1 . AI could make it less necessary to learn foreign languages. That is good news for travelers, bad news for soulful connection.
Travel has long been a motivator for study — unless people start to feel AI tools offer a good-enough service. Some are concerned that apps are turning language acquisition into a dwindling pursuit. Douglas Hofstadter, a writer, has argued that something important will disappear when people talk through machines. He describes giving a hesitant, difficult speech in Mandarin, which required a lot of work but offered a sense of achievement at the end. Who would show off taking a plane to the top of Mount Everest?
Others are less worried. Most people do not move abroad or have the kind of sustained contact with a foreign culture that requires them to put in the work to become fluent. Nor do most people learn languages for the purpose of humanizing themselves or training their brains. On their holiday, they just want a beer and pizza.
As AI translation becomes a more popular labour-saving tool, people will divide into two groups. There will be those who want to challenge their minds, put themselves in other cultures or force their thinking into new pathways. This lot will still take on language study, often aided by technology. Others will look at learning a new language with a mix of admiration and confusion, as they might with extreme endurance (忍耐力) sports: “Good for you, if that’s your thing, but a bit painful for my taste.”
But a focus on the learner alone misses the fundamentally social nature of language. It is a bit like analyzing the benefits of close relationships to heart health but overlooking the inner value of those bonds themselves. When you try to ask directions in broken Japanese or make a joke in hesitant German, you are making direct contact with someone. And when you speak a language well enough to tell a story with perfect timing or put subtle (微妙的) shading on an argument, that connection is still deeper.
1. What does the word “dwindling” mean in paragraph 2?| A．Growing. | B．Lasting. | C．Declining. | D．Challenging. |
| A．Using AI tools to do the translation. |
| B．Doing the work that gives you satisfaction. |
| C．Making effort to learn a new language. |
| D．Studying a language aided by technology. |
| A．People should stretch their minds in life. |
| B．AI translation tools offer a good service. |
| C．Extreme endurance sports are worth trying. |
| D．Language learning builds deep connection. |
| A．Language learning benefits learners alone. |
| B．Language learning is of value to human health. |
| C．We should reflect on language learning methods. |
| D．We should adopt a new angle on language learning. |
Dave had loved basketball for as long as he could remember and he had never had a day without playing it. At primary school and junior high school he joined basketball clubs, attended training programs and watched basketball games, from which he learned the moves of the star players, wishing to play in a professional team like them and shine on the court.
Now as a senior high school student, however, his dream of becoming a professional player was dimming (变暗) because he was only of average height. He had to give up the hope of joining the school team. The guys on the school team were all tall boys who played matches and won honors for the school. They were like heroes. Dave watched them play and cheered them but he knew he would never be one of them.
Dave felt it a pity not to be tall enough, but this didn’t stop him from pouring his passion into basketball. He just played for the love of the sport. He played in the school gym with other boys or by himself every day, even during holidays and weekends, when it was open for two hours in the morning. He enjoyed every minute on the court making every effort to play better.
It was one Saturday morning. Dave was playing in the gym by himself, as all the other boys were busy with other weekend affairs. Then he noticed a tall boy approaching. It was Lankas. Everybody knows him as captain of the school basketball team. “Hi, Lankas,” Dave greeted him. “My name is Dave.” “Hi, Dave,” Lankas replied as he got closer. “Nice to see you here. Do you need an opponent to play against?” Dave was shocked, frozen right there, unable to believe his ears but somehow, he answered, “Why not?”
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。
So, a game of two players began.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The next Saturday, when Dave was playing in the gym, Lankas appeared shouting, “Dave, I have good news for you.”
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
3 . When Don Lyons, director of a seabird restoration program, visited a small valley in Japan, he found a local variety of rice called “cormorant rice”. The grain actually got its name from the seabirds that nested in the trees around the ponds used to supply water to the rice fields. Their droppings (粪), rich in nitrogen (氮) and phosphorus (磷), were washed into the water and eventually went to the rice fields.
The phenomenon that Lyons encountered is not a new one. What is new is that scientists have now calculated an exact value for seabird droppings. Given that 30 percent of the species of seabirds are endangered, researchers published a study that estimates the annual value of seabirds. “I see that people just care about something when it brings benefits and when they can see the benefits,” says Daniel Plazas-Jiménez, a seabird researcher.
To show the benefits seabirds provide, scientists set out to put a price tag on the animals’ droppings. The estimated value of seabird droppings as an organic fertilizer (肥料) against the cost of replacing it with human-made chemical fertilizers was around $474 million. The scientists then estimated that 10% of the profits coming from coral reefs depend on seabird nutrients. According to the United Nations, the annual economic returns of commercial fisheries on coral reefs are about $6.5 billion. So, 10% of this value is around $650 million per year.
The richness of seabird droppings in South America, particularly on the Chincha Islands has been documented for centuries. People there were the first to recognize seabirds’ agricultural benefits. At one point, an estimated 60 million birds built 150-foot-high mounds (堆) of droppings. However, only an estimated 4 million seabirds now live on the Chincha Islands. This loss is part of a global trend.
By the early 1840s, seabird droppings became a full-blown industry; they were commercially mined, transported and sold. The industry crashed around 1880 and reappeared in the early 20th century. Today, interest in seabird droppings is resurgent as consumer demand for organic agriculture and food processing has risen. However, the decline of seabird populations caused by human activities and global warming is absolutely a terrible shock to some areas’ economy.
1. What was the probable reason for people’s naming their rice variety after seabirds?| A．Because seabirds fed on this variety of rice. |
| B．Because seabirds nested around the rice fields. |
| C．Because seabirds contributed a lot to the rice’s growth. |
| D．Because seabirds and the rice depended on the same ponds. |
| A．To discover the phenomena related to seabirds. |
| B．To measure seabirds’ production of droppings. |
| C．To identify the endangered seabird species. |
| D．To promote efforts to protect seabirds. |
| A．Around $474 million |
| B．Around $600 million |
| C．Around $1.1 billion |
| D．Around $6 billion |
| A．People invest more in the industry related to seabird droppings. |
| B．People’s enthusiasm for seabird droppings grows stronger. |
| C．The interest rates of buying seabird droppings are higher. |
| D．The production of seabird droppings becomes lower. |
4 . Ahh... Fish, chips and mushy peas! There is nothing more British than fish and chips. Freshly cooked, boiling hot fish and chips, topped with salt and seasoned with vinegar, packed in newspaper and eaten out-of-doors on a cold and wintry day — it simply cannot be beaten!
Both Lancashire and London claim to be the first to invent this famous meal. Chips were a cheap, basic food of the industrial north while fried fish was introduced in London’s East End.
Fish and chip shops were originally small family businesses, often run from the front room of the house and were commonplace by the late 19th century. Through the latter part of the 19th century and well into the 20th century, the fish and chip trade expanded greatly to satisfy the needs of the growing industrial population of Great Britain. Fish and chips became vital to the diet of the ordinary people.
In 1999, the British consumed nearly 300 million servings of fish and chips. That equates to six servings for every man, woman and child in the country.
| A．It quickly became a favourite of the workers. |
| B．People soon decided to put fried fish and chips together. |
| C．John Lees owned a restaurant and sold the famous pairing. |
| D．So how, when and where did this British dish come about? |
| E．There are now around 8,500 fish and chip shops across the UK. |
| F．Some shops had to employ doormen to control the queue at busy times. |
| G．The first fish and chip shop in Lancashire is thought to have opened in 1863. |
Maybe there is a Father Christmas!
Anna stood anxiously staring at the pouring rain while little Molly looked up at a pretty doll in the window of the toy shop on the edge of town. "Mummy, "Molly said, "that's the doll I would like Father Christmas to bring me." A tear rolled down Anna's cheek and she knew it would be impossible this year. They were supposed to start a new life in Spain one and a half years ago before her husband Tim was cruelly taken from them by a car. Their small amount of savings were quickly spent on Tim’s funeral costs and necessities, leaving her in heavy debt.
To her relief, the local people had helped to support her through these difficult times and especially Juan, owner of the local grocery store, a single man, who would often put something special into her shopping bag, even though he himself had been going through a difficult period — his mother died of cancer and he was busy handling the sale of his mother’s house on the edge of town.
As the rain stopped, Anna and Molly started walking home. She was thinking about buying an umbrella after paying the rent with her upcoming wage when Molly shouted excitedly, "Mummy, what’s that on the road?" Anna looked down and saw a bag lying in the water, which was obviously lost because of the sudden rain.
They got home and dried themselves before Anna focused on the bag. Opening it and seeing bundles of money inside, she stood back in shock and cried, "Is this a present from kindness? I can pay off my debt, buy Molly’s favorite doll and my new umbrella ...” Then reality set in, Anna was a very moral person and would never steal even the slightest little thing, let alone bundles of money. She went to bed with all thoughts in her mind.
Paragraph 1：
Early next morning, Anna headed where she decided to go.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Paragraph 2：
At supper, Anna had an unexpected visitor—Juan with gift boxes in his hands.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
6 . You’ve heard that plastic is polluting the oceans — between 4.8 and 12.7 million tonnes enter ocean ecosystems every year. But does one plastic straw or cup really make a difference? Artist Benjamin Von Wong wants you to know that it does. He builds massive sculptures out of plastic garbage, forcing viewers to re-examine their relationship to single-use plastic products.
At the beginning of the year, the artist built a piece called “Strawpocalypse,” a pair of 10-foot-tall plastic waves, frozen mid-crash. Made of 168,000 plastic straws collected from several volunteer beach cleanups, the sculpture made its first appearance at the Estella Place shopping center in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Just 9% of global plastic waste is recycled. Plastic straws are by no means the biggest source (来源) of plastic pollution, but they’ve recently come under fire because most people don’t need them to drink with and, because of their small size and weight, they cannot be recycled. Every straw that’s part of Von Wong’s artwork likely came from a drink that someone used for only a few minutes. Once the drink is gone, the straw will take centuries to disappear.
In a piece from 2018, Von Wong wanted to illustrate (说明) a specific statistic: Every 60 seconds, a truckload’s worth of plastic enters the ocean. For this work, titled “Truckload of Plastic,” Von Wong and a group of volunteers collected more than 10,000 pieces of plastic, which were then tied together to look like they’d been dumped (倾倒) from a truck all at once.
Von Wong hopes that his work will also help pressure big companies to reduce their plastic footprint.
1. What are Von Wong’s artworks intended for?| A．Beautifying the city he lives in. | B．Introducing eco-friendly products. |
| C．Drawing public attention to plastic waste. | D．Reducing garbage on the beach. |
| A．To show the difficulty of their recycling. |
| B．To explain why they are useful. |
| C．To voice his views on modern art. |
| D．To find a substitute for them. |
| A．Calming. | B．Disturbing. |
| C．Refreshing. | D．Challenging. |
| A．Artists’ Opinions on Plastic Safety |
| B．Media Interest in Contemporary Art |
| C．Responsibility Demanded of Big Companies |
| D．Ocean Plastics Transformed into Sculptures |
“Why she let out my secret? why she did that to me?” I vividly remembered that day when I was confused at the knowing looks which everyone gave me. That terrible experience was imprinted (铭刻) on my mind. I couldn’t forgive the person with whom I had shared my secret. She lost all my trust and friendship.
Five years back, Sally was a new addition in our class. I don’t know what but there was something sticky about her that attracted me towards her. She was the most friendly person I knew. We started as classmates but after a few months we were like best friends. We did homework together and dreamed of going to the same university one day. We hung out and went to the movies on weekends. That was a sweet time.
Nevertheless, I couldn’t expect such an enormous betrayal from her. I didn’t know what made me tell Sally about my personal life. I felt much regret to myself. She exaggerated (夸大) the matter, added her own spices to it and made it the hottest topic in school. It was like someone had stabbed a knife in my back. After she revealed my secret, everyone at school started laughing at me and gazing at me wherever I passed. I was like a pond in which someone had thrown a stone and it had been spilled up. It was the most embarrassing time I had gone through. Soon afterwards, I left school and shifted to another one, because I thought no one had the right to laugh at me. Sally called me many times but I didn’t answer. My heart was broken because the person whom I trusted most cheated me.
I made efforts to remove the scar from my heart. I started a new life, leaving all the bad memories behind, because they made me a person who often thought about the past experiences. Five years later, with the life going on, I made new friends and seldom thought about the past.
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。
But one day I met Anna in the market, my former classmate, who told me shocking news.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________I immediately called Sally in order to explain the misunderstanding.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
