1 . At the end of the day, most of us find ourselves on the couch, eyes glued to the television or to our smartphones, doing everything we can to conserve energy.     1     But are we hardwired (本能的) for it?

According to Michael Inzlicht, a social psychologist at the University of Toronto, we’re lazy and also, we’re not.

All humans, given equal options, will take the easy way out. Does it mean we’re lazy? Maybe.     2     We always minimize our effort and, at the same time, maximize the amount of reward we get for that effort. A study published in the journal Neuropsychologia found that our brains may be hardwired for laziness. Even though we know the benefits of exercise, we stay glued to the couch.

    3     We can’t know for sure whether there is an evolutionary (进化的) purpose to it. But that would make sense. After all, before we were able to go to the grocery store, calories were much more directly linked to effort. Every calorie we burned meant more hunting, fishing, or gathering.

But there are the times when humans are the opposite of lazy and do very difficult things for no apparent reason. Some rewards only come from extensive effort.     4     Running this far might even cause more harm than good in terms of running injuries like stress fractures, back pain and so on. But we do it anyway because putting in the effort makes us feel good, says Inzlicht.     5    

So, in that sense, effort is worth the effort. While humans are economically aware of effort most of the time, “in some cases, the effort itself is rewarding,” says Inzlicht.

A．Think about things like running a marathon.

B．It’s not completely clear why humans behave this way.

C．It seems that we humans are gifted in the way of laziness.

D．We similarly love to space out, our brain tired of focusing.

E．But it certainly means that we’re economic with our effort.

F．Some people who appear to be lazy are suffering from much more serious problems.

G．Likewise, we might get a sense of pleasure or mastery from doing a crossword puzzle.

2 . Around the world, coral reefs (珊瑚礁) are in danger. Now, let’s check out a few ways conservationists are protecting these habitats.

Seaweed Smackdown

Hot ocean temperatures can supercharge seaweed growth — and that’s not good for a reef. So, in Hawaii, scientists have used an underwater vacuum (真空吸器) to suck up lots of seaweed into the device’s long tube. In Australia, scientists are studying a low-tech solution: pulling seaweed by hand.

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Some polyps (珊瑚虫) are harmed by heat waves and pollution. Scientists cut parts of coral from a healthy reef. Then these polyps are taken to a nursery, which could be in shallow protected areas underwater. After about a year, the healthy coral parts are attached to damaged reefs. The nursery-grown corals can bring new life to a struggling habitat.

Sound Saver

Healthy reefs are noisy. Fish make different sounds, and thousands of shrimp create and pop bubbles with their claws to create a sound. The biologists play sounds of healthy reefs through underwater speakers. They found that six weeks of broadcasting healthy reef sounds doubled the amount of fish in the area.

Bleaching Killer

One of the biggest threats to coral reefs is bleaching. Here’s how it works.

Thriving coral Most coral species survive by partnering with tiny algae (藻类), which make food for the coral by changing sunlight into sugar.

Under stress But when the ocean water gets too hot, the algae produce too much oxygen, which can hurt the coral.

Bleaching So corals kick out the algae. As the algae leave, the color disappears and the coral appears to turn white. This process is called bleaching.

Biologists have discovered that many corals in the Red Sea have a species of algae in their tissue that’s found nowhere else, so they can survive heat waves. Biologists hope their work will inspire governments and environmental groups to protect these corals.

1. Which of the following might be the subtitle of Paragraph 3?

A．Underwater Nurseries.	B．Fishing Guides.
C．Seaweed Cleaners.	D．Colour Designers.

2. What can mainly help stop corals bleaching?

A．Breathing in more oxygen.	B．Changing the appearance.
C．Absorbing more sound.	D．Partnering with algae.

3. What is the author’s purpose of writing this passage?

A．To present the serious damages to corals.	B．To explain the reasons for coral habitat loss.
C．To introduce the methods of coral protection.	D．To compare the effects of different solutions.

3 . A shopkeeper’s son breaks a window, causing a crowd to gather. They tell the shopkeeper not to be angry: actually, the broken window is a reason to celebrate, since it will create work for the glazier (装玻璃的工人). In the story, written by a 19th-century economist, the crowd envisions the work involved in repairing the window, but not that   involved in everything else on which the shopkeeper could have spent his money — unseen possibilities that would have brought him greater happiness.

If that window were to be broken these days, people might have a different reaction, especially if they were NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) who oppose any local construction that affects their quality of life. Their concern might be with the “embodied carbon”. The production of a piece of glass would carry a sizeable carbon cost. Similarly, the bricks and concrete in a building are relics of past emissions. They are, the logic goes, embodied carbon.

Conserving what already exists, rather than adding to the building stock, will avoid increasing these embodied emissions — or so NIMBYs often suggest. At its worst, this idea is based on a warped logic. Greenhouse gases released by the construction of an existing building will heat the planet whether the building is repaired or knocked down. The emissions have been taken out of the world’s “carbon budget”, so treating them as anew debit means double counting. The right question to ask is whether it is worth using the remaining carbon budget to repair a building or it is better to knock it down.

Choosing between these possibilities requires thinking about the unseen. It used to be said that construction emitted two types of emissions. Besides the embodied sort, there were operational ones from cooling, heating and providing electricity to residents. Around the world, buildings account for 39% of annual emissions, according to the World Green Building Council, of which 28% come from operational carbon.

These two types of emissions might be enough for the architects designing an individual building. But when it comes to broader questions, economists ought also to consider how the placement of buildings affects the manner in which people work, shop and travel. Density (密度) lowers the per-person cost of public transport, and this reduces car use. Research by Green Alliance, a pressure group, suggests that in Britain a policy of “demolish (拆除) and densify” — replacing semi-detached housing near public transport with blocks of flats — would save substantial emissions. Without such demolition, potential residents would typically have to move to the suburbs instead, saving money on rent but consuming more energy.

Targeted subsidies (补贴), especially for research and development into construction materials, could speed up the pace at which the built environment decarbonises. What will never work, however, is allowing the loudest voices to decide how to use land and ignoring the carbon emissions of their would-be neighbours once they are out of sight.

1. The first two paragraphs are written to ________.

A．exemplify an outlook on energy conservation

B．present a new way of relieving energy crisis

C．explain people’s reaction to a broken window

D．introduce an argument on carbon emission

2. What does the underlined word “warped” in Paragraph 3 probably mean?

A．Unsound.

B．Complicated.

C．Distinctive.

D．Underlying.

3. What can be learnt from the passage?

A．Operational carbon accounts for a larger share of carbon emission.

B．Repairing old buildings outweighs demolition in energy conservation.

C．Higher residential density near public transport may help reduce emission.

D．Stopping residents from living in new buildings is sensible to energy saving.

4. As for decarbonization of the built environment, which would the author agree with?

A．Interests of NIMBYs are worthy of consideration.

B．A comprehensive insight into emission is essential.

C．Upgrading construction materials should be prioritized.

D．Every resident should do their bit in reducing carbon emission.

4 . In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), water is more valuable than oil. To support its citizens, the nation relies on expensive campaigns of cloud seeding from aircraft, which spray particles(喷洒微粒) into passing clouds to make rainfall.

But according to Oliver Branch, a climate scientist, there may be another method to stir up a rainmaker: with city-size solar farms that create their own weather. The heat from dark solar panels can cause updrafts that sometimes lead to rainstorms, providing water for local people. “Maybe it’s not science fiction that we can produce this effect,” says Branch, who led the work.

Few studies have examined how renewable energy might shift weather patterns. In 2020, Branch found that incredibly large solar farms, taking up more than 1 million square kilometers in the Sahara desert, could boost local rainfall. But the reward would come with a cost, the researchers found: By altering wind patterns, the solar farms would push tropical rain bands north. That’s not good news for the Amazon areas.

To find more, researchers turned to a weather model that can account for land surface changes. They modeled the solar farms as nearly black fields that absorbed 95%of the sunlight, surrounded by relatively reflective sand. When the solar farms reached 15 square kilometers, they found, the increased heat they absorbed appreciably increased the updrafts, or convection, that drive cloud formation.

Hacking convection wasn’t enough, however: damp air was also needed. When conditions were ripe, the model also found, a 20-square-kilometer solar field would increase a storm’s total rainfall by nearly 600,000 cubic meters. If such rainstorms occurred 10 times in one summer, they would provide enough water to support more than 30,000 people for a year.

Solar farms in China and elsewhere are nearly big enough, Branch says. If they were built in the right spots, it wouldn’t take much to darken the panels and to plant dark crops between panel rows. Still they’re trying to improve the realism of their solar panel simulations by cross-checking them with field measurements at existing solar farms.

The UAE “is committed to studying the potentially dynamic strategies, such as optimizing convection,” says Alya Al, director of the UAE’s Research Program. For now, she adds, the UAE is deeply committed to its cloud seeding program, carrying out some 300 missions each year.

1. In his study, Branch attempts to produce rainfall ________.

A．by way of updrafts formed on solar farms	B．by spraying particles into passing clouds
C．by means of relatively reflective sand	D．by planting dark crops

2. The model is designed to find out ________.

A．the ripe conditions for building a solar farm

B．the realistic size of a solar farm for rainfall increase

C．the annual amount of water consumption in the UAE

D．the heat absorption rate of the solar panels in the black fields

3. What can we learn about Branch’s method?

A．It is not supported by the director.	B．It needs great investment if applied.
C．It remains to be further tested in practice.	D．It has promoted cloud seeding in the UAE.

5 . 阅读下面短文，根据题目要求用英文回答问题。请在答题卡指定区域作答。

Family values are a set of principles and beliefs that a family agrees upon, such as emphasizing the importance of honest behaviors or valuing effort and persistence in achieving goals. They are fundamental and determine how members of a home interact with each other and with the world.

Family values determine what you think is important and what is good. These values can help you stay consistent when making decisions in everyday life, especially in moments of uncertainty. This is particularly true when you’re going to make quick decisions based on an emotional reaction. For example, if honesty and communication are your important family values, you’re more likely to approach conflicts with an open mind and a willing heart to talk through issues. When finding your family member has lied to you, instead of acting thoughtlessly, you know what to do—have a talk sincerely.

Family values serve as a guiding force within the home, but their impact extends far beyond, shaping societal norms and behaviors. For example, if several families plant generosity in their values, the next generation will grow up to be more generous. As a result, adults in this generation are more likely to take other people’s needs into consideration when making difficult choices. They become positive contributors to the society, developing an atmosphere of care and consideration that enhances communal well-being.

Great influence as it has, family values are not taught consciously. Often, they get passed down without being noticed. Those values don’t ever get questioned. Whether you’ve outlined them or not, they’re present. And once you take ownership of those values, you can shape them to be in line with what you expect your family to be.

1. What are family values?
_________________________________________________________________________
2. How can family values help to make decisions in everyday life?
_________________________________________________________________________
3. Please decide which part is false in the following statement, then underline it and explain why.

Family values have great influence within the home, but they have nothing to do with shaping common behaviors and rules in a society.

________________________________________________________________________
4. Please share one of your family values and explain how it influences you. (In about 40 words)
_________________________________________________________________________

6 . 阅读下面短文，根据短文内容填空。在未给提示词的空白处仅填写1个恰当的单词，在给出提示词的空白处用括号内所给词的正确形式填空。

Over the past several decades, many different benefits of humor     1     (explore). Few people know that humor plays an important role in social interactions with peers, and ultimately in school success. School entry is the time     2     parents fade into the background and social interaction with peers becomes increasingly important. The use of humour that is socially acceptable leads to a lower likelihood of being bullied, while the use of self-disparaging (自贬的) humour leads to a     3     (high) likelihood of being bullied.

7 . Too Much Information

Computer hackers, in order to get more secret information, constantly improve at breaking into cyberdefenses   (网络防御系统) to steal valuable documents. So some researchers propose using an artificial-intelligence algorithm (算法) to hopelessly confuse them, once they break in, by hiding the real deal in a mountain of misleading documents and information.

The algorithm, called Word Embedding-based Fake Online Repository Generation Engine (WE-FORGE), creates decoys of patents under development. If hackers were after, say, the recipe for a new drug, they would have to find the relevant needle in a sea of false documents. This could mean checking each recipe in detail-and perhaps investing in a few dead-end ones. “The name of the game here is, ‘Make it harder, ” explains V. S Subrahmanian, its developer, Dartmouth College Cyber Security researcher. “Pain those stealing from you. ”

Subrahmanian says he tackled this project after reading that companies are unaware of new kinds of cyberattacks for an average of 312 days after they begin. “Hackers have almost a year to decamp with all our documents, patents and intellectual property, ”he says. “They have stolen almost everything. It’s not just the crown jewels-it’s the crown jewels, and the jewels of the cleaning lady, and the watch of the secretary!”

The documents produced by WE-FORGE could also act as hidden traps to confuse hackers, says Rachel Tobac, CEO of SocialProof Security. These documents might alert security when accessed. Companies have typically used human-created false copies for this strategy. But now the algorithm is able to do that for us.

The system produces convincing traps by searching through a document for key words. For each one it finds, it calculates a list of related concepts and replaces the original term with one chosen at random. The process can produce dozens of documents that contain no patent information but still look credible. Subrahmanian and his team asked computer science and chemistry graduates to evaluate real and false patents from their respective fields. And the humans found the WE-FORGE-created documents highly believable.

WE-FORGE might eventually expand its boundary. Both Subrahmanian and Tobac think this research will attract commercial interest. “I could definitely see an organization investing in this type of product, ” Tobac says. “If this creates believable decoys without releasing sensitive details within those traps, then I think you’ve got a huge with there. ”

1. What does the underlined word “decoys” in Paragraph 2 refer to?

A．Misleading documents.

B．Original terms.

C．Computer operating systems.

D．Cyber securities.

2. In Paragraph 3, what Subrahmanian says indicates ______.

A．the greediness of hackers

B．the wealth of the companies

C．the unreliability of the network

D．the variety of intellectual property

3. What can we learn about WE-FORGE?

A．It will sound alarm upon being operated.

B．It is profitable for the users by avoiding their loss.

C．It has attracted investors for its application in many fields.

D．It can compose irrelevant concepts in the false documents.

8 . The Power of ”Like“

Like it or love it, social media is a major part of life. Teens spend more than half of their waking hours online. And most of what they do is read and respond to posts by friends and family. Clicking on a thumbs-up or a heart icon is an easy way to stay in touch.     1    

Clicking ”like“ on a post can increase the number of people who see it. If other people have liked a post, new viewers will be more likely to like it too. Many social media sites share more of the higher-ranked posts.     2    

According to recent studies, viewing one’s own posts with a lot of likes activates the reward system in their brains, especially for teens. Positive responses to teens’ own photos (in the form of many likes)tell them that their friends appreciate the material they’re posting.     3     Seeing someone else’s popular photo, however, doesn’t necessarily turn it on. More likely, it may affect behavioral attitudes.

    4     In one 2011 study, in which teens doing driving task in a lab took more risks when their friends were around, suggests that teens were changing their behavior to try to get social approval. Last year, researchers recruited (招募) 32 teens to check whether they make similar changes when using social media. They found that popular photos might signal to them that what’s in those photos is socially acceptable.     5     That means that what you like online has the power to influence not just what others like, but even what they do.

A like is a social cue. Teens use it to learn how to navigate their social world. Clicking”like“ is a simple act that can have complex results. All tech users will be thoughtful about social media.

A．As a result, that popularity can feed on itself.

B．It’s no surprise that feedback from peers affects how teens behave.

C．Joining social media can give people a sense of being in the know.

D．Their brains respond to those likes by turning on the reward center.

E．For example, images related to alcohol may encourage teens to drink.

F．And that can, inappropriately, make us feel less successful than them.

G．But those ”likes“ can have power that goes beyond a simple connection.

9 . The Ultimate Guide to STEM Competitions & Events

STEM competitions allow individuals or student teams to solve a specific challenge or problem through science, technology, engineering, or mathematics. The followings are different events at this time.

Congressional App Challenge
What: Students must code and build an app by themselves. The apps are judged in district-wide competitions.
Who: High school students.
When: From June 15 to November 1, 2023.
Where: Online.
Prize: Winners receive a free trip to display their work in the Capitol Building.
Regeneron Science Talent Search
What: Entrants must conduct an original independent research project. Besides application letters, recommendation letters and transcripts(成绩单) are also needed.
Who: Any student in their senior year of high school.
When: From June 1 to November 8, 2023.
Where: Selected finalists will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington D. C. for in-depth judging.
Prize: Over $2 million in awards are given; first-place prize is $ 250,000.
THINK Challenges
What: This competition is for high school students who are in the early stages of an original research project, rather than being fully completed.
Who: High school students.
When: 2023 registration is closed; 2024 details are to be decided and will likely open in November 2023.
Where: Online.
Prize: Selected finalists are invited to a 4-day all-expenses-paid trip to MIT’s campus to meet professors in their field of research! $1000 will be given.
Source America Design Challenge
What: Student teams are to use STEM concepts to create a totally new product that empowers people with disabilities.
Who: High school and collegiate-level students.
When: Registration for Design Challenge 2022 is still live!
Where: The finals take place in Washington D. C.
Prize: Grand prize is $ 8,000 per team and $ 6,000 to the affiliated school.
1. In the STEM competitions, participants can ________.

A．design an app based on judges’ choices	B．create an invention to help the disabled
C．present a fully completed research project	D．get recommendation letters from professors

2. If someone wants to win a free trip to a university, the one will join in ________.

A．THINK Challenges	B．Congressional App Challenge
C．Regeneron Science Talent Search	D．Source America Design Challenge

3. Which is a requirement for all the applicants?

A．They must be available for an outing trip.	B．They must register 2023 competitions.
C．They must be high school seniors.	D．They must submit original works.

10 . Temptation (诱惑) is part of life. It is commonplace to find yourself in situations—for instance, choosing between a delicious dessert versus sticking to a diet, or playing video games instead of studying.     1    . Successfully resisting (抵制) temptations is probably something you aim for.

Unsurprisingly, research shows that people with greater self-control experience benefits such as success at school and work and greater satisfaction in their relationships. But there’s growing evidence that self-control can also come with various downsides.

    2     Imagine someone who always wakes up early, never allows for any distractions from their work, and sticks to a strict diet. You might view them as ambitious, because of their determination and discipline. However, for those same reasons, you might also view this person as mechanical, uninteresting, uptight or even cold. In fact, that’s what we’ve found in our research.

The hidden costs of high self-control also extend beyond the social area to affect a person’s emotional life. For instance, consider the experience of regret. Research has shown that, when people reflect on their more distant past, they tend to regret having too much self-control rather than not having enough.     3    .

Even the positive beliefs that people hold about those who have high self-control, such as that they will perform better on group projects, can have negative effects.     4    . That will lead them to feel more burdened by the dependence that others have on them. This increased exhaustion and sense of burden can reduce levels of satisfaction within those relationships.

Self-control is something nearly all of us try to be better at. But it’s also important to recognize that there can also be some costs to having limitless willpower.     5    . By working to address the unfavorable outcomes related to high self-control, while continuing to pursue the favorable ones, we may each eventually find a healthy balance.

A．Self-disciplined people are less likely to forgive others.

B．People with higher self-control tend to enjoy better health in life.

C．We can all benefit from understanding both sides of this research literature.

D．Some of the costs of high self-control are social and reputational (有关声誉的).

E．These ideas can create heightened expectations for the high self-control person.

F．So enacting this self-control may actually lead you to feel less satisfaction down the road.

G．During these times, you likely hope to make the ‘right’ decision that drives you towards your long-term goals.