1 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Millions of bus passengers will enjoy cleaner, safer     1     more comfortable journeys as the government invests (投资) a further £143 million to roll out almost a thousand new zero emission (排放) buses in England. The new     2     (serve) is expected to have a marked impact on the future of the country.

The funding comes from the     3     (two) round of the Zero Emission Bus Regional Areas (ZEBRA) programme, which will see new electric buses in towns, villages and     4     (city) across England, including the most rural parts of the country, many of which will get zero emission buses for the first time. Thanks to the ZEBRA programme, no other European country     5     (record) as many electric buses in 2023 as the UK, with zero emission buses accounting     6     almost half of all new large buses introduced last year.

Today’s investment follows over £270 million to 16 local transport authorities (LTAs)     7     (lead) the total government support to cover 41 LTAs.     8     (make) sure more parts of England benefit from better buses and green technology, particularly rural areas     9     the journey towards decarbonising (碳减排) buses is in     10     (it) early stages, the government has put the first £40 million into rural communities.

2 . A few years ago, Ben Gomes received a worrying call at work. The caller told him that his 92-year-old mother, Thomasinha, was being _______ to the hospital after she had been dragged (拖拽) by a car in the street. He raced to the _______ to see her.

“I was _______ at the time, I couldn’t picture what it would be like,” Gomes recalls. Gomes soon learned the _______ of what, had happened. Thomasinha sometimes received _______ from volunteer drivers to her local senior center. On that day, when she got out of the car, one of the long drawstring cords (拉带) on her jacket got _______ in the door as she closed it. The driver didn’t see her, and began to _______ , dragging Thomasinha along.

She _______ alongside the car, _______ the window of the car to get the driver’s ________ . That’s when a passer-by saw her from across the street and got in front of the car to ________ the driver. At that point, Thomasinha ________ , and she had a serious injury.

“I’m so grateful that I was not greeted by the sight that I feared when I went to the hospital,” Gomes says. Today, when Gomes reflects back on the kindness of this ________ , he says it’s hard to express his ________ . “I don’t know if I’d have ________ words to say than ‘Thank you’ for what you did for my mother and for what you did for me,” he adds.

1.

A．rushed

B．trained

C．applied

D．referred

2.

A．school

B．hospital

C．station

D．house

3.

A．honored

B．generous

C．frightened

D．faithful

4.

A．details

B．effects

C．costs

D．views

5.

A．prizes

B．rides

C．letters

D．tickets

6.

A．burned

B．stolen

C．lost

D．caught

7.

A．blow away

B．drive away

C．drop out

D．hang out

8.

A．sang

B．pushed

C．ran

D．nodded

9.

A．smiling at

B．turning on

C．pointing at

D．knocking on

10.

A．attention

B．memory

C．advice

D．money

11.

A．call

B．see

C．stop

D．beat

12.

A．joked

B．arrived

C．stood

D．fell

13.

A．passenger

B．stranger

C．student

D．doctor

14.

A．concern

B．sadness

C．interest

D．appreciation

15.

A．kinder

B．shorter

C．better

D．fewer

3 . Many kids find math difficult or boring. That feeling needs to go extinct as soon as possible as math is a pillar (支柱) of education. Beyond numbers, math pushes kids to think critically and become problem solvers.     1    ? Let’s find out!

Change how you talk about math to kids

When you hear the word “math” come up, put on a wide smile on your face. Our kids feed off our energy. Let’s be clear, we aren’t trying to make math cool.     2    . This goes double for those struggling with math.

Integrate (融合) math into daily life

    3    . You can do this at home, during grocery shopping or even at a restaurant. Getting kids a quick math practice session when they aren’t expecting it makes them think on their feet and put things they’ve learned into practice. They get a moment to shine and you get an opportunity to praise them for showing what they learned.

    4    

Does your child love sports? Math helps them keep track of their performance and improve. Figure out a way to take the current math they are working on in school and then apply it to something they like. This may take some homework on your part, but it will pay off in no time!

Go along with math games

Let’s not try to force math homework to be fun, rather find a teaching aid that puts math in a new light. With advancement in technology, math games have become designed to teach entire lessons and concepts rather than simple problems like the games of days past.     5    

A．Listen to the outer voice

B．Connect math to kids’ interests

C．What is your learning approach to math

D．But how do we help kids build math confidence

E．A simple everyday event can turn into a math problem

F．Your kids will explore a different world while playing math games

G．Instead, we are trying to make math a positive part of a child’s education

4 . Looking for the best music festivals in California in 2024? Well, you’ve come to the right place.

Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival

When: April 12 — 14 &. April 19 — 21, 2024

Where: Empire Polo Club, Indio, California

Coachella is one of California’s oldest and most impressive music & art festivals, and will certainly be a weekend experience that you’ll never forget. Every year it brings an unbelievably quality line-up covering different kinds of music, massively beautiful stage production, and a really fantastic festival atmosphere.

Outside Lands Music Festival

When: August 9 — 11, 2024

Where: Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California Outside Lands is Northern California’s biggest and best music festival, and is definitely an event you’ll fall in love with! While it may be one of the pricier events on the list, it’s worth every penny! The line-ups are always impressively diverse, and the production is truly the best.

Bottle Rock Napa Valley

When: May 24-— 26, 2024

Where: Napa Valley, Northern California

Featuring one of the largest and most diverse line-ups brought to Northern California, Bottle Rock Napa Valley is an annual 3-day festival featuring music, wine, food, and beer! 80⁺ bands on five music stages, great sight lines throughout the event, and tasty food from the Napa Valley’s finest chefs and restaurateurs make every festival-goer feel like a VIP.

Hard Summer Music Festival

When: July 12 — 14, 2024

Where: San Bernadino, California

This annual mega-festival has been a Southern California favorite for over a decade, and always manages to put together an unbelievably impressive line-up, incredible stage production, and overall amazing festival experience. There are exciting events like HARD Day of the Dead, Holy Ship, and HARD Red Rocks. Attending one of their events will always impress!

1. Which of the four music festivals begins the earliest?

A．Bottle Rock Napa Valley.	B．Outside Lands Music Festival.
C．Hard Summer Music Festival.	D．Coachella Valley Music&-Arts Festival.

2. What is special about Outside Lands Music Festival?

A．It lasts for a whole week.	B．It is open to all festival-goers.
C．It charges more for the tickets.	D．It is recognized as the oldest one.

3. Where will Hard Summer Music Festival be held?

A．In Napa Valley.	B．In San Bernadino.
C．At Golden Gate Park.	D．At Empire Polo Club.

5 . Large language models (LLMs) have become a household name thanks to the role they have played in bringing generative (生成式) AI to the forefront of the public interest, as well as the point on which organizations are focusing to apply generative AI into numerous business functions and use cases.

LLMs, like ChatGPT, are trained on huge amounts of data — mostly everything on the Internet, including soft copies of countless printed books. They can “learn” different kinds of things in their reading — not just words but also phrases, symbols and mathematical equations.

LLMs’ arrival has triggered a heated debate among experts in the field. At the heart of the debate is whether LLMs actually understand what they are saying and doing, rather than just seeming to. Some researchers have suggested that LLMs do understand, and can reason like people. But computer scientist Melanie Mitchell holds a different view.

Consider this letter-string problem: You start with abcd and the next string is abce. If you start with ijkl, humans almost always say the second string should end with m. And so do LLMs. They have, after all, been well trained on the English alphabet. But suppose you raise the problem in a different order, such as a u c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t b v w x y z. Humans are still very good at solving letter-string problems. But LLMs usually fail. They are not able to generalize’ the concepts (概念) used on an alphabet they know to another alphabet.

“Being dependable and doing the right thing in a new situation is the central part of what understanding actually means,” Mitchell says. Human understanding, she says, is based on “concepts” — basically mental models of things like situations and events. Concepts allow people to infer cause and effect and to predict (预测) the probable results of different actions — even in new cases.

1. Why do LLMs receive public attention?

A．They give us free access to all e-books.	B．They can perform a wide range of tasks.
C．They make ChatGPT part of our life.	D．They will create large numbers of jobs.

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

A．Caused.

B．Hosted.

C．Rejected.

D．Marked.

3. What are LLMs unable to do according to Mitchell?

A．Shape our views on technology.	B．Read an English passage.
C．Understand the world like humans.	D．Answer general questions.

4. Where is this text probably taken from?

A．A guidebook.

B．A research plan.

C．A children’s story.

D．A science magazine.

6 . In January, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook’s parent company Meta, appeared at a hearing to answer questions about how social media potentially harms children. Zuckerberg opened by saying: “The existing body of scientific work has not shown a causal link (关联) between using social media and young people having worse mental health.”

But many social scientists would disagree with that statement. In recent years, studies have started to show a causal link between teen social media use and reduced well-being. One of the most cited studies into this link focused on Facebook.

Researchers tried to discover whether the platform’s introduction across college campuses in the mid-2000s increased symptoms (症状) related to mental health problems. The answer was a clear yes, says Alexey Makarin, a coauthor of the study. “There is still a lot to be explored,” Makarin says, “but to say there is no causal evidence that social media causes mental health issues, and I definitely object to that.”

The concern and the studies come from data showing that social media use in teens aged 13 to 17 is now very common. Two-thirds of teens report using TikTok, and some 60 percent of teens report using Instagram or Snapchat, a 2022 survey found. Another survey showed that girls, on average, spend around 3. 4 hours per day on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, compared with about 2.1 hours among boys. At the same time, more teens are showing signs of depression than ever, especially girls.

As more studies show a strong link between these phenomena, researchers are starting to move their attention to possible solutions. Why does social media use seem to bring about mental health problems? Why do those effects unevenly exist among different groups, such as girls or young adults? And can the good points of social media be teased out (梳理) from the bad points to provide more targeted guidance to teens, their caregivers and policymakers?

1. Why does the author mention Zuckerberg’s words?

A．To introduce the topic.	B．To offer a piece of advice.
C．To present the image of a company.	D．To add background information.

2. What does Makarin’s study find?

A．It is important to network with others.	B．Social media harms teens’ mental health.
C．The Internet plays a key role in our daily life.	D．Messaging tools cause parents mental suffering.

3. Which is the percentage of teenagers using TikTok according to the 2022 survey?

A．34%.

B．60%.

C．67%.

D．76%.

4. What will researchers probably do?

A．Focus on all the Internet users.	B．Turn to teenagers’ caregivers.
C．Limit adults’ social media use.	D．Work out targeted solutions.

7 . 假定你是李华，请写一份倡议书，倡议大家关注野生动物的保护。内容包括：
1. 野生动物减少的原因（人为捕猎，环境污染……）；
2. 需要采取的措施（至少两条）。
注意：
1. 写作词数应为80左右；
2. 请在答题卡的相应位置作答。
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

8 . Born with hearing loss, Emily Jensen faced difficulties while pursuing (追求) a career she truly felt passionate about. As others doubted her abilities, all she hoped for was a chance to unlock her true potential (潜能) and feel a sense of belonging in the workplace. Jensen’s chance finally materialized when Cornell offered her an opportunity she had been seeking for nearly a decade.

Jensen first applied to the university for a job opening as a human resources (HR) assistant at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) . Although she didn’t make it to the final round of interviews, a worker approached Jensen and suggested she connect with Larry, the head for human resources at the ILR School.

“They saw something in me,” Jensen said. “So, I met with Larry and his team. They were looking to develop their department and decided to bring me on board as an HR assistant.”

When Jensen first came on board at ILR, she needed special technology for her computer. Because of her hearing loss, additional equipment, such as a soundbar, is necessary to hear. “My team provided this from day one,” Jensen said. “It feels really good to be able to come into an environment that was already set up for my success from the very beginning.”

For many, disclosing a disability is not an easy thing to do, especially in the workplace. Fortunately, the ILR School and Jensen’s new HR team have created an environment where she not only feels comfortable doing so but is also valued for the role she plays.

“It’s a testament (证明) to my team and Larry, who is my biggest cheerleader,” Jensen said. “It was he who brought me on and saw what I was capable of, which led me to develop so much trust in myself.”

1. What can we know about Jensen?

A．She failed to attend college.	B．She used to study at Cornell.
C．She topped other interviewees.	D．She had trouble finding a job.

2. What impression did the ILR School give Jensen on the first workday?

A．Coldness.

B．Warmth.

C．Loneliness.

D．Humour.

3. What did Jensen want to say in the last paragraph?

A．She is grateful to Larry.	B．She is a good cheerleader.
C．She will build a positive culture.	D．She saw her team make progress.

4. Which is the most suitable title for the text?

A．The Impressive Achievement	B．The Road to a Successful Life
C．The Chance that Changed It All	D．The Offer that Saved a Professor

9 . 假设你是李华，你校上周在黄山进行了一次主题为“an eco-friendly study trip”的研学旅行。你的朋友Bob对此很感兴趣，写信询问你相关情况，请你给他回信告诉他：
1.研学旅行的目的，时间，地点及参与者；
2.你对此活动的感受。
注意：字数在80词左右。
Dear Bob,
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Yours,

Li Hua

10 . Flash droughts develop fast, and when they hit at the wrong time, they can ruin a region’s agriculture. They’re also becoming increasingly common as the planet warms. In a study published in the journal Communications Earth& Environment, we found that the risk of flash droughts, which can develop in just a few weeks, is on the rise in every major agricultural region around the world in the coming decades.

In North America and Europe, cropland that had a 32% annual chance of a flash drought a few years ago could have a greater chance of a flash drought by the final decades of this century. That result would put food production, energy, and water supplies under increasing pressure. The cost of change will also rise. A flash drought in the Dakotas and Montana 2017 caused $2.6 billion in agricultural damage in America alone.

All droughts begin when rainfall stops. What’s interesting about flash droughts is how fast they strengthen themselves, with some help from the warming climate. When the weather is hot and dry, soil loses moisture rapidly. Dry air extracts moisture from the land, and rising temperatures can increase this evaporative (蒸发的) demand. The lack of rain during a flash drought can further contribute to the feedback processes. Under these conditions, crops and vegetation begin to die much more quickly than they do during typical long-term droughts.

In our study, we used climate models and data from the past 170 years to assess the drought risks ahead under three conditions for how quickly the world takes action to slow the pace of global warming. If greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles, power plants, and other human sources continue at a high rate, we found that cropland in much of North America and Europe would have a 53% annual chance of flash droughts, by the final decades of this century. Globally, the largest increases in flash droughts would be in Europe and the Amazon. Slowing emissions can reduce the risk significantly, but we found flash droughts would still increase by about 6% worldwide under low emission conditions.

1. What is the feature of flash droughts?

A．Seldom happen and greatly beneficial.	B．Frequently happen and low risky.
C．Suddenly happen and highly destructive.	D．Regularly happen and slightly harmful.

2. Which of the following statements may the author agree with?

A．Crops and vegetation die more quickly during long term droughts.

B．Slowing emissions can completely solve the problem of flash droughts.

C．In Europe cropland will suffer from more flash droughts by the end of this century.

D．Flash droughts won’t have any effect on food production, energy, and water supplies.

3. What may be a factor that strengthens flash droughts?

A．Adequate rainfall.	B．The warming climate.
C．The cold and wet weather.	D．Long-term droughts.

4. How can humans help reduce flash droughts?

A．By studying climate models.	B．By speeding up global warming.
C．By changing cropland into forests.	D．By decreasing greenhouse gas emissions.