Learning Chinese calligraphy
As someone who paints, draws, and loves all
After taking the lesson, I now understand the difficulty of calligraphy and that it will take efforts and commitment
2 . When you have to cancel your Thanksgiving plans due to the spread of the COVID-19, you may find yourself craving companionship as much as that pumpkin pie. That’s because parts of the brain respond to loneliness much like they react to hunger, according to a study in Nature Neuroscience.
Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology scanned the brains of 40 healthy, social young adults after 10 hours of either fasting (禁食) or social isolation (隔离). They found that after being alone, participants’ neurological responses to social signals were similar to hungry people reacting to food — that is, certain areas of the brain linked to desire were turned on to start working.
For an isolated person, a picture of people laughing together caused the same areas of the brain to light up as when a hungry person looked at a big plate of pasta.
“Just like hunger is an unpleasant sensation that motivates us to seek out food and thirst motivates us to seek out water, loneliness is a biological need that motivates us to reconnect to others,” Holt-Lunstad told Insider.
Researchers were surprised to find that people who were prevented from socializing became much more focused on that need, and less reactive to hunger. As their loneliness increased, they became less responsive to images of food.
These latest findings suggest that the relationship between food and loneliness might be more complicated than we thought, despite the popular opinion of stress-eating to cope with social isolation. More research is needed to understand the complex ways people deal with loneliness.
Studies like this can help scientists understand how the brain processes loneliness, and possibly reduce the negative consequences. However, although loneliness may be similar to hunger, fixing it isn’t as easy as serving someone a hearty dinner because people are unique and they need varying levels of social interactions to meet their needs.
1. The underlined word “craving” in the first paragraph can be replaced by .| A．avoiding | B．desiring | C．preferring | D．ignoring |
| A．to find their brain responses to both loneliness and hunger |
| B．to provide explanations for their feeling lonely and hungry |
| C．to find how loneliness can have a negative impact on health |
| D．after they have been hungry and socially isolated for 10 hours |
| A．Hunger is an unpleasant sensation. |
| B．Hunger and thirst motivate us to feed ourselves. |
| C．Socializing is supposed to be basic human need as it is. |
| D．The effects of loneliness on health are comparable to other factors. |
| A．Loneliness may be fixed just as hunger is satisfied. |
| B．Situations of loneliness are complicated and hard to cope with. |
| C．Scientists have understood how the brain processes loneliness. |
| D．Loneliness is such a common and serious problem that we all have to suffer. |
3 . Blind people have long desired for brightness, but scientists don’t have the technology. To bring that one step closer to reality, Zhiyong Fan, a materials scientist of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, developed a new artificial eye recently. The device, which is about as sensitive to light and has sharper vision and a faster reaction time than a real eyeball, may outperform human eyes.
The human eye owes its wide field of view and clear eyesight to the retina (视网膜) — an area at the back of the eyeball covered in light-detecting cells. The design for a new artificial eye is based on the structure of the human eye and uses a friendly light-sensitive material. At the back of the eyeball, an artificial retina is lined with Nan scale light sensors (纳米级光感器). Those sensors measure light that passes through the lens (晶状体) at the front of the eye. Wires attached to the back of the retina send signals from those sensors to the processor, similar to the way nerve networks connect the eyeball to the brain.
“In the future, we can use this to replace damaged human eyes,” says the lead designer. In theory, this artificial eye could see more clearly than the human eye, because the artificial retina contains about 460 million light sensors per square centimeter while a real retina has about 10 million light-detecting cells per square centimeter. Besides, the artificial eyeball records changes in lighting faster than human eyes can — within about 30 to 40 milliseconds, rather than 40 to 150 milliseconds. Although its 100-degree field of view isn’t as broad as the150 degrees a human eye can take in, the device can see as well as the human eye in poor light.
Hongrui Jiang, an electrical engineer at the University of Wisconsin, though, thinks engineers need a much more practical and efficient way to produce vast series of tiny wires on the back of the artificial eyeball to give it superhuman sight, which is super hard to achieve.
1. Why does Zhiyong Fan develop the artificial eye?| A．To replace people’s real eyeballs. | B．To gain a sharper vision. |
| C．To help the blind regain their eyesight. | D．To help normal eyes perform better. |
| A．The design of the artificial eye. | B．The structure of the human eye. |
| C．The advantages of the artificial eye. | D．The material used for the artificial eye. |
| A．They have the same structure. |
| B．The artificial eye may see more clearly. |
| C．The human eye sees better in weak light. |
| D．The artificial eye takes in a broader view. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Favorable. | C．Unconcerned. | D．Satisfied. |
4 . 你校英文报正在开展以Satisfaction with Your Looks为话题的调查，请结合图表中的数据写一篇短文投稿，内容包括：
1. 满意度情况描述；
2. 简单评论；
3. 你的建议。
注意：
1. 写作词数不少于80；
2. 开头已给出，不计入总词数。
Attitudes towards whether we are satisfied with our looks vary from person to person.
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Maria was my best friend. When we first met, I knew we were meant to be friends forever. But then something happened.
One day, I said to her excitedly, “There’s a two-day art camp this summer,” holding up the bright-red paper I had grabbed as we entered the library.
Maria took the paper and glanced at it. She stopped when her eyes caught the date. “It’s during the last week of July,” she said. “That’s the same time when I would be out of town with my family.”
Maria handed the paper back to me as she stood up to look at the shelf of new books.
I sighed and dropped my head down.
“Alice, you’re the artist.” She smiled. “But I’m terrible at drawing.”
“You may not think you can draw, but you can learn,” I said in my most encouraging voice. I really didn’t want to go alone.
Going out of the library, I was still in low spirits.
After school, I showed the paper to my mother. She asked me whether I would attend the art camp. I told my mother probably not because my friend would not go.
Mom patted my back and she knew I had a hard time jumping into something with no familiar faces around. “Maybe next year,” she comforted me.
“Maybe.” I sighed. “I’m going outside to draw our pine tree. I’ll be out front.”
I opened the door and looked at the bright sunshine as I sat on the front doorstep. I thought about the art camp and wished I felt a little braver. Maria could make friends with a whole busload of kids in 10 minutes, but my stomach twirls like a roller coaster when I don’t know anyone around me. By the time I started painting, I had convinced myself it was OK to skip the camp.
I used my pencil and drew the pine’s strong and straight trunk, and added the graceful branches, making sure the upper ones lifted gently toward the sun.
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。
I jumped when Maria said, “You paint quite well.”
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The big day of the art camp finally arrived.
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1．谈谈你对这句话的理解；2．结合个人经历进行阐述。
注意：1．词数80左右；2．请在答题卡的相应位置作答。
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In 2016, Shennongjia made it onto the UNESCO World Heritage List. It was awarded this status because it meets two criteria
For the first criterion, Shennongjia is
What’s more, according to official statistics, over 3,000 plant species have been recorded, which represents more than ten percent of China’s total floral
Therefore, it is
8 . A man with Parkinson’s（帕金森）disease has experienced a substantial improvement in his ability to walk after being fitted with a device that electrically stimulates his spinal cord（脊髓）. The findings, although based on one person, suggest this could be used to treat movement disorders.
Treatments for Parkinson’s disease include drugs that target parts of the brain which regulates movement, as well as deep-brain stimulation, which changes the electrical signals that cause symptoms. However, many people don’t respond to these treatments, particularly if their condition is advanced, says Courtine.
He and his colleagues wanted to find out whether directly stimulating the spinal cord in a person with severe Parkinson’s disease could help. The team designed the device that specifically targets neurons（神经元）in the spine that are activated when legs walk, which showed promise in non-human primates with Parkinson’s-like symptoms. To test it in a person, the researchers recruited a 62-year-old man called Marc, who has experienced Parkinson’s symptoms for around 30 years. These included pace freezing-sudden and temporary inability to move.
The researchers first had to map the neurons in Marc’s spine. This helped to guide the application of stimulators so they would only target his legs’ neurons. They then placed sensors on Marc’s legs and shoes to monitor the electrical activity of the neurons that activate the muscles in these limbs and his feet. When these sensors detected this electrical activity, they activated the stimulators.
After three months’ training using the stimulators, Marc more or less stopped experiencing pace freezing. Marc says that passing through narrow paths or turning had previously caused pace freezing, which led to him falling five or six times a day. Marc has now been using the stimulator for two years and says he hardly falls any more, allowing him to walk several kilometres at a time.
The stimulation is personalised to Marc. Nevertheless, the team thinks a similar technique could help many people. But there are at least five more years of development before the treatment will reach people outside a trial, says Courtine.
1. Why does Courtine’s team design the device?| A．Conventional treatments help little. | B．Patients suffer from deep-brain stimulation. |
| C．The device is much cheaper. | D．The medicine has side-effects. |
| A．The procedure of the treatment. | B．The effects of the research. |
| C．The function of stimulators. | D．The prediction of researchers. |
| A．Marc is dissatisfied with the treatment. | B．Marc recovers after three-month’s training. |
| C．The device is specially adjusted for Marc. | D．The device has been used widely. |
| A．Small sample. | B．Low technology. | C．High cost. | D．Inconvenient operation. |
9 . Launched in 2004 by then-Harvard University student Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook became the biggest social media platform in the world just five years later. It was young people who helped Facebook initially shoot to success, but today’s youth think that “Facebook is for old people”, reported the Daily Star.
In 2015, a survey found that 71 percent of teens aged 13 to 17 used Facebook. But in 2022, that number dropped to 32 percent, reported NBC News. Alex Tani, a 25-year-old from the UK, said that when he started university in 2016, his tutors always set up student groups on Facebook to help everyone stay in touch and interact. But by the time his younger brother went to university three years later, this wasn’t the case.
Today’s younger generation prefers to use other social platforms, such as Instagram, a photo and video-sharing social networking service also owned by Facebook’s parent company Meta, and TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, said NBC News. These two platforms are different from Facebook in that they are mainly image-based and video-based, not text-based. Visual culture is a rising trend and young people have grown tired of reading people’s remarks on Facebook, said Forbes.
Another reason for Facebook’s decline in popularity is AI. According to The Guardian, TikTok’s “most powerful tool” is its algorithm (算法) which predicts what content you want to see. It shares related content with you from people you may not follow based on what you’ve watched before. This saves people the effort of searching for what they like, and so becomes an “escape for them”, said North Carolina State University.
Going forward, Facebook plans to use AI in a similar way as TikTok to show short videos and give users a better platform to discuss video content, said Fortune Media. Only time will tell whether it can stay “young” or remain as a platform used only by “old people”.
1. Why does the author mention Alex’s experience?| A．To compare differences between the brothers． | B．To show Facebook is losing its advantage. |
| C．To illustrate how Facebook works. | D．To emphasize the importance of Facebook. |
| A．Protecting privacy. | B．Being text-based. |
| C．Providing visual enjoyment. | D．Being abundant in remarks. |
| A．Misty. | B．Predictable. | C．Promising. | D．Depressing. |
| A．Facebook Struggles for the Favor of the Youth | B．Facebook: The Biggest Social Media Platform |
| C．TikTok Becomes a Favorite Online Destination | D．AI: A Powerful Tool in Social Media Platforms |
Susan wasn’t doing well enough at school before, or at least she wasn’t confident about herself. She wished she could do better here in her new school.
“Who would like to present your understanding of the poem?” Mr. Lee, the literature teacher, looked around the classroom. Susan lowered her head to avoid the teacher’s eyes. She was afraid to be laughed at if she made a mistake.
“Kara?” the teacher asked instead. Oh, perfect, Susan raised her head a bit. Of course Kara got the answer right again. Everyone clapped their hands, and Susan gave a quick look at Kara with admiration. Kara noticed her and gave back her a smile. Susan felt warm.
Soon, sadness filled Susan’s heart again. She hadn’t made any friends of her own so far. She felt so lonely that she really hoped someone like Kara would come up and call her a friend. Also, how she wished she were Kara, who was the most popular girl in school-always surrounded by several boyfriends, best friends and others. Kara was like shining sunshine.
Then, still in the class, some old memories crossed Susan’s mind. Growing up on a farm near a big forest, Susan lived every day to the fullest on the farm with Grandpa, fishing in the river, setting a camp fire, climbing the tallest trees and making friends with the lovely creatures in the forest. Grandpa would hug her and call her “my sunshine”. The old man was always proud of his little girl and Susan was sure she was the queen of the forest. She smiled at all her thoughts.
Literature class finally ended, and all the students headed for the gym. The class had been playing basketball. Kara, of course, was the best player. Beside her, Susan felt like very small and awkward. Today, however, the gym teacher led the students to a big tree in the yard and said, “Everyone! You’re going to climb this tree today. Just try your best.” Hearing the teacher’s words, Susan lit up.
Many of the classmates tried but failed, including Kara. Then came her turn.
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。
Paragraph1:
Susan stepped forward and got close to the tree.
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Paragraph 2:
With everyone cheering for her skillful climb and interesting stories, Kara came up.
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