1 . 他在升旗仪式上的演讲得到了高声喝彩。(greet) (汉译英)
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3 . Directions: Read the following passage. Summarize the main idea and the main point(s) of the passage in no more than 60 words. Use your own words as far as possible.

Exploring the Appeal of Vintage

Today, the term “vintage” applies to almost everything. Vintage is more recent than an antique (古董) which is defined as 100 years old or more. It basically means reviving something old-fashioned or filled with memories. For an object to be considered vintage, it must be unique and genuine enough to retain at least some of its original charm.

We buy vintage because it creates a sense of personal connection for us: it speaks to our childhood memories and that feels good. We also buy vintage because we’re rebels. Vintage is a protest against modern mainstream culture. In an age of technology, buying vintage is a refuge from our fast-paced, high-tech world. We want our children to make the most of their creativity and know how to entertain themselves without electronic gadgets. Ironically, early video games are now considered vintage.

Of all the vintage objects, vintage toys are forever attractive for both adults and children. Although some toys have emotional value, others have high market value and are expensive to collect. Vintage toys that were made in small quantities often bring a higher value than those that were mass produced. That means, if you own one of the 2,000 “Peanuts” royal blue beanie baby elephants that were manufactured with a darker blue coat than originally intended, you might have something valuable on your hands. In fact, due to a manufacturer error, this is the most collectible beanie baby around — and worth about £3,000.

If you’re motivated and feeling lucky, you can find deals on vintage toys by browsing charity shops, secondhand stores, community centers, flea markets and garage sales. You never know what kind of treasures are hiding at the bottom of a mixed box in someone’s basement, garage or attic.

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4 . Time to end Santa’s “naughty list”?

Many of us have magical memories of Santa secretly bringing gifts and joy to our childhood homes — but is there a darker side to the beloved Christmas tradition?

I was — and I’m happy to admit it — a loyal believer of Santa. I absolutely loved the magic of Christmas, especially Santa Claus, and my parents went above and beyond to encourage it. However, as I begin to construct my own Santa Claus myth for my daughter, I can’t help but feel guilty. Could it undermine her trust in me?

    1     Back in 1978, a study published in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry (矫正精神医学) found that 85% of four-year-olds said they believed in Santa. In 2011, research published in the Journal of Cognition and Development found that 83% of 5-year-olds claimed to be true believers.

I guess it’s not all that surprising.     2     He features in every Christmas TV show and movie. Each year the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) allows you to track Santa’s journey on Christmas Eve. To reassure children during the pandemic in 2020, the World Health Organization issued a statement declaring that Santa was “immune” from Covid 19. And it’s precisely this effort on behalf of parents, and society in general, to create such seemingly overwhelming evidence for the existence of Santa Claus that David Kyle Johnson, a professor of philosophy at King’s College in Pennsylvania, describes as ‘The Santa Lie’ in his book The Myths That Stole Christmas. He highlights how we don’t simply ask children to imagine Santa, but rather to actually believe in him.     3    

The “Santa lie” can reduce trust between a parent and a child.     4     It is the creation of false evidence and convincing kids that bad evidence is in fact good evidence that discourages the kind of critical thinking we should be encouraging in children in this era. “The ‘Santa lie’ is part of a parenting practice that encourages people to believe what they want to believe, simply because of the psychological reward,” says Johnson. “That’s really bad for society in general.”

A．But the biggest danger is the anti-critical thinking lessons that he is teaching.

B．It’s this emphasis on belief over imagination that he sees as harmful.

C．Interestingly, belief in Santa Claus has actually promoted children’s critical thinking.

D．There are plenty of cultural evidences we create for the existence of Santa.

E．He begins to probe and question the things he has seen and heard.

F．Fascinatingly, belief in Santa Claus has remained remarkably consistent.

5 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. army   B. available   C. displayed   D. reserves   E. straight   F. inserted G. additional   H. advocates   I. initiative   J. proven   K. existing

A new way to reduce poaching

Researchers are working on a pilot program backed by Russia’s Rosatom Corp to inject rhino horns (犀牛角) with radioactive material, a strategy that could discourage consumption and make it easier to detect illegal trade.

Poachers (偷猎者) killed 394 rhinos in South Africa for their horns last year, government data shows, with public and private game     1     lacking the resources needed to monitor vast tracts of land and protect the animals that live there. While the toll was a third lower than in 2019 and the sixth     2     drop, illegal hunting remains the biggest threat to about 20,000 of the animals in the country — the world’s biggest population.

Thousands of     3     sensors along international borders could be used to detect a small quantity of radioactive material     4     into the horns, according to James Larkin, a professor at the University of Witswatersrand in Johannesburg, who has a background in radiation protection and nuclear security. “A whole new     5     of people could be able to detect the illegal movement of rhino horn,” he said. Some alternate methods of discouraging poaching, including poisoning, dyeing and removing the horns, have raised a variety of opinions as to their virtue and efficacy.

Known as The Rhisotope Project, the new anti-poaching     6     started earlier this month with the injection of an amino acid (氨基酸) into two rhinos’ horns in order to detect whether the compound will move into the animals’ bodies. Also,     7     studies using computer modeling and a replica rhino head will be done to determine a safe dose of radioactive material. Rhino horn is used in traditional medicine, as it is believed to cure disease such as cancer,     8     as a show of wealth and given as gifts.

“If we make it radioactive, these people will be hesitant to buy it,” Larkin said. “We’re pushing on the whole supply chain.”

Besides Russia’s state-owned nuclear company, the University of Witwatersrand, scientists and private rhino owners are involved in the project. If the method is     9     feasible, it could also be used to curb illegal trade in elephant ivory.

“Once we have developed the whole project and got to the point where we completed the proof of concept, then we will be making this whole idea     10     to whoever wants to use it,” Larkin said.

6 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passages coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Beethov-hen’s first symphony

On a grey Friday morning at a Hawke’s Bay farm, members of New Zealand’s symphony orchestra dressed in black to perform their latest composition in front of a large crowd.

The music contained many marks of traditional classical music, but as it began, the instruments started to make loud, rough sounds more commonly     1     (hear) in chicken coops than in an auditorium.

However, no feathers were angered by this departure from tradition,     2     the audience that gathered to listen to the concert last week was, in fact, a couple of thousand chickens.

The piece of music – Chook Symphony No.1 –     3     (create) specifically for the birds out of an unlikely partnership between the orchestra and an organic free-range chicken farm which wanted a piece of chicken-friendly music to enrich its flocks’ lives.

“We’ve been playing classical music for the chickens for some years now because     4     is well researched that the music can calm the chickens down,” says Ben Bostock, one of the two brothers who     5     (own) the Bostock Brothers farm.

Research has shown animals can respond positively to classical music, and chickens are particularly responsive to baroque (巴洛克风格), according to some studies.

The composer, Hamish Oliver,     6     used the baroque tradition as a starting point and drew inspiration from composers such as Corelli, Bach, and Schnittke, wanted the piece to be playful by including sounds from a chicken’s world. “The trumpet imitates the chicken… the woodwind instruments are the cluckiest, especially if you take the reeds off.”

The early stages of composition were spent     7     (test) out which instruments and sounds the chickens responded to best.

“They didn’t like any big banging,” Bostock said, adding that when the birds respond positively to the music, they tend     8     (wander) farther among the trees. Bostock now hopes chicken farmers around the world will use the piece of music to calm their own birds.

For Oliver, having input from the farmers about     9     the chickens were responding to particular sounds and instruments was a highlight of the project.

The symphony has searched exhaustively     10     any other examples of orchestras making music specifically for chickens and believes this to be a world-first, says Peter Biggs, the orchestra’s chief executive.

7 . From Marie Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors to Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion (鬼屋) to horror-themed escape rooms, haunted house attractions have terrified and delighted audiences around the world for more than 200 years.

These attractions turn out to be good places to study fear. They help scientists understand the body’s response to fright and how we perceive some situations as enjoyably thrilling and others as truly terrible. One surprising finding: having friends close at hand in a haunted house might make you more jumpy, not less so.

Psychologist and study co-author Sarah Tashjian, who is now at the University of Melbourne, and her team conducted their research with 156 adults, who each wore a wireless wrist sensor during their visit. The sensor measured skin responses linked to the body’s reactions to stress and other situations. When the sensor picked up, for example, greater skin conductance — that is, the degree to which the skin can transmit an electric current — that was a sign that the body was more aroused and ready for fight or flight. In addition to this measure, people reported their expected fear (on a scale of 1 to 10) before entering the haunted house and their experienced fear (on the same scale) after completing the haunt.

The scientists found that people who reported greater fear also showed heightened skin responses. Being with friends, Tashjian and her colleagues further found, increased physiological arousal during the experience, which was linked to stronger feelings of fright. In fact, the fear response was actually weaker when people went through the house in the presence of strangers.

Other investigators have used haunted houses to understand how fear and enjoyment can coexist. In a 2020 study led by Marc Malmdorf Andersen, a member of the Recreational Fear Lab at Aarhus University in Denmark, scientists joined forces with Dystopia Haunted House. The Danish attraction includes such terrifying experiences as being chased by “Mr. Piggy”, a large, chain-saw-wielding man wearing a bloody butcher’s apron and pig mask. People between the ages of 12 and 57 were video recorded at peak moments during the attraction, wore heart-rate monitors throughout and reported on their experience. People’s fright was tied to large-scale heart-rate fluctuations; their enjoyment was linked to small-scale ones. The results suggest that fear and enjoyment can happen together when physiological arousal is balanced “just right”.

1. Studying haunted house attractions helps scientists to learn about ________.

A．the psychological effects of fear on individuals

B．the history of horror-themed entertainment

C．the body’s response to material rewards

D．the impact of technology on people’s enjoyment

2. How did Sarah Tashjian and her team conduct their research on haunted house experiences?

A．By surveying participants.	B．By analyzing historical records.
C．By employing wireless wrist sensors.	D．By using virtual reality simulations.

3. What did Tashjian and her colleagues discover in their study?

A．Being with friends elevated level of physiological arousal.

B．The fear reaction was stronger in the company of strangers.

C．Psychological effect was unrelated to intensified feelings of fright.

D．Those reporting lightened fear showed increased skin responses.

4. It can be concluded from the 2020 study led by Marc Malmdorf Andersen that ________.

A．fear and enjoyment can not happen at the same time

B．large-scale heart-rate fluctuations were linked to enjoyment

C．the age of the participants was not related to the study’s findings

D．fear and enjoyment can coexist under certain conditions

8 .

A．She expects the man to help Brian move to a new house.

B．She expects the man to take mum to Brain’s new house.

C．She expects the man to celebrate mum’s birthday together.

D．She expects the man to make a phone call to Mum.

9 . 听下面一段较长对话，回答以下小题。1.

A．By trading physical items.	B．By exchanging artistic creativity.
C．By hosting art exhibitions.	D．By making artistic advertisements.

2.

A．Painting and writing.	B．Graphic design and photography.
C．Music and album cover design.	D．Video editing and project management.

3.

A．Members can benefit without efforts.

B．Members can make money by providing artistic services.

C．Members can get copyrights of other artistic offerings.

D．Members can have access to the creative exchange list.

4.

A．Competitive individualism.	B．Artistic cooperation and inspiration.
C．Individual fame in the art field.	D．Material collaboration and exchange.

10 . 听下面一段独白，回答以下小题。
1. What is one suggestion for reducing waste during Christmas gift-giving, according to the passage?

A．Canceling all the gifts.	B．Applying a “one-gift” rule.
C．Giving children less time to play.	D．Encouraging buying second-hand gifts.

2. What is one alternative to material gifts, according to clinical psychologist Linda Blair?

A．Buying a rare and expensive souvenir.	B．Buying a hand-made craft product.
C．Giving something that won’t cost money.	D．Giving an experience of something new.

3. What is the passage mainly about?

A．The waste caused by Christmas gifts.

B．The importance of buying gifts for children.

C．The creative ideas of giving gifts to avoid waste.

D．The negative effects of receiving too many gifts.