1 . Challenges are part of life and something we can all expect to encounter at one point or another during our lifetime. We handle challenges differently;some of us choose to face them head-on, while others flee in uncertainty.     1    The following are simple methods and strategies we can all employ to overcome challenges more effectively.

    2     Nike couldn’t have said it any better with their slogan, "Just do it! "Some challenges require us to do just that. Grab the bull by its horns and have the courage to conquer it, no matter how unsure we might feel. Some challenges are urgent and require immediate attention, leaving us with no option but to go ahead full-steam.

Educate ourselves. The reason why some issues prove challenging for us is that we aren’t familiar with them.     3     The internet, books, forums, etc. , offer platforms where we can research and learn about our challenges to find strategies against them. Knowledge is definitely powerful and essential in conquering anything.

Be persistent. This is what is required to accomplish anything, especially when it comes to overcoming challenges. No matter how difficult our challenges might be, we must be willing to push through and try again and again until we achieve victory over them.     4    

Ask for help. There are times when we can’t go it alone and need others to help us conquer whatever challenges we face.     5     Networking with like-minded individuals who can offer us support, suggestions, and solutions is useful in helping us overcome challenges.

A．Meet them head-on.

B．Adapt a different strategy.

C．It is said that two heads are better than one.

D．If we give up, we allow the challenges to conquer us instead.

E．Therefore, our knowledge and ability to conquer them is limited.

F．Whatever our positions, we all wish to conquer them and move on.

G．Some challenges can be overwhelming, making us question our ability to overcome them.

2 . We know it can be hard to put your phone to bed before you sleep. However, if you’re trying to improve your sleep, you really should ditch your phone at least an hour before bedtime. Luckily, our experts can help.

Scientific evidence suggests that the blue light emitted from your phone, tablet, computer, and TV suppresses (抑制) your body’s production of melatonin, a hormone (荷尔蒙) that plays an important role in your sleep cycle. Melatonin release in the evening helps you relax before bedtime. A 2013 study that analyzed technology use and sleep patterns with data from a National Sleep Foundation poll found that using devices like phones was tied to more sleep disruption than electronics that aren’t interactive.

Many of us use the excuse that our mobile devices serve as our wake-up calls, or keep them nearby to use meditation apps. If you want to use your phone as an alarm, consider setting it a couple of hours before you turn in for the night, and then setting the phone itself to bedtime mode for the rest of the evening.

Here’s another groundbreaking idea: You could get a real alarm clock. After reviewing them at Reviewed, we recommend the Sharp Dream Caster. Not only is it easy to set a wake-up time, the clock includes white noises and rain noises to help you sleep, plus a number of volume settings to pick what works best for you.

But an alarm clock won’t help you avoid doom-scrolling through social media. Take things a step further by avoiding using electronic devices. You can try reading a book (one made of paper), taking a bath or drinking a cup of chamomile tea.

Finally, if you want to keep up your meditation practice screen-free, consider the Morphée. It looks like a little music box and comes with a variety of breathing exercises and soundscapes to help you get to sleep.

1. What does the underlined word “ditch” in paragraph 1 probably mean?

A．Set aside.

B．Pick up.

C．Show off.

D．Turn to.

2. What may be caused by the suppression of melatonin?

A．Relaxing yourself before bedtime.

B．Sleeping less than you normally would.

C．Adapting to your sleep cycle more easily.

D．Reducing the pressure from screen use.

3. Why is the Sharp Dream Caster recommended?

A．It is sold at a lower price.	B．It can predict a heavy rain.
C．It is controlled by cellphone.	D．It helps put your eyes together.

4. What is suggested for better sleep according to paragraph 5?

A．Making the best of the eco-friendly products.

B．Making a change according to circumstances.

C．Establishing a bedtime routine without electronics.

D．Keeping a consistent bedtime and wake-up time.

3 . During my graduate studies, countless workshops taught me one thing: To make it in science, one must design and carry out big projects. As I established my own research lab, a senior colleague encouraged me to try something big. So when I landed an associate professor position, my goal seemed obvious: I should perform big projects. This was the only way to lay a foundation for a successful academic research career. The path, however, would not be as clear as I had pictured.

When I contacted famous researchers to suggest cooperating, as is typically required for high-profile projects, they frequently replied enthusiastically to start, agreeing my project sounded interesting and promising. But when they learned I had just established my lab, they became skeptical and hesitant, ultimately saying no. And when I sought grant funding, my lack of experience and reputation was cited as a reason to deny support for my ambitious proposals.

I spent about two years being stuck in this mindset, excited about my big ideas but making little actual progress, leading to frustration and depression. As I neared my breaking point, I began to ask myself: Were big projects really the only route?

When I shifted to small projects, I became brave enough to step into fields I was not familiar with. By reading papers in new areas, I found creative ideas to pursue. When I discussed these adventurous, low-cost projects with early-career researchers, they were glad to cooperate. We secured funding. When I published papers out of these projects, they were not exciting enough to make headlines— but for me, it was a moment of joy and self-contentment.

It has now been 3 years since I embraced this “small” approach. Sometimes senior colleagues say I’m wasting time with projects that aren’t important enough. But I disagree. When I do these studies, I also find clues for future big projects. Going forward, I will still commit part of my time to exploring small projects, which I think can help pursue more fundamental questions.

1. What is the author trying to do with big projects?

A．Pursue his graduate studies.

B．Seek a route to academic success.

C．Apply for an associate professorship.

D．Establish an academic research center.

2. What prevented the author pursuing his big project?

A．Lack of necessary support.	B．The toughness of work
C．Shortage of academic talents.	D．The opposition from colleagues.

3. How did the author carry out his small project?

A．By publishing influential papers.

B．By getting young colleagues’ funding.

C．By exploring and initiating new ideas.

D．By cooperating with senior colleagues.

4. What does the author learn from his experience?

A．Good jobs require a high degree.

B．Ambition isn’t fit for the young.

C．Success results from preparation.

D．Small doesn’t mean unimportant.

4 . Patrick, Scheels store’s fishing manager, always helps customers with their angling (垂钓) needs, but one ______ stood out.

One day, a young boy named Xander entered the store with his mother, Brynn. Patrick noticed his eye were filled with ______ about the world of fishing. For nearly half an hour, they ______ their shared passion.

Brynn shared the ______ of Xander’s connection to angling, explaining, “My dad, a fisherman, passed away last year, but Xander never got to go fishing with him. So over the last year, he’s been ______ grandpa, wishing he could go fishing with him.”

______ by Xander’s longing for a connection to his late grandfather, Patrick decided to take action and ______ Xander his first fishing pole. “It was sixty dollars and he bought it with his own money,” Xander said. This ______ gesture brought tears to Brynn’s eyes, and she acknowleged that such acts of kindness aren’t ______ .

However, Patrick’s generosity didn’t ______ here. The 22-year-old fishing enthusiast went a step further by ______ a memorable fishing trip for Xander and his family. To ______ that Xander had an enriching experience, two professional anglers from Scheels ______ him on the trip, offering guidance and teaching him valuable skills.

Patrick’s kindness was ______ a breath of fresh air for Xander and his family, who described the fishing trip as a once-in-a-lifetime ______ . “I felt like it was my due diligence to pass on the good word of fishing,” Patrick said.

1.

A．argument

B．journey

C．adventure

D．encounter

2.

A．curiosity

B．nervousness

C．concern

D．regret

3.

A．debated over

B．bonded over

C．stuck to

D．turned to

4.

A．wisdom

B．evidence

C．significance

D．definition

5.

A．missing

B．blaming

C．admiring

D．persuading

6.

A．Annoyed

B．Touched

C．Amused

D．Surprised

7.

A．gifted

B．lent

C．showed

D．made

8.

A．ambitious

B．strange

C．genuine

D．urgent

9.

A．practical

B．avoidable

C．secure

D．common

10.

A．root

B．stop

C．appear

D．reach

11.

A．recording

B．postponing

C．organizing

D．canceling

12.

A．reveal

B．stress

C．prove

D．ensure

13.

A．accompanied

B．monitored

C．assessed

D．sponsored

14.

A．possibly

B．initially

C．truly

D．mainly

15.

A．deal

B．experience

C．task

D．performance

5 . Mawson was an Australian explorer and scientist who explored the Antarctic with a team of fellow adventurers in 1912. His travels in the frozen continent brought him worldwide _______. In December of that year, Mawson and two other _______ left the main base at Commonwealth Bay, _______ a 300-mile exploration into the central part of the continent to gather scientific data and samples. _______ followed.

One of the men, a young British soldier named Belgrave Ninnis, _______ down an open crack on a sledge, along with several of their best dogs and many of the team’s supplies, dead. For several weeks, the two others, _______ with scurvy(坏血病)and other _______, struggled to return to camp, keeping living first on the _______ dogs, then on starvation food. _______, Xavier Mertz, a Swiss mountaineer and skiing champion, died from exhaustion, starvation and possible poisonousness from eating dogs’ livers.

________ to return with the research data, Mawson ________ the elements for 30 days. Finally he returned to the________ in February of 1913, extremely thin, frost-bitten and exhausted-only to ________ he had missed the ship rescuing the rest of the ________ by hours. Mawson was regarded as a survivor hero. For his achievements as an explorer and scientist, he was knighted(封爵)in 1914. In addition to his other ________, Mawson edited and contributed to the 22-volume Reports of Australasian Antarctic Expeditions.

1.

A．praise

B．trust

C．worry

D．criticism

2.

A．celebrities

B．explorers

C．athletes

D．astronomers

3.

A．putting off

B．showing off

C．kicking off

D．letting off

4.

A．Wonders

B．Bonuses

C．Fortunes

D．Disasters

5.

A．took

B．fell

C．looked

D．wandered

6.

A．adjusted

B．circulated

C．infected

D．confused

7.

A．cures

B．disabilities

C．errors

D．illnesses

8.

A．remaining

B．wild

C．fierce

D．hunting

9.

A．Ultimately

B．Nevertheless

C．Temporarily

D．Meanwhile

10.

A．Discouraged

B．Relieved

C．Determined

D．Frightened

11.

A．combined

B．battled

C．contained

D．introduced

12.

A．center

B．normal

C．base

D．campus

13.

A．predict

B．discover

C．complain

D．explain

14.

A．passengers

B．witnesses

C．rescuers

D．crew

15.

A．achievements

B．references

C．services

D．subjects

6 . In a world-record effort to help save a rare sea creature, Australian scientists have released hundreds of baby seahorses into the wild. The tiny seahorses are endangered, and the scientists hope the new seahorses will help their numbers grow.

Seahorses are small, thin fish with a long mouth. They’re called “seahorses” because they look a bit like horses. Even though they’re fish, seahorses aren’t great swimmers.     1    

There are over 40 different kinds of seahorses. They mostly live in warm, shallow waters around the world. They are often found in coral reefs, in beds of seagrass, and areas where rivers empty into the sea.     2     They eat tiny sea creatures and are eaten by bigger sea animals, such as crabs.

Many kinds of seahorses are threatened, often by the actions of humans.     3     They are also sometimes caught by accident when boats are trying to catch other fish.

    4    Males have a special pouch (育儿袋) that allows them to carry over 100 babies at a time. The tiny babies are born alive and can swim right away. When they’re born. the babies are about the size of a grain of rice.

This is the fifth time the scientists have released seahorses into the area. and this is a new record,     5     The researchers say about 90% of them survived, which is unusually high. The researchers put tiny tags under the skin of many of the seahorses to help track them in the future.

A．Seahorse babies are easy to carry.

B．Around 380 seahorses were released.

C．Sometimes they’re caught and sold as pets.

D．People should be prohibited from catching seahorses.

E．Seahorses form an important part of the ocean’s food chain.

F．They often use their tails to hold onto something in the water.

G．Seahorses are unusual because it’s the males who carry the babies.

7 . 假定你是李华，一群外国朋友要来参观河北省园博园（Hebei Garden Expo Park），请你为其中的邯郸园（Handan Garden）写一个简介。内容包括：
1. 在园区内的位置；
2. 主要特点及展点。
参考词汇：成语墙（idiom wall）
注意：1. 写作词数应为80个左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Dear friends,
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

8 . Last fall, the Great Salt Lake hit its lowest level since record keeping began. The lake sank to nearly six meters below the long-term average. The lake’s shrinking threatens to upend the ecosystem, disturbing the migration and survival of 10 million birds, including ducks and geese.

Duck hunters aren’t the only ones worried about the Great Salt Lake. The decades-long decline in lake level is raising alarm bells for millions of people who live in the region. The low lake level and increasing salts in the lake water threaten to destroy economic mainstays like agriculture, tourism and mining. Exposed salts can also reduce air quality and so threaten public health.

Saline lakes (咸水湖) are terminal lakes. They have no rivers flowing out of them. As water disappears, salts are left behind. At the same time, the people who live in these deserts use freshwater for crops, homes and industry. Residents get water from streams and rivers into canals, pipelines or reservoirs before it reaches the lakes. And as the lakes shrink, the salt in water increases.

Lake Poopo, a highland lake in Bolivia that used to stretch 90 kilometers long and 32 kilometers wide, is now a salty mud flat. The Aral Sea shared by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, once the world’s fourth largest lake, has at times in recent decades shrunk to a tenth of its historic 68,000-square-kilometer surface area. Some saline lakes, like Nevada’s Winnemucca Lake, dried up so long ago — the waters that fed it were led to agricultural fields — that most people have forgotten they were ever wet.

The good news is that people still have time to halt the Great Salt Lake’s decline by using less water. Cutting agricultural and other outdoor water use by a third to half through a combination of voluntary conservation measures and policy changes would allow the lake to refill enough to support the region’s economy, ecology and quality of life. If this succeeds, the Great Salt Lake can be a model for how to save other saline lakes around the world.

1. What do we know about the Great Salt Lake from the first two paragraphs?

A．It is home to ducks.	B．It will disappear soon.
C．It will be less important.	D．It’s been shrinking for years.

2. What does Paragraph 3 mainly tell us about saline lakes?

A．Their current states.	B．The challenges they face.
C．Measures to restore them.	D．Reasons why they become saltier.

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

A．Stop.

B．Boost.

C．Adapt.

D．Learn.

4. What can be the best title of this text?

A．The Great Salt Lake Is Getting Smaller

B．The World Is Becoming Drier and Drier

C．Saline Lakes Need Freshwater Deadly

D．Many Lakes in the World will Disappear

9 . My friend James did some first-aid training last week to learn the fundamentals of the CPR. And he asked if I’d ever done the same.

“Yes,” I said, “…and no.”

Because, yes, I’ve attended several resuscitation (复苏) sessions over the years.     1     In fact, despite being shown all the key information at various points in my career, I don’t think I can remember any of it now.

What’s the problem? Every time I’ve had this type of training, it’s been a perfectly good opportunity to learn: an important topic, taught well, in a focused environment, with plenty to see, hear and do. I’ve always taken it seriously, too, and been focused. And I’ve always come away with a wealth of information.     2    

Here’s what I should have done — and what you can do now — to make sure any training doesn’t go to waste.

•     3     You might be surprised to find that you’ve got some foundations of knowledge to build on. Pre-testing sparks your curiosity and puts you in a frame of mind to remember.

• Challenge your recall later.     4     If it’s hard to remember, but just about possible with effort, then that’s perfect. You need that little bit of struggle to start embedding (把……嵌入) information in your brain.

• Keep coming back. Put a note in your diary to test yourself again in a week, then ten days after that, then a month on…leaving longer gaps between checks.     5    

Talking to James has inspired me to book myself onto yet another CPR course. But this time I’m determined to do it right. Remember that it’s the next day when the real training begins.

A．Test yourself before you start.

B．Wait a day, then see how much you still know.

C．Stay curious about what you are eager to know.

D．All the basic information has stuck in your mind.

E．But no, I don’t exactly feel “trained” to save lives.

F．Yet virtually nothing has ever made it to my longterm memory.

G．Use the questions you wrote on the day to keep challenging yourself.

10 . Large clothing companies are developing robots to make clothes. The process of using robots or computers for human work, known as automation, has raised concerns about jobs for many people around the world.

Many clothing companies are unsure about publicly discussing automation. Such reports may cause public concern that automation will take jobs from workers in poor countries. For this concern, one industry inventor, Jonathan Zornow, said he had received online criticism and a death threat in connection with his work.

Sewing, the act of using a needle and thread to make clothes, is especially difficult to automate. Robots do not have the fine touch skill that human hands do. Robots are getting better, but it will take years to fully develop their ability to handle cloth.

Work at a leading scientific and technological enterprise grew out of efforts to create software to guide robots that can handle all types of materials, such as thin wire cables. Researchers soon realized one of the best targets for automation was clothing. The enterprise worked with the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing (ARM) Institute in Pittsburgh. They identified a San Francisco company with a promising way to deal with the fabric problem. The start-up hardened fabric with chemicals. The hardened fabric was then similar to other material robots could handle, like metal for, example. Once the robots finished sewing the piece, the clothing was washed to remove the chemical.

There are other efforts to automate sewing factories. Another company in Georgia has developed a machine that can sew clothing by pulling the cloth over a special table, for example.

Sanjeev Bahl, who opened a small jeans factory in downtown Los Angeles two years ago, has studied the start-up’s machines. He is preparing to set up his first experimental machine. At his factory in September, he said that many sewing jobs are ready for a new process. “If it works,” he said, “I think there’s no reason not to have large-scale jeans manufacturing here again.”

1. Why was Jonathan Zornow threatened?

A．His work was not fruitless.

B．His robots were too dangerous to use.

C．His factory adopted human-controlled machines.

D．His invention would endanger workers’ employment.

2. What can we learn about the San Francisco company?

A．It produced fabric softener.	B．It processed all kinds of worktables.
C．It had a partnership with a big business.	D．It worked to develop some metal products.

3. What is Sanjeev Bahl’s attitude to the robotic machines?

A．Tolerant.

B．Suspicious.

C．Conservative.

D．Approving.

4. What is the main idea of the text?

A．Robots are as intelligent as humans.	B．Robots are not to replace sewing workers.
C．Companies develop robots to make clothes.	D．Companies increase the production of clothes.