1 . Mahanakhon SkyWalk is one of the best attractions at the heart of Bangkok, combining wonderful views with an unmatched guest experience.

Mahanakhon SkyWalk facilities include:

1st Floor: In the Lobby (大厅) are the Main Entrance and Mahanakhon SkvWalk Ticket Counter (柜台). It conveniently linked to the elevator (电梯) lobby through a Bangkok-themed digital corridor. Feel the excitement of Thailand’s fastest elevators that are capable of reaching the 74th floor in just 50 seconds.

74th Floor: The Indoor Observation Deck affords 360-degree panoramic views of landmark destinations around Bangkok. It comes complete with interactive windows and Augmented Reality (AR) screen experience to capture and send postcards to loved ones direct from Thailand’s highest mailbox!

75th Floor: The Mezzanine offers restroom facilities and access to the glass elevator lobby.

78th Floor: The Rooftop and Outdoor Observation Deck comes alive with the excitement of “The Glass Tray”, a floor space that sits 310 meters from the ground. The viewing deck ranks among the world’s largest glass floors. Take your time as you take in the awe-inspiring view of the city skyline. It’s home to the highest rooftop bar with plenty of drinks and cocktails.

Ticket Information:
Ticket Type: Mahanakhon SkyWalk
Description: Indoor Observatory Deck (74th Floor)
Adult Admission: 850 THB and 250 THB for Children under 12 years of age / Seniors over 60 years of age
Ticket type: Mahanakhon SkyWalk & Rooftop
Description: Indoor and Outdoor Observatory Deck (74th and 78th Floors)
Adult Admission: 1,050 THB and 450 THB for Children under 12 years of age /Seniors over 60 years of age
1. What does Mahanakhon SkyWalk offer its visitors?

A．The fastest elevators in Thailand

B．The quickest mail delivery in Thailand

C．The highest ticket counter in Thailand

D．The cheapest cocktails in Thailand

2. Where is The Indoor Observatory Deck?

A．On the 1st floor.	B．On the 74th floor.
C．On the 75th floor.	D．On the 78th floor.

3. How much should a couple with an 11-year-old child pay for Mahanakhon SkyWalk & Rooftop?

A．1050 THB.

B．1950 THB.

C．2100 THB.

D．2550 THB.

2 . The backfire effect is a very strong, psychological aspect in all of our minds. Due to this effect, whenever you are faced with information and facts that contradict something you believe, instead of changing your view or forming a new opinion, your original beliefs will often be strengthened. Yon will believe in your previously formed opinion even more vigorously (坚定地), despite seeing hard proof.

For example, remember that classmate you formed an opinion about too fast? And even though everything they did suggested otherwise, you didn’t want to believe you were wrong about them, so you convinced yourself that you weren’t wrong.

You found reasons, dwelt on minor things, and ignored the facts that contradicted your opinion. With all of this struggle, you believed that your opinion didn’t have to change. The huge amount of thought you gave it only strengthened your original opinion about your classmate.

The backfire effect is very powerful and a part of the mechanism of our minds as humans. We can’t get rid of it, but we can make ourselves more aware of it. Being aware that you may be straining your logic only to preserve your beliefs will cause you to keep your mind more open, allowing you to definitely change and learn much faster.

Arguments can be approached in better ways when you are aware of the backfire effect. Apart from being aware of it, you can keep your own mind open. You shouldn’t state facts that counter (反驳) the opposing person’s opinion. Instead, you should ask them questions that will make them question what they believe.

The Internet revolution has provided the ability to argue with people across the globe, even if you’ve never met them. Heated arguments you might have witnessed (or participated in) on the Internet between two people going back and forth about a very emotional issue will usually end in very raised tempers and no conclusions. This is because each side is really just strengthening the other side’s original opinion.

In my opinion, it is critically important to be aware of the backfire effect, because of how much it helps us grow. We can change and learn much faster if we allow our ideas of the world to be flexible, and not be so certain that our beliefs are superior.

1. What will people most probably do under the influence of the backfire effect?

A．Accept contradictory information.	B．Come up with new ideas.
C．Stick to previous beliefs.	D．Notice solid evidence.

2. How can people deal with arguments better when noticing the backfire effect?

A．By inspiring others to doubt their own belief.

B．By bravely providing the fact opposed by others.

C．By removing the influence of the backfire effect.

D．By becoming aware of the logic of the arguments.

3. Why do heated arguments on the Internet tend to end in vain?

A．They are not discussed by people face to face.

B．They are strengthening the opponents’ initial opinion.

C．They are too debatable for people to draw conclusions.

D．They are only between two people.

4. What does the author suggest readers do with the backfire effect?

A．Ask for help from other people if necessary.

B．Improve the flexibility of their schedule.

C．Learn from other people as quickly as possible.

D．Avoid absolutely believing their views are better than others.

3 . On any given day Damon Carson will deal with lots of inquiries from large companies looking to unload massive amounts of stuff that would otherwise go to the landfill (废物填埋场). For example, twenty-eight plastic boxes from a store were just waiting for him to repurpose them. And a recreation company wanted to know if Carson was interested in 360 kilograms of blue ropes

“They don’t want to just throw it away,” he explains. “Nor should they. Because it has value. ”The question of what value, and to whom, is what occupies Carson’s days.

For nearly a decade, his company, Repurposed Materials, has been devoted to this. He’s not looking to recycle the stuff he gets—breaking it down to make something new—but rather finding new homes for abandoned goods in their original forms.

In the late 1990s, Carson was on break from business school, when he discovered the profitable world of waste. He and a friend started a small business near construction sites. Working in construction, Carson had become familiar with an almost-everyday phenomenon: “You’d open up one of these big construction dumpster (大垃圾箱) and stuff would start falling out,” he says. He would find perfectly good wood, or a window still wrapped in plastic from the factory. “You can’t wrap your mind around how wasteful America is until you run a waste company,” he says

There is a solid environmental case for repurposing, or upcycling. “When people call, I say we don’t chip, grind, melt.” “Carson notes. Recycling, however noble, still takes energy. “Why melt something down, if it still has value?” he asks. An old oil-field pipe might be melted down and turned into a car bumper, but it still takes a fair amount of power to finish the transformation. Why not put it straight up and turn it into a fence post on a farm? The only cost is transport.

Carson recently opened two new warehouses (仓库), bringing the total to six. “Corporations(企业) are,” he says, “becoming increasingly focused on sustainability, so we’re upping (使升级) our capabilities. You never know when the next 20,000-kilogram spool of 10-centimeter-thick rope might come along, or where it might go.”

1. What does Carson’s company Repurposed Materials do?

A．It helps large companies bury waste.

B．It warns people against throwing away waste.

C．It brings new lives to abandoned stuff.

D．It changes the original form of abandoned stuff.

2. What advantage does upcycling have over recycling according to Carson?

A．It is more logical	B．It is more systematic
C．It is more formal	D．It is more energy-saving

3. What caused Carson to consider upping his company’s capabilities?

A．Current trend of using heavier ropes.

B．Fast development of his warehouses.

C．Natural process of treating waste materials.

D．Increasing environmental concerns of corporations.

4. Which of the following best describes Carson?

A．Generous and hard-working	B．Intelligent and humorous
C．Devoted and forward-looking	D．Independent and responsible

4 . 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。

The animated film Chang An is making history as a dark horse during China’s bustling summer movie-going season by     1     (take) in as much as 600 million yuan at the Chinese mainland box office and exciting the feelings of poetic romance in the hearts of moviegoers.

Sitting in the cinemas crowded     2     moviegoers of all age groups, the audience eagerly recited poetry alongside the main characters on screen as they headed down memory lane with a famous poet from the Tang Dynasty (618-907).

The story of the deep friendship between poet Gao Shi and the master of romantic poetry Li Bai     3     (offer) a glimpse into the star-studded history of the Tang era,     4     is often seen as a golden age in Chinese history due to     5     (it) economic prosperity and cultural integration and advancement.

As the unique charm and soul of the movie, 48 Tang poems help audiences travel from the     6     (sand) desert frontier to the mist-filled regions south of the Yangtze River. The movie is     7     (undoubted) a masterpiece showing the characteristics of Chinese culture to the world. These poems describe both the historical changes of a dynasty     8     people’ understanding and perception of the world. While older moviegoers may be familiar with the poems     9     (describe) in the movie, younger audiences get to enter a new and unique world through the movie, re-discovering and appreciating the essence and charm of Chinese culture.

The success of Chang An lies not only in its artistic expression, but also in its     10     (create) way of respecting and inheriting traditional 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。

Different sports filled my days in my youth. I dreamed or a big win some day, with a big trophy (奖杯). I was skillful and fast, or so I thought. However, I soon learned my skills seemed quite weak because the bigger, stronger boys seemed to occupy every corner of the playground. Once I was in the 100-yard hurdles, the only recognition I received for my performance was two bloody knees.

In college, I took a swim competition, dreaming of the glory! It turned out I achieved nothing. As an older adult, I still maintained an active lifestyle. In 2010 I signed up for a stair-climbing challenge to raise money for fighting against lung cancer. My father had died of the same disease, so this was a meaningful cause for me. Then, in 2019,the organization offered an even more challenging climb option: the vertical (垂直的) mile. So I would have three hours to climb up and down twenty-eight floors fifteen times, plus three more.

I trained hard. When the challenge started. I felt confident. But soon my legs started feeling heavy. What was worse, I began experiencing leg cramps (抽筋). My progress slowed dramatically and I quickly fell behind. When came down after finishing lap 14, it was past the time limit, so my big win had escaped once again.

Soon after the climb, I struggled to experience the sense of self-satisfaction. And I had, after all, set a goal for myself to prove what I was made of, what I had inside me. And what I had inside me was, “Nice try, but you didn’t make it.” So, a year later, at age 62 and after numerous workouts, I was back. Like last year, I was well ahead after an hour and I again started feeling some discomfort in my legs. I heard myself cry out loud, “Oh, no not again!” I finally stopped and sat down on the stairs, feeling quite depressed and wondering if my dream was over. A few climbers stopped to offer help. I was touched, but embarrassed to accept. Except for one climber. An angel climber, really.

Jessica, who I happened to know, was a salesman’s friend when I bought new running shoes at his store. And without that connection, she might have climbed past me as I sat on those steps, my legs shaking. But all those things did happen, and Jessica stopped to help.

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。

When she saw I was cramping, she offered me some sports drinks containing electrolytes (电解质).

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The cramps in my legs finally started to go away.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

6 . Julia, a 27-year-old TikTok user from Chicago, has been making dresses that her grandmother designed at fashion school to share on the platform.

According to Julia, her grandma, Georgie, went to fashion school in the 1940s and dreamed of being a fashion designer, but _________ before completing her studies because she needed to _________ some sick family members.

One day in 2021, when Julia was visiting her grandma, _________ old sketches (草图) of dresses that Georgie designed when she was a teenager, she thought they were _________.

“I knew my grandma was _________, but these are really much better than what I was _________ in my head. And she mentioned that when she died, she wanted them to get _________ at her funeral,” she said.

“But,” Julia added. “I just thought, why wait until she’s _________?”

Then Julia posted a video displaying some of her grandma’s _________ on TikTok, which became her first post on the platform to spread quickly and widely, receiving 2.7 million views.

__________ mostly old pieces of material left over from her grandmother’s own collection of cloth, Julia has now made four designs, trying to stick to a __________ of under $300 per gown (长礼服).

Julia thinks viewers have been __________ by her story of intergenerational bonding.

“Lots of old people say they love seeing someone younger __________ something from their generation,” she said, adding, “And then younger people, who maybe don’t have the best __________ with their grandparents, or lost their grandparents, say seeing my videos __________ them of their grandparents.”

1.

A．broke down

B．got over

C．dropped out

D．turned up

2.

A．nurse

B．guide

C．tolerate

D．rescue

3.

A．ignoring

B．scanning

C．assuming

D．negotiating

4.

A．plain

B．fantastic

C．primitive

D．abstract

5.

A．aged

B．concerned

C．disciplined

D．talented

6.

A．picturing

B．understanding

C．sharing

D．planning

7.

A．directed

B．displayed

C．divided

D．dismissed

8.

A．normal

B．optimistic

C．dead

D．wild

9.

A．certificates

B．essay

C．drafts

D．products

10.

A．Throwing

B．Using

C．Checking

D．Producing

11.

A．schedule

B．duration

C．foundation

D．budget

12.

A．fascinated

B．disturbed

C．confused

D．cheated

13.

A．abuse

B．appreciate

C．accelerate

D．assess

14.

A．promise

B．welfare

C．relationship

D．network

15.

A．warns

B．informs

C．convinces

D．reminds

7 . Being highly critical or talking down to yourself are examples of self-criticism that highlight your own weaknesses. You may feel you don’t meet your own personal standards or expectations. Fortunately, you can improve this pattern of self-criticism by changing your thought patterns and practicing positive affirmations (情感上的支持或鼓励).

●What is self-criticism?

Self-criticism is the act of thinking negatively about yourself. Individuals with self-critical tendencies face self-created problems due to their tough standards and internalized social values for self-evaluation.     1     For some individuals, self-criticism can have a negative effect on day-to-day mood and may be a factor for depression and other forms of mental illness.

● Can self-criticism be good?

    2     If people use personal criticism in a way that’s useful to complete tasks and achieve goals, it can be beneficial. They can use it as a way to examine their decisions and behaviors and evaluate whether they need to make any changes.

●     3    

People with avoidant (回避反应的) attachment styles avoid closeness. This may prevent them from developing relationships for how to show compassion (同情) for themselves and others. Self-criticism is also likely to arise from shame, insecure attachments, and having low self-esteem.

● Examples of self-Criticism

When individuals engage in negative self-assessment, they create an inner dialogue that uses demeaning (贬低的) and demotivating language.     4     They may say, “I am easily disappointed with myself.” “I can’t accept failures and setbacks without feeling inadequate,” and “I stop caring about myself.”

● How can self-criticism be overcome?

To overcome self-criticism, it’s helpful to be honest with yourself about the role you play. You can start to identify how your self-criticism impacts your mood and daily routine.     5    

A．Self-criticism isn’t always bad.

B．Where does self-criticism come from?

C．If so, please step outside your comfort zone.

D．Self-criticism is associated with little progress.

E．It’s also important to seek professional help as needed.

F．Examples of self-criticism include phrases and negative self-talk.

G．As a result, they’re unsure of their thoughts, feelings, and emotions.

8 . From the roar of a crowd to the quiet of a library, sound and silence might seem like polar opposites. However, according to a new research, our brains perceive them in the same way. Silence may not be a sound, but scientists say we can truly hear it.

In this new study, researchers examined how people experience silence using well-known auditory illusions (错觉). The illusions are meant to test the perception of noise, but for the study, the team adapted them to measure people’s response to silence, instead.

“If you can get the same illusions with silences as you get with sounds, then that may be obvious that we literally hear silence after all.” Chaz Firestone, a co-author of the study and cognitive scientist at Johns Hopkins University, says in a statement.

In the study, participants were tricked by these “silence illusions” in a similar way to how people are typically fooled by the sound versions of the experiments.

The researchers prepared seven experiments and tested them on 1,000 study participants. In one experiment, researchers played a recording that sounded like background noise in a crowded place. In the first half of the recording, the background noise was interrupted by two separate periods of silence. In the second half, one continuous period of silence was inserted (嵌入). Researchers asked participants which silence felt longer- the combination of the first two periods of silence, or the second uninterrupted one. Most participants thought the continuous silence was longer, but it was actually the same length as the two shorter silences combined.

These results were consistent with previous research that examined auditory illusions, which used two separate sounds and one continuous sound. With that illusion, people also perceived the continuous sound as longer than the two separate ones together.

Similar findings across the seven experiments suggested that humans experience silence and sound in much the same way: They can distort (扭曲) our perception of time.

1. Why did researchers use auditory illusions in the new study?

A．To help people perceive sounds.	B．To test people’s adaptability to noise.
C．To measure how people respond to silence.	D．To remind people to be quiet in the library.

2. What can we infer from paragraph 5?

A．Illusions of silence fool people’s brains.

B．The three periods of silence are of the same length.

C．Sound is usually difficult for people to perceive.

D．Participants chose a recording and played it.

3. Where is this text most likely from?

A．A diary.

B．A journal.

C．A novel.

D．A guidebook.

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．We can truly hear silence like a sound.

B．Sound and silence are actually the same.

C．Auditory illusions affect our perception ability.

D．Our brain has the ability to perceive sound and silence.

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。

China has the     1     (large) network of high-speed railways in the world. As of 2022 it encompassed(包含) over 40, 000 kilometres (25, 000 miles) of high-speed rail or over two-thirds     2     the world’s total. It is also the world’s busiest with an annual ridership of over 1.44 billion in 2016     3     2.01 billion in 2018 more than 60% of total passenger rail volume. By the end of 2018, the cumulative(累计的)number of passengers     4     (deliver) by high-speed railway trains was reported     5     (be)over 9 billion. According to Railway Gazette International, select trains from Beijing South to Nanjing South on the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway have the highest average operating speed at 317. 7 km/h as of July 2019.

The improved     6     (mobile)and interconnectivity created by these new high-speed rail lines have generated     7     entirely new high-speed commuter(通勤者)market around some urban     8     (area). For example, commutes via(通过) high-speed rail between Beijing and     9     (surround) cities have become     10     (increase)common.

10 . A woman who has struggled to come to terms with her alopecia (脱发) since she was a teenager is now working as a ______.

“I first noticed it when I was standing in the mirror trying to ______ my hair in a ponytail (马尾辫) and saw a small patch with no ______ close to my forehead,” Hansson, 26, said, “I was young at the time so I was mostly ______ that it was cancer since that’s ______ the first thing you think of when you see hair loss.”

After her diagnosis, only Hansson’s closest friends and ______ knew about her condition as she tried to keep it a secret and ______ that she became “good at hiding it”. However, as she got older, Hansson learned to accept her aesthetic (美感) and says that she is now ______ going out in public without wearing a wig. In fact, she has even ______ a career in modelling, “Now I feel like I can be ______ and that I don’t need to ______ it anymore,” she explains.

Hansson ______ not accepting her alopecia sooner, and she says that she is now happy doing what she loves and ______ other sufferers to do the same. “Don’t hide,” she said. “It will only make you feel ______. A big stone of suffering will ______ your body if you can just be yourself.”

1.

A．doctor

B．model

C．writer

D．hairdresser

2.

A．tie to

B．fasten on

C．wrap up

D．put up

3.

A．hair

B．dirt

C．dust

D．spot

4.

A．surprised

B．worried

C．excited

D．unexpected

5.

A．specially

B．strangely

C．rarely

D．normally

6.

A．family

B．colleagues

C．relatives

D．fellows

7.

A．pretended

B．admitted

C．predicted

D．supposed

8.

A．confident

B．shy

C．nervous

D．delighted

9.

A．dreamed

B．planned

C．pursued

D．considered

10.

A．anyone

B．somebody

C．myself

D．everyone

11.

A．hide

B．face

C．cure

D．expose

12.

A．forgets

B．regrets

C．remembers

D．avoids

13.

A．suggests

B．stops

C．allows

D．urges

14.

A．happier

B．better

C．crazier

D．worse

15.

A．shape

B．press

C．leave

D．change