1 . Do you have a favorite sport? Are you passionate about sewing or reading? Typically, you engage in these activities simply because you enjoy them. Would you be taken aback to know the overjustification effect that when you are rewarded for your beloved activities, your desire to participate in them diminishes?

Edward Deci, a psychology professor, conducted a series of experiments, in one of which Deci divided the participants into two groups: one was paid to complete a puzzle, and the other was not paid to. After money was removed, the group that was previously paid to play showed less motivation to complete the task than the group that was never paid and only did the puzzle for enjoyment. The outcome demonstrated the overjustification effect, which occurs when an external stimulation decreases a person’s internal motivation to perform a behavior or engage in an activity.

According to the self-determination theory, three conditions are essential for people to feel internally motivated and perform at their best: autonomy, freedom from external restrictions; competence, the need to feel capable, and relatedness, the need to feel connected with others. In Deci’s experiment, money acted as a tie, which reduced participants’ autonomy, a crucial component of internal motivation, discouraging them from experiencing the freedom of external restrictions. The pressure to perform for the money lessened the pleasure and freedom felt by those who were doing the puzzle merely for fun.

But if external stimulation is tied to performance, the overjustification effect is less influential. For example, being rewarded for studying is unlikely to decrease internal motivation because the grade depends upon actually doing well rather than just going through the motions.

While the overjustification effect can reduce motivation, some strategies can lower its impact. One is to focus on providing feedback and recognition rather than concrete rewards. For instance, praising an individual’s effort or acknowledging their accomplishments can maintain their internal motivation. Additionally, allowing individuals to have autonomy and control over their tasks also works. By giving them the freedom to choose how they complete tasks, individuals are more likely to be internally motivated and experience a greater sense of satisfaction and engagement.

1. What does the underlined word “diminishes” in paragraph 1 mean?

A．Remains.

B．Weakens.

C．Ceases.

D．Solidifies.

2. How did Deci prove the overjustification effect in the experiment?

A．By interpreting a concept.

B．By presenting an argument.

C．By making a comparison.

D．By describing a phenomenon.

3. What is mainly illustrated in paragraph 3?

A．The skills needed for a puzzle.

B．The core elements of inner drives.

C．The impact of autonomy on competence.

D．The theoretical basis for the overjustification effect.

4. Which serves as an example of preventing the overjustification effect?

A．Speaking highly of a pupil’s hard work.

B．Rewarding a kid with candy for playing the violin.

C．Offering a clerk financial bonuses for daily routines.

D．Promising an employee a decent position for doing his duty.

2 . 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。

With the start of new school, freshmen of Hendersonville High School in Nashville were excited to meet new classmates and teachers. Among them, however,15-year-old Sergio Peralta was feeling very nervous because his right hand had never fully formed since he was born. Going to a new school and being “different” is always scary. Sergio was particularly concerned with what his classmates would think of him.

Sergio’s parents had trained him to use his left hand from an early age. As he grew up, he was used to not using his right hand. He could write with his left one and do some things with special tricks or techniques. Despite this, in the first days of new school, Sergio always felt like hiding his underdeveloped right hand in his sleeve as if nobody would ever find out if he did so.

It didn’t take long for someone to learn Sergio’s secret. Jeff Wilkins, the teacher of Sergio’s engineering class, figured out that Sergio was missing part of his hand and decided to do something for the new student. Jeff had been leading a robotics project in the school and expert in 3D printing technology. Besides, he hoped to take advantage of this hands-on chance to help his robotics students learn more about engineering and how building a robotic hand worked.

So in his class, Jeff announced with great enthusiasm, “You’re supposed to be engineering, coming up with new ideas and solving issues. Now Sergio needs a new hand, so we’ll work together to build Sergio a robotic hand.” His words fueled everyone’s curiosity and creativity.

For the next four weeks, Jeff and his class including Sergio worked on the project. After some precise measurements and researches, the class put forward a design draft. Jeff made a few adjustments and gave them some practical suggestions. With access to online models and a 3D printer, they eventually created a robotic hand, which was intended to look good and work well, like catching something.

注意：
1．续写词数应为150左右;
2．请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。

Then came the final testing day.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The life-changing gift for Sergio drew huge attention.

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3 . 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。

In 1998, an eco-museum was established in Suojia Miao, Yi and Hui Township, China’s Guizhou Province. Consisting of 12 villages, including Gaoxing Village, the eco-museum is different from traditional ones. It isn’t enclosed by walls and    1     it showcases is more than various collections.

Xiong Shaozhen, a 77-year-old resident of Gaoxing Village, weaves every day with a loom (织布机) in a wooden house, her daughter-in-law busy    2    ( learn )the craft from her．“The costumes, language, music and even the way of production of the local community are all living     3    (significance) exhibits,” said Luo Gang, head of the museum.

A decade ago,Gaoxing Village    4    (list) in a traditional Chinese villages catalog (目录).However,Luo found there were few looms left in the village.He    5    (apply) for a budget from relevant departments and invited professional craftsmen to produce looms for the villagers. He asked each villager that received the machine    6    (use)it and train an inheritor (继承者) of the local weaving technique. In addition, most of the old folk houses with their    7    (roof) made of straw needed regular replacement and Luo had their original appearance     8    (restore).

There are 25 such eco-museums in the province, which are in line     9     sustainable development principles. Not only do they guide villagers to perform independent-management and activate their passion for preserving their traditional cultures, but they create more jobs and give     10    boost to local tourism.

4 . Though researchers have long known that adults build unconscious (无意识的) preferences over a lifetime of making choices between things that are essentially the same, the new finding that even babies engage in this phenomenon demonstrates that this way of justifying choice is intuitive (凭直觉的) and somehow fundamental to the human experience.

“The act of making a choice changes how we feel about our options,” said Alex Silver, a Johns Hopkins researcher. “Even infants who are really just at the start of making choices for themselves have this preference.”

The findings are published today in the journal Psychological Science. People assume they choose things that they like. But research suggests that’s sometimes backwards: we like things because we choose them. And, we dislike things that we don’t choose. “Adults make these inferences unconsciously,” said co-author Lisa Feigenson, a Johns Hopkins scientist in child development. “We justify our choice after the fact.”

This makes sense for adults in a consumer culture who must make random choices every day, between everything from toothpaste brands to styles of jeans. The question was when exactly people start doing this. So they turned to babies, who don’t get many choices so, as Feigenson puts it, are “a perfect window into the origin of this tendency.”

The team brought 10-to 20-month-old babies into the lab and gave them a choice of objects to play with; two equally bright and colorful soft blocks. They set them far apart, so the babies had to crawl to one or the other — a random choice. After the baby chose one of the toys, the researchers took it away and came back with a new option. The babies could then pick from the toy they didn’t play with the first time, or a brand new toy. Their choices showed they “dis-prefer the unchosen object.”

To continue studying the evolution of choice in babies, the lab will next look at the idea of “choice overload.” For adults, choice is good, but too many choices can be a problem, so the lab will try to determine if that is also true for babies.

1. What is people’s assumption about the act of making choices?

A．They like what they choose.

B．They choose what they like.

C．They base choices on the fact.

D．They make choices thoughtfully.

2. Why were babies selected as subjects for the study?

A．To help them make better choices.

B．To guide them to perceive the world.

C．To track the root of making random choices.

D．To deepen the understanding of a consumer culture.

3. What does the study on the babies show?

A．They like novel objects.

B．Their choices are mostly based on colors.

C．Their random choices become preferences.

D．They are unable to make choices for themselves.

4. What will the following study focus on?

A．The law of “choice overload”.

B．The problem of adults’ many choices.

C．Why too many choices can influence adults.

D．Whether babies are troubled with many choices.

6 . Plastic fishing nets, the so-called ghost nets, abandoned yearly in the sea—about 1 million tons—are more than just rubbish; they’re a killer. Fish, sea birds, and turtles get caught in the netting and die, with more species at risk.

Much shocked at this, Pranveer Singh Rathore, a materials-science engineer and materials R&D manager at Samsung, and his team set themselves the task of giving new life to the deadly nets. Last month, Samsung revealed a new line of Galaxy products made in part from recycled plastic fishing nets for the first time. The company estimates this year alone it can recycle over 50 tons of ocean-bound plastic into the key components that will go into its smartphones, tablets, and computers, thus taking a bite out of the global ghost nets problem.

It’s no small task to give waste fishing nets a second act. The nets are typically made of a substance called nylon which tends to dramatically degrade (降解) the longer it sits in the ocean and is exposed to the sun. “This makes it nearly impossible to use abandoned fishing nets directly,” Rathore explains. Besides, high-performance smartphone, tablet, or PC has to be waterproof and can survive severe weather. The nylon in the fishing nets falls far short of that level of durability (耐用).

To deal with that problem, Samsung last summer teamed up with two partners: one to collect and transform the nets into tiny nylon pellets (颗粒) while the other to strengthen their toughness and durability. The end result: The partners hit upon an eco-friendly and high-performance plastic material that’s being used to build the component parts for its latest line of products. For example, two parts of the Galaxy S22 mobile phone—the key bracket and the inner cover—are made of these fishing-net plastic materials. Samsung aims to use even more upcycled materials in future product lines.

“That’s the hope for the globe and our mission,” Rathore smiles.

1. What does the underlined word “this” in paragraph 2 refer to?

A．Rubbish in the sea.	B．Recycling the deadly nets.
C．Ocean species’ extinction.	D．Ghost nets’ threat to sea life.

2. What is paragraph 3 mainly about?

A．The low level of durability of nylon.	B．The second act of waste fishing nets.
C．The great difficulty in reusing ghost nets.	D．The positive comment on Samsung’s products.

3. What is special about Samsung’s new Galaxy products?

A．They are made from tiny nylon pellets.	B．They put an end to the problem of fishing nets.
C．They can stand up to water and severe weather.	D．They contain materials recycled from ghost nets.

4. What can we learn about Rathore’s work?

A．It makes plastic easier to break down.	B．It marks the shift of Samsung’s mission.
C．It protects the planet from choking on plastic.	D．It raises public awareness of ocean exploration.

7 . In the paper Diversity, Constance Woodman, a doctoral graduate student of Texas A & M University, and Professor Donald Brightsmith shared their findings from a project with Chris Biro, a globally recognized free-fight trainer, which included documenting Biro’s training process step by step so that conservationists can apply his methods when releasing birds into the wild.

Biro has trained 400 students on how to free-fly their birds, but his process was only captured by video previously.

“We have colleagues raising and releasing birds, but their main objective is conservation and they have no chance to write up a lot of the science,” Brightsmith said. “A & M’s role in this project is to ensure this information gets put into a format so others can read, criticize, use and improve it. If information hasn’t made it into scientific literature, it’s not improving future parrot (鹦鹉) conservation.”

Woodman and Biro spent years training three flocks (群) of multiple parrot species using Biro’s techniques, thoroughly documenting every step. These 37 birds, which collectively spent 500 months in free-flight, were hand-raised from chicks to build a strong bond with the trainer before being gradually taught new commands and introduced to increasingly complex environments to learn the skills necessary to safely fly in open, uncontrolled areas. They learned to recognize and even frighten natural enemies, and avoid unsafe situations.

Traditionally, attempting to release hand-raised parrots has resulted in birds that show little fear of humans, increasing their chances of being trapped by hunters. Biro used a “kernel flock”, human-socialized birds trained in free-light, to teach survival behaviors to other parrots. This technique being applied to establishing new bird flocks in the wild allows conservationists to release wild birds without having to train them themselves, cutting the difference when human socialization is not desirable in wild birds.

After the “kernel flock” trains the non-socialized birds, it could be recalled and moved to another location, leaving behind a well-established settlement of wild parrots.

“The work we’ve done—spending years working with a group to learn how they do what they do and then translating that into something useful for scientists—is critical to moving conservation forward,” Woodman said.

1. What’s the main task of A & M in the project?

A．Shooting training videos.	B．Protecting hand-raised birds.
C．Monitoring experimental data.	D．Forming scientific literature.

2. What’s the top priority before training the 37 birds?

A．Getting familiar with their behavior.	B．Establishing emotional ties with them.
C．Instructing them to follow commands.	D．Teaching them to identify natural dangers.

3. What’s the point of using a “kernel flock” in wild birds?

A．It prevents them settling in open space.

B．It allows them to socialize with humans.

C．It frees people from training them in person.

D．It guarantees consistent intervention in them.

4. According to Woodman, what can they offer to scientists in parrot conservation?

A．Lessons of failure.	B．Valuable references.
C．Global cases of reintroduction.	D．Advanced evaluation systems.

8 . Perhaps you know two people would get on well—if only they would speak to each other. Your shy friends aren’t intentionally avoiding one another; it is just not in their nature to strike up a conversation. You can help things along by greasing (润滑) the wheels of social interaction.     1     In fact, they might both be grateful that you helped them get past the initial awkwardness.

Make Introductions

The first step to getting two shy people to talk to one another is to offer an introduction.     2     If you see two shy people sitting together but not talking, walk over and offer an ice breaker. A brief introduction with a piece of information that ties the two shy people together will be most helpful.

Ease Anxiety

    3     As they talk, an inner thought tells them that they are not good enough, smart enough or funny enough. They think that everyone else is judging them and that they never measure up. You may be able to help two shy people overcome this social hurdle by building their social confidence and belief that they are mutually (相互地) liked.

Find Mutual Interests

Give your shy friends a reason to talk. Figure out what they have in common and let them know about it. For example, if Josh and David are both into watching the UFC, make an introduction and a comment about the latest fight.     4     But once the two shy people are absorbed in their favorite topic, you can quietly slip away.

Get Active

Shy people have trouble living in the moment. They tend to think about past weaknesses or worry about future social obstacles rather than focus on the current situation. Put your shy friends in a situation that forces them to stop thinking so much and have a little fun. Ideally, your shy acquaintances should have to work together to overcome an obstacle—similar to what happens at company party.     5    

A．Some shy people are their own worst critics.

B．Most shy people are hesitant to offer a handshake or a name.

C．You might need to include yourself in the conversation at first.

D．Don’t worry that your shy friends will feel that you are interfering.

E．Promote the conversation by easing the anxiety shared by your shy friends.

F．They will come away with a shared experience and hopefully a tighter bond.

G．Getting to know the likes and dislikes of your shy friends will make this easier.

9 . Several years ago, a neighbor kid kicked a football and broke a basement window of my house. Due to financial problems, I ______ it up, thinking I’d get to it someday.

Over the years, I had planned to upgrade to energy-efficient windows. But with the frame (窗框) rusted (锈) and firmly ______ in the foundation, whoever did it would need to chisel (凿) it out by hand. It would be a ______ process and there were six of those windows in the house. The cost was estimated at $15,000. It was simply ______.

Honestly, the thought of that window ______ me for years. I knew I needed to fix it, but I had built up the ______ so much in my mind that I put it off again and again.

Then I had a job change and needed to sell the house before moving away. But it was almost ______ to find a buyer if there was a broken window. So I pulled off the boards to face this thing head-on. I grabbed some rust remover, ______ it around the frame of the window, and gave it a pull. To my astonishment, it easily ______. I took the window downtown. It only cost me $12. I could have ______ the problem for only $12 when it occurred, but I let it bother me for five years!

______, this isn’t just about my window. Many of us live with broken windows of one type or another. They are things that seriously affect our ______ of life. If you recognize your broken window, don’t ______ to mend it. It may turn out to be ______ than expected. Usually we suffer more in_______ than in reality.

1.

A．tore

B．made

C．boarded

D．packed

2.

A．lost

B．stuck

C．buried

D．mixed

3.

A．brain-burning

B．labor-consuming

C．energy-wasting

D．risk-taking

4.

A．in a mess

B．beyond control

C．at hand

D．out of reach

5.

A．went against

B．relied on

C．ate at

D．appealed to

6.

A．difficulty

B．confidence

C．confusion

D．harm

7.

A．shameful

B．impossible

C．pointless

D．unfair

8.

A．blew

B．turned

C．passed

D．spread

9.

A．broke

B．fell

C．moved

D．missed

10.

A．addressed

B．ignored

C．delayed

D．considered

11.

A．Luckily

B．Consequently

C．Unexpectedly

D．Actually

12.

A．quality

B．pace

C．way

D．meaning

13.

A．attempt

B．guarantee

C．hesitate

D．pretend

14.

A．easier

B．tougher

C．rarer

D．worse

15.

A．practice

B．memory

C．principle

D．imagination

10 . My son left our home in California for Cornell University several days ago. Yesterday he called, saying he was feeling ________ , He had no ________ to go down to the dining hall because he had hardly ________ the whole night before due to food poisoning.

I googled and found a convenience store on campus. I immediately ________ and got Seth, the manager, on the phone. I explained the trouble and asked whether I could buy some items to be ________ in my son's room.

After hearing me out, Seth said, "I'm so sorry that your son is having such a（n）________ start to the term. Don't worry. I'll ________ it for your son. What would you like to buy?”

I told him what I wanted and he ________ to send these things to my son as soon as he could.

My son texted me within one hour that the things had been ________. I was ________ to know he had some food at his bedside. Grateful, I called Seth to ask how much I owed him and that I could let my son ________ him later on.

“Forget it,“ Seth said immediately, "We got this. Hope your son feels better soon.”

“Oh, no, no, I can't take your things for nothing, I ________ .

"You can send us some of the California sunshine,"   Seth replied ________, leaving me speechless and touched.

In fact, it is Seth who has given me ________ that will last a lifetime. He made sure my son's first week at college was warm and sunny, and helped him build ________ that the world is a friendly place.

1.

A．ashamed

B．disappointed

C．bored

D．unwell

2.

A．time

B．courage

C．energy

D．mood

3.

A．slept

B．eaten

C．moved

D．recovered

4.

A．went

B．called

C．left

D．replied

5.

A．given back

B．picked up

C．cleared away

D．dropped off

6.

A．hopeless

B．unforgettable

C．different

D．unpleasant

7.

A．arrange

B．buy

C．keep

D．order

8.

A．claimed

B．attempted

C．promised

D．declined

9.

A．prepared

B．delivered

C．collected

D．examined

10.

A．relieved

B．proud

C．honored

D．astonished

11.

A．reward

B．praise

C．pay

D．remind

12.

A．insisted

B．demanded

C．admitted

D．complained

13.

A．shyly

B．considerately

C．jokingly

D．curiously

14.

A．confidence

B．warmth

C．support

D．inspiration

15.

A．expectation

B．influence

C．determination

D．faith