1 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passages coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Vertical Farms: Is the sky really the limit?

At a hyper-controlled indoor farm in industrial South San Francisco, four robots carefully transfer seeds from barcoded trays into 4.5-meter towers that then are hung vertically (垂直地) inside a 445 sq metre grow room. Workers in branded jumpsuits     1     (inspect) the greens for imperfect produce, but there is almost     2    . Then the pesticide-free product is packaged and put on a truck     3     (deliver) to a local market where the customer becomes the first person to touch it. With the world’s population expected to reach nearly 10 billion by 2050, most of     4     will be living in cities, experts say a 70% increase from current levels of global food production will be needed. But agricultural land is     5     short supply thanks to the climate crisis and urbanization.

Indoor farming raised more than $1 bn in 2021, exceeding the combined funding in 2018 and 2019. But critics say the massive energy costs     6    (need) to run vertical farms and greenhouses make the practice far less eco-friendly than their branding suggests.

Designed to produce yields hundreds of times larger than traditional outdoor farming, vertical farms occupy spaces such as buildings or shipping containers while using 70 to 95% less water     7     they can recapture and recycle rather than waste it due to poor irrigation (灌溉) or evaporation. Products are fully traceable from seed to shelf, stay fresher longer and there’s little risk of bacteria, infected animal faces (粪便) or     8    (have) to transport them long distances in trucks and planes.

Entrepreneurs like Irving Fain, CEO and founder of Manhattan-based Bowery Farming, say that they’re gathering knowledge about plant growth and agronomy (农学) that     9     take traditional farmers outdoors hundreds of years to accumulate. The possibilities raised by vertical farms have also captured the imagination of a number of large venture capitalists and private equality funds. “While it is still too early to tell     10     these high-tech, high-rise growing machines will become a real estate asset class in their own right, some investors are starting to take a serious look at vertical farming as a possible new asset category.” said Fain.

2 . On March 16th I left the offices of The Economist to head home. That was the last day when all editorial staff assembled in our London office. And, at the time of writing, no date for a return to the office is in _______

It is remarkable how quickly we have adapted. The newspaper has been written, edited and produced from couches and kitchen tables. January and February seem like an ancient era — the BC (before coronavirus) to the new AD (after _______).

The shift may _______ great workplace transformations in the 19th and 20th centuries, and it has been a much more sudden transition than occurred with factories, enabled by advanced economies that revolve around services instead of manufacturing. Back in the 1970s, when Britain adopted a three-day week (to commit a miners strike), there were power cub and TV stations had to close down early. This pandemic has not turned the lights _______

Not only that, it has made remote work seem both normal and acceptable. In the past employees who stayed home had to overcome the _______ that they were bunking off (偷懒). Now those who insist on being at the office sound self-important.

Things are _______, of course. Video calls Jack the spontaneity of a normal meeting; no off-the-cuff (即兴的) remarks to lighten the mood. Distance makes it difficult to generate camaraderie. Creativity is probably harder to foster. Experts say new ideas come from weak links in networks — i.e., people you meet occasionally. Such “ _______ collisions” have become rarer.

Yet _________ offices will not disappear, it is hard to imagine that working life will return to BC ways. For more than a century workers have stuffed themselves onto crowded trains and buses to get into the office. For the past two months they have not had to commute. _______, for their part, have maintained expensive offices in city centers because they needed to gather staff in one place. The rent is only part of the cost; there are the cleaning, lighting, printers, catering and security ________.

Another aspect of the AD era may be the disappearance of the five-day working week. Even before the pandemic many workers became used to taking phone calls or answering emails at the weekend. In the AD era, the ________ between home and working life, a useful way of relieving stress, will be even harder to sustain.

In future employees may work and take breaks when they please, with the company video call the only ________. The downside, however, is that the rhythm of life has been disrupted and new ________ are needed. Looking further out, the AD era may bring other changes. Some may decide to live in small towns where housing costs are lower, since they have no need to commute. Men will have ________ excuses to skip cleaning or child care if they are not disappearing to the office. In a sense, this is a(n) ________ to normal: until the 19th century most people worked at or close to their homes. But social historians may still regard 2020 as the start of a new age.

1.

A．doubt

B．sight

C．mind

D．hope

2.

A．domestication

B．transition

C．isolation

D．pandemic

3.

A．affect

B．shape

C．arouse

D．rival

4.

A．on

B．off

C．over

D．down

5.

A．suspicion

B．difficulty

C．prejudice

D．disadvantage

6.

A．advancing

B．reversing

C．interfering

D．missing

7.

A．remote

B．intense

C．casual

D．novel

8.

A．now that

B．in case

C．even though

D．as long as

9.

A．Commuters

B．Legislators

C．Executives

D．Employers

10.

A．in demand

B．beyond reach

C．at issue

D．on top

11.

A．balance

B．barrier

C．connection

D．conflict

12.

A．fixture

B．engagement

C．priority

D．interaction

13.

A．perspectives

B．routines

C．regulations

D．equivalents

14.

A．better

B．harder

C．more

D．fewer

15.

A．access

B．progress

C．return

D．contrast

3 . 很少有人知道这位30岁的外科医生曾经历过一场险些致命的交通事故。（cost）（汉译英）
_____________________________________________________________________________________

4 . 听下面一段独白，回答以下小题。1.

A．He was punished to be working in an animal shelter.

B．He was fined a lot of money and lost his job as a butcher.

C．He was forbidden from living in his apartment for three years.

D．He was heavily fined and not allowed to keep animals for ten years.

2.

A．He was scratched by the cat he raised at home.

B．His car was captured and nearly killed by the tiger.

C．He was attacked by the tiger and was bit in the arm.

D．His tiger was seriously ill after eating the raw meat.

3.

A．Ming can’t live without jazz and hip-hop.

B．Ming is not accustomed to the country life.

C．Ming doesn’t like the food in the animal shelter.

D．He can't fall asleep without Ming’s smell and noise.

5 . We all have friends that need a little advice, but one of the problems with those types of conversations is that it’s really easy to come off as a know-it-all when you’re offering help. When you do that, nobody’s going to listen.

    1     But it’s not an easy conversation to have someone, especially when you know all the extenuating circumstances of the situation. I talked with relationship and family therapist Roger S. Gil to get some advice for dealing with these situations.

Obviously not everyone is looking for your advice. Before you go offering up your point of view, make sure they’re interested in hearing it. As Roger Gil points out, often friends aren’t looking for you to solve a problem. They just want you to listen and maybe ask some questions. So, ask if they’d like to hear your input or insights on a problem, but also ask questions about why thee feel a certain way. If they say “no”, let them finish their story and listen politely.     2     Just wait for them to finish complaining before offering advice (or asking if they want). Sometimes the best way to figure something out is to do it on their own.

Speaking of listening. It’s also a good idea to figure out right away what your friends want from you. Gil describes this as differentiating between opinions, expert advice, and being a “sounding board”. Essentially, don’t pretend like you know something you don’t.     3    

Now that you know whether or not your friends or family actually want your advice, it’s time to learn how to advise without sounding like a know-it-all. This is a lot harder than you might think. As Gil points out, one way to offer advice without sounding pretentious (自以为是的) is to avoid “You should” statements.     4     By offering up your opinion clearly defined as your opinion, you remove the implication that “you know best”.

A．Definitely don’t act like you’ve been in a situation you haven’t been in.

B．Different situations require different approaches so we need to know what we should contribute.

C．Gil also adds that even when you know the answer to something, you might want to keep your mouth shut.

D．Gil’s advice, seems obvious, but it’s incredibly easy to get on your high-horse and use “You should” if you’re not careful.

E．When you have a friend who’s stuck in trouble, it’s normal to want to provide some type of insight to get them out of it.

F．However, the key is to make sure you stay in “listening mode” for as long as possible, and you don’t push your advice when it isn’t wanted.

6 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage cohcrent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

We Britons have about 60 words for happiness: blissfulness, ecstasy, pleasure, delight...The list is as varied as it is surprising, given that we only just scraped into the top 20 happiest countries in the world this year. Finns, who     1     (name) the happiest nation for the sixth year running, are either onnellinen or iloinen. The latter roughly translates as joyful or glad: you might be iloinen that you’re heading off on boliday. Onnellinen, on the other hand, speaks to the notion of being content with your life,     2     describing a fleeting feeling.

In the decade     3     the first World Happiness Report was released in 2012, four countries have held the top position: Denmark, Switzerland, Norway and now Finland. It’s based on an evaluation in which respondents are asked to assess the overall happiness of their current lives on a scale of one to 10.

For the fourth year running, the UK has slipped down the global happiness rankings,     4     (drop) two places to number 19. Even more worryingly, however, the 2022 global Oracle happiness report for the UK specifically found that nearly half of Britons have not felt true happiness in two years. We’re currently behind the US, Israel, New Zealand and Luxembourg, but mercifully ahead of the likes of Afghanistan and Lebanon-currently the two     5     (happy) countries in the world. This persistent decline in British contentment is concerning.

    6     (find) out what we miserable Britons can leam from the Finns, I went to Lake Saimaa — a three-and-a-half-hour drive from Helsinki —   to take part in a masterclass in happiness. It is a resort designed around taking things slowly. Each villa has its own sauna (桑拿浴),     7     (set)in a fragrant pine forest.     8     many friends rightly pointed out, how could anyone not be happy here?

In many ways, though, my admittedly luxurious stay revealed to me     9     the Finns approach happiness for everyone. There’s no doubt they have got a lot of things right — their love of saunas, for one. Known for their health benefits, saunas are fantastic for calming the mind. And with     10     estimated 3 million saunas for a population of just over 5.5 million, they are certainly integrated into everyday life.

7 . Problem-solving

Solving problems draws on two types of intelligence: crystal and fluid. Crystal intelligence involves using stored knowledge to answer questions of fact (e.g. what is the speed of light?), which relies on our ability to learn and remember information.

Fluid intelligence involves solving more creative problems, such as how to get a lion, a goat and a cabbage over a river in a single-passenger boat.     1     It is partly because solutions tend to pop, fully formed, into consciousness as “aha!” moments. It also seems that our brains use different strategies for different types of puzzle.

    2     For example, to solve “If ABC=12, then DEF =?” you need to know three things: the alphabet, the number sequence (序列), and the coding technique of linking two sequences in parallel. Once you have this knowledge, you can find the answer by matching letters to their appropriate numbers, without having to look elsewhere for any extra information. In this case, focusing attention on the problem helps you get to the right solution.

Complex problems, on the other hand, require a different approach, because the number of things you need to know and handle is greater than your consciousness brain can cope with.     3     No human brain can think through them all, let alone hold them in mind in order to compare them. Inexperienced chess players typically react to the complexity of a chess problem by concentrating hard on working out possible sequences of events. Rather than helping them, however, this intense, narrow attention can make their play worse.

The reason is that focusing attention on sequential computation, which is done by the brain’s left side, closes down areas of the right side that are concerned with taking a wider view.     4     The right-side activity produces an intuitive (直觉的) sense of what the problem is and provides context for the conscious computations occurring in their left side. This use of intuition, with years of experience, distinguishes experts from new players not only in chess, but also in every area that requires complex problem-solving.

A．A chess move, for example, can lead to billions of outcomes.

B．Intense attention locks both sides of the brain into a particular pattern of activity.

C．This kind of intelligence has proven more difficult to understand.

D．Master players, by contrast, use their right side as well as their left.

E．As well as looking at problem from multiple angles, brilliant problem-solving involves dismissing bad options quickly.

F．We tend to work out simple problems—those involving just a few factors—methodically.

8 . 听下面一段独白，回答以下小题。1.

A．Physics.

B．Chemistry.

C．French.

D．Media studies.

2.

A．More than 144,000.	B．About 147,500.
C．7.5% of all the test takers.	D．4.6% of all the test takers.

3.

A．Few students avoid harder subjects.

B．Each subject has the same level of difficulty.

C．Some subjects are more difficult than others.

D．Pupils are important to the country’s development.

9 . Could your dog be prone to a fatal disease? Is your new shelter pup part beagle or boxer? Many pet owners seek answers to these questions, and as a result, direct-to-consumer dog DNA testing is booming.

Human interfering with dog DNA has long been the driving factor behind dogs’ breed diversity — or lack thereof. But a dog’s DNA can also be used to confirm their lineage (血统) or identify their breed, a boon for pet owners on the lookout for breed-specific health or behavioral challenges or those looking to confirm their dog really has the heritage claimed by a breeder or seller. During DNA analysis, labs sequence the dog’s DNA and look for similarities with a dataset of identified dog breeds.

But breed identification isn’t as simple as it might seem. In a study published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association last month, scientists looked into the accuracy of breed prediction in commercially available DNA tests that required a photo of the dog in addition to its DNA sample. The results were mixed, says Casey Greene, a professor who co-authored the study.

“Most tests could accurately distinguish the breed of purebred dogs,” says Greene. But the analysis suggested that some testing companies might rely on the photo more than the dog’s actual genetics — and revealed big differences between companies’ business practices and the genetic datasets they use to determine dog breeds.

The researchers submitted photos and DNA of 12 purebred dogs to a total of six commercial canine (犬的) ancestry identification services. Since each pup was purebred and possessed extensive American Kennel Club paperwork, the researchers knew their breed conclusively—but in some cases they provided a photo of a different dog to see if the photo influenced the DNA results. One of the companies misidentified a purebred Chinese crested dog — almost entirely hairless — as a long-haired Brittany spaniel, seemingly based on the photo alone. The other five did identify the registered breed correctly, but often gave different predictions for other “ancestor” breeds in dogs whose DNA suggested mixed breeding in prior generations. The researchers concluded that veterinarians and pet owners alike should “approach direct-to-consumer tests with caution” given the lack of industry standardization and at least one company’s reliance on photographs instead of DNA analysis.

Despite these concerns, though. dog DNA seems headed for a golden age — and the insights revealed through further study of Fido’s genome (基因组) have already reached far beyond the doghouse. Domesticated dogs have emerged as surprising superstars in medical research that benefits humans. According to researchers, that’s just the beginning. With implications ranging from entertaining to consequential, there’s no telling what dog DNA will continue to unleash.

1. The underlined word “boon” in paragraph two is closest in meaning to ________.

A．blessing

B．substitute

C．duty

D．struggle

2. According to the passage, dog DNA testing can serve the following purposes except that ________.

A．it assists in accurately determining the breed a dog belongs to

B．it helps to predict whether dogs are subject to certain diseases

C．it provides pet owners with insights into dogs’ behavioral challenges

D．it sequences the DNA of identified dog breeds to find their similarities

3. Which of the following statements can be concluded from the passage?

A．Photos play a more significant role in identifying a dog’s breed than its actual genetics.

B．It is a common phenomenon that the DNA analysis of dogs may yield mixed results.

C．Commercial dog DNA tests still have limitations and should be dealt with cautiously.

D．Direct-to-consumer tests overshadow DNA analysis in identifying purebred dogs.

4. What does the passage suggest about the future of dog DNA testing?

A．Controversies regarding its reliability are here to stay.

B．It is bound to make breakthroughs in the fields of medicine and entertainment.

C．It can step into a golden age as long as some research limitations are fixed.

D．It may have far-reaching significance and be applied to a wider range of areas.

10 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. conclusive     B. indiscriminate     C. awe     D. favourable     E. uninhabitable     F. address G. advocating     H. agenda     I. attain     J. conventional     K. odds

The world has warmed more than one degree Celsius since the Industrial Revolution. The Paris climate agreement hoped to restrict warming to two degrees. The     1     of succeeding, according to a recent study based on current emissions trends, are one in 20. If by some miracle we are able to limit warming to two degrees, we will only have to negotiate the extinction of the world’s tropical reefs,     2     the sea-level rise of several meters and abandon the Persian Gulf. The climate scientist James Hansen has called two-degree warming “long-term disaster”, which is now the best-case scenario. Four-degree warming will mean “short-term disaster”: Europe in permanent drought; vast areas of China, India and Bangladesh claimed by desert; the American Southwest largely     3    .

In the decade that ran from 1979 to 1989, we had an excellent opportunity to solve the climate crisis. The world’s major powers came within several signatures of     4     a global framework to reduce carbon emissions — far closer than we’ve come since. During those years, the conditions for success could not have been more     5    . The obstacles we blame for our current inaction had yet to emerge. Almost nothing stood in our way — nothing except ourselves.

Nearly everything we understand now about global warming was understood in 1979. Human beings have altered Earth’s atmosphere through the     6     burning of fossil fuels. At the start of the 1980s, scientists within the federal government predicted that     7     evidence of warming would appear on the global temperature record by the end of the decade, at which point it would be too late to avoid disaster. A report prepared by the National Academy of Sciences advised that “the carbon-dioxide issue should appear on the international     8     in a context that will maximize cooperation and minimize political controversy and division.” If the world had adopted the proposal widely supported at the end of the ‘80s, warming could have been held to less than 1.5degrees.

But they failed, even though the world’s leading oceanographer Henry Stommel and the Harvard planetary physicist Richard Goody, whose mere presence could inspire     9    , tried to warn humanity of what was coming. They risked their careers in a painful campaign to solve the problem, first in scientific reports, later through     10     avenues of political persuasion and finally with a strategy of public shaming. Their efforts were passionate and they failed. Now it is our turn.