内容包括：
1. 自信的重要性：
2, 从缺乏信心到有自信的转变过程。
注意：1. 词数120左右，短文的开头和结尾已为你写好（不计入总词数）；
2. 可根据内容适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
Boys and girls,
Life is but a hard and bitter journey.
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Thank you.
I sat down to watch a recorded TV play after my husband left for his night-shift job. Not ten minutes into my favorite TV play, I was alerted to the unmistakable beep (哔哔声) of the smoke alarm indicating a low battery. Sighing, I paused my program and got up from the sofa.
I got a stepladder, climbed up it and quickly replaced the battery. The second I sat down and started watching my play, the beep started again. Evidently, the replacement battery was dead, too, so I went through all the motions again. I’d barely picked up the remote and pressed Play a third time when the alarm went off yet again. I gave out some unladylike comments. This time, I was one rung down when the same thing happened.
By then, I was out of all the batteries. I had to search the entire house for some electronic equipment that housed the same kind. I finally found one in an old clock. I crossed my fingers, hoping the battery still had some juice, and popped it in.
No luck! That round, plastic thing that was designed to save lives was about to make me have a nervous breakdown! Frustrated, I pulled the entire thing out of its “nest” and actually yelled at it to shut up before I tore it up into pieces. Holding it, I climbed back down and almost killed myself by practically falling over the dog and two cats who always watched every move I made and every breath I took. Driving my pet s away, I threw the alarm on the table and reminded myself to sleep fully clothed in case I smelled smoke. Carbon-monoxide (一氧化碳) detection would be taken care of by our back up alarm downstairs.
I glared at the troublesome item once more before walking off to seat myself on the sofa again. My program was already forty-five minutes into the play because I’d forgotten to pause it. Within seconds, that sound hit my ears again!
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。
I realized that my frustration was not the solution to the problem.
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The technician arrived shortly.
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3 . Researchers at the University of Sussex, Imperial College London and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have for the first time used game theory (博弈论) to allow robots to assist humans safely and variously.
The research team used adaptive control (自适应控制) and Nash equilibrium (纳什均衡) to program a robot that can understand its human users’ behavior in order to better foresee their movements and respond to them. The researchers believe the breakthrough could make robots help humans do things better in many areas, such as sport training, body recovery or shared driving.
Lead author Dr Yanan Li, Lecturer in Control Engineering at the University of Sussex, said, “It is still very early days in the development of robots and at present, those robots for work are not intuitive enough to work closely and safely with human users. By allowing the robot to identify human users’ behavior and make use of game theory to let the robot react to them in the best way, we have developed a system where robots can work along with humans as humans do.”
To successfully apply game theory to the interaction of a robot and its human users, the researchers had to overcome the problem that the robot cannot know the humans’ intentions. The researchers thus had to develop a method allowing the robot to identify the human partner while safely and efficiently interacting with their motion.
The reactive robotic programming system allows a robot to continuously learn the human users’ control and adapt its own control accordingly. The robot is able to understand the human users’ action and then respond to it and help them to perform tasks successfully with minimal effort.
Professor Etienne Burdet, senior author of the paper, added: “Game theory has had important influences on economics during the last century and lead to several Nobel prizes.”
1. What can be known about the programmed robot according to paragraph 2?| A．It goes out of style quickly. |
| B．It is no better than other robots. |
| C．It can help humans in many ways. |
| D．It never knows its human users’ control goals. |
| A．know the human’s intentions | B．respond to the human users’ action |
| C．work along with humans closely and safely | D．complete tasks perfectly with the least effort |
| A．The human users’ hand gestures. | B．The human users’ facial expressions. |
| C．The method of using the game theory. | D．The reactive robotic programming system. |
| A．How did game theory come into being? |
| B．Game theory has important influences on sport training |
| C．How can game theory bring humans and robots closer? |
| D．Game theory can make a big difference to body recovery |
4 . The world has faced a food crisis of unprecedented(前所未有的) proportions in 2022—the largest in modern history, as conflict, the COVID-19 pandemic, climate crisis and rising costs have combined to pose great risks for hungry people across the world. As many as 828 million people go to bed hungry every night. The number of those facing acute food insecurity has risen from 135 million to 345 million since 2019. A total of 49 million people in 49 countries are suffering hunger, according to figures from the United Nations’ World Food Programme.
“We are facing an unprecedented global food crisis and all signs suggest we have not yet seen the worst. For the last three years, hunger numbers have repeatedly hit new peaks,” WFP Executive Director David Beasley said. He warned that things can and will get worse unless there is a large-scale and coordinated(协调一致的) effort to address the causes of this crisis.
There are many reasons for prevailing high levels of food insecurity. These reasons include conflicts, climate changes and weather extremes, economic slowdowns and downturns. In addition, these drivers often do not act alone. For instance, conflicts are often accompanied by economic downturns, which affect livelihoods and the ability of people to earn resources, leading to increasing poverty levels and higher prevalence(流行) of food insecurity.
Unfortunately, the main reasons for high levels of food insecurity have not improved this year. People in the Horn of Africa are facing a fifth consecutive(连续的) failed rain season in parts of Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, which will constrain their production, and is likely to push many people deeper into food insecurity.
Moreover, there is uncertainty about the weather. And climatic shock affecting any major producer or exporter will introduce additional uncertainty into production and consequently prices, which in turn impact the ability to purchase food, particularly of the most vulnerable people.
1. How does the author lead in the topic?| A．By making a comparison. | B．By sharing personal experience. |
| C．By giving opinions with evidence. | D．By listing facts and accurate figures. |
| A．This global food crisis won’t last longer. |
| B．It’s certain that the global food crisis will get worse. |
| C．We need to work together to deal with the global food crisis. |
| D．There will be another new peak of hunger numbers in three years. |
| A．Characters. | B．Operators. | C．Factors. | D．Activities. |
| A．The Issue of Food Safety | B．The Unprecedented Food Crisis |
| C．Conflicts Causing Food Shortage | D．Efforts Put into the Study of Food Insecurity |
5 . A good gift is one that is more valuable for the recipient than it is for the giver. But most gifts destroy value rather than create it. Think of the Christmas-tree-shaped cookie jar that cost your aunt 530 but is worth considerably less than zero to you, posing a moral conundrum (难题): Do you throw it right into the trash or wait a couple of months? The economist Joel Waldfogel calls this discrepancy the “deadweight loss” of gifts, and estimates that, on average, it is from 10 percent to a third of a gift’s price.
One explanation for the deadweight loss is a mismatch between desirability and feasibility. Consider n gadget that is useful (high disability) but difficult to set up and time-consuming to use (low feasibility). Scholars have found that givers usually focus on desirability, and receivers are more aware of feasibility. Your friend who bought you a fancy wearable fitness tracker probably thought it was a really cool and helpful gift; to you, it seems like a massive headache to figure out, requires an app download and a monthly fee, and offers data that will either make you feel terrible about yourself or turn into a life-ruining obsession. That’s why it is still sitting in your drawer in its original package.
Another happiness-killing mismatch can occur between the receiver’s initial reaction and their long-term satisfaction. As Anna Goldfarb noted in The Atlantic a few weeks ago, givers tend to look for “reaction-maximizing gifts” (such as the wife’s over-the-top response to the car) as opposed to “satisfaction-maximizing gifts.” Once the giver is not present to see the receiver’s reaction, the receiver might not actually be that excited about socks with her best friend’s face on them.
Someone looking for a big reaction might be tempted to buy a wildly expensive gift, which poses its own emotional problems. In the worst cases, they may even be trying to exert dominance over you, or manipulate you into doing them a favor later. Either way, receiving a gift that’s too nice might make you feel guilty. According to one 2019 survey from CompareCards, 46 percent of respondents felt guilty for being unable to give a gift worth as much as the one they received.
In truth, the biggest benefit to most gift giving is to the giver herself. Generosity is truly a way to buy happiness. As my colleague Michael Norton and his co-authors showed in the journal Science in 2008, although spending money on oneself is weakly related to happiness, spending money on others significantly rises the giver’s well-being. Neuroscientists have shown that charitable giving to others engages the reward system, inducing pleasure in one of the same ways that alcohol and certain drugs do. (Maybe this is the real reason Santa is so jolly.)
1. What does “deadweight loss” of gifts in para.1 refer to?| A．The value the gift creates rather than destroys. |
| B．The money the giver spends on a meaningful gift |
| C．The good-will and thoughtfulness of the gift giver. |
| D．The loss of the gift value in the eyes of the receiver. |
| A．Fashionable and practical. | B．Unfriendly and upsetting. |
| C．Desirable and satisfactory. | D．Expensive and unworthy. |
| A．That the giver is not present to see the receiver’s reaction. |
| B．That the receiver was expecting something wildly expensive. |
| C．Thot the giver is confused about what gift brings satisfaction. |
| D．That the receiver was expecting something he/she truly wants. |
| A．It is in giving that givers receive. |
| B．Gift-giving is in most cases a win-win situation. |
| C．The greatest gift you can give is your time and attention. |
| D．Presents are generally terrible, but they can still bring you joy. |
6 . With climate change continuing to worsen, our situation is beginning to feel increasingly serious.
Techno-optimism is one of the greatest misconceptions when it comes to solutions to ensure our future. It can be defined as a belief that future technologies will solve all of our current problems. This definition reinforces (强化) the idea that there’s no reason to panic or change our current energy-intensive lifestyle. All society needs to do is look to green technology to work its magic.
One of the best examples of this optimistic misconception is the electric car. Despite being highly regarded as an eco-friendly way to get around, electric cars are not the end for the future of transport. Batteries in electric cars use chemical elements which we could be seeing a shortage of by the midcentury.
Techno-optimism puts too much emphasis on technology and not enough on what we can do right this minute. Unfortunately, people seem to like the picture that techno-optimism paints.
| A．So where should we look for answers instead? |
| B．The modern world’s simple solution is technology. |
| C．Moreover, they are more energy intensive to produce. |
| D．Is it a trap that many people have fallen into in recent years? |
| E．Unfortunately, this is an incredibly dangerous opinion to hold. |
| F．Despite any technology, we as a whole are not living sustainably. |
| G．Nevertheless, the truth is, we need a widespread change in our lifestyles. |
7 . Arguably, the biggest science development of the year to date has been the images of the very depths of the universe taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Those images beg a comparison between the external and internal universes that science is bent on observing and understanding.
Decades ago, astrophysicist Carl Sagan famously said, “The universe is also within is. We’re made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself. ” He was commenting then on the reality that our internal universe was as complex and as fantastic as the outer space.
There are many similarities between the progress we’ve made in understanding the universe and in piecing together life’s inner workings. Like the technological developments that took us from Galileo’s telescope to the Hubble to the JWST, life science tools have also improved rapidly. From early light microscopes to modern super-resolution ones, these developments have afforded researchers a deep look into biology’s infinitesimal (无限小的) landscape. Learning that living things were composed of cells was, not a terribly long time ago, a revolutionary observation. Since then, scientists have been able to dive ever deeper into the components of life.
Going beyond merely observing the complicated makeup of organisms, life scientists can now discover the workings of molecules (分子). And that is where scanning the universe differs from peering into biology. Understanding the universe, especially from a functional standpoint, is not necessarily an immediate urgency. Understanding biology on that level is. Simply observing the amazing internal structure of cells is not enough. Biologists must also characterize how all those parts interact and change in different environments and when faced with various challenges. Being able to image a virus or bacterium is nice at the level of basic science. But knowing how viruses gain entry into cells and spread, infect, and disable can literally save lives. Through time, biology has risen to this mechanistic challenge. Not only can life science tools produce images of cell components, even more importantly, they can help predict the effects of drugs on receptors, of immune cells on foreign invaders (入侵者), and of genetic perturbations (基因干扰) on development and aging.
This is not to belittle the work of scientists researching into universe. They should rightly be praised for delivering views of impossibly distant, impossibly massive phenomena. My aim is to celebrate these accomplishments while at the same time recognizing that science’s inward search for detail and insight is equally impressive and, in my view, more urgent. The output of both the outward and inward explorations should stimulate wonder in everyone. After all, it’s all star-stuff.
1. Why does the author quote Carl Sagan’s comment in Paragraph 2?| A．To introduce the background. | B．To prove an assumption. |
| C．To make a comparison. | D．To present an idea. |
| A．study approaches | B．system management |
| C．research facilities | D．technology integration |
| A．practical | B．risky | C．flexible | D．popular |
| A．It has received universal recognition. | B．It should enjoy priority in development. |
| C．It can be applied in the majority of areas. | D．It is more complicated than space science. |
8 . While many local teens spent their summers playing by the pool, Shea Frenyea-Provost brought her talents to life, leaving a lasting memory for years to come.
After five weeks, the 15-year-old’s artwork is now on show in People’s Park for all to see as the Village of Dannemora’s first outdoor mural(壁画)-symbolic of the ongoing efforts to give new energy to the village and all it has to offer.
For the young artist，the project took her out of the comfort zone(舒适区)-going from colored pencils and sketchbooks(素描本)to her first life-size mural- the first in what will now become a series of projects between the local teen and village.
With her mom active in the village’s growing Beautification Committee, Shea also got involved with volunteering. After seeing Shea’s sketches during the early stages of the mural planning, Tina Leduc, director of Beautification Committee, was awed by her talent and knew she was a perfect fit for the project.
With the help of her family, Shea was soon set up with her very own studio, where she spent weeks researching the Luna moth(蛾)，observing its outline and perfecting each final detail. “I used a projector(投影仪)to observe the moth for weeks and researched native plants in our area and the rest I really ended up doing freehand,“ Shea said, pointing to the fine lines of the climbing grape plants and moth antennas(触角).
For the Beautification Committee and villagers alike, her work has brought a welcomed new addition to the park while clearly showing her bright artistic future ahead. “She’s just such a natural,” said Leduc, who offered beginning guidance, otherwise leaving the creativity and design to the promising young artist. “I feel this is just the beginning for her. I know it is. We’re going to see so much from her.”
1. What can we learn about Shea’s mural?| A．It is the first indoor mural in her village. |
| B．It shows the history of her village. |
| C．It took her a month to complete. |
| D．It was a real challenge for her. |
| A．Amazed | B．Encouraged |
| C．Changed | D．Affected |
| A．Creative and humorous. |
| B．Polite and generous. |
| C．Talented and patient. |
| D．Experienced and professional. |
| A．It will inspire more kids to do art. |
| B．It promises a bright future for her. |
| C．It will attract more foreign visitors to the village. |
| D．It raises the villagers’ awareness of environmental protection. |
9 . There is hot, and then there is hot! Extreme heat is a period of high heat and humidity with temperatures above 90 degrees Fahrenheit for at least two to three days. Extreme heat is responsible for the highest number of annual deaths among all weather-related hazards (危害).
It’s not your imagination. Summers have been getting hotter and hotter with extreme heatwaves occurring earlier and more frequently. But why is this happening and can we better predict heatwaves in advance to give people time to prepare?
“Climate change is here and it’s already been changing human behavior and causing significant influence in the society. As global temperatures rise, historically excessive (过高的) temperatures are more likely to occur.” says Craig Ramseyer, an assistant professor who studies climate modeling in the department of geography at Virginia Tech.
Ramseyer says heatwaves are the most concerning because of the lack of attention they normally receive. “Hurricanes, tornadoes, and flash floods drive more media attention because of the natural attraction with the visual impact of those types of hazards. However, heat does not tend to be as attractive and it becomes very difficult to communicate the danger to the public,” said Ramseyer. “Around the world, more deaths occur due to extreme heat than from hurricanes, flooding, and drought combined. It impacts the most helpless of our citizens who do not have enough access to air conditioning, water, and other important resources.”
Since the Earth is running warmer than it used to, Ramseyer says that when these heatwave-related weather patterns take place, it results in higher extreme temperatures than we used to experience 30 years ago.
“As a global community, we need to decrease carbon emissions as soon as possible. We have rapidly developing technologies that are going to help advance the process, but the faster the better, there is no time to waste.”
1. What can we learn from the article?| A．Extreme heat is a No.1 death cause. |
| B．People are suffering more extreme heat. |
| C．A 100-degree heat is an extreme heat. |
| D．Extreme heat is getting better over the years. |
| A．Climate change will soon affect human behaviors. |
| B．High temperatures happened frequently in history. |
| C．Air conditioning and water can stop the extreme heat. |
| D．Garbage sorting can less advance the climate change. |
| A．Extreme heat can be stopped by technology. |
| B．People have enough time to solve the climate problems. |
| C．The danger of extreme heat is not easily transferred to the public. |
| D．Heatwave-related weather patterns will decrease in the future. |
| A．Complaints about extreme heat. | B．Prevention of extreme heat. |
| C．Characters of extreme heat. | D．Technologies behind extreme heat. |
It was a rainy winter evening. Joe could see an old lady on the side of the road waiting for help. So he stopped his car and got out of his car. When he came closer to her, the lady looked in despair. No one had stopped to help her for the last hour or so. Was he going to hurt her? He didn’t look safe. Joe could see that she was scared. Knowing how she felt, Joe said quickly. “I’m here to help you, ma’am. It is too cold outside. Please go and stay inside the car. By the way, my name is Joe.”
Well, all she had was a flat tire, but for an old lady, that was bad enough. While Joe was changing the tire, the lady rolled down the window and started to talk to him. She told him that she was only passing through. She was very grateful that he came to help her. Joe just smiled as he put the flat tire in the trunk (后备箱).
“How much do I owe you?” the lady asked, then adding that any amount would be all right. Joe, however, rejected the payment. “You don’t owe me a thing. I’m only passing through. Someone once helped me out. Just the way I’m helping you. If you want to pay me back, please pay it forward. Don’t let the chain (链条；连续) of love end with you.” Joe responded. He waited until the old lady had started her car and driven off. It had been a cold and depressing day, but Joe felt joyful as he set off for home.
Paragraph1: A few miles down the road the lady saw a small cafe.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Paragraph2: There were tables to clear and people to serve, but the pregnant (怀孕的) waitress felt a rush of warmth.
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