1 . In an awe-inspiring incident, a young killer whale recently demonstrated remarkable intelligence by seeking assistance from a group of humans to save its trapped mother, which challenged our conventional understanding of wild predators (食肉动物).

The online viral video, shared by Alvin Foo, began with a young killer whale emitting distressing cries towards a group of people on a boat. Recognizing the urgency of the situation, the concerned individuals promptly responded by contacting a rescue team. The young whale’s desperate request for help touched more people’s hearts and set a truly extraordinary chain of events in motion.

As the rescue team arrived, they were amazed to witness the young killer whale’s playful interaction with the humans. The whale appeared elated, seemingly understanding that assistance had finally arrived. This interaction between the mother killer whale and rescuers underlined the potential for mutual understanding beyond the boundary of traditional predator-prey relationships.

The young whale took on the role of a guide, leading the rescue team to its mother trapped in a fishing net. It navigated the water with purpose, as if fully aware that the humans possessed the means to save its mother. This display of intelligence left the rescuers in awe, highlighting the complex cognitive abilities of these magnificent marine creatures. With its guidance, the rescue team swiftly initiated the liberation process, carefully cutting the net to free the trapped whale. Astonishingly, they seemed to understand that the humans were there to help and did as asked.

The instant the mother whale was finally freed, an eruption of joyous cries filled the air. The emotional outpouring conveyed the immense gratitude of both the mother whale and the young whale to the humans who had intervened. As the rescue team made their way back to shore, the two whales swam alongside them. This heart-warming sight emphasized the lasting impact of the rescue. The bond formed through this extraordinary rescue operation was well obvious, proving that the profound connections can be established between various species. The journey back to safety symbolized the victory of compassion over adversity.

1. What can we learn about the video from paragraph 2?

A．It spread widely.

B．It went unnoticed.

C．It documented humans’ requesting help.

D．It recorded passive response to the rescue.

2. What does the underlined word “elated” in paragraph 3 mean?

A．Tired.

B．Excited.

C．Frightened.

D．Confused.

3. What is the young whale like?

A．Wise and cooperative.	B．Complex and mysterious.
C．Curious and careful.	D．Wild and rude.

4. What does the author mainly want to convey in the last paragraph?

A．Adversity is a good discipline.

B．It is urgent to protect wildlife.

C．Different species can coexist in harmony.

D．Human intervention poses a threat to whales.

2 . Meteorites (陨石) can offer clues about what the early solar system was like. But finding them is far from difficult. Now, some scientists are turning to drones (无人机) and machine learning to help spot freshly fallen meteorites much more efficiently. “A team of six people on a meteorite-hunting expedition can search about 200,000 square meters per day,” says Seamus Anderson, a planetary scientist in Australia.

Around 2016, Anderson began toying with the concept of using drones to take pictures of the g round to look for meteorites. That idea blossomed into a Ph.D. project. In 2022, he and his colleagues reported their first successful recovery of a meteorite spotted with a drone. They’ve since found four more meteorites at a different site. Drone-based searches are much faster than the standard search way. “You’re going from about 300 days of human effort down to about a dozen or so,” he says.

Anderson and his workmates have used drones to search for meteorites in remote parts of Western Australia and South Australia. The team is tipped off about a fall site by networks of ground-based cameras that track meteoroids flashing through the Earth’s atmosphere. The researchers have to do a series of fun but difficult work before the hunt. They pack a four-wheel drive vehicle with drone and computer equipment, battery charging stations, generators, fuel, food, camping equipment, tables, chairs and much more. The drive to the fall site can take more than a day, often on rough or nonexistent roads. Anderson says, “You hope you don’t pop a tire.”

After arriving, the team flies its primary drone at an altitude of about 20 meters. Its camera takes an image of the ground once every second, and the scientists download the data every 40 minutes or so when the drone lands to receive fresh batteries. A typical day of flying can net over 10,000 images, which are then divided digitally into 100 million or so smaller sections. Those “tiles”, each 2 meters on a side, are fed into a machine learning algorithm (算法) that has been trained to recognize meteorites based on images of real land rocks which are spray-painted black.

1. Why do the scientists study meteorites?

A．To spot the planetary course.	B．To promote machine learning.
C．To test the functions of drones.	D．To explore the past of solar system.

2. What does Anderson say about drone-based searches in paragraph 2?

A．Their barriers.	B．Their causes.
C．Their efficiency.	D．Their concept.

3. Which words can best describe the preparations of the drone search for meteorites?

A．Fun and light.	B．Smooth and flexible.
C．Difficult and unpleasant.	D．Complicated and tough.

4. How does the drone process images?

A．By dividing them in half.	B．By storing them for analysis.
C．By combining them into a picture.	D．By linking them with a digital printer.

3 . Recent research confirms what our farming ancestors have known for centuries about hedges (树篱). They conserve precious soil by acting as windbreaks and absorbing rainwater that would otherwise wash it from the fields. And hedges store carbon, putting them in the front line of our bi d to tackle the climate crisis.

However, hedges have had a tough time in the poor countryside, with farmers encouraged to tear them down in pursuit of maximum production and larger field s to accommodate ever-larger machinery. What’s more, some hedges have been ignored. If left to their own devices, they’ll eventually become a line of trees. Some hedges each year lose their structures and fail to fulfil the primary duty as a barrier. Around a half of the nation’s hedges have disappeared in the past century.

There are signs that “the tide is turning”. The search for net zero has aroused many organizations’ interest in the humble hedge’s role as a carbon sink. The Climate Change Committee is recommending a 40 percent increase in hedges: an additional 200,000 km. Such recommendations are starting to drive policy. Cash-pressed farmers will be encouraged to create new hedges and improve their management of existing ones under the new Environmental Land Management Schemes, which will replace many of the existing agricultural support payments in coming years. Meanwhile, initiatives such as Close the Gap, led by the Tree Council, is providing funding and support to plug the gaps in existing hedges with new planting. There’s even an app to help time-pressed farmers do a quick survey to spot where their hedges need some help.

This is a good time for hedges. Take some of the most pressing challenges facing the countryside, and indeed, the world as a whole — the climate crisis, soil erosion (侵蚀), insect attack and wider biodiversity loss — and hedges are part of the solution.

1. What does recent research show about hedges?

A．They are unique landscapes in the rain.

B．They act as dividing lines between fields.

C．They have long been helpful to agriculture.

D．They are frequently washed away from the fields.

2. What does paragraph 2 mainly tell us about hedges?

A．Their suffering.	B．Their production.
C．Their duties.	D．Their structures.

3. What is many organizations’ attitude towards saving hedges?

A．Puzzled.

B．Concerned.

C．Humble.

D．Indifferent.

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．Hedges: Ancient Resources

B．Hedges: Official Recommendations

C．Restoring Hedges: Bringing Benefits to the Environment

D．Researching Hedges: Originating from Farmers’ Request

4 . 阅读下面材料，根据其内容和所给段落开头语续写两段，使之构成一篇完整的短文。

Today was Sunday, so I was in no hurry to get out of bed. As I rolled over and stretched, I heard my father shouted, “Oh, dear, fire!” There was unmistakable urgency in his voice. Upon hearing that, I got up and hurried downstairs. And my mother who was preparing breakfast also stopped cooking immediately. My father showed us a video shot by some witness, where we saw a fire inside a building. My mother stood beside him and shook her head.

“What a pity! Is it local?” my mother asked. As a policeman, my father had a keen observation ability. “It’s your hospital!” he watched the screen carefully and said in surprise.

It turned out that a building of the hospital where my mother worked as a head nurse was on fire. We found out later that an old wire first caused the building to catch fire and it began to spread. The camera captured the firefighters’ figures in black and orange uniform as they aimed endless streams of water at the fire.

“I have to get there,” said my mother, feeling anxious. My father and I offered to go with her. She threw on uniform and drove to the site.

Luckily, the fire didn’t spread to the building where my mother worked. After making sure that it was safe, we came to my mother’s office. My mother’s co-workers came to the office off and on as well. They were horrified at the sight of the next building but still thought about how to help.

Through a front window, I suddenly saw the rows of medical records in the next building, and I hurried to tell my mother. She felt really nervous and instantly consulted with her co-workers about how to cope. The situation was very urgent. They knew that if they waited until the firefighters who were busy evacuating (疏散) patients got here, those recordings might burn up. The fire broke out before the records, which were irreplaceable histories of their patients, could be entered into the computer.

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。

They decided to rescue the records, and my father and I offered to help.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Finally, some firefighters arrived.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

7 . Positive Ways to Greet the Morning

I don’t always get up early in the morning. Even if I’ve got enough sleep, I rarely leap out of bed in a hurry to go. Transitioning from rest to activity just challenges me.     1    

One thing that has made a really good impact is to sleep with the window a little open when it is safe and the weather is not very cold.     2     Especially, as spring starts to brighten up, the morning air and wind can make me wake up in the sound sleep and greet the morning.

    3     Before I stand up, even before I’ve fully opened my eyes, I sit on the edge of the bed and take a couple of deep breaths while I move my toes and lightly press the balls and heels of my feet into the floor. This makes me feel grounded in my commitment to starting the day, and I like the feeling of moving from lying down to standing up and feeling where my feet land on the ground.

Then I meet myself in the mirror with some positive self-talk.     4     I either encourage myself to begin the day with confidence and perseverance or just think about self-supporting words like kindness, love, hope or peace. And it helps me with a good state of mind in a positive way later.

Finally, I eat breakfast happily before going to school. I often remind myself that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.     5     And that’s true. If you have a test that day, a nice breakfast is always good for your brain!

A．Let the natural taste in.

B．I usually praise myself for something.

C．The air and wind may stop me sleeping well.

D．It gives me nutrition and keeps my mind sharp for the day.

E．I’ve also started taking a moment to feel my feet on the floor.

F．So lately, I’ve been trying out some new ways to welcome the new day.

G．I regularly do warm-up by myself after the self-talk at the end of the day.

8 . Let’s get to some famous attractions in London!

Chinatown

At the beginning of the 20th century, many Chinese immigrants gathered together in the East End of London and set about creating businesses to provide services for Chinese people who frequented the area. In the 1930s and 1940s, with a large inflow of immigrants from Hong Kong and a growth in popularity of Chinese cooking style, many Chinese restaurants opened elsewhere.

Natural History Museum

It was ever known as part of the British Museum which was established in 1753. The museum exhibits a large number of cultural relics. It holds collections coming from every continent around the globe. It exhibits millions of life and earth samples, and visitors can witness collections having great scientific value like samples that were collected by Charles Darwin.

Madame Tussauds London

The museum is created by the w ax sculptress, Marie Tussaud. Located on Marylebone Road, it is the first Madame Tussaud’s museum, which opened about 200 years ago, though there are now a variety of other branches within different cities around the globe. The museum hosts lifelike figures, including royal people, film stars, sports stars and models.

Royal Observatory, Greenwich

The Royal Observatory, Greenwich in London, has played a global role in the history of astronomy and navigation. It was established in 1675 with the key function being to set right the places of the fixed stars and find the desired navigational places. With its position overlooking the River Thames in central London, it makes for an excellent tourist attraction on a year-round basis.

1. Where is the text most probably taken from?

A．A course plan.	B．A tourism journal.
C．A science magazine.	D．A history textbook.

2. What makes Natural History Museum different from the other three places?

A．Its scientific samples.	B．Its birth city.
C．Its Chinese architectural style.	D．Its lifelike figures.

3. Which attraction has the longest history?

A．Chinatown.	B．Natural History Museum.
C．Madame Tussauds London.	D．Royal Observatory, Greenwich.

9 . I am 49 now. Reader’s Digest has been a(n) _______ part of my family since even before I was born. My father, a planter who _______ a tea estate in Sri Lanka, has _______ Reader’s Digest since the late 1950s. And then he naturally changed from a tea merchant to a writer for it.

In an era with no television or the Internet, the evenings were spent _______ the magazine. By the time I became literate, there was a cupboard full of Reader’s Digest _______ by me, which my father bought for me. With its _______, my knowledge was gathered too. At first, it was the real stories that were most _______ for me, where I learned some life lessons.

I read through them all over my school holidays. One thing I learned from Reader’s Digest is how to reverse (倒车) a car, which still benefits me today. I _______ reading a small piece of news about the tips on _______ a car up to a space in a short time, and to date, I can make it with the ________ effort and the most relaxed mind than most people.

I’ve ________ had to spend much time getting trained how to reverse a car fast. Every time I need to do it in one ________ step, I thought of the textual ________ and the vivid diagram from the Reader’s Digest. Who would have thought Reader’s Digest could be a “________”? I hope that the next generations will continue to enjoy reading and gain something ________   like me.

1.

A．essential

B．awkward

C．challenging

D．legal

2.

A．left

B．ran

C．spotted

D．visited

3.

A．given away

B．set aside

C．subscribed to

D．stored up

4.

A．copying

B．booking

C．reading

D．printing

5.

A．collected

B．designed

C．assessed

D．purchased

6.

A．publication

B．transformation

C．increase

D．display

7.

A．difficult

B．instructive

C．tiresome

D．traditional

8.

A．admit

B．postpone

C．propose

D．remember

9.

A．backing

B．picking

C．giving

D．counting

10.

A．latest

B．slightest

C．biggest

D．craziest

11.

A．never

B．indeed

C．occasionally

D．usually

12.

A．close

B．false

C．frequent

D．quick

13.

A．errors

B．requirements

C．limitation

D．explanation

14.

A．merchant

B．loss

C．coach

D．barrier

15.

A．fashionable

B．practical

C．previous

D．financial

10 . 听下面一段较长对话，回答以下小题
1. Which place would the man like to go?

A．An exciting modern city.

B．A popular tourist attraction.

C．A quiet and far-away place.

2. What does the woman worry about?

A．The weather.

B．The food and water.

C．The language.

3. What does the woman plan to do now?

A．Travel with the man.

B．Do some gardening.

C．Go to the travel agency. .