1 . Third grade was the worst year ever. My parents split up that year, and my dad moved out. I know that every divorce is different, and I’m told that not all of them are as painful as ours was. Ours was cruel.

There were other difficult things happening, too. I was epileptic and had a brain tumor. So I had to leave he classroom sometimes, to go to the nurse’s office to take pills or to head to the hospital for blood work, an EEG, or a CAT scan. Not fun.

And I turned, as kids often do, to books. Books were doorways out of my cold house, to imagined ands, full of magical creatures and wishes-come-true. I read from sunup to sundown. I read at breakfast, and I read late into the night. I devoured books.

Originally, in that terrible year, I sought out books that distracted me from my pain. I loved Half Magic; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; Mary Poppins, books where regular kids encountered magic in the world around them. I was eager for something unexpected to happen and radically alter my world, so those books were many of my favorites. But they were not my only favorites.

The other books I loved were the books that made me cry. My brain is still full of so many perfect painful moments. Beth, dying in Little Women. I read Oscar Wilde stories in which all hearts were broken. The Nightingale, dead from love.

I’ve thought a lot about why these books mattered so much. And I think it was because I was very alone in my sadness. Lonely, I sought company, the best way I could. Books were company. And though Half Magic was one kind of company, a distracting, cheerful friend — that wasn’t enough.

So sometimes you need a friend who is also struggling, a friend who is sad in the very way that you are sad, and so makes you feel normal. For me, sad books were that friend. After a sad book, I slept easier.

1. What didn’t happen to the author in the third grade?

A．The author’s dad left him/her.	B．The author had to quit school.
C．The author had serious diseases.	D．The author’s parents got divorced.

2. What kind of books did the author read at first?

A．Fantasy books.	B．Funny books.
C．Sad books.	D．Medical books.

3. Why were sad books so important to the author?

A．Because the author didn’t want to read cheerful books.

B．Because reading these sad books could make him/her cry.

C．Because he/she liked the perfect painful moments in the books.

D．Because they made the author feel he/she was not alone in sadness.

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

A．To share with readers his/her experience of growing up.

B．To encourage readers to read more books in their spare time.

C．To call on readers to pay more attention, to those who are suffering.

D．To tell readers how he/she got through a tough time in his/her life by reading.

2 . The Ouray Ice Park sits at the mouth of a narrow box canyon sculpted by the Uncompahgre River. As we picked our way up the canyon, Davis, operations manager at the park, pointed out the various projects his staff were rushing to complete before opening day. There was signage to build, a new bridge to check, and of course, lots of ice to grow.

He showed. me the lines of water pipes and sprinklers (洒水器) located along the cliff edge. There are more than 200 of these sprinklers, which spray water directly onto the rock, creating walls of ice containing 100-plus climbs. Starting in November when the temperature drops, the ice farmers wet the rock with water to cool it, essentially building a canvas for the waterfalls. They use existing features on the rock to grow a variety of routes for all skill levels. Though the job involves much labour in freezing weather, Davis described growing ice as a kind of art form. If half an ice farmer’s job is creation, the other half is upkeep. Exposed water pipes in the mountains are easy to freeze and break and it is up to those farmers to fix them.

This winter has been unusually warm and temperatures, even in December, were not cold enough to make sufficient ice. It even rained a day before the park was set to open, destroying 30% of the ice farmers’ efforts. “Winter climate is less certain due to the warming of our planet,” said Heidi Steltzer, a professor of environment and sustainability. “Human-made ice may not be possible every year, but in years when it is, the ice park offers joy, a gathering place and opportunities of earning money to sustain rural mountain life.”

1. What does paragraph 1 mainly talk about?

A．The significance of building an ice park.

B．The geographical variety of the Ouray Ice Park.

C．The location and building schedule of the Ouray Ice Park.

D．The influence of the Uncompahgre River on the Ouray Ice Park.

2. Why is water sprinkled onto the rock in the park?

A．To make ice walls for climbing.

B．To form an attractive landscape.

C．To remove dirt from the rock surface.

D．To avoid the rock breaking in high temperatures.

3. Which is closest in meaning to the underlined word “upkeep” in paragraph 2?

A．Profit.

B．Repair.

C．Impact.

D．Service.

4. What does Heidi Steltzer think of the ice park?

A．It offers a method of recreation and livelihood.

B．It seems only a waste of manpower and money.

C．It has some unforeseeable impacts on local ecology.

D．It is better than other kinds of parks with its unique amusements.

3 . Success Requires “Ample Doses of Pain”

Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, has a simple message for young people who want to achieve greatness: No pain, no gain. That was essentially his message for students at his alma mater, Stanford University, where he made a speech at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.

“Greatness is not intelligence.     1     And character isn’t formed out of smart people; it’s formed out of people who suffered,” Huang said in response to a question about how students can maximize their shot at being successful.

    2     In 1993, he co-founded computer chip company Nvidia, where he’s served as CEO for more than three decades. The company’s success turned Huang into a billionaire. Now, with Nvidia’s chips in high demand for building AI software, it’s become one of the world’s most valuable companies with a valuation worth of $2 trillion.

“One of my great advantages is that I have very low expectations,” Huang said, noting that most Stanford graduates have very high expectations as a result of having an elite education. Often people with very high expectations have very low resilience because they are not accustomed to, or prepared for, failure. “     3     I don’t know how to teach it to you except for I hope suffering happens to you,” he said. Psychologists also tend to agree that resilient people are more likely to have the strength and confidence to handle challenges and bounce back from failure. Huang certainly had to struggle in his company’s early days.

“To this day I use the phrase ‘pain and suffering’ inside our company with great joy,” Huang told the Stanford students. “    4     You want greatness out of it.”

A．Greatness comes from character.

B．Unfortunately, resilience matters in success.

C．Building character is a key factor in determining success.

D．When it comes to achieving success, Huang knows more than most.

E．That’s why I still worry Nvidia could ultimately fail, despite its massive success.

F．I mean that in a happy way, because you want to refine the character of your company.

4 . 这家咖啡店展示着各种各样的豆子，不仅给饱受喧嚣之苦的顾客带来宽慰，也让他们借品尝之机来感悟人生起伏跌宕。 (display) (汉译英)
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5 . 她渐渐明白没有人能对这个问题给出令人信服的解释。 (dawn) (汉译英)
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6 . Trees are magicians with carbon, pulling it out of the air at remarkable rates to store it in their bodies. They are so good at removing this greenhouse gas that “planting trees” is often synonymous with doing environmental good.

And lots of people are planting trees. The number of tree-planting organizations has grown by almost 300 percent in the past 30 years, according to a 2021 paper in the journal Biological Conservation. But while tree planting can capture a great amount of carbon, it is hardly a silver bullet for the climate crisis — express estimate that even if we maximized our available lands for trees, this alone would not be enough to counteract carbon emissions caused by humans. Plus, many plantations grow the same few species in monocultures, which can hurt local biodiversity.

The minority of tree plantations are set up with carbon capture solely, or even primarily in mind, says Jacob Bukoski, a forestry scientist at Oregon State University. Most trees are planted with the goal of harvesting timber or wood pulp (木浆) for paper. Tree-planting organizations are more likely to create plantations for commercial reasons, the authors of the 2021 paper also note, rather than for biodiversity or carbon capture.

In forestry, there’s a saying that you have to plant “the right tree in the right place, for the right reason.” But when many tree plantations are established for commercial purposes, the tree that is planted is often not the “right” tree, says Jesús Aguirre-Gutiérrez, an ecologist at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford.

In a paper published recently in the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution, Aguirre-Gutiérrez and colleagues argue that focusing on the goal of carbon removal by natural process causes organizations to ignore the importance of restoring balanced ecosystems. The result is a collection of trees that do not support local organisms or promote biodiversity in the way native plant species would have. These problems deserve particular notice in tropical areas where land is vast, and conditions such as stable temperatures and high humidity promote tree growth, as ignoring them while planting trees is damaging. When plantations increased the woody cover of the Brazilian savannah by 40 percent, this “resulted in an about 30 percent reduction in the diversity of plants and ants,” Aguirre-Gutiérrez and his co-authors write in the new paper.

Aguirre-Gutiérrez doesn’t want to discourage people from growing more trees, he says. Rather, we need a better way to protect the natural ecosystems and species there, like encouraging the restoration of native forest tree species. Local plants will be “better adapted to the conditions” in these environments, he says, which means they, and nearby species, are more likely to thrive. “If we go in that direction, that will bring us the added value of capturing carbon, but also this sustainability.”

1. Experts are concerned about tree plantation to reduce greenhouse partly because ______.

A．the number of tree-planting organizations is growing too fast.

B．the speed of tree planting falls far behind that of carbon emission.

C．the selection of species in tree planting can harm local biodiversity.

D．the land available to plant trees is not fully explored and developed.

2. In paragraph 4, “the right reason” refers to ______.

A．mass plantation of carbon-absorbing trees

B．biodiversity preservation with local species

C．harvest of timber or wood pulp for paper

D．tree plantation for commercial purposes

3. Why does the author mention “Brazilian savannah” in paragraph 5?

A．To show the benefits of planting trees in tropical areas

B．To illustrate the vastness and eco-diversity of tropical areas

C．To highlight the negative impact of planting trees in tropical areas

D．To discourage people from randomly planting trees in tropical areas

4. Which of the following statements will Aguirre-Gutiérrez most likely approve of?

A．People and organizations should plant as many trees as they can to capture carbon.

B．Plants in tropical areas can thrive better due to its vast land and agreeable climate.

C．Preserving biodiversity plays a more sustainable role than capturing carbon only.

D．Tree plantation organizations are irresponsible and focus only on making profits.

7 . We’ve all been there: You get a small appliance that seems like a good and useful product at the time, but it ends up sitting in a cupboard and never gets used after the initial excitement wears off. But now there’s a new gadget for the kitchen that promises to be much more than a one-task wonder. Meet the Thermomix TM6.

What is Thermomix?

Simply put, Thermomix is a kitchen appliance that looks like a giant food processor or blender. While Thermomix may look similar to other appliances, it’s nothing like them: the Thermomix TM6 has the ability to connect to thousands of online recipes using Wi-Fi and the Cookidoo app or website, and it will guide you through cooking them, measuring ingredients, and performing all the chopping, prep, and even the cooking in this one device. In all, the Thermomix TM6 is able to handle 20 different kitchen appliance functions.

What’s the difference?

Anyone who’s familiar with Thermomix may wonder what’s new on the TM6 version, over the previousTM5. The upgraded TM6 has Wi-Fi connectivity (the previous version needed recipe “chips” installed), and a larger color screen, plus it now boasts a higher heat option and longer runtime.

How to cook with Thermomix?

Despite the somewhat overwhelming array of functions, the Thermomix is easy to use. Just choose a recipe, and the bot walks you through what to do; it handles the order of tasks, timing, all the measuring, stirring, speed, heat levels, and fine-tuning. You just add ingredients and follow its instructions.

Our Take

The new Thermomix TM6 is a capable, helpful kitchen device. Despite its larger footprint, it can actually replace a lot of small appliances and automate many kitchen and cooking chores. Plus, you can use it to cook a dish or a full meal, and not have to worry about overcooking something because it’s programmed to make everything with the touch of a chef.

On the downside, it’s quite expensive (ringing in at $1,499), but when you realize it can replace literally half a dozen other appliances (or prevent you from needing to buy them in the first place), it seems like it can more than pay for itself quickly. Thermomix TM6 is available from Thermomix’s website.

1. Thermomix TM6 is different from other kinds of kitchen appliances in that ______.

A．it boasts a variety of recipes and cooking apps

B．it has a larger color screen with Wi-Fi connection

C．it can run for a longer time and under a higher heat

D．it combines different kinds of appliance functions

2. If a Mum wants to cook a new dish for her children by Thermomix, one thing she has to do is ______

A．control the order of the procedure	B．search for a recipe on the website
C．add ingredients to the machine	D．adjust heat levels when necessary

3. You are most likely to read this article when you click on ______

A．www.goodshopping.com/kitchen_appliances	B．www.everydaycooking.com/product_review
C．www.thermomix.com/users_manual	D．www.allrecipes.com/prepare_ingredients

8 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. cracked B. court C. assured D. stressed E. harboring F. making G. roared H. groundbreaking I. ultimate J. sensation K. check

“Queen Wen” Ready to Reign

Zheng Qinwen has become the second Chinese to ever reach a major singles final after Li Na’s pioneering triumph at the Australian Open a decade ago. So close to the championship and so disappointed! Yet, it is with so much pride that we can reflect on the journey of a Grand Slam champion in the     1    . Despite her tough final loss to defending champion Aryna Sabalenka, the tennis     2     Zheng’s amazing run at the Australian Open has served up another major boost for the sport in China.

An aggressive talent,     3     championship dreams since watching Li in 2014, Zheng was one step away from having her own name on the same trophy, as she started battle against the mighty Sabalenka on Saturday evening,     4     by an enthusiastic Chinese crowd at the Rod Laver Arena and the entire tennis community back home.

Two sets and 76 minutes later, Zheng’s first Grand Slam final ended in an alert reality     5     that, the 21-year-old still has plenty of catching up to do before reaching the very top of the game, technically and mentally, even though she     6     the world top 10. It is a must because, if one loses, there must be a reason behind it. Zheng has to try to figure out why, and then she will come back stronger and better next time.

Coming up just one step short of the     7     prize, Zheng held back tears at the award ceremony while gazing at the trophy when Sabalenka lifted it for a second time in a row. She     8     how much better she could have done during the postmatch interviews, even with media all greeting her with words of encouragement. Nothing seemed enough to satisfy the ambitious competitor, who’s already achieved many “firsts” for Chinese tennis over the past two weeks.

With Zheng leading the way, China will have seven female players ranked within the top 100. This progress owes a lot to Li’s     9     career, which helped encourage Zheng’s generation to dream bigger. Witnessing the collective rise of the next generation, Li said she can rest     10     that the game’s future is in good hands.

9 . For what is in store for the future, I am confident that our friendship can ______ a raging ocean storm, like an oasis in the desert unafraid of the threat of a drought.

A．leave off

B．settle for

C．carry on

D．ride out

10 . It is more ______ to make another effort and try to finish the work on time rather than ______ there, telling your sufferings to those unrelated people.

A．worthwhile; sit

B．worthwhile; seating

C．worthy, seat

D．worth, sitting