1 . For the arts “to mean more, to more people,” as Arts Council England (ACE) argues that they should, would be excellent. Music, drama, dance, visual arts, poetry and literature are among the most precious human achievements. To live in a country in which these are more widely shared and enjoyed would be proof that we are making progress. The point is not to entertain or educate people, or bring communities together. Nor is it all about boosting jobs and investment. Imagination has intrinsic (内在的) value, and research carried out by ACE in the course of preparing its 10-year strategy showed that people from all walks of life value and get pleasure from cultural activities.

Positioning itself as a development agency, ACE will now hope to win government backing for a change of direction that orients it away from the biggest and most prestigious national institutions and towards the towns, villages and grassroots organizations that should be similarly deserving of attention. There, it envisions a role for itself “building the identity and prosperity of places,” bringing professional artists together with voluntary groups, particular in areas that have previously not been well represented on the cultural map.

ACE’s chair, Sir Nicholas Serota, quotes the first world war centenary (百年纪念) project devised by the artist, Jeremy Deller, and theatre director, Rufus Norris, as the model of what he wants his organization to be about. By dressing up volunteers as soldiers, and orchestrating their encounters with members of the public in settings across England, the artists succeeded in “dissolving the barriers between artists and audiences.”

The emphasis on participation — on culture as something that more people should actually do — is newer. This is the difference between being in a play or a band and buying tickets to watch them, and for ACE to play a more active role in promoting the former would be beneficial. This begins in childhood, and ACE clearly hopes that the government will think again about policies that have seen music, drama and other arts subjects systematically downgraded in favour of science, technology and maths.

To what extent the vision is realized will depend in part on whether ACE’s ambitions catch the government’s interest sufficiently to influence the upcoming spending review, and provide a counterweight to the scorn (轻视) that is regularly poured on the humanities. Around £400m has been cut from local government arts budgets since 2010, and ACE cannot plug this gap. The closure of youth clubs and live music venues, and growing financial pressures linked to the property market, are among other reasons for this worrisome narrowing of opportunities. So far Boris Johnson has offered few signs that he has in mind a starring role for the arts in post-Brexit Britain, although 2022’s Festival of Brexit is one such event. ACE’s plan should boost the profile of all those, in government and outside, who are arguing for more.

1. The purpose of making arts available to more people is to __________.

A．enlighten people from all walks of life

B．consolidate various communities

C．create job opportunities for artists

D．maximize the natural value of art

2. According to the passage, ACE is most likely to promote the arts of ___________.

A．national institutions

B．commercial centers

C．local governments

D．towns and villages

3. Which of the following statements would Sir Nicholas Serota most probably agree with?

A．Audiences with little education can also gain pleasure from cultural activities.

B．Artists and audiences can create and enjoy the arts together without barriers.

C．The soldiers and volunteers should vividly show scenes about the First World War.

D．Science, technology and maths are more important than humanities and arts nowadays.

4. What can be inferred from the last paragraph?

A．For the arts to get revitalized more extensive efforts are needed.

B．The current British government has done enough to promote arts.

C．ACE should narrow the financial gap left by the local government.

D．Many performing venues have closed due to the rising property market.

2 . One of the best essay contests of 2024, this competition sponsored by the Writer’s Digest promotes nonfiction of all kinds: “personal or political, traditional or experimental”, but your essay should be at least 1,000 words and 1,500 words at most.

Eligibility (资格):

Students are eligible to participate if they are in grades nine through twelve in any of the fifty states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. territories, or if they are U.S. citizens/lawful permanent residents attending high school overseas. Students may be attending a public or private school. Entries from home-schooled students are also accepted.

Submission:

Fill out the online registration form. All fields on the online form are required, including uploading a Microsoft Word (doc. or docx.) file of your original work with a title in English which should include a comprehensive list of sources consulted. Entries must be typed, double-spaced, in 12-point Times New Roman.

Teacher or parent: Student registration forms must have a teacher or parent name. That person may review the submitted essay and act as the key contact.

Do not place your last name or your school’s name on any of the pages of the essay.

Your essay will be disqualified if it does not meet the requirements or is submitted after the submission date of 11:59 p.m. EDT on June 1, 2024.

Prizes:

$1,000 to the writer of the winning essay, in addition to an all-expense paid trip to the Writer’s Digest Annual Conference! The runner-up wins a writing coaching package valued at $650 and the third, a diversity editing package valued at $350.

1. Who can participate in the contest?

A．A Chinese teenager.	B．A high school teacher.
C．An American tenth-grader.	D．A professional writer.

2. What is a requirement for the entry?

A．Uploading a Word version of the original work.

B．Writing personal name on the first page of the entry.

C．Filling in the application form and posting it in time.

D．Making sure of the words of the entry beyond 1,500.

3. What will be the second prize?

A．A free trip.	B．A cash prize.
C．A diversity editing package.	D．A writing coaching package.

4 . Districts across the US are trying to address the high number of students needing mental health support. What if they could enlist students as part of the solution, too? A rural Ohio high school has done just that.

At Claymont High School in Uhrichsville, Ohio, a group of about 21 high schoolers are trained in mental health first aid. They’ve taken courses to learn how to help their peers who are going through a difficult time.

The students, who are in grades 10 through 12, are part of a larger program called Peers Uplifting Peers, or PUP, which helps to break down the stigma (耻辱) around mental health and wellness and normalize having conversations about both and seeking professional help when necessary.

A key part of their training is to help their friends get in touch with professionals and established resources. “Students are helping out by picking up on early warning signs. They are noticing that maybe someone is having a hard day or is just sitting by themselves,” said Kelsi Barnhart, the school’s assistant principal. “They try to be good friends, and they speak up. It’s not that they are stepping in and providing counseling.”

Despite a national conversation around mental health, the context may be different in rural areas like Uhrichsville where people feel ashamed of discussing mental health. “It’s hard to talk about mental health out loud,” said Bridget Britton, a licensed social worker. Getting to a therapist can also be a challenge since most rural areas do not have the bus and rail systems found in urban communities. There are also financial barriers. “Many rural residents work on farms, which often don’t provide workers with health insurance,” she said.

1. What can we learn from paragraph 1?

A．Students face mental health issues.

B．Students actively seek mental health help.

C．Students are unwilling to share mental health programs.

D．Students are getting involved in the mental health program.

2. What is the purpose of the Peers Uplifting Peers (PUP) program?

A．Promoting academic excellence.

B．Advocating for stricter school policies.

C．Reducing the shame concerning mental well-being.

D．Encouraging competitive behavior among students.

3. What can be inferred about accessing mental health support in rural areas?

A．Transportation systems are well-established in rural areas.

B．Mental health issues are less taken seriously in rural areas.

C．Licensed social workers are readily available in rural communities.

D．Financial barriers and lack of insurance prevent access to therapists.

4. What’s the most suitable title for the passage?

A．PUP: Peers taking the lead in high school.

B．PUP: Government breaking down the stigma.

C．Mental Health: Professionals offering training.

D．Mental Health: A pressing issue among students.

5 . There are world-class museums located across the globe, from well-established institutions to newer builds and niche offerings. For museum fans, the choice is endless. Here, we look at some of the world’s most visited museums.

The Louvre — Paris, France

With record-breaking visitor figures, The Louvre is undoubtedly one of the most popular museums in the world. It is home to over 380,000 objects and a permanent collection that covers 60, 600 square meters. Visitors can enjoy sculptures, paintings, drawings, and more, with famous highlights being the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. As well as its world-class collection, it is also a landmark in itself, thanks to the iconic Louvre Pyramid, designed by the distinguished Chinese-American architect I. M. Pei.

National Museum of China — Beijing, China

This museum is home to 1.3 million objects, displayed in a series of galleries exploring everything from ancient ceramics and calligraphy to jade and bronze treasures, as well as Buddhist sculptures and socialist-realism art. Recent exhibitions have covered a wide range of topics from across the world of art, culture, history and politics. These have included The Power of Truth: Marking the Bicentenary of the Birth of Karl Marx, and The Splendor of Asia: An Exhibition of Asian Civilizations. Since May 2021, more than 30 of China’s top museums have adopted digital collectibles as an alternative to NFTs.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art — New York, USA

Next one on the list of the most visited museums in the world is The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met’). The Met is the largest art museum in the United States and holds more than 2million works in its permanent collection. It is famous for holding blockbuster attractions, such as 2018’s record-breaking Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer. It also hosts the Met Gala each year, although the 2020 event had to be moved online due to the pandemic. In 2021, Sofie Andersen, head of digital content at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, spoke to Blooloop about digital storytelling and the museum’s online strategy.

1. What makes the Louvre enjoy the greatest popularity?

A．Its record-breaking visitors.	B．Its strategic location in Paris.
C．Its distinguished designer I. M. Pei.	D．Its various collections of objects.

2. Which of the following is NOT National Museum of China’s collection?

A．Buddhist sculptures.	B．Ancient ceramics.
C．Impressionist paintings.	D．Jade and bronze treasures.

3. What can we learn about The Metropolitan Museum of Art?

A．It is the oldest art museum in the world.

B．It hosts an annual event called the Met Gala.

C．It has the largest collection of Michelangelo’s works.

D．It focuses mainly on digital content and online exhibitions.

6 . Even minor changes in behavior can have a positive environmental impact. Therefore, it is suggested to remove or reduce single-use plastic bags from your shopping trips, because the bags break down slowly, causing them to linger in landfills. But how long does a plastic bag really stick around?

The Center for Biological Diversity estimates that it takes a bag roughly 1000 years to break down. The term “break down” is a little misleading, though. Plastic ends up photodegrading (光降解) from ultraviolet (紫外线) radiation because the majority of microorganisms cannot eat it. And even after the bags degrade, the micro-plastics they leave behind may still harm the environment.

While 1000 years seems long, it is only an estimate. Since the invention of plastic bags in the 1950s or so, humankind has never actually seen the substance break down in real time. Instead, scientists have adopted respirometry tests (呼吸运动测量法), which helps estimate the breakdown rate of an organic substance by measuring the CO₂ that the microorganisms produce when breaking down the material. When an organic substance, such as food waste, is present, CO₂ levels rise, which allows scientists to estimate the rate of breakdown. However, because plastic bags don’t produce any CO₂,—microorganisms aren’t eating them, the bags are just sitting there. If buried in a landfill and sheltered from ultraviolet light, plastic bags will last a very long time.

Bags have an impact on the environment beyond just their removal. It takes fossil fuels to make bags; one estimate puts this amount at 12 million barrels (桶) of oil annually. And after a bag has served its purpose in a consumer’s hands, it may then enter the food chain for wildlife. Plastic that builds up along the food chain is consumed by creatures like birds and fish.

While reducing the use of plastic bags is a good idea, choosing a cloth bag might not be the habit that will help the environment the most. The carbon footprint left by the cloth bags must be countered by thousands of uses.

1. What does the underlined word “linger” in Paragraph 1 probably mean?

A．Reproduce.

B．Integrate.

C．Emerge.

D．Last.

2. What do we know about the breakdown of plastic bags?

A．Its duration of 1000 years is an overestimate.

B．Exposure to ultraviolet light is essential to it.

C．Respirometry tests effectively estimate its rate.

D．The level of CO2 released during it usually rises.

3. What is Paragraph 4 mainly about?

A．The multiple environmental costs of plastic bags.

B．The consumption of fuels for plastic bag production.

C．The harm of plastic bags to the food chain for wildlife.

D．The challenge of removing plastic bags from the ecosystem.

4. Which of the following is proposed according to the last paragraph?

A．Declining plastic shopping bag offers.	B．Reducing the production of plastic bags.
C．Reusing the same cloth bag repeatedly.	D．Switching from plastic bags to cloth ones.

7 . Joyce Loaiza lives alone, but when returning to her apartment at a senior community, she often has a chat with a friendly female voice. The 81-year-old is among the first in the United States to receive the robot ElliQ made by Intuition Robotics, which has been the only device using artificial intelligence specifically designed to address loneliness of the old.

Looking like a small table light, the device has an eyeless, mouthless head. It remembers each user’s interests and their talks, helping create a special experience with each new discussion, which can be as deep as the meaning of life or as light as a small joke. “She’ll make comments like, ‘I would go outside if I had hands, but I can’t hold an umbrella,’” said Loaiza. ElliQ also plays music and provides spiritual sayings. It leads exercises, asks about the owner’s health, and gives reminders to take medicines and drink water. It can also support video calls and contact family, friends, or doctors in an emergency.

The average user interacts with ElliQ more than 30 times a day and more than 90 percent report lower levels of loneliness, Intuition Robotics CEO Dor Skuler said.

Brigham Young University professor Julianne Holt-Lunstad, who studies the effects of loneliness on health, worries that a device like ElliQ might have short-term helpful effects but it could make people less likely to seek human contact. She noted that the difficult feeling of loneliness should push people to reconnect socially.

Skuler and state officials agreed that ElliQ is not an alternative to human contact. But some older people cannot leave home or do not have many friends. Charlotte Taylor, director of an Area Agency on Aging, said Covid-19 left many older people more disconnected. Her agency has provided 300 ElliQs which, she believes, help the situation. She said, “People generally like her and she makes them smile.”

1. What can we infer from Loaiza’s comments on ElliQ?

A．It sometimes fails to be of any help.	B．It is humorous and has the human touch.
C．Some of its comments make no sense.	D．It shows an interest in the outside world.

2. What concerns Holt-Lunstad about ElliQ?

A．Its inefficiency to ease loneliness.	B．Its failure to push people to reconnect.
C．Its potential for being addictive.	D．Its replacement for human interactions.

3. How does Taylor find ElliQ?

A．Novel.

B．Popular.

C．Satisfying.

D．Advanced.

4. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A．Chatty Robot Helps Seniors Fight Loneliness	B．AI-based Device Is to Dominate Elders’ Life
C．ElliQ: a Revolutionary Innovation in AI Field	D．ElliQ: a Remarkable Assistant after Covid-19

8 . On Sept. 17, 2022, a father and son set out to begin the first of three legs of the Ironman competition in Cambridge, Maryland. Jeff Agar, 59, and his son, Johnny Agar, 28, weren’t the ______ participants. Johnny has cerebral palsy (脑瘫), resulting in his difficulty walking and muscle weakness. Jeff would act as his arms and legs, ______ carrying the weight of his son throughout the race. To ______ as completion, competitors must complete a(n) ______ 140 miles of swimming, bicycling and running in under 17 hours.

From the day Johnny was born, Jeff and his wife refused to let their son be ______ by disability. ______ to show Johnny that he could pursue his dream of being an athlete, when he was 15 years old, they ______ him up with my Team Triumph, an organization that helps kids with ______ engage in endurance (耐力) sports.

Johnny became ______ to racing, and Jeff wanted to be a part of it. Jeff began waking up at 4 am to run while ______ Johnny in a racing chair. Every morning, he ______ himself to run increasingly longer distances.

After 16 hours, 55 minutes and 35 seconds, the father and son ______ the finish line together. As the crowd ______ and congratulated Johnny, Jeff kept a low ______ . “He didn’t want attention to his finish line moment,” says Johnny. “He wanted it to be ______ .”

1.

A．distinct

B．typical

C．ambitious

D．amateur

2.

A．consciously

B．anxiously

C．hopefully

D．literally

3.

A．qualify

B．emerge

C．serve

D．continue

4.

A．impressive

B．smooth

C．frightening

D．exhausting

5.

A．given away

B．turned down

C．taken on

D．held back

6.

A．Forced

B．Discouraged

C．Determined

D．Prepared

7.

A．signed

B．cheered

C．lifted

D．brought

8.

A．experiences

B．difficulties

C．capacities

D．disabilities

9.

A．sensitive

B．attracted

C．limited

D．important

10.

A．pushing

B．comforting

C．displaying

D．treating

11.

A．permitted

B．warned

C．drove

D．persuaded

12.

A．drew

B．left

C．spotted

D．crossed

13.

A．thanked

B．surrounded

C．encountered

D．disturbed

14.

A．voice

B．rate

C．profile

D．grade

15.

A．theirs

B．mine

C．yours

D．his

10 . At first glance, 15-year-old Kenan Pala seems like a typical teenager, playing video games with his friends, but he also loves finance and economics and invests in the stock (股票) market. He founded Kids4Community, a nonprofit offering volunteer projects for kids, when he was just 12.

The idea came out of his family’s experience. Pala’s parents came to the U.S. from Turkey in 1998 and founded a company. “We started very little here,” said Pala’s mother. “But for the help we got along the way, we wouldn’t have been where we are.” The Palas wanted their children to live by this lesson, so they encouraged them to give back to the community.

Anyone can donate with Kids4Community, but its events are intended for kids. Pala’s organization aims to boost young people’s involvement in community efforts because many organizations don’t let children volunteer.

Last month, Kids4Community volunteers made 2,000 hygiene kits containing shampoo, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and other supplies. Kids4Community organizes the event annually and distributes the kits to the needy through Christmas Day. In fall, the group’s efforts are focused on disaster victims. Over the years, it has made care packages for survivors of earthquakes and Hurricanes.

Another key focus is homelessness — an issue that has taken on particular significance. Years ago, Pala was jogging along the beach when he came across a sickly baby seal (海豹), surrounded by people who were caring for it and calling for help. “Hours later, I saw a homeless person, also sick and needing help, but people were just ignoring him,” Pala said. Now, Kids4Community organizes initiatives both to meet physical needs of the homeless and give them a sense of dignity and hope.

In the coming years, Pala wants to expand Kids4Community’s reach beyond San Diego and perhaps beyond California.

1. What does the Pala family lesson convey?

A．Responsibility.

B．Forgiveness.

C．Gratitude.

D．Struggle.

2. What does Kids4Community mainly work on in autumn?

A．Disaster relief.	B．Supplies delivery.
C．Disaster forecast.	D．Supplies production.

3. Why is Pala’s experience with the seal mentioned?

A．To advocate wildlife conservation.	B．To launch the initiatives for the homeless.
C．To praise the warm-hearted people.	D．To account for his attention to homelessness.

4. Which of the following best describes Pala?

A．Disciplined and reliable.	B．Committed and consistent.
C．Insightful and intelligent.	D．Public-spirited and enterprising.