technology. |
| B．Flake technology: from macaques to hominins. |
| C．Pounding activities: on human evolutionary course. |
| D．A missing link: long-tailed macaques create flakes. |
Asad was a 13-year-old boy who was very honest and hardworking. Recently, he had entered a new school, so he had no friends yet. On Monday morning, he was nearly late for school. The night before, his family attended his cousin’s wedding and reached home late, which was why he couldn’t get up on time as usual.
At school, Asad could not pay attention to anything and wanted the bell to ring so that he could buy something to eat. After a few hours, when the bell rang, Asad quickly opened his schoolbag to find his money, but just then he remembered that he had left for school in a hurry in the morning and forgotten to take money. He looked under his books, hoping to find some money but there was nothing.
Not knowing what to do, he walked out of the classroom and sat on a bench in front of the canteen. He saw a few of his classmates there, among them was Fahad. He was one of the richest kids in his class, but he was a very arrogant(傲慢的)boy who thought everyone else was a loser. But as Asad was new, he didn’t know much about Fahad.
When he went towards Fahad and asked if he could borrow some money for his lunch, Fahad laughed a lot and said, “I knew you were a loser, maybe a beggar?” Fahad laughed out so loud that other kids also heard and made fun of the situation. He didn’t answer Fahad, and slowly walked back towards an empty bench.
When he reached the bench, he noticed something lying near it. It was a wallet. He picked it up and recognized it as Fahad’s, as he remembered Fahad showing it to his friends and telling that his uncle bought it for him from the UK. There was quite a lot of money inside for a kid.
At first, Asad wanted to keep it a secret and punished Fahad.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Then Fahad said, “Why are you giving back?”
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________10 . “A lot of the time when climate change is discussed in mainstream media, people are asking ‘can humans overcome this?’, or ‘what technology can solve this?’. It’s high time we recognized that animals also have to adapt to various changes. We know some animals change their skin colors to escape from natural enemies or due to environment pollution,” says Ryding. “The climate change that we have created is putting a lot of pressure on them, and some species try to adapt by shapeshifting (变形). ”
Strong shapeshifting has particularly been reported in birds. Several species of Australian parrot have shown, on average, a 4%—10% increase in beak (鸟喙) size since 1871, and this is positively linked with the summer temperature each year. North American dark-eyed juncos, a type of small songbird, had a link between increased beak size and short-term temperature extremes in cold environments. There have also been reported changes in mammalian species. Researchers have reported tail length increases in wood mice and leg size increases in masked shrews (鼩鼱).
“The increases in some body parts size we see so far are quite small—less than 10%—so the changes are unlikely to be immediately noticeable,” says Ryding. “However, some body parts such as ears are predicted to increase.”
Ryding intends to investigate shapeshifting in Australian birds firsthand by 3D scanning museum bird specimens from the past 100 years. It will give her team a better understanding of which birds are changing their body parts and why. “Shapeshifting does not mean that animals are coping with climate change and that all is ‘fine’,” says Ryding. “It just means they are adapting to survive it—but we’re not sure what the other ecological consequences of these changes are, or indeed that all species are capable of changing and surviving. ”
1. What may cause animals’ shapeshifting according to Ryding?| A．Human hunting. | B．Climate change. |
| C．Natural enemies. | D．Polluted surroundings. |
| A．Giving examples. | B．Cause-effect analysis. |
| C．Making comparison. | D．Process analysis. |
| A．Animals can well adapt to changes and survive. |
| B．Influence of animals’ shapeshifting is uncertain. |
| C．Rdying will research into bird museums in Australia. |
| D．All adaptations of animals to climate change are beneficial. |
| A．Technology. | B．Health care. | C．Environment. | D．Education. |
