1 . In a village in Malawi, Africa, people faced constant drought and poverty. A young boy named William Kamkwamba had a dream of bringing ________ to his village.

When famine (饥荒) came, William had to ________ school to help with farming. However, he kept reading books for the wonders of ______ and the endless possibilities it offered. ________ by his teacher’s bicycle flashlight, he decided to build a large windmill (风车) to ________ the battery, and then use a water pump to water the land so as to ________ solve the famine.

After many difficult conversations, his father finally chose to ________ his son and handed over the only broken ________ to him. William used the wheels and also ______ the local junkyard for some ________ parts. He worked really hard every day. Due to ________ education and resources, it was a ________challenge to turn bits of old materials into a working machine.

After countless ________ and failures, the boy’s windmill finally started ________. Weeping with joy, the boy and his father hugged tightly. This is the story of “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind,” a story of hope, strength, and the strong spirit of a young boy who changed people’s lives with the power of ________.

1.

A．wind

B．water

C．fortune

D．chance

2.

A．quit

B．ignore

C．attend

D．enjoy

3.

A．art

B．history

C．magic

D．science

4.

A．Amused

B．Confused

C．Inspired

D．Annoyed

5.

A．enhance

B．charge

C．preserve

D．repair

6.

A．barely

B．hardly

C．frequently

D．completely

7.

A．abandon

B．support

C．forgive

D．distrust

8.

A．bicycle

B．radio

C．car

D．flashlight

9.

A．bought

B．exchanged

C．searched

D．skipped

10.

A．old

B．different

C．unique

D．spare

11.

A．acquired

B．limited

C．adequate

D．potential

12.

A．complex

B．simple

C．financial

D．tough

13.

A．attempts

B．successes

C．discoveries

D．achievements

14.

A．floating

B．sailing

C．turning

D．spreading

15.

A．awareness

B．fantasy

C．harmony

D．knowledge

2 . I’m a grandma in my 60s. In the spring of 2020, like the rest of the world, I spent a lot of time staring at a screen and that was when I first got into the YouTube world. I discovered that onscreen offerings were truly endless. From one YouTuber I learned how to plant my own vegetable garden. Someone else shared poetry from Robert Frost, wise sayings from Confucius, and a smattering (一知半解) of other philosophical viewpoints, all of which helped me through some dark days. Down the rabbit hole I went, scrolling for hours and hours, watching other people living their lives and giving me advice on how to live mine.

As the months rolled by, YouTube turned my attention away from the hard reality of what was going on in the world. I subscribed to several channels and waited anxiously for new weekly offerings. I watched people reading poetry or painting by streams or looking out windows into snowy landscapes. I found all this calming. Such lovely scenery, such beautiful background music, such pretty clothes they were wearing!

At some point though, I got upset by these artistic and seemingly perfect lives. Who is filming them? I wondered. Do they rehearse or just act on the spot? Isn’t it cold, stepping through snowbanks in dresses? The questions kept bothering me while forcing comparisons to my own somewhat more ordinary existence. I wanted to walk in a flowing dress through hilly green field filled with wildflowers! Instead, I was marching through my neighborhood’s city streets in mom jeans.

In a moment of insight, I realized that I had a full and happy life, which although it wouldn’t win awards for perfection onscreen, suited me perfectly. I put my phone away and started paying attention to my own life instead of watching other people live theirs. I still like checking in once in a while. YouTube can be a rich source of entertainment and inspiration, but I’ve limited my exposure. I am content with the knowledge that my addiction to life onscreen has been replaced by life itself.

1. What can be learned about the author in the spring of 2020?

A．She experienced some hard times.

B．She taught others about gardening.

C．She developed an interest in poetry.

D．She shared her philosophical views online.

2. What effect did YouTube have on the author according to paragraph 2?

A．It made her more anxious.

B．It improved her taste in art.

C．It taught her to accept reality.

D．It brought some comfort to her.

3. How did the artistic lives presented on YouTube make the author feel?

A．Desperate.

B．Connected.

C．Envious.

D．Proud.

4. What has the author decided to do in the end?

A．Seek inspiration from YouTube.

B．Stop using her phone in daily life.

C．Focus on her own life instead of others’.

D．Continue watching other people’s lives.

3 . 阅读下面短文，根据其内容写一篇60词左右的内容概要。

With travel and the environment in the news so much lately, you’ve probably heard the word ecotourism. As travelers become more aware of their effect on the planet and want to do their part to make a difference, ecotourism has really taken off.

What is ecotourism? The definition isn’t as hard to determine as you might think. According to the International Ecotourism Society, it is defined as “responsible travel to natural areas that protects the environment and sustains the well-being of the local people”. To be simple, it’s travel that has a positive effect on a destination’s ecology and economy.

Ecotourism lets travelers participate in activities that benefit the environment. For example, travelers can act as citizen scientists in places around the world, including national parks and dive sites, to help do research and collect data. Meanwhile, ecotourism helps local communities to do well and become successful and strong. That can happen in a number of ways, involving some type of financial aspect, from providing jobs to supporting local businesses.

Being a responsible traveler, you’ll have a much more satisfying and rewarding experience. Instead of simply visiting tourist attractions and eating at chain restaurants, you can get completely involved in a local culture and really get to know the people who live there. It enriches your own life and opens your mind to new ideas.

Ecotourism is an amazing way to discover the world. Nature is full of wonders everywhere. Being able to get out in a natural area that is protected and largely undeveloped offers a chance to connect with plants and animals you may never see anywhere else. Just be sure to leave it as you found it for future explorers to discover. Get your sneakers ready, pack your bags and head for nature. A big and beautiful world is waiting for you out there.

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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。

Thanks to social media recommendations, Zibo barbecue has become     1     overnight hit, with large numbers of visitors     2     (pour) to the city on weekends. People joked that the last time this many people showed up in the city     3     (be) during the Siege (围攻) of Qi, a famous battle in the area in 284 BC.

Taking advantage of the barbecue craze, Zibo has gone all out to promote local tourism resources, while working to ensure the     4     (safe) of visitors and the quality of tourism products. Many areas have been changed into dining halls for the massed crowds.     5     (ease) restrictions on the supplies of meat and grills, local banks have started handing out low-interest loans designed     6     (special) for barbecue-related industries.

This barbecue fever in Zibo should be helping China recover from its zero-covid era. Since the end of zero-covid, many tourists have described     7     (they) as “special-ops” travelers. This means dropping into a location, spending as little time and money as possible,     8     then moving on to the next spot.

Zibo barbecue has been one of the top items to tick off from travel lists. People eat and drink at low tables with a small stove,     9     (heat) by coal. The craze is about more than the simple food.     10     people across the country are seeking out in Zibo is Shandong’s big-hearted hospitality.

5 . Imagine students in rural Kenya using computers and reading books! 4,000 students across 10schools are busy ______ their computer skills on ______ machines. They learn everything from basic typing to coding to robotics, and even take part in ______ classes with NASA scientists in the US. Before ______ these lessons, however, very few of the students even knew what a computer was. Not being ______ to computers, children lack basic technology skills, and do not have access to STEAM programs.

TechLit Africa, was ______ by Nelly Cheboi, a 29-year-old software engineer who grew up in ______ in a Kenyan village, her single mother struggling to support the family. In 2012, she received a full scholarship to attend college in Illinois, where she discovered a love for ______ science. Upon returning to Kenya after ______, she founded her own school, Zawadi, which became a launching pad for TechLit Africa. Her organization now ______ with American colleges and businesses to ______ the recycled computers.

For Cheboi, TechLit Africa is about more than just adding ______ to children’s life: she hopes the students will use the ______ skill to find professional opportunities.

“I see a ______ in Kenya and in the rest of the continent where kids are becoming really tech literate,” Cheboi says. “Once you come to the Internet, you become ______— and by being so, you can help the world.”

1.

A．showing

B．teaching

C．sharpening

D．sharing

2.

A．advanced

B．heavy

C．reused

D．movable

3.

A．remote

B．private

C．public

D．paid

4.

A．giving

B．skipping

C．taking

D．designing

5.

A．attracted

B．used

C．addicted

D．exposed

6.

A．projected

B．backed

C．funded

D．delayed

7.

A．trouble

B．poverty

C．adventure

D．peace

8.

A．life

B．earth

C．computer

D．physics

9.

A．graduation

B．resignation

C．retirement

D．application

10.

A．compares

B．fights

C．competes

D．works

11.

A．sell

B．source

C．program

D．upgrade

12.

A．cost

B．color

C．laughter

D．truth

13.

A．newfound

B．traditional

C．all-round

D．social

14.

A．challenge

B．future

C．movement

D．race

15.

A．free

B．mature

C．proud

D．global

6 . It is commonly thought that productivity involves doing several things at once.     1     Newport, the author of Deep Work, describes the benefits of focusing on one thing and doing it with excellence. He explains deep work as “the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively (认知地) demanding task.”     2    

According to Newport, deep work is an invaluable skill in today’s economy. It allows you to learn difficult things quickly. Most people are distracted when they work, so if you learn to work without distraction, that gives you an advantage.     3     Developing excellence in one’s craft can be deeply satisfying.

It’s important to schedule deep work into your day. Otherwise, it’s easy to let your time fill up with shallow work. Newport recommends doing deep work as your first task of the day.     4     Shallow work does need to get done, but if you save it for later in the day, you can get your deep work done, too.

Because deep work is by definition cognitively demanding, you won’t be able to do it all day. Beginners can usually only focus on deep work for approximately an hour, and even experts have trouble going more than four hours.     5     If you really focus, you’ll be surprised at how much you accomplish in a few hours.

A．So set reasonable goals for yourself.

B．Concentration is an increasingly valuable skill.

C．That way you get it done before distractions build up.

D．But the secret to success is the opposite of multitasking.

E．Without smartphones, you fall into deep work more easily.

F．It also enables you to produce to the best of your ability and acquire new skills quickly.

G．It differs from shallow work, which consists of simple tasks performed while distracted.

7 . We don’t think with a pen and paper. We “think” with Google. We don’t even have to complete the search question ourselves. Google’s auto-complete function takes that burden off our shoulders by telling us what we should be searching for and what we should be thinking. We then sort through selected results to find the answer to life, the universe, and everything. This process gives us the false impression of thinking—when, in reality, we’ve lost touch with one of the most basic of human experiences.

Thinking for yourself isn’t just about reducing external inputs. It’s about making thought an intentional practice and thinking about an issue before researching it. It’s about forgetting the habit of immediately looking to others for answers and instead becoming curious about our own thoughts.

Deep thinking requires time. It’s only by concentrating on the problem or question long enough that you’ll dive deeper and locate better insights. Most of us resist setting aside time for deep thinking because it doesn’t produce immediate obvious results. But ideas, as the filmmaker David Lynch puts it, are like fish: “If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you’ve got to go deeper.”

After you’ve gone deeper on a question by thinking about it yourself, turn to reading what others have written about it. But don’t pause your own thinking. The goal of reading isn’t just to understand. It’s to treat what you read as a tool-a key to unlocking what’s inside of you. Some of the best ideas that come up when I’m reading a book aren’t from the book. An idea I read will often knock out a related thought in me that was previously hidden. The text will act as a mirror, helping me see myself and my thoughts more clearly.

Breakthroughs lie—not in absorbing all the wisdom outside of you-but in uncovering the wisdom within you.

1. Why does the author mention Google in the first paragraph?

A．To compare it with pens and paper.	B．To stress its convenience to our life.
C．To give examples of its multi-function.	D．To remind us to do the real thinking.

2. What does the underlined phrase “external inputs” in paragraph 2 refer to?

A．Sharing your ideas online.	B．Asking questions about life.
C．Seeking answers from others.	D．Making intentional thoughts.

3. What does David Lynch think of deep thinking?

A．It is a waste of time.	B．It is worth the effort.
C．It requires basic skills.	D．It is widely accepted.

4. Why does the author suggest reading after thinking?

A．To find out ideas from books.	B．To fully absorb others’ wisdom.
C．To bring out our inner thoughts.	D．To understand the question better.

8 . Tree-planting, intended to help draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, has become a synonym (同义词) for climate action. In our constant focus on trees, we’ve developed a fixed understanding: Trees absorb carbon dioxide, end of story. The reality is that trees don’t grow well alone. They exist within complex communities, helped along by each other as well as the animals they coexist with. The woodland isn’t nature’s only carbon sink: Grasslands and oceans also help reduce the carbon level and rely on a healthy amount of biodiversity.

That’s what the paper, published in Nature, wants to get across. Co-author Oswald J. Schmitz, a professor of ecology at Yale University, said trees might not be able to do their carbon-uptake job efficiently without the right animals in their ecosystem. That’s because animals animate the carbon cycle through their behavior and roles in the ecosystem. He added that the very presence of wild animals could cause feedback effects that change the ecosystem’s capacity to absorb, release, or transport carbon.

In Serengeti, for instance, the sharp decline in wildebeest (角马) population s during the mid-20th century allowed grass to grow wildly, eventually promoting wildfires that consumed 80 percent of the ecosystem annually and led to a net release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. When disease management and bans on illegal hunting helped animal populations recover, a greater share of the carbon stored in plants was consumed by wildebeest and released as waste, keeping it in the system and restoring the grassland as a carbon sink.

Researchers rarely consider wildlife conservation as a strategy to increase an ecosystem’s carbon storage capacity, said Schmitz. “They think that animals either aren’t important enough or that you can’t take up carbon and conserve animals at the same time,” he said. “Our message is that you can and should. It can be a win-win for both biodiversity conservation and carbon uptake.” We need a full picture-with both trees and animals-to explore nature’s full potential.

1. What can we learn from the first paragraph?

A．Actions are needed to reduce carbon dioxide.	B．Trees are a quick solution to the climate crisis.
C．People are not thinking through trees properly.	D．Grasslands and oceans help maintain biodiversity.

2. What does the underlined word “animate” in paragraph 2 mean?

A．Activate.

B．Restart.

C．Disturb.

D．Break.

3. What does the author want to say by mentioning wildebeest?

A．The conservation of animals is still a serious issue.

B．Animals can swing the ecosystem’s capacity to store carbon.

C．Human impacts bring about the reduction in wildlife populations.

D．The increase in animal species causes a decrease in carbon uptake.

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

A．Animals Adjust Themselves to Climate Change

B．Woodland Isn’t the Only Carbon Sink on the Earth

C．The Serengeti Ecosystem Needs Urgent Improvement

D．Trees May Fail to Fulfil Their Duties without Animals

9 . Earth Day falls on April 22 each year to inform people about environmental problems and inspire them to act. It first came into being in 1970, followed in 1972 by World Environment Day. It has been celebrated ever since, slowly but surely picking up steam. Interestingly, it remained a grassroots affair for 20 years before spreading out to 140 countries in 1990. Now, it is celebrated around the world. Humans still face many challenges, such as climate change and plastic pollution. But we can all make a difference.

When Claire was in the seventh grade, she learned about plans to expand and modernize her middle school. As a follower of Earth Day, she wanted to help. Claire asked the school board to add solar panels to the project because, she explained, clean energy would contribute to a truly modern school, and help her school pursue sustainable development.

The board liked the idea but said it could contribute just $25,000, one-fifth of the cost. So Clarie turned to the community, looking for a solution. Her friends and neighbors shared her enthusiasm. Soon Claire organized a group of kids and adults, who set to work raising the rest. They wrote grant (拨款) requests, put on a talent show and asked for donations, even going door-to-door for them at Halloween. And they appealed to charitable foundations too. One donated more than half the cost!

After two years of hard work, the group paid for the solar panels, which now supply one-fourth of the school’s electricity needs, saving the district thousands of dollars. “My favorite part about this project was that one person could start something small and then the project could grow and have a big impact on the community,” Claire said “There are always going to be barriers and hard parts. When there’s a challenge presented to you, use it as a learning moment and an opportunity to overcome it.”

You can be a hero for the environment, so find out what can be recycled where you live.

1. What can we learn about Earth Day from the first paragraph?

A．It was first celebrated on April 22, 1972.	B．It gained instant popularity worldwide.
C．It aims to raise environmental awareness.	D．It promotes solutions to human challenges.

2. Why did Claire give advice to her school?

A．To sell the solar panels.	B．To make her school greener.
C．To improve academic grades.	D．To beautify the school campus.

3. What is paragraph 3 of the text mainly about?

A．The vital role of charities.	B．Difficulties in raising money.
C．Constant efforts on the project.	D．Financial support from the public.

4. Which of the following can best describe Claire?

A．Responsible and determined.	B．Generous and creative.
C．Energetic and reliable.	D．Curious and adventurous.

10 . Located in Britain, the University of Oxford is respected internationally as a teaching and research center. Evidence shows that teaching existed in Oxford as early as 1096, and it has been ranked as the top university in the UK by The Times for many times.

The Tutorial (导师的) System

In the University of Oxford, teaching is conducted primarily through the tutorial system. Tutorials are beneficial to students’ skills of critical analysis, but the greatest advantage of the tutorial system is the individual guidance that students receive. The contrast between tutorials and large lectures common in the American universities is obvious. In the typical American university, students are taught by the same specialists, in the same manner, and held to the same standards.

Societies and Clubs

There are rich after-school activities at Oxford. Students may join a variety of clubs and societies according to their own interests. The Oxford University Scientific Society aims to bring together undergraduates to discuss scientific matters. The Oxford Union Society has gained a worldwide reputation for its debate. The Newman Society has served as a model for religious society throughout the English-speaking world. In addition, there are a great many clubs, including Oxford University Cricket Club, Oxford University Chess Club, and so on.

Dates of Term

Oxford’s year is divided into three terms and three vacations. The dates for Full Term 2023-24 are set out below:

Year	Term	From	To
2023-24	Michaelmas 2023	Sunday 8 October	Saturday 2 December
	Hilary 2024	Sunday 14 January	Saturday 9 March
	Trinity 2024	Sunday 21 April	Saturday 15 June

1. What is the biggest advantage of the tutorial system?

A．It promotes students’ critical analysis.	B．It provides personalized teaching.
C．It offers large lectures to students.	D．It uses the same manner and standards.

2. Which organization will you join if you want to be a great debater?

A．The Oxford University Scientific Society.	B．The Oxford Union Society.
C．The Newman Society.	D．Oxford University Cricket Club.

3. How long does the teaching period last within Full Term 2023-24?

A．8 weeks.

B．16weeks.

C．24weeks.

D．32 weeks.