1 . 假定你是李华，你的美国好友Susan下周要参加国际中华思想文化演讲比赛（International Speech Contest on Chinese Thought and Culture），给你发来邮件表示焦虑、紧张。请你就此给她回封邮件，内容包括：
1.表示宽慰；
2.提出建议；
3.给予鼓励。
注意：
1.词数80左右；
2.格式已为你写好。
Dear Susan,
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Best wishes,
Li Hua
2 . History has not yet
Whatever we
Historian Neil Howe sees
| A．remarked | B．convinced | C．guaranteed | D．revealed |
| A．numbers | B．houses | C．accommodates | D．contains |
| A．peers | B．adolescents | C．folks | D．guys |
| A．over | B．without | C．besides | D．beyond |
| A．diagnosed | B．dismissed | C．labeled | D．coined |
| A．end up | B．consider about | C．appeal for | D．approve of |
| A．distribution force | B．purchasing power | C．global view | D．unique outlooks |
| A．vivid | B．instructive | C．instant | D．profitable |
| A．feed up with | B．put up with | C．make up for | D．identify with |
| A．faking | B．revising | C．illustrating | D．maintaining |
| A．supervising | B．forming | C．representing | D．promoting |
| A．parallels | B．contrasts | C．comparisons | D．reservations |
| A．because | B．although | C．while | D．when |
| A．emphasis | B．generation | C．intensity | D．cultivation |
| A．routes | B．schemes | C．names | D．definitions |
3 . Travelling abroad can present many challenges, including long journeys, language problems, and culture shocks, plus the expense of transport and accommodation.
One of the wonderful benefits of going abroad is that you can learn history and culture without real effort. There’s a natural tendency to absorb other cultures and pick up historical concepts, while enjoying yourself at the same time.
Another great benefit is that living in a foreign culture is the only real way to fully understand its language.
Removing yourself from the familiar and travelling to a new country can be a very powerful tool for gaining self-awareness and deeper understanding.
| A．It’s far superior to learning it in a classroom. |
| B．The new land gives you a fresh social environment. |
| C．The direct experience helps you remember something easily. |
| D．Many people wonder what they should do in a foreign country. |
| E．Travelling abroad can also boost creativity and drive innovation. |
| F．Another benefit of travelling abroad is the relaxation you can get. |
| G．However, there’s rarely a dull moment when you’ re in a different country. |
4 . Atomic shapes are so simple that they can’t be broken down any further. Mathematicians are trying to turn to artificial intelligence (AI) for help to build a periodic table of these shapes, hoping it will assist in finding yet-unknown atomic shapes.
Tom Coates at Imperial College London and his colleagues are working to classify atomic shapes known as Fano varieties, which are so simple that they can’t be broken down into smaller components. Just as chemists arranged element s in the periodic table by their atomic weight and group to reveal new insights, the researchers hope that organizing these atomic shapes by their various properties will help in understanding them.
The team has given each atomic shape a sequence of numbers based on its features such as the number of holes it has or the extent to which it bends around itself. This acts as a bar code (条形码) to identify it. Coates and his colleagues have now created an AI that can predict certain properties of these shapes from their bar code numbers alone, with an accuracy of 98 percent.
The team member Alexander Kasprzyk at the University of Nottingham, UK, says that the AI has let the team organize atomic shapes in a way that begins to follow the periodic table, so that when you read from left to right, or up and down, there seem to be general patterns in the geometry (几何) of the shapes.
Graham Nib lo at the University of Southampton, UK, stresses that humans will still need to understand the results provided by AI and create proofs of these ideas. “AI has definitely got unbelievable abilities. But in the same way that telescopes (望远镜) don’t put astronomers out of work, AI doesn’t put mathematicians out of work,” he says. “It just gives us new backing that allows us to explore parts of the mathematical landscape that are out of reach.”
The team hopes to improve the model to the point where missing spaces in its periodic table could point to the existence of unknown shapes.
1. What is the purpose of building a periodic table of shapes?| A．To gain deeper insights into the atomic shapes. |
| B．To create an AI to predict the unknown shapes. |
| C．To break down atomic shapes into smaller parts. |
| D．To arrange chemical elements in the periodic table. |
| A．Its holes. | B．Its bends. |
| C．Its atomic weight. | D．Its properties. |
| A．Design. | B．Help. | C．Duty. | D．Threat. |
| A．Thanks to AI, new atomic shapes have been discovered. |
| B．Mathematicians turn to AI to create more atomic shapes. |
| C．AI helps build a relationship between chemistry and maths. |
| D．A periodic table of shapes can be built with the help of AI. |
5 . When you ask people to judge others by their speech, a trend emerges: Listeners dislike disfluency. Slow talkers producing loads of ums and pauses(停顿)are generally perceived as less charming. But science tells us there may be even more to disfluency.
Disfluencies do not occur in arbitrary positions in sentences. Ums typically occur right before more difficult or low-frequency words. Imagine you’re having dinner with a friend at a restaurant,and there’re three items on the table: a knife, a glass, and a wine decanter(醒酒器). Your friend turns to you and says, “Could you hand me the...um...” What would you assume they want? Since it’s unlikely that they will hesitate before such common words as knife, and glass, chances are you’ll pick up the decanter and ask, “You mean this?”
This is exactly what we demonstrated through controlled eye-tracking studies in our lab. Apparently, listeners hear the um and predict that an uncommon word is most likely to follow.Such predictions, though, reflect more than just simple association between disfluencies and difficult words; listeners are actively considering from the speaker’s point of view. For example, when hearing a non-native speaker say the same sentence but with a thick foreign accent, listeners don’t show a preference for looking at low-frequency objects. This is probably because listeners assume non-native speakers may have as much trouble coming up with the English word for a common object, like a knife, as for unusual ones and can’t guess their intention.
In another experiment, listeners were presented with an atypical speaker who produced disfluencies before simple words and never before difficult words. Initially, participants displayed the natural predictive strategy: looking at uncommon objects. However, as more time went by, and they gained experience with this atypical distribution of disfluencies, listeners started to demonstrate the contrary predictive behavior: They tended to look at simple objects when hearing the speaker say um.
These findings represent further evidence that the human brain is a prediction machine: We continuously try to predict what will happen next, even though not all disfluencies are created equal.
1. What does the underlined word “arbitrary”mean in paragraph 2?| A．Random. | B．Strategic. | C．Obvious. | D．Consistent |
| A．They can be understood easily. | B．They actively put themselves in others’ shoes |
| C．Their vocabularies are limited. | D．Their disfluencies are a little less predictive. |
| A．Simple things are difficult in some cases. | B．Listeners can adjust predictions accordingly. |
| C．Distribution of disfluencies is changeable. | D．Disfluencies in communication can be avoided. |
| A．Pauses Coexist with Prediction. | B．Brains Are Powerful Prediction Machines. |
| C．Active Listeners Simplify Talks. | D．Disfluency Says More Than You Think. |
1. 黑脉金斑蝶的现状；
2. 提出保护原因及措施；
3. 号召保护濒危动物。
注意:
1. 写作词数应为80左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Protect Monarch Butterflies
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7 . ①A group of 41 states and the District of Columbia began a legal case against Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, insisting that the company knowingly used features on its platforms to cause children to overuse them. The accusations in the lawsuit raise a deeper question about behavior: Are young people becoming addicted to social media and the internet? Here’s what the research has found.
②David Greenfield, a psychologist and founder of the Center for Internet and Technology Addiction in West Hartford, Conn, said the devices tempt users with some powerful approaches. One is “intermittent reinforcement,” which creates the idea that a user could get a reward at any time. But when the reward comes is unpredictable. Adults are easily influenced, be noted, but young people are particularly at risk, because the brain regions that are involved in resisting temptation and reward are not nearly as developed in children and teenagers as in adults. Moreover, the adolescent brain is especially accustomed to social connections, and social media is all a perfect opportunity to connect with other people.
③For many years, the scientific community typically defined addiction in relation to substances, such as drugs, and not behaviors, such as gambling or internet use. That has gradually changed. In 2013, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the official reference for mental health conditions, introduced the idea of internet gaming addiction.
④A subsequent study explored broadening the definition to “internet addiction.” The author suggested further exploring diagnostic criteria and the language, for instance, noting that terms like “problematic use” and even the word “internet” were open to broad interpretation, given the many forms the information and its delivery can take.
⑤Dr. Michael Rich, the director of the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital, said he discouraged the use of the word “addiction” because the internet, if used effectively and with limits, was not merely useful but also essential to everyday life.
⑥Greenfield agreed that there clearly are valuable uses for the internet and that the definition of how much is too much can vary. But he said there also were obvious cases where immoderate use disturbs school, sleep and other vital aspects of a healthy life. “Too many young consumers can’t put it down, ” he said.“ The internet, including social media like Meta, are the drugs affecting the mind.”
1. What was Meta accused of?| A．It added problematic features to its platform. |
| B．It started a discussion to mislead young people. |
| C．It tempted children to use social media too much. |
| D．It conducted illegal research on its parent company. |
| A．their under-developed brain |
| B．the random pattern of rewards |
| C．their desire to be socially connected |
| D．the possibility of escaping from reality |
| A．Addiction is something about behaviors instead of substances. |
| B．The online language can be interpreted from a broad perspective. |
| C．Current diagnostic criteria of “internet addiction” isn’t satisfactory. |
| D．There should be an agreement on the definition of the word “internet”. |
| A．proper use of the internet does good to children |
| B．the internet is to blame for disturbing healthy life |
| C．there are cases against immoderate use of the internet |
| D．the word “addiction” is improperly used on the internet |
8 . Every decision we make is arrived at through hugely complex neurological processing. Although it feels as though you have a choice, the action that you ‘decide’ to take is entirely directed by automatic neural activity. Brain imaging studies show that a person’s action can be predicted by their brain activity up to 10 seconds before they themselves become aware they are going to act. Multiple neuroscientific studies show that even those important decisions that feel worked out are just as automatic as knee-jerk reactions (膝跳反应) (although more complex).
Decision-making starts with the amygdala: a set of two almond-shaped nuclei (杏仁状核) buried deep within the brain, which generate emotion. The amygdala registers the information streaming in through our senses and responds to it in less than a second, sending signals throughout the brain. These produce an urge to run, fight, freeze or grab, according to how the amygdala values various stimuli.
Before we act on the amygdala’s signals, however, the information is usually processed by other brain areas, including some that produce conscious thoughts and emotions. Areas concerned with recognition work out what’s going on, those concerned with memory compare it with previous experiences, and those concerned with reasoning, judging and planning get to work on constructing various action plans. The best plan—if we are lucky—is then selected and carried out. If any of this process goes wrong, we are likely to hesitate, or do something silly.
The various stages of decision-making are marked by different types of brain activity. Fast (gamma)waves, with frequencies of 25 to 100 Hz, produce a keen awareness of the multiple factors that need to be taken into account to arrive at a decision. If you are trying to choose a sandwich, for instance, gamma waves generated in various cells within the ‘taste’ area of the brain bring to mind and compare the taste of ham, hummus, wholemeal, sourdough, and so on. Although it may seem useful to be aware of the full range of choice, too much information makes decision-making more difficult, so irrelevant factors get dismissed quickly and unconsciously.
After this comparison stage, the brain switches to slow-wave activity (12 to 30 Hz). This extinguishes most of the gamma activity, leaving just a single ‘hotspot’ of gamma waves which marks the chosen option.
Although there is no ‘you’ outside your brain to direct what it’s doing, you can help it to make good decisions by placing yourself in a situation which is likely to make the process run more smoothly. Doing something that is physically or mentally stimulating before making a decision will help your brain produce the initial gamma waves that generate awareness of the competing options. Getting over-excited, on the other hand, will prevent the switch to the slow brainwaves, making it much harder to single out a choice.
1. Why does the writer mention “knee-jerk reactions” in the first paragraph?| A．To introduce the finding of the latest brain imaging studies. |
| B．To illustrate that decisions are not consciously thought out. |
| C．To call attention to a kind of neural reaction that is not very complex. |
| D．To show the difference between decision-making and other brain activity. |
| A．It works out conscious thoughts and emotions. |
| B．It selects the best action plan for a given situation. |
| C．It dismisses factors that are irrelevant to the decision to be made. |
| D．It processes sensory information and generates emotional responses. |
| A．Slow-wave activity usually lasts longer than fast-wave activity. |
| B．The brain prioritizes information before settling on a final choice. |
| C．Decision-making is difficult when slow-wave activity occurs first. |
| D．The brain needs as much information as possible to make a decision. |
| A．By preparing the brain to single out the most reasonable choice. |
| B．By helping the brain switch to slow-wave activity more quickly. |
| C．By getting the brain to focus on those most relevant alternatives. |
| D．By making the brain more aware of the factors and choices involved. |
9 . Animal appear to predict earthquakes by sensing electricity in the air — the first study to find reliable evidence of the phenomenon has shown.
Cameras revealed an “amazing” drop in the number of animals up to 23 days before a major quake hit their rainforest home at Yanachaga National Park in Peru. Lead scientist Dr Rachel Grant, from Anglia Ruskin University, said, “The results showed that just before the earthquake, animals’ activity dropped right down.”
On a normal day the cameras placed around Yanachaga National Park record between 5 and 15 animals. But in the 23 days before the earthquake, the number of animals dropped to five or fewer per day. No animals were photographed at all on five of the seven days immediately before the quake.
Another study showed that animal activity remained normal in the park over a different period when seismic (地震的) activity was low. Co-author, professor Friedemann Freund, said, “The cameras were located at an altitude of 900 meters. If air ionization occurred, the animals would escape to the valley below, where there were fewer positive ions ( 离子). With their ability to sense their environment, animals can help us understand small changes that occur before major earthquakes.”
Other evidence suggested that before the earthquake, the air around the high mountain sites filled with positive ions that can be produced when rocks are placed under stress. Positive ions have been known to cause ill effects in humans as well as animals. Scientists believe the animals were made to feel uncomfortable by the positive ions, leading them to avoid the area. They are thought to have escaped to lower ground, where the air was less ionized. The findings may help experts develop better short-term seismic forecasts.
1. How did scientists conduct the study?| A．By comparing different animals’ habits. |
| B．By observing animals in high mountains. |
| C．By explaining the positive ion phenomenon. |
| D．By analyzing images of animals they obtained. |
| A．The ground at a lower altitude is less ionized. |
| B．Cameras normally record more animals per day. |
| C．Earthquake warnings can be detected in lower places. |
| D．The activity of animals and earthquakes is consistent. |
| A．The findings make for accurate seismic forecast. |
| B．Animals tend to be uneasy with more positive ions. |
| C．Positive ions make humans and animals depressed. |
| D．All the animals remain abnormal before the earthquake. |
| A．Negative Influence of Positive Ions. |
| B．Ions’ Destruction to the Environment. |
| C．Animals’ Behavior Before Earthquakes. |
| D．Creatures’ Ability to Predict Earthquakes. |
As a senior editor in a famous press, I always think of days twenty years before when I was 18, I lived with my grandparents, and my parents earned their living in another city, struggling to support our family. I had taken to delivering newspapers to support myself and my education.
I would be up every morning by 5 am and walk five kilometres from where I lived to the newspaper office. By 6 am, I would collect 50 copies which must have weighed over five kilograms. My delivery range spanned (横跨) three kilometres. After distributing the copies, I would rush home—another three kilometres away—cook my breakfast, and be off to my school.
One Friday morning, I got home after my deliveries, finding Afzal, a boy from the neighbourhood, at my doorstep. Afzal said his mother wanted to see me. When I asked him why, Afzal said, “She will tell you.” Tired after walking around for over 11 kilometres, I was looking forward to breakfast and some rest. I assumed his mother wished to subscribe (定期订购) to the newspaper, so I followed him to his home nearby.
A woman in her 40s opened the door. I later learned she was Afzal’s mother, Mrs Kader. She asked me to sit, pulled up her chair next to mine and gently asked, “Tell me about your routine, right from the time you wake up in the morning.” I wasn’t quite sure why she wanted to know, but I told her about my morning job in a few words. She asked me, “How many miles do you walk every day?” I replied, “A little more than 11 kilometres.” My reply shocked her.
Then she patted my back and went inside, reappearing carrying a large plate full of food for breakfast for me. It was a heart y breakfast, one that brought back memories of happy days spent with my parents. Later, as I was about to leave after thanking them, Mrs Kader asked me to wait and she went inside 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。
Then Mrs Kader appeared again, with a new bicycle.
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I bowed to Mrs Kader gratefully and left for school.
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