2 . That morning in September, at a five-kilometer race, I waited for my 11-year-old son at the finish line. He’d run 30:34 at another 5k in late spring, so I ________ he could run a 5k in about 30 minutes. When I didn’t see him at the 35-minute mark, I began to ________.

It’d already been an ________ morning. About an hour earlier, when we drove into town, my son noticed a lovely tiny green tree cricket in my car. It jumped onto my son’s hand where it stayed so long that we eventually gave it a name: Little Friend.

Minutes before the race, it jumped onto the sidewalk. Maybe it wanted to seek freedom, but this wasn’t a safe place due to the ________ pedestrian traffic. So my son knelt and ________ his hand. Little Friend came back. But I told him he would ________ it during the race.

I ran well and felt thrilled at the finish line. However, that ________ gave way to anxiety when my son didn’t show up. I ________ asking people if they’d seen him. No one had. So I returned to the race headquarters. In my confusion, I didn’t even see him ________ the finish line. But there he was, just ahead of the 45-minute mark, with Little Friend ________ on his right thumb.

My ________ were wrong. My son didn’t run fast, and he didn’t lose Little Friend. These two ________ seemed somehow related. He ________ a cold he was getting over, but I knew it was more than that.

Sometimes life gives you something beautiful, but fragile. There’s no need to ________ ahead. Treat it ________ and hold on when you can.

1.

A．indicated

B．knew

C．meant

D．stressed

2.

A．question

B．forgive

C．panic

D．regret

3.

A．average

B．endless

C．unusual

D．original

4.

A．invisible

B．smooth

C．unpredictable

D．easy

5.

A．took out

B．reached out

C．gave away

D．put up

6.

A．lose

B．change

C．train

D．catch

7.

A．eagerness

B．nervousness

C．annoyance

D．excitement

8.

A．enjoyed

B．kept

C．practiced

D．stopped

9.

A．crossing

B．blocking

C．facing

D．touching

10.

A．arguing

B．sighing

C．riding

D．feeding

11.

A．evaluations

B．guesses

C．conclusions

D．comments

12.

A．facts

B．ideas

C．tasks

D．activities

13.

A．overcame

B．treated

C．received

D．blamed

14.

A．move

B．fly

C．struggle

D．rush

15.

A．gently

B．wisely

C．loosely

D．urgently

3 . Do you need a career launch plan? It isn’t absolutely essential but it can be extremely helpful! A well-created plan is not just about landing a job; it is about entering the professional field with a competitive edge. Beyond that, it’s a strategy.     1     Therefore, a career launch plan is your survival guide, helping you avoid the traps and seize the right opportunities. So why not follow the following tips to create a right career launch plan?

    2     If you were to plan out your travel routes, what would you do? You’re not just randomly moving; you’re intentional about where you want to go and what you want to achieve. So is a career plan. It involves outlining specific and achievable goals that give direction to your career trajectory (轨迹).

Develop relevant skills. Once you’ve identified the qualifications and skills demanded in your ideal profession, it’s time to acquire them! Sign up for courses, pursue certifications, or gain hands-on experience to enhance your skill set.     3    

Start your job hunt. Your approach to job applications should be more like a precision strike than a messy explosion of arrows in all directions.     4     It’s not just about quantity; it’s about quality. Tailor each application to the specific role and company, emphasizing how your skills and experiences agree with their needs.

Stay flexible and agile (机敏的). The job market is changing, and being adaptable is an invaluable ability.     5     Develop a mindset of continuous improvement — always seeking ways to enhance your skills, knowledge, and approach to stay relevant in the ever-evolving professional landscape.

A．Set your goals.

B．Research your options.

C．So, what should you do to deal with it?

D．To achieve this, develop a systematic approach to your job search.

E．By doing these, you’re essentially improving your techniques!

F．The job market can be a jungle, especially when you’re just starting.

G．The goal is to create a foundation that’ll guide your career decisions.

4 . This year, the Music Educator Award, presented by the Recording Academy and Grammy Museum, went to Annie Ray, the performing arts department chair and orchestra director at Annandale High School in Fairfax County, Virginia. She attended the awards ceremony in Los Angeles and brought home both a $10,000 prize and matching grant （资助） for her school’s music program.

Ray created the Crescendo Orchestra for students with severe intellectual and developmental disabilities, as well as a parent orchestra that teaches nearly 200 caregivers a year to play the same instrument as their children. She got the idea mostly from the Annandale community, which she says represents over 60 countries, including many refugees and immigrants. “There’re many cultures that might typically clash, but they come together in this very beautiful harmony,” Ray explained. “And that’s really uniquely expressed in the orchestra classroom, where we’re just all music-ing together.”

Ray says the Crescendo Orchestra is focused on teaching students how to play an instrument, through one-on-one instruction tailored to their needs. The orchestra is about much more than just making music, however. “I really push my students to be brave and go outside of their comfort zone. We have to learn how to work together with others,” she says.

Ray, who comes from a family of musicians and has played the harp （竖琴） since the age of five, knows firsthand the impact that a great teacher can make on their students. “Why I am where I am is because a teacher changed my life and made me want to be a music educator,” she says.

Ray says her warm reception on the awards ceremony is especially meaningful because not many people understand what exactly music educators do in the classroom or how much their work matters. She says that lack of understanding is one of the biggest challenges facing the profession in general. Moreover, she says her school desperately needs new instruments, and adds that she’ll use some of her grant money to buy more.

1. What mainly inspired Ray to create the Crescendo Orchestra?

A．The effect of some caregivers.	B．The diversity of a community.
C．The harmony of the disabled.	D．The rich culture of her school.

2. What is paragraph 3 mainly about?

A．Who are influenced by music.	B．How the Crescendo Orchestra develops.
C．What students can learn.	D．Why students need special instruction.

3. How was Ray influenced by her teacher?

A．She funded some students.	B．She fought against her family.
C．She began learning the harp.	D．She chose to be a music educator.

4. What can be learned from what Ray says in the last paragraph?

A．Music education needs to be appreciated.	B．She badly wants donations for instruments.
C．The administration offers no support.	D．She is often challenged by musicians.

5 . 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。

“Jennifer, do you hike?” Karen said to me. “Yes, I hike,” I replied. Karen’s slim figure and sun-kissed cheeks suggested she was a regular hiker.

“Great, do you want to come with us tomorrow? We will meet in front of Bobbie’s house at 6:30 before it is too hot, and we will go over to Thunderbird Mountain. It is about three miles in total. Does that sound OK?”

Three miles. I wasn’t sure how long that was, partly because I didn’t actually hike. I was somewhat familiar with the area where they planned to go, but our family had just moved from Oregon to Arizona. I walked our dog around the neighbourhood all the time before we moved here. But I wasn’t sure if I had gone three miles. Being new to town and excited about an invitation from women I wanted to befriend, I accepted, saying, “Sure. That sounds great. We all benefit from hiking.”

When this hiking conversation among my new friends occurred, I was at a monthly dinner for moms in my new neighborhood. The group was four women in their forties, all with high-school kids, jobs, a fondness for reading and music and tricks for simplifying work-life.

I was honored to be invited since making friends in my forties in a new town wasn’t easy. After this re-location for my husband’s career, making friends wasn’t as simple for me as it was for him. He came to the community for a full-time position at a busy university. Our teenaged son and daughter immediately plugged into school through sports and clubs. I was enormously grateful for the ease of the transition for my family, but nervous for myself. So, while at the monthly ladies’ gathering, when hiking came up, I just played along, wanting to try something new.

The next day, I got up early and carefully selected comfortable hiking clothes. When I arrived at the designated friend’s driveway a little early, Karen was standing there waiting. “Hey, Jennifer, I’m glad that you can come to hike,” she said cheerfully and hugged me. When the others joined us, we started walking. I was sweaty and a little out of breath before we even started going uphill.

注意：1．续写词数应为150个左右；
2．请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。

“So, where did you hike in Oregon?” one of them asked, offering me a bottle of water.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

By accepting the invitation to hike that day, I received a lot.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

6 . 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。

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Those are the words of Thomas Alva Edison, one of the greatest     1     (inventor) in the history of the United States.

Edison, who grew up in the Midwest, was     2     (large) self-educated. He earned 1,093 patents in his lifetime, including the lightbulb. Being     3     successful businessman, Edison often reworked existing technology, making it more practical for widespread use.

Edison was born on February 11, 1847, a day that     4     (celebrate) as National Inventors’ Day today. The Thomas Edison Center, which was created in memory of Edison, is at Menlo Park in New Jersey. It is said that the seven years Edison spent at the lab he created in New Jersey were the most     5     (product).

“Menlo Park is the birthplace of     6     (record) sound. It was in Menlo Park     7     Edison invented the phonograph (留声机) in 1877. The invention led to the 30-year-old Ohio native’s international fame. From then on, he was known     8     the “Wizard (奇才) of Menlo Park.”

A phonograph was the first device that was used     9     (reserve) sound. It was the precursor (先驱) to record albums and CDs. The original model had no volume knob (旋钮), so listeners would have to control the sound by     10     (place) a sock in the machine. That’s where we get the expression “put a sock in it”, which means “stop talking”.

7 . The Ebola virus is an infectious disease that for years had almost no treatments, and it kill s about half the people it infects. Now a new study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases shows that a promising vaccine (疫苗), named rVSV△G-ZEBOV-GP, doesn’t just help to reduce infections, it also can cut those death numbers in half.

The vaccine is a single-dose (单剂) muscular one that causes cells to produce one of the virus’s proteins. “Later, if the person is exposed to Ebola,”explains Rebecca Coulborn, a scientist with Epicentre, the medical research arm of Doctors Without Borders, “their immune system will recognize the viral protein. This recognition allows the immune system to be prepared to attack the virus and protect the person from Ebola virus disease.”

Researchers showed rVSV△G-ZEBOV-GP was effective at reducing the risk of infection, but no one knew how capable it was of preventing death in someone who was vaccinated after becoming infected during an epidemic (流行病). To figure it out, Coulborn and her colleagues focused their efforts on the second-largest Ebola outbreak ever recorded, which occurred in the Democratic Republic of Congo between 2018 and 2020.

“Every single Ebola health facility across the entire Ebola epidemic had a standardized list of all admissions,” says Coulborn. This list included 2,279 confirmed Ebola patients, and it recorded whether or not each person had been vaccinated before they got sick—and if so, when they’d received the vaccine.

Coulborn found the death rate was 56% among the unvaccinated. But for those who’d received the vaccine, that rate was cut in half. This was true no matter when someone got vaccinated before the appearance of symptoms. Additionally, those who’d been vaccinated had less virus circulating in their bodies than those who hadn’t. So the vaccine played an important role.

Rebecca Coulborn says she feels buoyed by the results—since they offer clear evidence that people who’re at risk of contracting Ebola should be vaccinated early. It’s an opportunity to cut chains of transmission (传播) and prevent an outbreak before it gains speed.

1. What is Coulborn trying to talk about concerning the vaccine in paragraph 2?

A．Who it attacks.

B．Why it is developed.

C．How it works.

D．Where it comes from.

2. Coulborn’s team chose the second largest Ebola outbreak in Congo because ______.

A．it listed health facilities	B．it was easy to analyze
C．it caused the fewest deaths	D．it had a detailed record

3. What did Coulborn probably suggest people infected do?

A．Avoid connecting with each other.	B．Get vaccinated as early as possible.
C．Stay at home to reduce the spread.	D．Learn to recognize the symptoms.

4. What does the underlined word “buoyed” in the last paragraph probably mean?

A．Encouraged.

B．Relaxed.

C．Astonished.

D．Honored.

8 . People have long watched moths (飞蛾) and other flying insects flock to streetlamps, lights and flames. These insects appear attracted by the light. But a new study suggests they may just lose track of which way is up.

Previous theories say light probably blinds flying insects so that they get trapped by the light, or maybe they interpret light at night as a place to fly for a quick escape. Now the new study suggests flying insects instead turn their backs to the sky’s light to keep their feet pointing toward the ground. Insects naturally turn their backs toward light. But when that light is from an artificial source, it may affect their sense of direction, leading to them flying in circles or diving toward the ground.

At a field station in Costa Rica, Samuel Fabian, an entomologist from Imperial College London in England and his teammates set up hanging and standing lights, and then used high-speed cameras to track wild, flying insects including moths and flies. Some circled the lights endlessly, and others flew sharply upward, losing speed until they couldn’t fly any higher. When the light source pointed up, some insects turned around and headed for the ground. During the flight, the insects always kept the lights at their back even if they’d end up crashing. Crash landings were common when the team lit up a white sheet on the floor. But not when a white sheet — stretched into a height above the floor—was bathed in diffuse (漫射) light, much as the sky would be, insects flew through the area without getting trapped by the light.

The team also observed some species in a lab. Moths and dragonflies generally behaved like the wild insects, and they kept the light at their backs. However, in the lab, fruit flies, like oleander hawk moths — which can fly in the dark — could fly over LED lights without being thrown off course. In the wild, though, the moths still crashed. Maybe this is because, Fabian says, the insects can sometimes control their response to light, or over time, they might learn to avoid artificial light.

1. Why do insects naturally turn their backs toward light?

A．To get close to the light.	B．To escape being caught quickly.
C．To protect their feet better.	D．To track where the ground is.

2. What did the researchers find during the new study?

A．Artificial light at night could put insects on a crash course.

B．Artificial light signaled an escape route for the insects.

C．The insects had a better sense of direction.

D．The insects were flying toward the light.

3. What is the author’s purpose in mentioning oleander hawk moths?

A．To stress the importance of the study.	B．To prove the previous theory.
C．To tell the existence of the exception.	D．To explain the flight pattern.

4. What could be the best title for the text?

A．Artificial Light Makes Insects More Adaptable	B．Insects May Lose Track near Artificial Light
C．The Ways to Get Rid of Light Pollution	D．Insects Learn to Fly for a Quick Escape

9 . The Great Courses—Best for Lifelong Learners

The Great Courses, one of the best online course providers, is an online platform that can meet the demands of individuals who love to learn simply for joy and choose from 1,345 courses in a range of topics.

The Great Courses Overview
Areas of study	13 subjects available
Course level	Beginner, advanced
Cost	$18.50—$469.95
Languages available	English only

What We Like

●While most other online course providers concentrate on upskilling and improving career and salary prospects, this platform is more about sharing knowledge for the purpose of satisfying intellectual curiosity. Popular courses focus on subjects like cooking, painting, dog training, language, culture, literature, music, science, history, geography and more.

●Lessons are video-based, available by streaming through The Great Courses’ website or mobile app or on DVDs. Many lectures are also available as streaming audio makes it even easier for students to learn anytime and anywhere.

●The price of courses can range from around $20 to a few hundred dollars, but The Great Courses regularly offers discounts. The Great Courses also partners with Wondrium, a subscribed online learning platform, which gives students unlimited access to a library of courses for $12.50 per month.

What We Don’t Like

Students who’re seeking online learning to gain marketable, career-focused skills may need help in finding what they’re looking for through The Great Courses. This platform has no grades or certificates of completion. Lecture-based video lessons may not appeal to all learners, especially those who prefer mastering new skills through experiential learning or reading assignments.

What Students Are Saying

Users give the platform 3.8 stars on Trustpilot. “I’ve been enjoying courses from this company for the last ten years. Its courses have broadened my outlook on life, educated me and entertained me,” writes one student.

1. What does The Great Courses focus more on?

A．Improving career skills.	B．Hands-on practice.
C．Tips on increasing incomes.	D．Sharing knowledge.

2. What can we know about The Great Courses?

A．Its partner provides courses for free.	B．Its course expenses are too high.
C．It has convenient video-based lessons.	D．It helps a lot for those job-seekers.

3. What is a disadvantage of The Great Courses?

A．It offers no completion certificates.	B．Its topic is relatively single.
C．It is only suitable for beginners.	D．Its subjects are very limited.