1 . 听下面一段较长对话，回答以下小题。
1. What does the man mainly do in his spare time?

A．He learns a language.

B．He plays the piano.

C．He does some sports.

2. What made the man give up skating?

A．Lack of time.

B．Loss of interest.

C．A leg injury

2 . What does Helen imply?

A．She will prepare the food.

B．She dislikes going on a picnic.

C．She is worried about the weather.

3 . Unlike most of her peers who left their rural hometowns, 34-year-old Ning Fenfang left her job in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province in 2017 and worked as a village official in her hometown— a mountainous village in Cili county in Zhangjiajie, Hunan province. Now she farms over 66.7 hectares of land.

Seeing much of the farmland had been deserted, Ning resigned from her post in 2020 and became a full-time farmer, renting the farmland and hiring villagers to work it. She founded a centre for housewives in the village to work her farmland during busy hours.

“It’s never easy,” said Ning. It is very rare for young people to become farmers in rural areas, as farming is labor-intensive and requires constant work in the mud. What’s more, farming is often seen as a job “unsuitable” for both the post-90s generation and women in general. Her decision to become a farmer confused many of her fellow villagers and farming was much more difficult than she had imagined. She experienced tremendous pain due to the intensive labour. At first, she didn’t farm much through lack of farming knowledge, so she didn’t feel pressured to succeed. Later, she decided to expand the scale and spent millions of yuan. “Most of the money is borrowed from banks, families and relatives, so there is no turning back,” she said. Weighing up the pros and cons, her husband ultimately gave up his business to work with her.

She has tried to turn farming into a “trendy” job. Instead of traditional farming methods which rely on human labor, Ning promotes mechanized farming, such as using harvesters, cultivators and drones. She also plans to explore the agricultural tourism resources in Zhangjiajie for children living in urban areas to experience farming.

Being elected to the 14th National People’s Congress has motivated Ning to feel responsible for fellow farmers. “NPC deputies from the grassroots need to consider rural farmers’ needs and bring their voices to the two sessions,” Ning said.

1. What can be inferred from the passage?

A．Ning facilitated the development of local agriculture.

B．Ning was once elected to the 14th National People’s Congress.

C．Ning was pessimistic about her work and her future in Hangzhou.

D．The locals found her decision to become a farmer realistic at first.

2. What’s Paragraph 3 mainly about?

A．Ning gradually expanded the scale of her business.

B．Ning lacked adequate knowledge about agriculture.

C．Ning did what it took to invest heavily in her business.

D．Ning faced more challenges in farming than she had figured.

3. What sets Ning’s farming apart from traditional farming?

A．The expansion of agricultural dimensions.

B．The restriction of agricultural implements.

C．The employment of agricultural machinery.

D．The exploration of agricultural tourism resources.

4. Which of the following can best describe Ning Fenfang?

A．Desperate and considerate.	B．Humble and dynamic.
C．Persevering and innovative.	D．Sensitive and aggressive.

4 . The traditional Chinese solar calendar divides the year into 24 solar terms. Grain Buds (小满), the 8th solar term of a year, begins on May 21 this year, and ends on June 5. It means that the seeds from the grain are becoming full but are not ripe. Let’s see what we can do during the “Grain Buds” period.

Eating herb of common sow thistle

Grain Buds is a season for eating the herb of the common sow thistle, which is one of the earliest edible potherbs in China. It tastes a little bitter, but also sweet. People in Ningxia Hui autonomous region like to eat it mixed with salt, vinegar, peppers or garlic. It tastes delicious and helps people feel refreshed. Some people boil the herb with water and then squeeze out the juice, which can be used to make soup.

Key period for flower management

This time is a good period of the quick growth of flowers. It is also a season when plant diseases and pests are at an all-time high, which makes caring for your garden even more critical. Flowers need a lot of water and extra care to stay healthy. Weeding should be done as they grow quickly and have to be extirpated in order to keep the soil loose and from competing with the flowers for nutrients.

Celebrating silkworm deity birthday

Silkworm rearing is a traditional byproduct for people in regions south of the Yangtze River. People in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces regard this season as the birthday of the silkworm deity. Those who engage in the silk industry thank the deity by offering sacrifices and staging performances. They pray to the deity for blessings and a boom season for the silk business.

1. Which of the following is true about Grain Buds?

A．It is seen as the birthday of the flower deity.

B．It is an essential period to tend to the garden.

C．It means that the seeds from the grain are mature.

D．It begins on May 21 this year, and ends on July 5.

2. People in the silk industry tend to ______ during the Grain Buds.

A．offer sacrifices to ancestors	B．pray for a close season
C．learn to count their blessings	D．give shows to thank the deity

3. In which column of a newspaper can we read the article?

A．Entertainment.

B．Economics.

C．Politics.

D．Culture.

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，续写词数应为150左右。

Tionae Thomas couldn’t be prouder of her 14-year-old daughter. Plenty of people overlooked a boy sitting alone under a tree in a shopping center parking lot. But not Tionae’s daughter. The 14-year-old girl stepped in to help the stranded(滞留) boy. And the Internet is applauding this girl for her kindness!

Tionae and her daughter were on the way home. But as they passed a shopping center, Tionae’s daughter begged her to pull over. She’d noticed a boy who looked like he was most likely in elementary school. He sat all alone under a tree in a small island within the parking lot.

“It’s too hot, mama,” the girl told her mom.

So, Tionae pulled over and her daughter got out, asking the stranded boy where his parents were. But the boy didn’t know.

The kind girl let the stranded boy use her cell phone to give his dad a call. Then she suggested he move from his spot under the tree to the front of a nearby Rite Aid. She told him it would be safer. At the same time, the girl left him her phone number and told him that he could call her if necessary.

Getting back into the car with her mom, the girl asked to wait to make sure the stranded boy got picked up. She hated the idea of leaving him alone. And because of the warmer temperatures, she wanted to get him some water.

Plenty of others must have noticed the boy. Maybe they left him alone because they didn’t want to disturb or scare him. Maybe they just thought someone else would do something. But Tionae’s daughter was the only one to step in and help.

Para 1: Two days later, the girl received the boy’s call.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Para 2: And Tionae couldn’t help but brag(自夸) on her sweet girl, posting the whole story on Facebook.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

6 . Mui suffers from a very rare and severe skin disorder called harlequin ichthyosis (丑角样鱼鳞). It’s something she could have easily let ______ her. But for the people who take the time to get to know Mui, they can’t help but be impressed by her energy and ______ spirit!

Mui’s “never quit” attitude is especially inspiring when you take into account all of the difficulty she has ______ . She’s never known her biological parents. But she was ______ with her adoptive parents, Tina and Roger, when she was very young-something that greatly helped ______ her to be the strong and courageous woman she is today.

Tina and Roger never ______ to be adoptive parents. But over 20 years ago, while living in Hong Kong, the couple felt a calling to volunteer as foster parents. That’s when they started visiting Mui at the Duchess of Kent Children’s Hospital. Mui was only a few months old when the ______ began, and over time, the baby and this kind couple formed a close ______ .

But when Mui was ______ to an institution for the mentally disabled, simply ______ there was nowhere else for her to go, Tina and Roger felt ______ to act. Roger explains, “She was effectively being ______ away from the rest of society in a home for the mentally disabled. She has no mental disability. Now, we had to make the ______ .”

They say their decision to adopt Mui made no sense to anyone else. But they knew this little girl ______ them, and they had fallen in love with her. ______ , they became Mui’s new parents—a true blessing for the long road that Mui had ahead.

1.

A．confuse

B．astonish

C．stimulate

D．discourage

2.

A．optimistic

B．sensitive

C．pessimistic

D．negative

3.

A．dominated

B．avoided

C．tolerated

D．assigned

4.

A．combined

B．blessed

C．polished

D．attracted

5.

A．respect

B．shape

C．crush

D．discipline

6.

A．planned

B．performed

C．reacted

D．corresponded

7.

A．ideas

B．contracts

C．cues

D．visits

8.

A．breakthrough

B．promise

C．bond

D．belief

9.

A．moved

B．invited

C．transported

D．appealed

10.

A．till

B．though

C．before

D．because

11.

A．instructed

B．forced

C．upset

D．challenged

12.

A．hidden

B．carried

C．driven

D．cleared

13.

A．proposal

B．profit

C．promise

D．decision

14.

A．dismissed

B．needed

C．urged

D．supported

15.

A．Besides

B．Somehow

C．Therefore

D．Otherwise

7 . It’s always heartbreaking to learn about a medical problem that’s largely been addressed in the United States but continues to trouble low-and middle-income countries.

    1     It was a device developed by two former fellows with the Stanford Byers Center for Biodesign. This foot-operated resuscitator (呼吸机) was designed for clinicians who often must work alone when a newborn struggles to take a first breath.     2     When a newborn fails to breathe, one clinician holds a respirator (人工呼吸器) mask to the baby’s face while another person squeezes a ventilation (给肺提供空气) bag, pushing air into the baby’s lungs. But in low-and middle-income countries such as India, where staff is more limited, resuscitation is not so straightforward. An individual clinician commonly revives the baby alone, using one hand to perform three movements of jaw sticking, chin lift and neck leaning, sealing the respirator mask around the baby’s mouth, and using the other hand to squeeze the bag.     3     Avijit Bansal, MD, a pulmonologist from India, was well aware of this earlier.

In 2011, he met a like-minded researcher and they began work on a solution. As the article notes: They developed NeoBreathe, a foot-operated resuscitator.     4     With the freed hand, the operator can multitask more efficiently. The device is now being used in the majority of India’s states, as well as in Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, and Mali.     5    

A．It is helping save lives, and people are taking notice.

B．That’s why it was inspiring to learn about the NeoBreathe.

C．We have created a new way of performing an age-old procedure.

D．Additionally, there are plans to introduce it in Peru, Chile and Argentina.

E．Performing this procedure without assistance can have bad consequences.

F．In the United States, saving a baby who suffers from birth choke is relatively simple.

G．It frees one of the operator’s hands, cuts down on air leakage and significantly improves ventilation.

8 . Several years ago, Joshua Madsen was driving on an Illinois freeway when he saw something strange: an electronic sign displaying the number of traffic deaths in the state. “I just kind of freaked out. I had never seen anything like that before,” Madsen, a behavioral economist at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, says of the incident. It was a troubling experience to have while driving, he says.

In the past decade, at least 28 U. S. states have started to display traffic fatality (死亡) numbers to scare motorists into safer driving. But a new analysis of Texas car crashes co-authored by Madsen suggests such signs may actually be associated with more crashes, not fewer.

“Is this helping?” Madsen wondered. So he teamed up with Jonathan Hall, who studies transportation economics at the University of Toronto, to investigate what effect the signs had on crash numbers. The researchers focused on Texas, which consistently displayed the messages for 1 week every month on 880 signs across the state’s highways. Madsen and Hall gathered data on all traffic crashes that happened on affected roads between 2010 and 2017. They compared crashes that occurred in weeks when fatality statistics were displayed with those that happened during the rest of the month, taking care to compare only the accidents that happened at the same hour and on the same day of the week. They also controlled for weather and for holidays, which can independently affect the number of accidents.

The analysis of 844, 939 accidents showed that in the 10 kilometers down road of the signs, crashes increased by 1. 35% when the numbers were displayed. Madsen and Hall propose that the fatality statistics are so in your face that they grab too much of the driver’s attention, causing a crash. The data support this explanation, they say: Crashes increased when the death numbers displayed on the signs were higher.

1. Which of the following can replace the underlined words “freaked out” in paragraph 1?

A．surprised.

B．thrilled.

C．ashamed.

D．frustrated.

2. What can we know about Madsen and Hall’s research?

A．The research cost them approximately nine years to complete.

B．The final research findings seemed to be out of their expectation.

C．The research’s purpose was to find out if the signs were effective.

D．The researchers almost paid no attention to the factors of bad weather.

3. How do the fatality statistics affect the drivers according to the last paragraph?

A．By having them speed.	B．By making them more fear.
C．By depressing them greatly.	D．By distracting their attention.

4. What message does the author want to convey in the text?

A．Researches studying traffic crashes receive great attention.

B．New regulations guaranteeing traffic safety need updating.

C．Highway signs showing traffic deaths cause more crashes.

D．Traffic deaths happening so frequently should be controlled.

9 . For anyone over the age of 30 reading this article, here’s some bad news for you: Your brain is already on the decline.

From the brain’s peak performance in our mid-20s, that decline is gradual, said Stanford neurologist Sharon Sha, MD. Despite common knowledge about aging and major mistakes in memory, the effects of healthy aging on cognitive (认知的) functions are actually quite unnoticeable. For example, a young or middle-aged adult can remember a sequence of seven numbers on average, while a person in their 60s without dementia (痴呆) can hold onto six. When asked to list as many animals as they can in a short time frame, adults over 55 can list about 4% fewer than those under 55 years old.

“Around a generation ago, we assumed that when we get older, we dramatically lose our memory,” said Sha. “That’s really not the case.” For all the talk about age, memory and cognitive ability, it seems like a good time to consult memory experts. Sha leads Stanford Medicine’s Memory Disorders Division and divides her time between clinical work with patients who have Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia and leading clinical trials in patients with these conditions. “Conditions like dementia, and specifically Alzheimer’s disease, affect us more when we’re older. The biggest risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease is age. But beyond dementia, we think about a lot of other possible causes for memory mistakes. When someone comes into the clinic and says they’re having memory problems, we ask about medications, other psychiatric problems like anxiety and depression, and their sleep. There are a lot of factors that can affect memory and that are not necessarily expected in aging.” We asked her to discuss the links between aging and memory—and what steps we can take to boost brain health. Her answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

1. What can we learn about the effects of aging on the brain from Paragraph 2?

A．They are hard to detect overall.	B．They affect animals and people equally.
C．They don’t happen to people of all ages.	D．They rely largely on people’s knowledge level.

2. Which of the following can best describe Sha according to the last paragraph?

A．She concentrates on working with the patients with Alzheimer’s disease only.

B．She still thinks at present becoming older means losing our memory gradually.

C．She argues that memory problems necessarily lead to anxiety and depressions.

D．She thinks age plays an important role in causing Alzheimer’s disease undoubtedly.

3. Which of the following is the best title for the text?

A．How should we better our memory as we age?

B．What really happens to our memory as we age?

C．Why should we balance our aging and our memory?

D．How can we get the peak performance of our brain sooner?

4. What will be discussed in the following paragraph?

A．The interview with Sha.	B．The seriousness of aging.
C．The necessity of clinical trials.	D．The cures of Alzheimer’s disease.

10 . A woman in Brazil kept awake during brain surgery moved doctors to tears when she began to sing a song she wrote herself. And the moment is unlike anything we’ve seen before!

Doctors diagnosed (诊断) 45-year-old Maria Filomena da Costa with a brain tumor (肿瘤). It needed to be removed, but the location of the mass made things tricky. Removing the tumor without impacting Maria’s speech and cognition wouldn’t be easy. As a result, doctors determined Maria would need to be kept awake during brain surgery! “There was a big risk Maria would lose her speech and it was important that she talked to the team during surgery,” neurosurgeon Carlos Rocha explained.

Brain surgery is scary enough. But needless to say, this particular operation was terrifying. And Maria admits she found the idea of surgeons working on her brain while she was awake was frightening. So, the team delayed the operation until Maria was psychologically prepared for everything involved.

When it came time to operate, doctors used anesthesia to keep Maria “slightly sleepy,” but still able to speak and respond. The team planned to quiz her on colors, names, etc. “We had prearranged to do speech mapping with electrical stimuli (刺激物) to the brain and tests during surgery asking her to name objects and colors, read and talk,” Carlos said. But Maria surprised everyone when she started singing a song written by herself as doctors began removing the tumor!

Maria’s actions completely stunned the doctors. Not only did it provide guarantee for the doctors that Maria’s speech would be just fine, but it moved the team in a powerful way. “There were a number of professionals involved in this procedure and it was an emotional experience. Everyone couldn’t stop talking about her courage,” anesthesiologist Paula Fialho said. The 8-hour surgery went well, and within only 4 days, Maria headed home from the hospital. She’s walking, talking, and is well on her way to a full recovery!

1. What can we learn about the brain tumor in Paragraph 2?

A．It put the doctors at risk.	B．It kept the patients awake.
C．It was diagnosed 45 years ago.	D．It was at a position hard to tackle.

2. Why did the doctors postpone the operation?

A．Maria needed enough mental preparation.	B．Maria demanded a better surgery plan.
C．Maria longed to have more speech practice.	D．Maria was too scared to accept it completely.

3. How did the doctors make Maria safe and sound during the operation?

A．They asked her to sing.	B．They gave her a careful test.
C．They used anesthesia to make her sleep.	D．They helped her react to something by speaking.

4. Which of the following best describes Maria?

A．Enthusiastic and ambitious.	B．Professional and emotional.
C．Optimistic and courageous.	D．Cooperative and generous.