1 . Libby the cat lives at the Ashville Free Library in Ashville, NY. She is 19 years old and has brought _________ to library readers for many years.

_________, the older she gets, the more it costs to keep her healthy. “This year alone, we’ve spent nearly $900 on vet (兽医) bills for her _________ for an ear infection and a cold. For a small library with a very stressful economic condition, this is _________,” a spokesperson for the library said. “Libby is getting older, slower, and a little weaker, but we _________ to give her the best care we can. However, that care comes _________,” the library wrote on fundraiser (募捐会).

As of Friday morning, more than $2,900 had been raised— _________ reaching the $1,500 goal.

“The explosion (爆发) of _________ for our dear Libby has been so heartwarming,” Director Kristina Benson said, “We’ve had people coming in who’ve never visited our library, _________ stories of cats that were important to them, and how Libby’s story in the paper __________ their hearts.”

Libby has recently been __________ from a cold. “Libby is __________ so much better and she appreciates everyone’s visits and well wishes!” Benson wrote on GoFundMe. “Thanks to the community, we have __________ money to make sure her good care going forward, as well as paying her old bills. We love our kitty and we love our library and your __________ support has been a great __________ that you all feel the same. THANK YOU!!”

1.

A．pleasure

B．attention

C．confidence

D．trouble

2.

A．Unbelievably

B．Unluckily

C．Unequally

D．Unusually

3.

A．happiness

B．repair

C．treatment

D．promise

4.

A．challenging

B．wrong

C．special

D．amazing

5.

A．decide

B．use

C．learn

D．design

6.

A．on a trip

B．for a moment

C．in a way

D．at a cost

7.

A．strictly

B．simply

C．clearly

D．lightly

8.

A．concentration

B．love

C．memory

D．interest

9.

A．explaining

B．writing

C．reading

D．telling

10.

A．broke

B．cheered

C．attracted

D．touched

11.

A．excusing

B．suffering

C．resulting

D．keeping

12.

A．doing

B．trying

C．resting

D．serving

13.

A．paid

B．spent

C．raised

D．made

14.

A．free

B．warm

C．top

D．careful

15.

A．tour

B．message

C．part

D．detail

2 . An international team of researchers, led by Dr Christine Batchelor of Newcastle University, UK, used clear pictures of the seafloor to show just how quickly a former ice cover retreated (退去) at the end of the last Ice Age, about 20,000 years ago.

The team mapped more than 7,600 small-scale landforms across the seafloor. The ridges (山脊) are less than 2.5m high and are spaced between about 25 and 300 metres apart. These landforms are understood to have formed when the ice cover’s retreating edge moved up and down with the tides (潮汐), pushing seafloor into a ridge every low tide. Given that two ridges would have been produced each day, the researchers were able to work out how quickly the ice cover retreated. Their results, reported in the journal Nature, show the former ice cover rapidly retreats at a speed of 50 to 600 metres per day.

The seafloor landforms also give light into the way in which such rapid retreat can happen. Dr Batchelor and co-workers noted that the former ice cover had retreated fastest across the flattest parts of its bed.

“An ice can go away from the seafloor and retreat quickly when it becomes buoyant (有浮力的),” explained co-author Dr Frazer Christie. “This retreat only happens across relatively flat beds, where less melting (融化) is required to thin the overlying ice to the point where it starts to float (漂浮).”

The researchers believe that the quick retreat could soon be observed in parts of Antarctica. This includes at West Antarctica’s vast Thwaites Glacier. The authors of this new study suggest that it could go through quick retreat because it has recently retreated close to a flat area of its bed.

“Our findings suggest that present-day rates of melting are enough to cause quick short retreat across flat-bedded areas of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, including at Thwaites,” said Dr Batchelor. “Satellites (卫星) may well know this ice-cover retreat in the near future, especially if we continue our climate warming.”

1. What is the purpose of Paragraph 1?

A．To provide some advice for the readers.

B．To add some background information.

C．To make the story interesting.

D．To bring in the topic.

2. What does the second paragraph mainly tell us?

A．Where the ice cover’s retreating lies.

B．Why the ice cover’s retreating is formed.

C．What the result of ice cover’s retreating is.

D．How the speed of ice cover’s retreating is worked out.

3. Why is Thwaites Glacier mentioned in the text?

A．To give an example of quick retreat.

B．To tell where it is located.

C．To compare different types of retreat.

D．To explain why it is important.

4. What is Dr Batchelor’s attitude to the ice cover’s retreating?

A．Unclear.	B．Anxious.
C．Positive.	D．Doubtful.

3 . China.org.cn here provides a list of some popular Chinese destinations for winter tourism in 2023 and explores how they plan to make the most of the legacy (遗产) of the Winter Games.

Shenyang started a Winter Olympics-themed travelling season from December 2021 to March 2022 and introduced 86 activities covering folk music, a traditional Chinese ice game festival, an ice sculpture exhibition (冰雕展), and ice and snow festivals.

Zhangjiakou in Hebei was the co-host city of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and hosted most of the skiing and biathlon events. The city has built nine ski facilities (设施), with over 164 kilometres of ski runs. So far, Zhangjiakou’s winter sports activities have attracted over 6 million players.

Known for its long winter season that can last up to eight months a year, Altay Prefecture in Xinjiang attracts skiers worldwide with its huge area of natural powder snow. The data shows that the ski places of Altay Prefecture received 2.45 million visits in the 2021-2022 winter season, with tourism revenue (收入) reaching 1.63 billion yuan, up 25.3% and 23.4% year on year. During the Spring Festival holiday last year, the place saw more than 6,000 skiers on a daily basis, 60% of which came from outside Xinjiang.

Snow and ice sports and winter tourism activities have been heating up in Xinjiang since Beijing 2022. The growth index (指数) of Urumqi’s winter tourism listed first in China in early 2022, according to the online tourism platform TravelGo. Xinjiang has unique ice and snow tourism resources with a snow season for nearly five months.

1. Which place hosted the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics?

A．Shenyang.

B．Urumqi.

C．Zhangjiakou.

D．Altay Prefecture.

2. What is special about Altay Prefecture in Xinjiang?

A．It is famous for its long winter.

B．It has activities with games and music.

C．It mostly attracts visitors from Xinjiang.

D．It is the top in the tourism growth in 2022.

3. Where is this text probably taken from?

A．A textbook.

B．A web page.

C．A newspaper.

D．A travel brochure.

4 . Pat Patterson, a pilot for 25 years, had never met anyone like the handsome young man in the wheelchair who faced him at the Medford, Oregon, airport on July 28, 1976. Mike Henderson, a quadriplegic (四肢瘫痪者), wanted flying lessons.

As a 22­-year-­old Coast Guardsman eight years before, Henderson had fallen off a dock and landed on a floating log, breaking two of his bones. Doctors said that he would probably never walk again, let alone fly. “Here was this doctor telling me how it was going to be,” he says, “but no one was going to limit my freedom to try.”

Henderson parked his wheelchair next to the airplane and began to climb up onto the wing. He injured his elbow on the way, and after a great struggle, finally managed to pull himself into the airplane’s pilot’s seat. In the flight office, Pat Patterson watched in disbelief. “He crawled his way up that wing!” he says. “It took him 45 minutes. When I went out, he was sitting in the pilot’s seat, bleeding from his injured elbow all over the place. When I saw him go through that much pain, I knew nothing could stop him.”

Now everything was up to the instructor and the student, and together they set about solving each problem as it arose. A small piece of carpet gave Henderson traction (摩擦力) to climb the slippery wing. A headset freed his hands from the radio microphone, and the two men developed a moving bar that enabled Henderson to operate the airplane more easily.

Three weeks and eight flying hours after the first lesson, Henderson and Patterson happily phoned Dr. Stoddard — Henderson’s physician. At the airport, as the physician looked on, Henderson quickly wheeled himself around the airplane, doing a thorough, professional ground check. With Patterson and Dr. Stoddard on board, he went through his preflight instrument check. Minutes later, engine starting, the plane rolled down the runway and took off into the gray sky.

1. When did Mike Henderson become disabled?

A．At the age of 25.	B．In 1968.
C．At the age of 30.	D．In 1976.

2. What did Pat Patterson think of Mike Henderson when they met first?

A．Depressed.	B．Experienced.
C．Determined.	D．Delighted.

3. What is Paragraph 4 mainly about?

A．How Patterson and Henderson overcame the difficulties together.

B．How Patterson helped Henderson overcome the difficulties.

C．How Patterson taught Henderson to fly with difficulty.

D．The difficulties Henderson faced before flying.

4. What do we know from the text?

A．Patterson didn’t want to teach Henderson at first.

B．Henderson finally succeeded in flying alone.

C．Patterson was very strict with Henderson.

D．Henderson went through a lot of difficulties.

5 . 听下面一段对话，回答以下小题。
1. What was wrong with Tom?

A．He was hit by a taxi.

B．He hurt his head.

C．He fell ill with heart trouble.

2. What did the woman do?

A．She called the doctor.

B．She checked Tom carefully.

C．She took Tom to the hospital.

6 . If you’ve spent any time online in the first few weeks of 2023, you may have already picked up on the buzz surrounding ChatGPT. But what exactly is it?     1    

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence chatbot from OpenAI. It enables users to “converse” with it in a way that’s meant to copy natural conversation.     2     The easy-to-understand, easy-to-use, and free tool has already gained popularity as both an alternative to traditional search engines and as a tool for Al writing, among other things.

What does GPT stand for?

    3     While older AI chatbots could answer questions with detailed responses, ChatGPT uses a dialog format, which allows it to answer follow-up and clarifying questions, as well as recognize and reject inappropriate or dangerous requests (such as questions about illegal activity).

How to use ChatGPT to increase your work?

    4     Knowing how to effectively communicate with ChatGPT, or any generative AI model, is called prompt engineering. You can either include ChatGPT in your day-to-day work to conduct a research or to help you get started on a writing project while staring at a blank page.

    5    

ChatGPT uses natural language processing (NLP), an AI technology that deals with understanding, analyzing, and generating human-like language. It analyzes sample texts from the internet and conversations provided by real humans, and then ranks outputs based on the quality of the response. Providing occasional feedback from humans is a technique that can help fine-tune the output by improving both safety and reliability.

A．As a user, you can ask questions or make requests, and ChatGPT will respond.

B．ChatGPT has become a powerful tool to save time and energy.

C．In this article, you can find all you need to know about ChatGPT.

D．ChatGPT represents the future of all chatbots without doubt.

E．The “GPT” in ChatGPT is short for generative pre-trained transformer.

F．How does ChatGPT work?

G．The technique to apply when using ChatGPT.

7 . 阅读下面短文，根据所给情节进行续写，使之构成一个完整的故事。

December strode (阔步走) into the mountains of Colorado, shooting snowflakes and blowing them into a thick blanket of white. As Christmas approached, the farmers there closed down most wooden houses for a holiday cheer. Not all were closed, however. There was still work to be done, and someone had to stay. That someone was Slim Carter.

Old Jake, another farmer there, had offered to keep him company, but Slim shook his head. “After all, a young man like me has got plenty of Christmases ahead,” Slim joked. Before Jake offered to stay again, Slim hurried on. “I’ll just have a private Christmas this year, and that’s the way I want it.” So he was left alone at the house. Alone, with his horse in the farm and the wolves roaring in the forest nearby.

Truth was, Slim had decided not to celebrate Christmas at all. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Christmas. In fact, his Christmas memories were good ones. His mother would fill their house with the light of candles and the smell of candy. His father would make their Christmas tree hunt an all-day, men-only affair. Slim smiled as he remembered sitting on the broad back of their horse with the freshly cut tree along behind. Back home, they would cover the tree with paper snowflakes and homemade decorations and sing all the Christmas songs they knew. And that’s the way he liked it. Those were the memories he pulled out on nights when he was working alone. Such memories warmed him inside, even if his outsides were aching with cold.

This was Slim’s first year away from home. “Christmas is nothing if not spent with family,” Slim declared to the empty house. That was the real reason he’d sent Jake away. He figured he would handle Christmas better if he just pretended it was an ordinary winter workday.

But on Christmas Eve, as Slim headed back with snow beneath his feet and stars overhead, his head hung low. It was Christmas, even without the tree and the gifts. Christmas, and he was all alone.

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 he remembered decorating the tree with his family again.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

While singing to his decorated Christmas tree, Slim heard a knock on the door.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

8 . 听下面一段独白，回答以下小题。
1. What is Uncle Meyer?

A．A teacher.

B．A librarian.

C．A historian.

2. Where did Uncle Meyer and the children go on Sundays?

A．The zoo.

B．The museum.

C．The library.

3. What will Uncle Meyer do next year?

A．Support museums.

B．Study Chinese.

C．Go on a trip to China.

4. How many great things are talked about Uncle Meyer?

A．Four.

B．Three.

C．Two.

9 . Whenever I visited my grandfather Jack, he burst with questions. Each time I _______, however, his face would settle into a puzzled expression. He’d leaned closer. My _______ grew louder and louder until I was practically shouting at him. Then he raised his hands, and _______ me away with a resigned sigh.

Jack loved company, and loved having long _______. But by the time he turned 80, more than 70% of his _______ was gone. Jack spent thousands on medical-grade hearing aids. They were functional, but made all noises loud. The devices became even less _______ as his ears got worse and worse. Simple conversations were _______ in shouting matches and frustration. Phone calls were impossible, either.

When I visited him in the fall of 2022, I_______ a pair of earphones. The earphones had a new _______ that lets a mobile phone transmit audio from the microphone directly to compatible (兼容的) hearing aids working with an app. I put them in my grandfather’s ears, ________ the app on my phone and spoke into it. Then I watched Jack nod his head in ________. He understood my words! And when he responded ________ and in complete sentences, it felt like a ________ had closed. Both of us were excited. For the first time in years, Jack and I talked clearly.

These days, Jack and his new earphones are ________. He’s far less lonely. He can finally meet people again and ________ entire conversations, as long as they speak into his phone. He is smiling the biggest smile I have seen on his face in years.

1.

A．concluded

B．answered

C．complained

D．wondered

2.

A．laughter

B．sound

C．ring

D．voice

3.

A．shook

B．carried

C．waved

D．frightened

4.

A．competitions

B．attention

C．conversations

D．introductions

5.

A．taste

B．hearing

C．memory

D．sight

6.

A．effective

B．fluent

C．convenient

D．intelligent

7.

A．kept

B．ended

C．carried

D．paused

8.

A．made

B．checked

C．brought

D．searched

9.

A．design

B．function

C．purpose

D．model

10.

A．referred to

B．pointed at

C．figured out

D．turned on

11.

A．hesitation

B．agreement

C．permission

D．understanding

12.

A．clearly

B．patiently

C．confidently

D．evidently

13.

A．task

B．secret

C．road

D．gap

14.

A．inseparable

B．fortunate

C．familiar

D．busy

15.

A．control

B．hold

C．recall

D．remember

10 . In South Korea, students should pay for everything they learn in classes from K-pop auditions to real estate deals. Now, top Korean firms are introducing artificial intelligence in hiring and job seekers want to learn how to defeat the robots to get a job.

Many major South Korean companies like SK Innovation and Hyundai use AI in hiring, which generates classes for AI hiring booming fast. Career advisor Park Seong-jung is now offering a three-hour training course in handling recruitment, screening by computers, not people.

Preparing for such tests doesn’t necessarily involve simply memorizing answers. “Don’t force a smile with your lips,” Park Seong-jung told students looking for work in a recent session, one of many in which he said he has conducted for hundreds of people. “Smile with your eyes.”

One AI video system reviewed by Reuters asks candidates to introduce themselves, during which it spots and counts facial expressions including “fear” and “joy” and analyses word choices. It then asks questions that can be tough: “You are on a business trip with your boss and you spot him using the company credit card to buy himself a gift. What will you say?”

Kim Seok-wu, a 22-year-old senior at a top university, recently failed to get beyond an AI interview for a management position at a retail company. “I think I will feel hopeless if all companies go AI for hiring,” Kim said. “The AI interview is too new, so job hunters don’t know what to prepare for and any preparations seem meaningless since AI will read our faces if we make something up.”

1. Why do students in South Korea pay to study courses like AI hiring?

A．They want to be more competitive when faced with AI interview.

B．Big companies are in favor of it and want them to beat the androids.

C．They want to learn some AI knowledge and learn how to smile before AI.

D．AI can analyze their facial expressions and help to prepare for the interviews.

2. How does AI interview the job applicants according to the test?

A．By making a self introduction and answering some questions.

B．By asking interviewees how to deal with the boss’s asking for a gift.

C．By looking at what words the interviewees use when answering difficult questions.

D．By demanding an introduction, observing facial expressions and asking challenging questions.

3. What may be the job seekers’ attitude towards the AI in hiring?

A．Supportive.

B．Disapproving.

C．Uncaring.

D．Contradictory.

4. What is the style of the text?

A．A news report.	B．A job interview.
C．Scientific paper.	D．A job-seeking lecture.