1 . Several years ago I was teaching in Melbourne, Australia. Like most Brits down under, I wanted to _________ my time in this country, so I would take every chance to travel around the far _________ of Australia.

On one trip, I and three friends went as far into the Outback (内陆地区) as it was possible to go, camping and _________ Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. In these riverine areas, there were plenty of crocodiles and smaller, deadly _________ to make us nervous.

After picking up some _________ from an isolated shop near an even more isolated settlement, we reached a _________ which had to be forded (涉过). It was a likely _________ for dangerous salt water crocodiles to be loitering (游荡), so all of us were warned to _________ any “salties” as our vehicle entered the water.

At first the water only reached the top of the _________, but within seconds it was lapping at the windows. My heart was beating fast as I peered out, searching for any __________ logs floating towards us.

__________ there was a scream from the back seat. “Ah! Get it off, it hurts!” I turned round, feeling quite __________ that I was about to see a horrifyingly grizzly animal. As it __________, one of my friends had bought a hot pie in the isolated little store. The contents, hotter than the Arnhem Land sunshine, had __________ onto his bare legs as we bumped through the stream.

We made it to the other side with no “salties” __________. Just one passenger with a very sore leg.

1.

A．run out of

B．take hold of

C．make the most of

D．catch sight of

2.

A．fields

B．corners

C．villages

D．surroundings

3.

A．exploring

B．searching

C．swimming

D．climbing

4.

A．mammals

B．humans

C．plants

D．creatures

5.

A．water

B．supplies

C．clothes

D．friends

6.

A．stream

B．lake

C．valley

D．cliff

7.

A．station

B．channel

C．spot

D．yard

8.

A．reach out for

B．wait up for

C．turn a deaf ear to

D．keep an eye out for

9.

A．wheels

B．walls

C．seats

D．legs

10.

A．easy-going

B．fun-loving

C．suspicious-looking

D．fast-flowing

11.

A．Interestingly

B．Unbelievably

C．Occasionally

D．Suddenly

12.

A．curious

B．certain

C．amazed

D．bored

13.

A．turned out

B．stood out

C．made out

D．found out

14.

A．cracked

B．extended

C．spilled

D．crashed

15.

A．lost

B．caught

C．missed

D．sighted

2 . How to keep your heart young

Clearly, it is important to take control of your heart health no matter your age. Regular exercise and a proper diet can help make your heart healthy and strong.     1    

Manage stress and anxiety.

Stress plays a role in 77 percent of all health concerns, including digestive trouble, an inability to lose weight, and heart disease.     2     Try taking a deep breath, taking a walk, or simply spacing out for a few minutes.

Open the windows in your house.

There are dozens of possible sources, including hair spray, candles, or smoke from a woodstove or fireplace.     3     But the chemical mixtures they create when mixed together can cause infection, raise blood pressure, and harden arteries (动脉). Open windows and use a fan to circulate the air and reduce indoor pollution levels.

    4    

A sound sleep is good for your heart, but as you age, your brain and neurons begin to change and your “sleep architecture” suffers. Shorter sleep duration and poorer quality of sleep seem to be associated with increased heart diseases. A few classic tips for a better night’s sleep: Avoid afternoon naps and caffeine within six hours of your bedtime.

Be active and be kind.

    5     Meanwhile, a study found that those who spent money on other people had lower blood pressure than those who spent money on themselves. Do something physically active on behalf of someone else. While you’re out removing snow, clear your neighbor’s walkway too.

A．Give priority to sleep.

B．Stress relief can come in many forms.

C．However, we have more ways to keep slim.

D．Any of these might be harmless in small amounts.

E．People who always sit tend to develop some heart problems.

F．But these tips from heart specialists offer surprisingly helpful additions to you.

G．Try to embrace nature to enjoy and play instead of staying at home doing nothing.

3 . 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短文。

“Sai Baba! Sai Baba! Hahahaha!” Rani’s cheeks burned with shame and tears welled up in her eyes as she pushed her way to the exit through the crowd of laughing boys in the packed school bus. It wasn’t the first time she’d been called Sai Baba, after the famous Hindu holy man she’d seen on TV with his trademark afro (非洲式卷发) towering over his head. But this time was the worst. Rani jumped off the school bus and landed hard in the muddy rainwater. It had been a Friday full of disasters! Angry thoughts ran inside Rani’s head as she marched home in the drizzling rain. Why did the rain have to come pouring down so hard just at the end of the school day? Why did she have to forget her raincoat back home? Why did her hair have to be like a giant cotton candy balloon just when she wanted it to behave? Why, why, why, Rani grew angrier as she turned the back door key.

“Rani, is that you?” Papa called from the family room.

“I hate my hair!” Rani cried as tears of anger and shame streamed down her cheeks.

“Why, your hair’s beautiful!”

“Then why does everyone make fun of it al the time? The boys teased me about my hair on the bus ride back home…” She paused and then tore at her hair and pulled out a couple of paper balls stuck in it. “Look, they even shot paper balls at my hair.”

Papa went up to Rani, hugging her tightly in his arms. “Listen! Those boys are bullies. They did so only to get an emotional response from you. What you need to do is either ignore them or speak up for yourself.”

Rani nodded uncertainly, remembering the hours, days and weeks she had spent trying to bring her hair under control. “Papa?” she murmured, “I don’t want to participate in the speech competition on Monday.”

“Why?” Papa sounded puzzled.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The next Monday morning dawned bright and it was time for the competition.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Horse-face skirt, also known as “horse-faced pleated (有褶的) skirt”, is one of the main skirt     1     (style) of ancient Chinese women. It is not only a kind of clothing, but also a treasure of Chinese culture. Originating in the Song Dynasty (960-1279), the horse-face skirt     2     (grow) popular during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) due to     3     (it) functionality and aesthetic (美学的) style. During the Ming Dynasty, deeply pleated versions of the skirt were     4     (extreme) popular. After the development of the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, the horse-face skirt has gradually become     5     unique dress style.

Today, designers skillfully combine traditional elements with modern design     6     (create) an amazing fashion work, which makes the horse-face skirt shine with new vitality. Wearing a horse-face skirt, as if stepping     7     the time tunnel of thousands of years, we can feel the ancient and mysterious charm. It carries the memory of history     8     conveys the feelings of the nation. In the eyes of experts and fashion industry insiders, traditional Chinese clothing,     9     (represent) by the horse-face skirt, is a significant symbol of Chinese civilization     10     has influenced western fashion for many years. Let’s enjoy the charm of horse-face skirt together, pass on the elegance of the treasure, and dazzle the world.

5 . The moment the boys entered the gym and saw the climbing walls towering over them, they got excited. But Stevie was a(an) _________, who was standing aside looking at his thin arms silently. Stevie didn’t like climbing. It wasn’t his _________. Getting along with people wasn’t his thing, ether. He just felt nobody liked or _________ him at school.

Then came Mr. Taylor, the _________, who taught the boys some basic skills and _________ that everyone have a climbing partner and showed them how to protect their partner. The moment he finished, the boys couldn’t wait to _________ themselves with a partner except Stevie. Noticing his _________, Mr. Taylor raised his voice and said, “I need someone I can really trust to team up with!” Then his eyes _________ Stevie. “Me?” Stevie widened his eyes. “I guess.” Hearing Mr. Taylor’s words, Stevie managed a _________ smile. He worked up the __________ and climbed up slowly. “Done it!” Stevie called from the top with excitement and later __________ safe on the floor. Now it’s Stevie’s turn to control the rope. He carefully watched as Mr. Taylor climbed up to the __________, and then started to let him down, his heart racing wildly and his palms sweating uncontrollably. Finally, Mr. Taylor dropped __________ down to the bottom and the boys burst into wild applause. From that day on, Stevie opened his heart to the people around him.

__________ for what Mr. Taylor had done, Stevie knew deep down in his heart that it was his teacher’s trust that allowed him to __________ his new self and others.

1.

A．exception

B．trouble

C．example

D．victim

2.

A．task

B．time

C．thing

D．job

3.

A．respected

B．trusted

C．supported

D．attracted

4.

A．doctor

B．teacher

C．coach

D．climber

5.

A．ordered

B．urged

C．advocated

D．required

6.

A．match

B．equip

C．arrange

D．combine

7.

A．excitement

B．embarrassment

C．fear

D．tension

8.

A．fell on

B．rested on

C．watched on

D．reflected on

9.

A．sad

B．sweet

C．wide

D．weak

10.

A．decision

B．courage

C．patience

D．hope

11.

A．stayed

B．dropped

C．landed

D．lay

12.

A．wall

B．roof

C．floor

D．top

13.

A．carefully

B．smoothly

C．painfully

D．excitedly

14.

A．Sorrowful

B．Thoughtful

C．Grateful

D．Fearful

15.

A．embrace

B．know

C．meet

D．greet

6 . Generative AI must seem like a superweapon to people who aim to cause disagreement and argument online. Deep-fake videos imitate public figures. Crowds of conversational chatbots worsen conflict, and efforts to detect and relieve such campaigns remain in their early period.

But can Generative AI also negotiate confict? Chris Bail, a leading expert on artificial intelligence and human behavior, and his colleagues have conducted research indicating that Large Language Models such as ChatGPT can make online conversations more productive, reduce incivility, and increase willingness to have difficult conversations across social disagreements. What’s more, they’re already seeing practical applications. Inspired by such research, Nextdoor, a community-based social-media platform that has struggled to boycott online poison, recently launched a successful, large-scale (大规模的) effort to reduce incivility.

In a study recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Chris Bail and his team examined whether Large Language Models can teach people conflict-negotiation techniques on a large scale. They enlisted a large group of people with different opinions about gun control and paired them to discuss this topic with someone who does not share their view on an online chat platform the team built.

After exchanging several messages on their platform, half of the research participants began to receive pop-up messages suggesting alternative phrasings for the messages they were about to send to their chat partner. These pop-ups employed GPT-3 to rephrase each post using conflict negotiation principles — without changing the opinion expressed within them. Participants had the option to send these rephrased versions of their message or ignore them.

The researchers found that GPT-3 is surprisingly good at processing difficult conversations. People whose partner used the AI-generated re-phrasings described the conversations as more productive, less stressful, and expressed greater willingness to consider alternative viewpoints.

1. What can we infer from the first two paragraphs?

A．GenAI can be used in wars.

B．GenAI can stop online incivility.

C．GenAI can be used to deal with conflict online.

D．GenAI can make conversations more difficult.

2. What did Chris Bail’s team aim to do in a recent study?

A．To build their online chat platform.

B．To share ideas on their own platform.

C．To collect different ideas about gun control.

D．To test the function of Large Language Models.

3. How does GPT-3 help process difficult conversations?

A．By ignoring rephrased messages.

B．By making choices for the participants.

C．By changing the opinions of participants.

D．By expressing the messages in a different way.

4. Which of the following is the best title for the text?

A．People Share Ideas on Gun Control

B．A New Study About Practical Applications

C．GenAI Cause Disagreement And Argument Online

D．GenAI Could Make Online Conversations More Civil

7 . Rich variety exists in primates (灵长目动物). Monkeys roll on snowy Japanese mountains, gorillas chew fruit on Sumatra, lemurs jump between trees in Madagascar, and the naked apes—humans—walk proudly on two legs worldwide. Scientists can now study the DNA differences beyond that diversity, thanks to a databank of genomes (基因组) from 233 species.

To understand the good and bad of human evolution—both our extraordinary adaptations and disease-causing changes—scientists must compare the genomes of Homo sapiens (智人) to our closest evolutionary relatives, the primates. But researchers investigating diverse topics, from contemporary genetic diseases to human origins, have long faced a roadblock when pursuing this approach: While genomic data exists from millions of people, most of the 500-plus primate species never had their genomes read. So, in 2019, Tomàs Marquès-Bonet at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology, in Barcelona, Spain, and other biologists teamed up with disease researchers at the company Illumina, determined to obtain as many primate genomes as possible.

Navigating wilderness and local permitting laws, the international researchers obtained hundreds of blood samples from wild and caged animals in South America, Africa, and Asia. Arranging DNA from these samples and adding data from previous studies, the team built a bank of 809 genomes from individual baboons, gorillas, gibbons, and more, representing nearly half the known primate species.

The data revealed insights about human origins and health, as well as primate conservation, published by more than 100 scientists across 10 papers in Science and Science Advances in June 2023. One study trained artificial intelligence to search human genomes for DNA differences likely to cause disease, based on whether nonhuman primates can live with those variants. According to Marquès-Bonet, “We now have a really good list of the foundations of our species” and a “good idea of the kind of variations that are tolerated in any primate”—including humans.

1. What can we learn from paragraph 1?

A．Primates vary mainly in habitats.

B．Scientists focus on the diversity of primates.

C．There are 233 species of primates in the world.

D．Primate genomes are important for studying the DNA differences.

2. Why did the scientists build the databank of genomes?

A．To cure human’s various genetic diseases.

B．To help human adapt to the environment.

C．To investigate the process of human evolution.

D．To understand the strength and drawback of human evolution.

3. What is paragraph 3 mainly about?

A．The reasons for building the databank.

B．The process of building the databank.

C．The impacts of building the databank.

D．The difficulties in building the databank.

4. What does Marquès-Bonet think of the databank?

A．It still needs to be improved.

B．It is of great value to future research.

C．It is of little help to future research.

D．It is unclear whether it’s of help to future research.

8 . As the seasons are starting to change around the world, the animal kingdom is on the move. Animal migration is one of nature's great wonders, but how do animals know when it is time to set off on their journey, or where they need to go? Once they've worked out their destination, how do they know how to get there?     1     .

Migration is a behavioral pattern where animals travel from one habitat to another in search of something. It happens seasonally, and usually involves a return journey. These journeys can be by land, sea or air.     2     . Animals like gazelles, wildebeests and zebras migrate in huge herds during dry seasons to look for fresh grass to eat and water to drink.

Animals also migrate because of the weather. Around 50 bird species leave the UK each winter to avoid the cold.     3     . They're either searching for a mate, looking for somewhere to lay their eggs or finding the best place to raise their young. For example, humpback whales travel to warmer waters each winter to raise their calves.

    4     , but how do they know when it is time to head off? For those who migrate to look for something to eat, scientists think shortages of food could be a sign that it's time to begin their journey. Others might be able to recognize when winter is coming because they can see that the days are getting shorter.

So how do they know where to go? Some use the stars and the sun to help them navigate while others rely on landmarks like rivers and mountains to show them where they are.     5     . Wildebeests are thought to follow the smell of rain.

A．Below are some ways they get there

B．Animals have their reasons for migrating

C．Scientists have been puzzled by these questions for many years

D．It's also possible for animals to sniff their way to their destination

E．Some birds travel to the UK to escape extreme cold further north

F．One of the main reasons behind animal migration is the search for food

G．For some animals, it's the need to reproduce that sends them on their journey

9 . Arieh Smith, an American YouTuber with millions of subscribers recently visited the Cree nation in Canada with a big surprise —he speaks their language.

Patrick Mitsuing, a Cree cultural leader, found Smith's channel and saw that he can speak 50 languages to varying degrees of fluency including some indigenous(本土的) ones and invited him to take the Cree course and follow it up with a visit to the nation.

The superpower for Smith's work on YouTube is something he's also used for humanitarian purposes—learning indigenous languages and traveling to where they’re spoken in order to strengthen awareness that some of these timeless tongues, with all their hidden knowledge and poetry, are disappearing.

Cree is extraordinarily difficult even among indigenous North American languages, but in the 23-minute video of his trip to the Cree lands, Smith amazes multiple passers-by with some Cree chit-chat he learned from the course.

“The elders at first were kind of like ‘who is this weirdo(怪人) with the camera?’…”Smith recounted to CBC News. “And then when I started speaking Cree, they were kind of like ‘Oh, OK, that’s pretty cool.’” At the end of the visit, Smith gave a speech to some elders of the Cree race. Just like the strangers on the street, some of the elders thought it was cool and funny, while others were deeply moved.

“From the comments that I’ve seen from his videos, I see a lot of the young indigenous, not just young but even older crowds saying ‘man, if he could learn, I could learn; man, if he’s doing it, I could do it.”Mitsuing added.

Technology is a way that indigenous languages can live on. Most people will choose to learn languages online today, and courses taught through the social media business are a way that not only allows the younger generation to carry on the torch(火炬), but preserves the language, its writing, and its instruction in case of darker days.

1. What can we learn about Smith?

A．He is a native of Cree.	B．He longs to be a leader.
C．He has a strong capacity for speech.	D．He invited Mitsuing to take Cree courses.

2. What is the main purpose of Smith's work on YouTube?

A．To show his incredible talent for languages.

B．To document his trips to different countries.

C．To compose poems to discover hidden knowledge.

D．To make people realize the disappearance of some languages.

3. How did the elders of the Cree race feel when they first saw Smith?

A．Surprised.

B．Moved.

C．Excited.

D．Impressed.

4. What role does social media play?

A．It motivates people to light the torch.	B．It inspires people to run media business.
C．It allows for the preservation of languages.	D．It enables people to travel around the world.

10 . When creative architectural minds are given free reign over their creations, some truly unique buildings are born.

Habitat 67(Montreal, Canada)

Habitat 67's unique architecture was designed by a young Canadian-Israeli immigrant named Moshe Safdie for Montreal's 1967 Universal Exposition (博览会). The building was designed to integrate the advantages of suburban living — namely privacy, gardens and multiple floors — in an urban environment.

Sagrada Familia(Barcelona, Spain)

When modernist architect Antoni Gaudi took the reins in 1883, a year after the construction began, he turned just another church into his masterpiece. Its complex designs and themes make the Sagrada Familia among the most unique architecture in the world. When it's finally finished in 2026, its iconic design will have long since been established as one of the great achievements of architecture.

Longaberger Basket Building(Newark, America)

There are plenty of buildings out there that reflect their purpose, like the Kansas City library that looks like a row of books. The Longaberger Basket Building is one of this kind. Head office of the Longaberger Company produces baskets which can be found around the world. The Longaberger founder's son wanted all the other Longaberger buildings to look like its products too.

Atomium(Brussels, Belgium)

Another example of an offbeat construction for a World's Fair, the Atomium was built for the 1958 edition of the Universal Exposition held in Brussels, Belgium by André Waterkeyn. Unlike Habitat 67, it wasn't meant to be a residential building. Instead it contains exhibition rooms and public halls. The building itself is designed to be a copy of the structure of iron crystal.

1. Which of the following building hasn't been completed by now?

A．Habitat 67.	B．Sagrada Familia.
C．Longaberger Basket Building.	D．Atomium.

2. What does Longaberger Basket Building look like?

A．A basket.

B．A garden.

C．A row of books.

D．An iron crystal.

3. What do Habitat 67 and Atomium have in common?

A．They are residential buildings.	B．They were built for World's Fairs.
C．They were designed by Moshe Safdie.	D．They contain exhibition rooms and public halls.