1. Who is the speaker?
| A．A sales assistant. |
| B．A volunteer firefighter. |
| C．A house designer. |
| A．He saved her dog. |
| B．He cleared up her house. |
| C．He got her a pair of shoes. |
| A．It’s worthwhile. |
| B．It’s demanding. |
| C．It’s easy. |
When I was a kid, my parents and I lived near the forest. They often told me that our family was a team that needed to work together for the household to function smoothly. There was always an abundance of work to do — cooking, cleaning, and walking dogs. I volunteered to walk our dog, Max, who had been adopted one month before. I never dared let this giant dog off the lead (牵狗绳), just in case he took off.
One morning, we were walking along in the forest when Max started pulling on the lead. At first, I was able to hold on despite the wet ground from a recent shower. But the more I tried to stop him pulling, the more it turned into a tug of war. And thanks to the slippery ground, I lost.
Pulling his lead, Max shot off like a bullet, leaving me screaming behind. I chased him but lost my footing and fell face-first into some mud. I stumbled (踉跄) to my feet, but looking ahead, I found him running back towards me. I thought he was going to stop and give me his “Sorry” look. But instead, the dog shot past me and returned after a while.
As soon as we got home, my mother immediately attended to Max with a warm towel and a doggy treat. I thought seeing me stumbling and covered in mud, I would also get a warm cup of tea and a motherly kiss. Instead, I got a very loud lecture about letting the dog loose in the forest.
I felt frustrated. It wasn’t fair that she didn’t understand how difficult it was to control Max. I fought back, “Stop lecturing me! Why is everything my fault?” With these words, I stormed into my bedroom and slammed the door shut.
In the evening, I heard my mother call Max and take him out. It wasn’t long before I heard my mother screaming and the door opening again.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150个左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
I walked out of my room.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Dad stepped in, suggesting that we work together to train Max.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________William, a highly skilled plumber (水管工) with three decades of experience, was admired by everyone for his outstanding plumbing abilities. However, what many didn’t know was his deep love for music. Ever since he was a young boy, William was passionate about singing. He dreamed of attending a music school and becoming a famous pop singer, just like his idol Willie Nelson. He even dreamed about performing in his own private concerts someday. Unfortunately, tragedy struck when a car accident claimed the lives of both his parents, abruptly ending all his ambitions for the future. As the eldest brother in his family, William had to drop out of school and find a job to support his two younger sisters.
After three decades, William’s passion for singing remained as strong as ever. As he went about his plumbing work, he always carried a little radio with him, belting out tunes and joyfully singing along. The dull tasks of repairs became enjoyable and much more manageable with music in the background. Occasionally, when inspiration struck, he even composed a song or two of his own. In fact, he had setup a small basement studio where he recorded some of these songs, purely for the fun of it.
One day, William received a call from a client, Remus Gall, asking him to help repair the pipes in his kitchen. William accepted the mission readily. Upon arriving at Mr. Gal’s, he was led into the kitchen and began his work. As usual, while doing the repair work, he happily sang along to his small radio. Coincidentally, Remus Gall was a music producer and owner of a small recording company. Remus overheard the plumber singing and immediately realized there was something in William’s voice. He was amazed that an ordinary plumber should have such great talent in singing. After the repair work, Remus got the chance to talk with William and introduced his profession to him.
“You’ve really got a beautiful voice.” Remus said sincerely. “Have you ever thought of releasing an album of your own? If so, I would be more than glad to help you.”
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。
William was greatly shocked by what he heard.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________After three months’ hard work, William’s first-ever album finally came out.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________It was a hot day. The sun scorched (炙烤) down and everywhere you looked, you could see the heat waves blowing above the sand. John rolled over, realizing that half of his body was well and truly burnt. He had not meant to sleep in the sun but the heat and late nights studying for his examinations made him miserable. Stretching, he got to his feet, picked up his surfboard and looked around. The beach, which had earlier been crowded in the sun, was now comparatively empty. Seagulls flew down to clean up the food of people’s picnic lunches.
The ice-cream van had gone, and so were the lifeguards who were doing first aid on the beach. John looked up to where the sun was and estimated it was about five o’clock. Time to head home. It was “Mum’s Kitchen Rule” that had him moving homewards. If he did not get home in time for dinner, he would go hungry. Wandering along the water’s edge, he happened to glance out to sea. What made him look up at that particular moment, he never knew, but it was the right time for the swimmer he spotted. His hand was up, signaling distress (险情) and he was calling out something.
Quickly John glanced around the beach — no one else was close enough to help the man, and crucially, no one had noticed. Cupping his hands to his mouth, he shouted “Help” to get the attention of other people on the beach. Someone waved back to him and John pointed to the swimmer. “Get help,” he shouted. Then without hesitation, he jumped into the sea with his surfboard. John was a strong swimmer and had a good skill for distance swimming. His coach had tried hard to persuade him to go into competitions but he was not interested.
注意：1.续写词数应为150个左右；2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Now he was swimming for more than enjoyment or medals.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Fortunately, the sea was not rough and there was no wave.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________5 . We always celebrated my Dad’s November birthday on Thanksgiving Day, even after he entered a nursing home. As years went on, these events took on a(n)
When we knew that it might be Dad’s
Dad was a wonderful
A few months later, at Dad’s memorial service, we fully realized what we had given Dad that night. Those were the stories people normally tell at a
Words do
| A．double | B．original | C．complex | D．modern |
| A．congratulation | B．thanking | C．wish | D．apology |
| A．late | B．last | C．living | D．lost |
| A．by | B．as | C．though | D．with |
| A．writer | B．listener | C．storyteller | D．reader |
| A．listen to | B．hear of | C．make up | D．talk about |
| A．Little by little | B．Now and then | C．All at once | D．One after another |
| A．while | B．because | C．if | D．before |
| A．regretted | B．recorded | C．recalled | D．remembered |
| A．thoughts | B．possessions | C．tales | D．treasures |
| A．afford | B．wait | C．offer | D．help |
| A．task | B．duty | C．chance | D．decision |
| A．burial | B．party | C．meeting | D．wedding |
| A．Or | B．And | C．So | D．But |
| A．kindness | B．memories | C．care | D．hugs |
| A．healthy | B．old | C．young | D．alive |
| A．rolled | B．went | C．flied | D．came |
| A．benefit | B．work | C．matter | D．mean |
| A．properly | B．publicly | C．clearly | D．correctly |
| A．give back | B．search for | C．hand over | D．fall in |
People think animals are stupid, that they don’t understand kindness and that they can’t feel trust, or gratitude, or love. But I know they’re wrong and I have the evidence I need. It happened on a winter night, when a duck climbed up the stairs to save his sister.
That day, the temperature had suddenly dropped sharply, with cold winds blowing strongly and big snow falling. It wasn’t until late afternoon that we remembered our two ducks were still at our poorly built small farm. “Have they died due to the cold?” we wondered, worried.
My mother and I hurried to the farm and luckily found they were still alive. Their body was covered with snow; they were too cold to even quack. They stayed close together for warmth. We decided to take them home. Once back in the warm house, we made a nest for them in the basement, using newspaper and towels, and brought them food and water. The ducks gathered together in the warm basement. Near their nest, there were fishing nets we had carelessly left. We didn’t realize that could be a danger to them.
We just decided to leave the ducks alone to warm up and recover. We knew they had enough food and water, so we didn’t go down to the basement again that afternoon. That evening we were reading by the fire in the living room when we heard a strange sound coming from the basement. There was kind of a strange noise, then a pause (停顿), and then the strange sound again-over and over.
“Could that be the ducks?” my mother asked my father. Curious about that, we stood up and went to find out. It was indeed the ducks- at least one of them. We found the duck brother was standing on the second-highest step, beating his wings for balance. He gathered his strength and made the difficult leap to the highest step, the source of the strange noise
注意：续写词数应为 150 左右。
When he saw us, he stayed there and started quacking (呱呱叫) crazily and beating his wings.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
To free the duck sister from the fishing nets, I rushed upwards to bring scissors.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I have never been creative, so despite enjoying most of school, I had a tough time with creative writing assignments. One year, we had a short story assigned that was especially big — ten to twenty pages — and worth an especially large part of that semester’s final mark. I was unable to think up even a bad idea, let alone a good one.
Then, the Sunday before it was due, I awoke having had a dream that would work fine for the short story! I wrote it all down. A young man killed all the bad men in the village, but then more people became bad guys. In the end, the young man realized that killing could never make the world a better place.
Monday arrived, but the teacher announced an extra week was being given since many kids were having trouble getting their stories done on time. So, a few of us who had our stories ready exchanged them to read. My friend read my story. I said, “I had great trouble doing it, but then, like a miracle, this came to me in a dream!”
My friend was surprised, “That wasn’t out of your subconsciousness (潜意识). That was the story of the last movie you saw. How could you forget? ! We watched it three weeks ago.”
“Oh my God. You’re right! What have I done? This is cheating!”
I was a good kid who got good marks easily, so I had never even for a moment considered cheating before. But I had no other story idea with which to redo the assignment. Eventually, I persuaded myself it was morally acceptable because I had written it in my own words, with the story of my choice, not copied something completely, and I had not stolen the idea purposely. So, I handed it in.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150个左右；2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
A few days later, I was called into the teacher’s office.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________I couldn’t accept this excellent award with peace of mind.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________8 . In our information-driven society, shaping our worldview through the media is similar to forming an opinion about someone solely based on a picture of their foot. While the media might not deliberately deceive us, it often fails to provide a comprehensive view of reality.
Consequently, the question arises: Where, then, shall we get our information from if not from the media? Who can we trust? How about experts—people who devote their working lives to understanding their chosen slice of the world? However, even experts can fall prey to the allure of oversimplification, leading to the “single perspective instinct” that hampers(阻碍)our ability to grasp the intricacies of the world.
Simple ideas can be appealing because they offer a sense of understanding and certainty. And it is easy to take off down a slippery slope, from one attention-grabbing simple idea to a feeling that this idea beautifully explains, or is the beautiful solution for, lots of other things. The world becomes simple that way.
Yet, when we embrace a singular cause or solution for all problems, we risk oversimplifying complex issues. For instance, championing the concept of equality may lead us to view all problems through the lens of inequality and see resource distribution as the sole panacea. However, such rigidity prevents us from seeing the multidimensional nature of challenges and hinders true comprehension of reality. This “single perspective instinct” ultimately clouds our judgment and restricts our capacity to tackle complex issues effectively.
It saves a lot of time to think like this. You can have opinions and answers without having to learn about a problem from scratch and you can get on with using your brain for other tasks. But it’s not so useful if you like to understand the world. Being always in favor of or always against any particular idea makes you blind to information that doesn’t fit your perspective. This is usually a bad approach if you would like to understand reality.
Instead, constantly test your favorite ideas for weaknesses. Be humble about the extent of your expertise. Be curious about new information that doesn’t fit, and information from other fields. And rather than talking only to people who agree with you, or collecting examples that fit your ideas, consult people who contradict you, disagree with you, and put forward different ideas as a great resource for understanding the world. I have been wrong about the world so many times. Sometimes, coming up against reality is what helps me see my mistakes, but often it is talking to, and trying to understand, someone with different ideas.
If this means you don’t have time to form so many opinions, so what? Wouldn’t you rather have few opinions that are right than many that are wrong?
1. What does the underlined word “allure” in Para.2 probably mean?| A．Temptation. | B．Tradition. | C．Convenience. | D．Consequence. |
| A．They meet people’s demand for high efficiency. |
| B．They generate a sense of complete understanding. |
| C．They are raised and supported by multiple experts. |
| D．They reflect the opinions of like-minded individuals. |
| A．Simplifying matters releases energy for human brains. |
| B．Constant tests on our ideas help make up for our weakness. |
| C．A well-founded opinion counts more than many shallow ones. |
| D．People who disagree with us often have comprehensive views. |
| A．Embracing Disagreement: Refusing Overcomplexity |
| B．Simplifying Information: Enhancing Comprehension |
| C．Understanding Differences: Establishing Relationships |
| D．Navigating Complexity: Challenging Oversimplification |
9 . Researcher Ruijia Hu said wildlife habitat in crowded places like south went Ohio is becoming increasingly fragmented (分散) as forests give way to new construction. Eventually, this could make trouble to an animal with specific habitat needs like Ohio’s pileated (红冠) woodpecker.
Pileated woodpeckers have the nickname carpenter birds for their never-ending natural woodworking. They peck out holes in trees for their nests every year, creating lots of valuable homes for animals like fox squirrels and owls. “They make new nests every year. They won’t reuse old ones,” Hu said. “Other animals depend on them.”
Pileated woodpeckers are private birds that are more often heard than seen. Studying them can be especially difficult. So Hu turned to citizen science for help. To identify where woodpeckers have been seen, she used eight years of sightings collected by birders and logged into the website eBird, a free online tool and app that anyone can use to record their observations and locations. She overlaid these sightings with remote sensing data and found that corridors along rivers and creeks with abundant mature trees and deadwood helped the birds adjust to their increasingly fragmented urban landscape.
“With fragmented forests, many habitats that were once suitable for wildlife are broken up,” Hu sa id. “Wildlife is unable to find habitat big enough to meet their survival needs. And even if there are suitable habitats, the distance between them can be too great. Wildlife corridors link up these habitat patches. Since wildlife can travel and migrate from one patch to another, the probability of finding food and shelter is higher.”
“There are so many species in urban areas that we don’t pay attention to, especially when they’re not considered vulnerable,” Hu said. “With development chipping away at more forest in this crowded county, the tipping point (临界点) could come quickly and unexpectedly. You can’t fix it overnight. It’s not just about planting more trees. The birds need mature forest, so it could take 30 to 50 years to replace their habitat. At least we can protect these riverside forest corridors and see that existing trees reach maturity.”
1. What can we infer from the second paragraph?| A．The magpie’s nest is occupied by the dove. |
| B．Birds abandon the old for the new easily. |
| C．Friendship really exists among animals. |
| D．One’s trash is another treasure. |
| A．The effect of Hu’s study on birds. |
| B．The process of Hu’s research. |
| C．The difficulty Hu had in his study. |
| D．The application of technology. |
| A．Helping them survive in the fragmented landscape. |
| B．Making them adjust to deadwood quickly. |
| C．Providing them with enough food for survival. |
| D．Ensuring them a stable and safe habitat. |
| A．One tree doesn’t make a forest. |
| B．Be wise after the event. |
| C．Prepare for a rainy day. |
| D．Take things as they come. |
10 . Lithium (锂) is called “white gold” for good reason. The metal’s value has been growing sharply over the last several years, in a large part because it is an essential part of batteries as well as several key sustainable technologies where energy storage is of huge significance. As electric cars, wind and solar power have grown into major players in the energy industry, lithium has become key to engineering a future free of fossil (化石) fuels.
But acquiring lithium comes at an enormous cost. It often works like this: Water containing lithium is delivered to the surface from underground and mixed with fresh water. The mixture then sits in pools to get rid of water, leaving the rest of its contents behind as brightly colored “mud”. Then heat and chemical reactions are used to get lithium from that, changing it into powder which is then packaged and shipped to buyers around the world.
Any accident that releases mine contents into surrounding communities or the groundwater supply could have unimaginable long-term impacts. To be specific, indigenous (土著的) communities often bear the damage, and political leaders have typically given little weight to their concerns. In Arizona, for example, an expanding lithium mine is threatening the Hualapai Tribe’s cultural and historic sites. Recently, mining lithium and other precious metals has brought about conflict: How do you ensure the availability of materials essential to the future of renewables while protecting those communities’ rights?
Mining of the metal is expected to increase dramatically in coming years. Over time, experts say, that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions (排放) by making electric cars more affordable and, therefore, more popular. As environmentally conscious consumers buy electric cars in ever-greater numbers, it’s important to be aware of the dirty process that powers those clean air vehicles.
1. What does the author’s intention of writing Paragraph 1?| A．To introduce the background of an event. | B．To explain a complex industrial theory. |
| C．To describe a noticeable recent tendency. | D．To predict the future of a main technology. |
| A．Unexpected material leak. | B．Violent chemical reactions. |
| C．Wrong political decisions. | D．Lithium mine expansion. |
| A．Intolerant. | B．Uncaring. | C．Favorable. | D．Objective. |
| A．High Expense of Lithium Mining | B．Potential Benefit of Using Lithium |
| C．Hidden Threat behind Clean Energy | D．Bright Future of Renewable Resources |
