1 . Precognitive dreams are dreams that seemingly predict the future which cannot be inferred from actually available information. Former US President Abraham Lincoln once revealed the frightening dream to his law partner and friend Ward Hill Lamon, “…Then I heard people weep… ‘Who is dead in the White House?’ I demanded. ‘The President,’ ‘he was killed!’…” The killing did happen later.

Christopher French, Professor in the Department of Psychology at Goldsmiths, stated the most likely explanation for such a phenomenon was coincidence (巧合). “In addition to pure coincidences we must also consider the unreliability of memory”, he added. Asked what criteria would have to be met for him to accept that precognitive dreams were a reality, he said, “The primary problem with tests of the claim is that the subjects are unable to tell when the event(s)they’ve dreamed about will happen.”

However, some claimed to make such tests practicable. Professor Caroline Watt at the University of Edinburgh, has conducted studies into precognitive dreaming. She stated that knowing future through dreams challenged the basic assumption of science — causality (relationship of cause and effect).

Dick Bierman, a retired physicist and psychologist, who has worked at the Universities of Amsterdam, Utrecht and Groningen, has put forward a theory that may explain precognitive dreams. It is based on the fact that when scientists use certain mathematical descriptions to talk about things like electromagnetism (电磁学), these descriptions favour the belief that time only moves in one direction. However, in practice the wave that is running backwards in time does exist. This concept is called the time symmetry, meaning that the laws of physics look the same when time runs forward or backward. But he believes that time symmetry breaks down due to external conditions. “The key of the theory is that it assumes that there is a special context that restores the broken time-symmetry, if the waves running backwards are ‘absorbed’ by a consistent multi-particle (多粒子) system. The brain under a dream state may be such a system where broken time-symmetry is partially restored. This is still not a full explanation for precognitive dreams but it shows where physics might be adjusted to accommodate the phenomenon,” he explains.

Although Bierman’s explanation is still based on guesses and has not accepted by mainstream science, Watt does think it is worth considering. For now, believing that it’s possible to predict future with dreams remains an act of faith. Yet, it’s possible that one day we’ll wake up to a true understanding of this fascinating phenomenon.

1. According to French, what makes it difficult to test precognitive dreams?

A．Unavailability of people’s dreams.

B．That coincidences happen a lot in reality.

C．That criteria for dream reliability are not trustworthy.

D．People’s inability to tell when dreamt events will happen.

2. Believers in precognitive dreams may question the truth of ________.

A．the assumption of causality	B．the time symmetry
C．memories of ordinary people	D．modern scientific tests

3. We can infer from the passage that ________.

A．Lincoln was warned of the killing by his friend

B．Watt carried out several experiments on causality

C．researches on electromagnetism are based on the time symmetry

D．time’s moving in two directions may justify precognitive dreams

4. Which might be the best title of the passage?

A．Should Dreams Be Assessed?

B．Can Dreams Predict the Future?

C．How Can Physics Be Changed to Explain Dreams?

D．Why Should Scientists Study Precognitive Dreams?

3 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage 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.

Remote Work Slows Senior Housing Market Recovery

With the rise of remote work, the market for senior housing has met with problems in its recovery. Only a few old people choose to live in senior-living communities     1     the growing senior population and the cancelation of COVID-19 restrictions once making family visits difficult.     2     this trend suggests is that people’s shift to remote work contributes to the slow rebound of the senior housing market. That is, remote work is keeping many older Americans from moving into senior-living communities once warmly     3     (welcome).

When more adults began working remotely during the pandemic (流行病), they were able to check in on aging parents easily — they     4     take care of their parents’ issues on short notice.

Experts have been analyzing the phenomenon in different ways. Some found that the greater flexibility to care for parents     5     (mean) people’s delay in sending aged parents to expensive senior-housing accommodations. Therefore, markets with high levels of people working from home usually have lower senior-housing occupancy rates. Others said remote work might have some effect but also pointed to different factors. For instance, many seniors think that their family wallets are getting thinner, making some of them reluctant     6     (send) to senior-living communities.

The age at which people enter senior housing is also increasing,     7     serves as another sign that shows people are choosing to delay transitioning. The rising cost of senior living weighs heavily on that decision. The CPI (consumer-price index) for nursing homes and adult day services rose 4.5% last May compared with     8     in May, 2022.

Still, many senior-housing operators are optimistic. When     9     (illustrate) their point, they showed an increase in the number of people turning 80 years old over the following years and the actual wealth they have collected. Moreover, they find remote work arrangements are decreasing in some parts of the country,     10     employees there have seen their lowered productivity while working from home.

4 . 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. authorities   B. conflicts   C. increasingly   D. infected E. invisibly F. oddly G. outbreaks   H. present   I. subjected   J. suspected   K. unexpected

Deadly virus approaches tigers

India’s most important tiger conservation body is to investigate growing concern that Asia’s wild tigers are     1     to a deadly new disease.

The National Tiger Conservation Authority is to fun d a study of Canine Distemper Virus(CDV) in six of the most important areas for the species, which could confirm a problem that a few experts have     2    for a number of years.

There have been     3    of CDV in wild tigers in other areas. According to Dr Dale Miquelle of the Wildlife Conservation Society, quite a few tigers were either killed or seriously affected by a disease that was probably CDV in 2010. And the Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Reserve has also reported a(n)     4     decline in tiger numbers.

CDV may also exist in the tiger population in Sumatra, where animals have been reported to be behaving     5    and losing their fear of humans.

Dr John Lewis of the British charity Wildlife Vets International is helping the Sumatran    6    to fight the risk by training local vets in what he calls “the world’s first tiger- disease monitoring program”.

Lewis also believes that the way CDV changes tigers’ behavior could be a factor where tiger- human     7    are an issue. This could be true of the Sundarbans, a large area shared by India and Bangladesh where man-eating is spreading.

Perhaps we should not be surprised that tigers are     8    with CDV. In 2004, it killed 1,000 lions in the Serengeti in Tanzania, and as wildlife reserves are    9    surrounded by people with dogs, the problem is only likely to get worse.

But as Miquelle told BBC Wildlife, “Very few people were aware of the potential threat, let alone looking for it, even if it is     10    in the system. But at least now they are.”

5 .

A．A sports meeting.	B．A hiking trip.
C．A press conference.	D．A surprise party.

7 . 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 awareness       B. clear       C. encourage       D. ignore E. immediate       F. limiting       G. redesigning       H. significantly I. team       J. theme       K. unlikely

Go Recycling

No one looking at the state of Earth in 2023 can be in any doubt that we are facing three serious environmental problems: climate problem, loss of biodiversity (生物多样性) and pollution of air, soil and water. To solve the problems, we increase the use of electric cars,     1     greener eating and reduce plastic use. However, sometimes these solutions can be opposite to the expected goals. For instance, creating space for biofuel crops to give off fewer pollutants and greenhouse gases can, in fact,     2     increase the cutting down of trees. That means in most cases solutions aiming at one problem each time are     3     to be effective. And, what is perhaps lacking is a(n)     4     of how interlinked these problems are.

We should realize that a key     5     linking all the three problems is waste. The root cause of global warming is CO₂, a waste gas. The seas are polluted by plastic and other waste products. We     6     forests, among other things, to grow more food — much of which goes to waste.

A shocking figure lies at the heart of our special report on our world — of the more than 100 billion tons of things that humans use each year, hardly 10% is recycled. That makes it obvious a full-range war on waste should be paid     7     attention. The situation requires our speedy moving away from the way of thinking — “take, make, throw” — towards a more recyclable one, which means we should begin     8     the products and when they reach the end of their useful lives, they can be recycled.

Solving the three problems calls for a huge transition with joint efforts. Governments must take the lead by introducing laws with the purpose of rewarding green practices, such as the     9     of waste. Industries can reduce, re-use and recycle wherever possible, and     10     themselves with suppliers and the like-minded to realize recyclable business models.

9 . Social Masking

Amanda is always an expert at working the room. She would adopt the manner of the people around her to fit in while hiding her true personality. This is social masking, the process of hiding your natural way of interacting with others so you can feel accepted.     1    Instead, they are hoping to fit in with everybody else. Social masking is a set of learned pattern-matching behaviors, movements and actions where you try to be normal to fit in rather than stand out.

    2    People all wear certain social masks in order to get through some tricky life situations with confidence, according to Dr. Tara Quinn-Cirillo. And some experts even think social masking is built in all human beings at a physical level, adding that something in our brain gives indications of how to essentially stay safe and not stick out.

In a world that often tells us to just be ourselves, you might wonder why we are still dependent on these social masking behaviors. “Social masking happens because we as a species want to be included,” says Tara. “It has been a tribal thing of being together rather than being on our own, from a historical perspective.     3    ”

There is a huge difference between naturally identifying with someone and consciously social masking.    4    Social masking, on the other hand, involves a conscious effort to change your personality to suit your surroundings. It typically involves depressing your natural urges and changing your personal interests to fit the crowd.

A．Social maskers do not try hard to match other people in pace and tone.

B．Social masking is something we all engage in to some extent.

C．Social maskers are not trying to fox anyone.

D．When we are in natural identification with someone, it happens naturally, and there is very little effort involved.

E．It’s adopted by people unable to naturally act in a way considered socially acceptable.

F．That is, it’s an ancient part of our evolution to socialize, rather than be anti-social or a misfit.

10 . Antibiotics, which can destroy or prevent the growth of bacteria and cure infections, are vital to modern medicine. Their ability to kill bacteria without harming the patient has saved billions of lives and made surgical procedures much safer. But after decades of overuse, their powers are fading. Some bacteria have evolved resistance, creating a growing army of superbugs, against which there is little effective treatment. Antimicrobial (抗菌的) resistance, expected to kill 10 million people a year by 2050 up from around 1 million in 2019, has been seen as a crisis by many.

It would be unwise to rely on new antibiotics to solve the problem. The rate at which resistance emerges is increasing. Some new drugs last only two years before bacteria develop resistance. When new antibiotics do arrive, doctors often store them, using them only reluctantly and for short periods when faced with the most persistent infections. That limits sales, making new antibiotics an unappealing idea for most drug firms.

Governments have been trying to fix the problem by channeling cash into research in drug firms. That has produced only limited improvements. But there is a phenomenon worth a look. Microbiologists have known for decades that disease-causing bacteria can suffer from illnesses of their own. They are supersensitive to attacks by phages, specialized viruses that infect bacteria and often kill them. Phages are considered a promising alternative to antibiotics.

Using one disease-causing virus to fight bacteria has several advantages. Like antibiotics, phages only tend to choose particular targets, leaving human cells alone as they infect and destroy bacterial ones. Unlike antibiotics, phages can evolve just as readily as bacteria can, meaning that even if bacteria do develop resistance, phages may be able to evolve around them in turn.

That, at least, is the theory. The trouble with phages is that comparatively little is known about them. After the discovery of penicillin, the first antibiotic, in 1928, they were largely ignored in the West. Given the severity of the antibiotic-resistance problem, it would be a good idea to find out more about them.

The first step is to run more clinical trials. Interest from Western firms is growing. But it is being held back by the fact that phages are an even less appealing investment than antibiotics. Since they are natural living things, there may be trouble patenting them, making it hard to recover any investment.

Governments can help fun d basic research into phage treatment and clarify the law around exactly what is and is not patentable. In time they can set up phage banks so as to make production cheaper. And they can spread awareness of the risks of overusing antibiotics, and the potential benefits of phages.

1. We can learn from paragraphs 1 and 2 that        .

A．doctors tend to use new antibiotics when the patients ask for them

B．antimicrobial resistance is developing more rapidly than predicted

C．new antibiotics fail to attract drug firms due to limited use of them

D．previous antibiotics are effective in solving modern health problems

2. What is phages’ advantage over antibiotics?

A．They can increase human cells when fighting bacteria.

B．They are not particular about which cells to infect and kill.

C．They can evolve accordingly when bacteria develop resistance.

D．They are too sensitive to be infected by disease-causing bacteria.

3. According to the passage, the obstacle to phage treatment is that        .

A．there is little chance of patenting phages in the future

B．governments provide financial support for other research

C．the emergence of superbugs holds back drug firms’ interest

D．over-dependence on antibiotics distracts attention from phages

4. What is the main idea of the passage?

A．Governments fail to stop the use of antibiotics.

B．Phages could help prevent an antibiotics crisis.

C．Development of antibiotics is limited by phages.

D．Antimicrobial resistance calls for new antibiotics.