1 . Top Scientific Breakthroughs in 2023

The pace of innovation never slows, and the impact of the breakthroughs will redefine the way we live, work and connect with the world.

A New Era for Space Exploration

Space exploration is one of the core missions in many countries. Recently, the newest mission to the moon was launched as NASA’s Artemis Program, which would pave the way for a future mission to Mars. This new era of space exploration will drive technological advancements in fields beyond astronautics and stimulate progress in real-world applications like materials, food science, and modern industry.

A Milestone in AI Predictions

For decades, the scientific community has chased a greater understanding of relationships between protein functions and 3D structures. In July 2023, Deep Mind revealed that the folded 3D structure of a protein molecule (分子), which reduced the number of human proteins with unknown structural data from 4,800 to just 29. While there will always be challenges with AI, the ability to predict protein structures in biology has implications across all life sciences.

Greener Fertilizer Production

Every year, billions of people depend on fertilizers for the ongoing production of food, and reducing the carbon footprint and expenses in fertilizer production would reshape the impact agriculture has on emissions. To reduce energy requirements, researchers from Tokyo Tech have developed a noble-metal-free catalyst (催化剂), which is much more environmentally friendly and safer to the agricultural produces.

Supercomputer—Exascale

Exascale computers, which can perform a mind-boggling quintillion (10¹⁸) mathematical operations per second, finally arrived in 2023. They’ve already helped refine weather forecasts and design new materials, and new ones will be coming online soon. The world’s most powerful supercomputers, operating at the far frontier of speed known as the exascale, have now begun to boom. These results from exascale machines coming online in the next few years promise to open a new window into materials, climate science, and medicine.

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1. What do the Space Exploration and Fertilizer Production have in common?

A．They take a lot of time.	B．They make influence on the food.
C．They need government cooperation.	D．They cost a big sum of money to maintain.

2. Which aspect has a close connection with biology?

A．A New Era for Space Exploration.	B．A Milestone in AI Predictions.
C．Greener Fertilizer Production.	D．Supercomputers—Exascale.

3. Where is this text probably taken from?

A．A textbook.

B．An exam paper.

C．A magazine.

D．A science fiction.

2 . Driving is a dangerous activity. Every single day people, for a variety of reasons, are hurt or killed in accidents. One woman, an emergency nurse in the Phoenix, ________ to let a man in an accident become just another motor vehicle death ________.

On the morning of July 26, Leigh Ann just ________ her fourth straight night shift. After a stress-filled day at work, Leigh Ann was ________. She was heading home along the way when she noticed a horrible ________ in the distance. As she got closer, she ________ it was a cement truck turn on its side.

Obviously, it was a(n) ________ accident, and emergency first responders had not yet ________. Leigh Ann knew that she had to act. She hurried over to the truck, ________ crossing the usually busy highway, which was empty at the time.

She then quickly ________ the situation. She discovered the driver was trapped, still ________, but injured and losing blood at an alarming rate. The nurse ________ the man, and then used the man’s belt to stop any further blood loss. Leigh Ann ________ him until the rescue team took him away.

As for what put her in that ________ to help that man, Leigh Ann said. “My professional spirit does direct my ________. I’m far from perfect, but at that particular moment, my previous work encouraged me to give a helping hand.”

1.

A．hesitated

B．promised

C．refused

D．pretended

2.

A．statistic

B．witness

C．intervention

D．survivor

3.

A．arranged

B．exchanged

C．deserved

D．completed

4.

A．stunned

B．homesick

C．exhausted

D．cheerful

5.

A．figure

B．scene

C．shadow

D．scenery

6.

A．realized

B．suspected

C．recalled

D．remembered

7.

A．avoidable

B．similar

C．consistent

D．recent

8.

A．retrained

B．arrived

C．swept

D．calculated

9.

A．unwillingly

B．safely

C．innocently

D．casually

10.

A．assessed

B．imagined

C．exposed

D．presented

11.

A．considerate

B．conscious

C．reliable

D．grateful

12.

A．encountered

B．followed

C．approached

D．convinced

13.

A．cared for

B．depended on

C．subscribed to

D．brought up

14.

A．protection

B．preparation

C．position

D．opportunity

15.

A．lesson

B．service

C．career

D．path

3 . There are many ways in which a person’s body language can give you information about whether they are lying or not.

One of the biggest signs that a person is telling lies is that he avoids eye contact during conversation. He may also touch his face often, covering his mouth with his hand very often. Touching the nose is also said to be a sign of taking others’ attention to cover up lies. A person who is not telling the truth may be trying to make you focus on his actions rather than his words.

When a liar (说谎者) tells lies, his physical expression is often very stiff (僵硬的). If he is smiling as he speaks, only the mouth will move. A real smile naturally causes movement of the mouth, eyes, forehead, cheeks, and jaw.

The liar’s hand, leg and arm movements are toward his own body. He takes up little space. The person’s body language is closed off. Liars do not look relaxed, even though they may be trying to give the impression that they are.

When explaining something, a liar usually feels uncomfortable with pauses (停顿) or silences. The person may speak gently or in disordered words. A very skillful liar is able to speak directly and with confidence. In fact, some salespeople are best at this skill.

If you doubt someone is lying, change the topic of conversation suddenly. The liar will willingly change topics with you and become more relaxed. A person who is telling the truth will generally become confused by this sudden change. Another sign of someone telling a lie is yawning (哈欠) — the person may try and look as relaxed as possible, and yawing and stretching are ways of achieving this.

1. Why do liars often cover their mouths?

A．To show their own skill.	B．To avoid the mouth’s stiffness.
C．To smile because they feel shy.	D．To change the listener’s attention.

2. What does the author think of some salesmen?

A．They speak softly.	B．They say “by the way”.
C．They speak confidently.	D．They are anxious while lying.

3. Which can best describe the liar’s yawning?

A．Uncomfortable.

B．Relaxing seemingly.

C．Worrying.

D．Exciting.

4. How does the author mainly develop the topic of the text?

A．By giving explanation.	B．By listing numbers.
C．By using others’ words.	D．By showing results of research.

4 . All we know about the abandoned (被抛弃的) newborn cat that made news for its genetic rareness comes from a web. A user named Vodkaholy posted a handful of photos of the tiny cat with a few background details.

No one knows how the newborn cat ended up in a rubbish bag, but it is very common for heartless people to abandon cats they choose not to care for. Luckily, Vodkaholy’s aunt heard the tiny mews that the cat was letting out. It appears she was the one who rescued the baby, who was only a week old. Not only had the cat been immediately abandoned after it was born, but it was injured and had developed a serious illness. Just a few days old, it had a broken leg and a badly injured paw (爪). Sadly, after the cat’s rescuer took it to the vet (兽医), they found out that the paw couldn’t be saved.

No doubt it was a shock to find such a sad cat abandoned in the rubbish bag, but the vet had another big surprise for the woman. It was a male calico cat (花斑猫)! The vet said it was really scarce for calico cats to be male. However, it won’t be a dad to any more calico cats. It was born with some kind of illness, but the vet said it’s normal for male calico cats. “Except for that, it is a normal happy cat, healthy as a horse,” Vodkaholy said.

Vodkaholy’s aunt is keeping the cat. It grows healthy and happy even if it only has 3 paws. And it is not the first cat this sweet aunt has brought home.

1. What can we infer about the abandoned cat?

A．It had three paws at birth.	B．It was abandoned by a naughty boy.
C．It was in bad condition when it was found.	D．It called loudly when Vodkaholy passed by.

2. What can we say about Vodkaholy’s aunt?

A．She is warm-hearted and caring.	B．She is smart but impatient.
C．She is hard-working but rude.	D．She is kind and curious.

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

A．Graceful.

B．Challenging.

C．Frightening.

D．Unusual.

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．A Funny Story of a Kind Aunt	B．A Young Cat Lost Its Way Home
C．A Kind Lady Saved a Cat in a Dustbin	D．A Kind Lady Asking for Help on the Internet

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。

Long long ago, there was a little prince who was used to having everything he wanted. He was so badly behaved that he wouldn’t let anybody have a new toy if he didn’t have it first. If any child in the land wanted a new toy, they had to buy two and give one to him. Therefore, the little prince had no friends except for his toys.

One day a magic toymaker, who invented the most wonderful toys, came to the land. The little prince liked his toys so much that he invited him to spend an entire year in the palace, promising him great wealth if he made him a new toy every day. The toymaker set just one condition: “My toys are very special and need an owner who will play with them” he said. “Will you be able to devote a little time to each one every day?” “Of course, I will” the little prince replied impatiently.

From then on, every morning the little prince received a new toy. Every day the toymaker delivered a toy better than the previous ones. The little prince appeared very happy.

But the toy collection kept growing and, after a few weeks there were simply too many toys to play with all of them every day. So, one day the little prince put a few toys to one side, hoping that the toymaker wouldn’t notice. However, when it was night time and he was ready to go to bed. The toys that had been put away lined up in front of him and, one by one, demanded their daily playtime. The little prince couldn’t get to sleep until well past midnight because he had to play with every single toy.

Next day, tired after all his efforts, the prince slept very late. In the little time left of the day, he had to get to know a new toy and then play with all the others too. Once again, he finished very late and was so tired he could hardly stop yawning (打哈欠).

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。
       Every day was a little bit worse than the one before, with the same amount of time but one extra toy to play with.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
       The children saw the prince, wondering whether the prince would force them to hand over their toys just like before.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

6 . The International Federation of Pickleball, with 60 member countries and counties, is working to make sure pickleball will be part of the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.     1    

“Pickleball comes from tennis, badminton and table tennis,” says Hope Tolley, managing director of USA Pickleball.       2     And it uses square paddles (球拍) and a small plastic ball that’s similar in size to a tennis ball, but much lighter.

Unlike tennis, you can score only when it’s your turn to serve. What you should do is keep the ball in the air, and if your opponent(called the receiver)fails to return the ball over the net, you get the point.     3     If not, you’ll end up with a shot that fails to reach the net. Matches can be played in doubles or singles, and games are played to 11 points.

    4     Because the game can vary the intensity-going all out or taking a slower pace-pickleball suits professional athletes and beginners alike. It’s a great workout and it’s a low-influence sport, so it’s easy on players’ joints (关节).

People who are really into the sport can join tournaments at various levels. The first World Pickleball Games will be held next summer in Austin, Texas.     5    

A．Here’s how the game is played.

B．So be sure to hit with enough force.

C．Make sure you can’t stand in wrong position.

D．Playing pickleball can’t have any negative impact on players.

E．It’s played on a badminton-sized court with a slightly lowered tennis net.

F．If you haven’t played it yourself, you’ve probably at least heard of pickleball.

G．By 2030, pickleball is expected to have as many as 40 million players worldwide.

7 . Speaking two languages deeply affects the brain and changes how the nervous system reacts to sound, and researches have shown that learning a foreign language can strengthen brain power, but a new study suggests that the effects go further to those who begin in middle childhood.

It indicates that people who began learning a foreign language at 10 and were always exposed to the language, meaning they heard and used it in daily life, had improvements in the structure of the brain’s white matter compared with people who grew up speaking only one language and did not learn a foreign language.

These “higher levels of structural integrity(完整性)” were in areas responsible for language learning and semantic(语义的)processing, which occurs when the meaning of a word is encoded and related to similar words with similar meaning.

The new findings, published in the National Academy of Sciences on Monday, studied brain scans from 200 subjects(实验者), all around the age of 30, who lived in Britain for at least 13 months. They all started learning English as a foreign language at the age of 10.

Their imaging scans were compared with people of similar age who spoke only English. The study was led by Christos of the University of Kent School of Psychology in Britain.

“Everyday dealing with more than one language benefits specific language-related brain structures by preserving their integrity, and therefore it protects them against deterioration in older age,” the study found.

1. Who may have stronger brain power according to the text?

A．A person who learns English as a foreign language.

B．A person who speaks English as a mother language.

C．A person who can speak English well at an early age.

D．A person who hears and uses English in everyday life.

2. What can we know from 200 subjects’ brain scans?

A．The 200 subjects lived in Britain to learn English.

B．The 200 subjects studied English at the age of 30.

C．The structure of their brains’ white matter improved.

D．The structure of their brains’ white matter disappeared.

3. What does the underlined word “deterioration” mean in the last paragraph?

A．Evolving.

B．Reaction.

C．Worsening.

D．Formation.

4. What’s the text mainly about?

A．Speaking two languages affects the brain seriously.

B．Speaking two languages changes how the brain works.

C．Learning a foreign language can affect people’s childhood.

D．Learning a foreign language at 10 strengthens brain power.

8 . 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。

For many years, my only companion was our dog, Sno. A small but mighty Bichon Frise, our dog may have looked ordinary, but he was smart, creative, and always ready for ice cream and rolling at my request. While I worked, he slept, waking to chase the red cat from next door, greet a delivery person, or sit in the sunshine.

We didn’t agree on everything, especially when to get up and when to go to bed. He sighed with boredom when a project was due and I didn’t have time to play. He didn’t understand weekends, deadlines, and visitors who left him. However, we both agreed on walking.

At least once a week, we took a long walk to the beach. For him, there were tall grasses and exciting smells. For me, there were other dog walkers and neighbors to catch up with. We returned tired, thirsty, and very happy.

Being a dog with huge ambition and short legs, Sno needed several breaks along the way. The one at the entrance to the beach was his favorite, possibly because he knew we were circling back home. There, on a windy summer day, he looked up at me just as I was looking down at him. We both grinned (咧嘴笑). This was the best walk ever.

When he was old and dying, our walks were shorter and closer to home. I’d take him for a walk and then go out for my own walk, wandering around the beach like we used to do. I always grinned when I got to the entrance to the beach, remembering that summer day when he was young and energetic.

In his final days, Sno still insisted on walking. It took twice as long to take even the shortest walk, but we enjoyed every step. Then came that Sunday when he leaned hard toward the beach walk. How could I refuse his last-walk wish?

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。

We took the walk.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

After he died, I went for the long walk.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

9 . 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。

Emojis are widely used in our daily lives and have become     1     important way of communication. The first emojis were created in 1999 by Japanese designer Shigetaka Kurita,     2     worked on a mobile Internet platform     3     (call) i-mode. Kurita attempted to develop a simple way for people     4     (express) emotions in short text messages.

As emojis gained     5     (popular), they faced a significant technical hurdle (障碍) : early emojis could not     6     (send) across different mobile platforms, since there was no standardized encoding (编码). This issue was resolved in 2010 by the Unicode Consortium, an organization responsible     7     maintaining a standardized encoding of text and symbols across platforms. This allowed for cross-platform communication and continued expansion in emoji usage worldwide.

Given     8     (they) origins in Japan, many early emoji characters were reflective of Japanese culture. As they’ve spread     9     (global), new characters have been added to account for cultural differences and provide a more universal means of communication. Users must also consider cultural sensitivities when     10     (communicate) via emojis, as certain symbols can have hugely different meanings across different cultures.

10 . BEIJING — Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that China will launch the Global Artificial Intelligence (AI) Governance Initiative, which presents a constructive approach to addressing universal concerns over AI development and governance and drew up blueprints for relevant international discussions and rule-making, a foreign ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday.

Xi made the announcement in his keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) in Beijing on Wednesday.

“It is part of China’s active effort to advance the vision of a community with a shared future for mankind and the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative,” the spokesperson said.

AI is a new frontier of human development, and it comes with major opportunities and hard-to-predict risks and challenges that require global response, the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson said the Initiative systematically outlines China’s proposals on AI governance from three aspects, namely, the development, security and governance of AI. The core components of the Initiative are: We should uphold a people-centered approach in developing AI and adhere to the principle of developing AI for the good of humanity, so that AI is developed in a way that is beneficial to human progress; We should uphold the principles of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit in AI development, and oppose drawing ideological lines or forming exclusive groups to obstruct other countries from developing AI; We should promote the establishment of a testing and assessment system based on AI risk levels, so as to make AI technologies more secure, reliable, controllable and equitable; We support efforts to develop AI governance frameworks, norms and standards based on broad consensus and with full respect for policies and practices among countries, and support discussions within the United Nations framework to establish an international institution to govern AI; Efforts should be made to conduct international cooperation with and provide assistance to developing countries, to bridge the gap in AI and its governance capacity.

“China stands ready to have exchanges and practical cooperation with all sides on global AI governance and deliver benefit for all human beings through AI technology,” the spokesperson added.

1. What announcement was made according to Paragraph 1?

A．Rules about AI control in China.

B．A initiative about governing AI globally.

C．Universal concerns about AI development.

D．Domestic plans for AI rule-making.

2. We can learn from the spokesman that __________.

A．AI development needs global concerns

B．China has made every effort to develop AI

C．The initiative was launched related to four aspects

D．AI should advance based on the needs of robots

3. What’s China’s attitude towards AI development according to the text?

A．Supportive if it’s for human-kind.

B．Indifferent if it’s for some people’s benefit.

C．Disapproved if it is not for education.

D．Neutral whatever it is.