1. Why did the speaker go on the tour?
| A．It was the prize of a competition. |
| B．John asked her to go with him. |
| C．It was her travel plan. |
| A．The drinks. | B．The food. | C．The waiters. |
| A．Disappointing. | B．Amazing. | C．Terrible. |
| A．She rode an elephant. |
| B．She went to the mountains. |
| C．She relaxed in the hotel. |
2 . Rising water temperatures and the increasing levels of carbon dioxide in our oceans are killing our beautiful coral reefs at a surprising speed. Add the current extreme weather pattern, and things look even worse.
So what makes coral so sensitive? Although it may be hard to believe, corals are not plants, but animals. The colorful reefs we admire so much happen to be skeletons(骨骼) given up by hundreds of thousands of polyps(珊瑚虫). To survive, these animals live with an algae(海藻). The coral polyps give the algae a home and then the algae provide the polyps with their bright color and food.
But the rising water temperatures are causing the coral polyps to lose their algae friends. As a result, the corals are not only losing their food source but also their beautiful colors.
The disappearance of the coral not only makes humans lose the chance to admire the beautiful coral reefs. It also removes a natural barrier which protects shorelines from storms and also fewer living places for fish and other sea animals.
To prevent these important animals from disappearing, a team of researchers are attempting to raise ‘super’ corals.
They began by selecting certain coral species that seems to have got used to the changing ocean conditions. Then they made them even more adaptable to warmer water. Once ready, the researchers plan to transplant the coral into Hawaii’s Kaneohe Bay.
This sounds simple, but they are not sure that it will work because coral is sensitive to touch and also develops very slowly and infrequently. Also, past attempts to remove coral have failed because they were either eaten by fish or died of disease.
Though there exist these dangers, researchers believe there’s no other choice to prevent the reefs from disappearing. Tom Oliver, a scientist says, “The question is not ‘can they do it?’, but ‘can they do it fast enough?’”
1. Which fact might surprise people according to the text?| A．Corals come in different colors. |
| B．Corals are not plants but animals. |
| C．Corals are sensitive to water temperatures. |
| D．Coral reefs can protect the coast from storms. |
| A．The failure to raise them. |
| B．Too much sunshine. |
| C．The polluted sea water. |
| D．The loss of algae friends. |
| A．Remove. | B．Admire. |
| C．Export. | D．Exchange. |
| A．Corals are of great use to people. |
| B．People are trying to prevent corals disappearing. |
| C．Human activities are affecting the growth of corals. |
| D．Coral polyps depend on an algae for color and food. |
1. How many aspects of the United Kingdom does the man refer to?
| A．Two. | B．Three. | C．Four. |
| A．Windsor Castle. |
| B．The Tower of London. |
| C．The National Gallery. |
| A．James Bond. | B．Star Wars. | C．Harry Potter. |
| A．Badminton. | B．Basketball. | C．Golf. |
Rain is pouring down today, which brings back sweet memories of our dog, Bambi. She-joined our family at the age of four months. Like all puppies, she was full of energy and wonder. Our boys described excitedly that she looked just like the young deer, Bambi, in the movie they had watched recently. The name fitted her personality perfectly.
Bambi also had all the fine physical characteristics of the German Shepherd. She was strong, yet gentle and shy. We were a young family with two growing, energetic boys, so she fitted right in with our lifestyle. Bambi loved the boys. She would play with them until they were completely tired.
When Bambi was almost two years old, a full-grown dog, she became quite protective of us. She never failed to watch the boys. If any stranger entered our yard, she’d watch him or her with sharp eyes and let out a low bark. Even though Bambi had this protective instinct (本能), she never hurt anyone. Nevertheless, she did manage to frighten (惊吓) away many welcome and unwelcome guests.
On one occasion, I had called a repairman to come to our home to fix the refrigerator. I was at work, and the boys were home with the babysitter. I told the repairman by phone that we had a dog, but it would be safe to enter the house because the babysitter would be there to meet him. However, when the repairman arrived, the babysitter and boys went outside. As he went close to our front door, Bambi was outside and she barked at him while she guarded the door. As long as the man attempted to move, Bambi would jump up and bark more fiercely (凶猛地). This man had never seen such a fierce dog before and was frightened too much. He had no idea whether to go away or scream for help.
Paragraph 1:
Luckily, the babysitter and boys returned from their walk at that lime.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Paragraph 2：
Though Bambi was so brave, there, was a side to her personality that didn’t match her.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
5 . Scientists have studied cats’ social relationships—both with other cats and humans—but it can be difficult to tell whether two cats are playing or fighting, says cat behavior researcher Noema Gajdoš-Kmecová.
To assess and classify interactions, Gajdoš-Kmecová and colleagues watched about 100 videos of different cats interacting in pairs. After viewing about one-third of the videos, Gajdoš-Kmecová identified six types of behaviors, including wrestling and staying still. She then watched all of the videos and noted how often each cat displayed one of the specific behaviors, and for how long. By running statistical analyses on the behaviors, she found three types of interactions between the cat pairs: playful, aggressive and intermediate. To confirm the outcome, other members of the team also watched the videos and classified each interaction between cats.
Some clear connections appeared. Quietly wrestling, for example, suggested playtime, while chasing and vocalizations(发声), like growling, hissing or gurgling, implied aggressive encounters.
Intermediate interactions had elements of both playful and aggressive encounters, but especially included prolonged activity of one cat toward the other, such as pouncing(突袭) on or grooming(梳毛) its fellow cat. These in-between encounters could suggest that one cat wants to keep playing while the other doesn’t, with the more playful cat gently pushing to see if its partner wants to continue, the authors say.
This work provides an understanding of cat interactions for the first time, Gajdoš-Kmecová says, but it’s just the start. In the future, she plans to study more subtle behaviors, like ear twitches and tail swishes. Gajdoš-Kmecová also stresses that one potentially controversial encounter doesn't necessarily signal a terrible cat relationship.
1. What did the study focus on?| A．The cats' social relationships with humans. |
| B．The real meaning of the interactions between cats. |
| C．The ways cats communicate with each other. |
| D．The benefits of being a cat owner. |
| A．Researchers determined nine types of interactions finally. |
| B．The frequency and length of certain behaviors were noticed. |
| C．The cats were trained and grouped before they were filmed. |
| D．100 pairs of different cats interacting were watched on the spot. |
| A．The two cats are wrestling quietly. | B．The two cats are grooming each other. |
| C．One cat is pouncing while the other stays still. | D．One cat is running after the other violently. |
| A．A future idea of the study. | B．A data analysis of the study. |
| C．A conclusion of the study. | D．An application of the study. |
1. What sport does the man like best?
| A．Volleyball. | B．Softball. | C．Basketball. |
| A．Classical music. | B．Pop music. | C．Jazz. |
| A．He hangs out with them. |
| B．He plays sports with them. |
| C．He shares music with them. |
| A．At 2:30 p.m. | B．At 3:30 p.m. | C．At 3:00 p.m. |
7 . “May 17, 2157
Dear diary,
Today, Tommy found a real book!...”
“What’s it about?” Margie asked.
“School.” replied Tommy, turning the yellow pages.
“Why would anyone write about school? I hope they can take my geography teacher away.”
“It’s not our school. This is the old sort that they had centuries ago.”
“Anyway, they had a teacher.” Margie said, reading the book over his shoulder.
“Sure, they had a teacher, but it wasn’t a regular teacher. It was a man.”
“A man? How could a man be a teacher?”
“Well, he just told the boys and girls things and gave them assignments and asked them questions.”
“A man isn’t smart enough.”
“Sure, he is. My father knows as much as my teacher.”
Margie wasn’t prepared to argue about that. She said, “I wouldn’t want a strange man in my house to teach me.”
Tommy laughed. “The teachers didn’t live in the house. They had a special building and all the kids went there.”
“And all the kids learned the same thing?”
“Sure, if they were the same age.”
“But my mother says a teacher has to be adjusted to fit the mind of each boy and girl it teaches and that each kid has to be taught differently.”
“If you don’t like it, you don’t have to read the book.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t like it,” Margie said quickly.
They weren’t even half-finished when Margie’s mother called, “Margie! School!”
“Not yet, Mamma.”
“Now!” said Mrs. Jones.
Margie said to Tommy, “Can I read the book some more with you after school?”
“Maybe,” Tommy said.
Margie went into the schoolroom, right next to her bedroom, and the mechanical teacher was on waiting for her.
The screen was lit up, and it said, “Please insert yesterday’s assignments in the proper slot.”
Margie was still thinking about the old schools they had when her grandfather’s grandfather was a little boy. All the kids from the whole neighborhood came, laughing and shouting in the schoolyard, sitting together in the schoolroom, going home together at the end of the day. They learned the same things, so they could help one another on the assignments and discussed them.
And the teachers were people…
1. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?| A．Margie doesn’t like her school. |
| B．It’s common to read paper books in 2157. |
| C．Online learning is what Margie wants. |
| D．Tommy feels his father is smarter than his teacher. |
| A．There are only female teachers at school. |
| B．Teachers give no assignments to students. |
| C．A special building is constructed for teachers. |
| D．Students learn different things at their own pace. |
| A．Envelope. | B．Opening. |
| C．Screen. | D．Schoolroom. |
| A．Longing. | B．Objection. |
| C．Suspicion. | D．Tolerance. |
8 . Marilu Arce loves her job, but for a time she considered leaving. The traffic-plagued commute from her home to her office, nearly two hours each way, meant her daughters couldn’t enroll in after school activities because she couldn’t get home in time to take them.
Then her employer adopted a policy permitting her to work from home two days a week, and “I feel like it changed my life,” she said. Her stress level has dropped. Her daughters are thrilled. She likes her job more. That’s the type of reaction Arce’s boss likes to hear as the company measures the success of the work-from-home policy which was instituted three years ago in hopes of improving employee retention. So far, it seems to be working: turnover was less than five percent last year—its lowest ever.
Flexible work policies top employee wish lists when they look for a job, and employers increasingly have been offering them. Studies have shown working remotely increases employee engagement, but in moderation because there is still value in the relationships nurtured when colleagues are face to face. The key, advocates of flexible work policies say, is to match the environment with the type of work that needs to be done.
The flexibility hasn’t hurt productivity, which is up 50 percent. There is “something lost” when colleagues don’t gather at the water cooler, but it’s outweighed by the retention and happiness gains, he said. As jobs that require physical work decline, thanks to technological advances, life superficially appears to get better. Consumers benefit in the form of cheaper prices. Labor-saving appliances all make things easier and suggest that even more and better benefits are on the horizon. But is something lost?
Talk long enough to the most accomplished academics, they will brag about a long-ago college summer job waiting tables or repairing hiking trails. They might praise the installer who redid their kitchen. There seems to be a human instinct to want to do physical work. The proliferation of hard-work reality-television programming reflects this apparent need. Indeed, the more we have become immobile and urbanized, the more we tune in to watch reality television’s truckers, loggers, farmers, drillers and rail engineers. In a society that supposedly despises menial jobs, the television ratings for such programmes suggest that lots of Americans enjoy watching people of action, who work with their hands.
Physical work, in its eleventh hour within a rapidly changing Western culture, still intrigues us in part because it remains the foundation for 21st century complexity. Before any of us can teach, write or speculate, we must first have food, shelter and safety. And for a bit longer, that will require some people to cut grapes and nail two-by-sixes. No apps or 3D printers exist to produce brown rice. Physical labour also promotes human versatility: Those who do not do it, or who do not know how to do it, become divorced from—and, at the same time, dependent on—labourers. Lawyers, accountants and journalists living in houses with yards and driving cars to work thus count on a supporting infrastructure of electricians, landscapers and mechanics. In that context, physical labour can provide independence, at least in a limited sense of not being entirely reliant on a host of hired workers.
1. The author mentions the example of Arce to show that________.| A．she dislikes the present job for the long commuting time |
| B．she is having trouble balancing work and school life |
| C．people usually don’t work hard outside office |
| D．employers are facing the problem of staff drain |
| A．it helps to increase job satisfaction for the employees |
| B．it improves harmonious relationship among colleagues |
| C．the decline in physical work gives employees more mobility |
| D．employees are entitled to request it according to their work |
| A．They entertain those employees burned out with overwork. |
| B．People can learn some basic labour skills from these programmes. |
| C．There’s an ongoing need for physical labour skills that technology doesn’t possess. |
| D．They offer instructive information for both employers and employees. |
| A．The Emergence of Alternative Work Arrangements |
| B．The Rise of Automation, the Decline in Need for Labour |
| C．Time to Rethink in the Face of the Evolution of Work |
| D．New Challenges for Today’s Employers and Academics |
1. 日常生活中的友善行为；
2. 友善行为的意义或价值；
3. 提出倡议。
注意：
1. 词数100左右；
2. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
参考词汇：传统美德traditional virtues
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
10 . Map reading, growing fruit and vegetable and basic car service are also more common skills among the baby boomer generation. But according to a new survey, just one in three 18- to 25-year-olds are able to do basic DIY, compared to two-thirds of those aged 58 and over.
Sarah Clarke-Kuehn, Chief Operating Officer-Commercial, said, “The survey findings are so interesting as they highlight a very common incorrect conception related to ‘getting old’.”
When asked at what age they thought developing new skills becomes “difficult”, Gen Z respondents said they were 35 years old, while those aged over 58 believed this number was 63 years old. The belief is that there is a boundary between learning new skills and getting a sense of achievement. But we know that this is just not the case. The benefits in continuing to enjoy life, as well as developing new talents are very significant—both physically and mentally as we grow older.
Neuroscientist and author, Dr Julia Jones, said, “We underestimate our brain’s ability to continue learning. Our brain is the most complex and precise structure in the known universe but we only use a small part of its true potential throughout our lifetimes. To boost continued brain health, we should learn complex and novel skills at all ages. This becomes more important as we age, because these learning experiences help to build new connections between neurons (神经细胞) that maintain intelligence and reduce the risk of future brain decline.”
“Learning languages and musical instruments are believed to be effective at boosting neuroplasticity (神经可塑性) due to their complex nature, but all learning is beneficial and can bring a sense of achievement, purpose and social engagement.”
Dr Jones added. “Find a new hobby and throw yourself into a wonderful learning experience or pick up an old pastime and improve those skills. I’m currently learning to play the guitar and it’s opened up a whole new world of music and fun.”
1. What is mentioned about the young generation in the text?| A．They lose interest in DIY. |
| B．They have no idea in plants. |
| C．Many of them lack some basic skills. |
| D．Many of them own poor reading skills. |
| A．Learning brings a sense of belonging. |
| B．It is never too late to learn in one’s life. |
| C．It is necessary to show off one’s talents. |
| D．The benefits of lifelong learning are temporary. |
| A．The significance of knowing the structure of the brain. |
| B．The difficulties in improving the ability of the brain. |
| C．The reasons for taking full advantage of the brain. |
| D．The process of protecting the brain from risk. |
| A．Favorable. | B．Negative. | C．Doubtful. | D．Unclear. |
