1 . 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。

Environmentalists are getting more worried about the harmful effects of fast fashion on the environment.

Fast fashion is the mass production of clothes at a low cost, which are put in shops and online quickly     1     (create) a high demand. Manufacturers (制造商) make 100 billion items of clothing every year and this is expected to grow     2     60 percent by 2030. It is reported     3     many of the clothes end up in the trash and are not recycled. The way people are buying clothes also adds to the problem of clothing waste. Many years ago, people went to stores and     4     (try) clothes on. They took more time and thought     5     (careful) before they bought clothes. They also wore them for a much     6     (long) time compared with current consumers. Today, people order cheap clothes on the Internet for     7     (convenient) and if they don't like them, they throw them away. This is possibly leading to     8     throwaway society.

Another negative effect on the environment that can not     9     (ignore) is caused by the chemicals used to make the clothes. These chemicals cause pollution to the environment as well as health problems for people     10     (work) in clothes factories.

2 . I was driving my 5-year-old son home when I saw a homeless man in the median strip (中央分隔带) in the road.

I wanted to give the man some ________ , but I didn’t have any cash. My son ________ the man as well and he insisted that I give the man the 30 cents he had. It seemed that he had read my ________ and he responded out loud.

I was more than ________ that he wanted to help, but honestly, I was ________ . I didn’t want to give just 30 cents to this man who clearly ________ more help. My own pride and ________ over the homeless man's disappointed reaction to ________ just two coins stood in the way.

I quickly realized that I was the only ________ in the situation and that the traffic light would turn green soon. I then thought to myself, “I’ve been teaching him about ________ others and now that he wants to give everything he can ________ , I shouldn’t let my personal self-centeredness ________ this act of kindness.”

I almost told my son, “Let’s wait to ________ until we at least have one dollar.” I almost told my son that what he had wasn’t ________ . I almost showed him that what he saw as a good thing couldn’t make a ________ in someone’s life. I almost taught him that personal ________ was more important than helping another human.

________ , I quickly got rid of that foolishness.

I then rolled down the window and said to the man, “I’m sorry. I don’t have any cash on me, but my 5-year-old son back in the ________ wants to give you everything he has right now.”

To my ________ , the smile on that man's face lit up the intersection. The only thing that matched the ________ of that stranger’s smile was the bigger smile on my boy’s face.

1.

A．equipment

B．information

C．money

D．advice

2.

A．comforted

B．taught

C．noticed

D．attracted

3.

A．apology

B．mind

C．order

D．future

4.

A．happy

B．confused

C．angry

D．ashamed

5.

A．thrilled

B．hesitant

C．disappointed

D．relieved

6.

A．needed

B．rejected

C．overlooked

D．assessed

7.

A．advantage

B．worry

C．curiosity

D．control

8.

A．owing

B．donating

C．receiving

D．lending

9.

A．plan

B．change

C．result

D．problem

10.

A．helping

B．forgiving

C．following

D．tolerating

11.

A．abandon

B．record

C．achieve

D．offer

12.

A．preserve

B．promote

C．forget

D．ruin

13.

A．give

B．escape

C．fight

D．drive

14.

A．enough

B．real

C．simple

D．worthless

15.

A．mess

B．choice

C．difference

D．wish

16.

A．kindness

B．pride

C．generosity

D．success

17.

A．Unfortunately

B．Thankfully

C．Initially

D．Casually

18.

A．bank

B．garage

C．car

D．road

19.

A．horror

B．embarrassment

C．sadness

D．surprise

20.

A．disappearance

B．challenge

C．pressure

D．brightness

3 . When you feel down, you are expecting to receive support or comfort from your friends. Your friends feel the same way. However, it may be not easy to cheer up your friends when you can’t be by their side.     1    

Ask if there’s anything you can do to help. Different people prefer to be comforted in different ways. Ask if there’s anything specific you can do to help your friends.    2     While you’re talking on the phone, say something like, "What can I do to help? I’m always here if you need anything.

    3     This simple gesture can really brighten your friends’ day. If your friends are in need of comfort, send them frequent reminders that you’re thinking of them. Share something that reminded you of them. It will let your friends know that they’re still important in your life even if they’re far away.

List why you think they’re special.    4     Send them a list of all the reasons why you think they’re amazing. Whether it be their kind and compassionate (富有同情心的) nature, their sense of style, or their ability to find the coolest music, tell them why you are so grateful to know them. After reading what you have listed, they will feel encouraged.

Send them a gift. Surprise them with something special to make their day. Arrange for flowers to be delivered to their apartment or mail them one of their favorite albums.     5     A homemade gift, like a knitted (针织的) scarf or a piece of artwork, will lift their spirits all the same.

A．Send a gift to them to celebrate their success.

B．Thankfully, there are many ways you can help.

C．Therefore, you can visit them to cheer them up.

D．Text them to let them know they’re on your mind.

E．You don’t have to go all out in terms of spending.

F．If they’ve been down on themselves lately, they may need a reminder.

G．The question alone will show you care, and they will appreciate your kind offer.

4 . As global climate change becomes more serious, growing crops will be a major challenge. Massive heat waves and droughts (干旱) are already doing harm to farmers: Over the next three decades, California’s San Joaquin Valley alone could lose up to 535, 000 acres of farming land as a result of the shortage of water supplies.

Jennifer Brophy wants to help solve that problem. She’s an assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford, and works on methods that she hopes will be used to change crop species so that they can survive severe conditions. At present, Brophy is developing new genetic(基因的) engineering techniques that can help crops survive droughts.

In order to promote plants to respond to extreme climate, Brophy is building what she calls “genetic circuits”. Besides changing the genes within plant cells, this method also changes how and when those genes are activated. If the plant senses a specific sugar, it can express one protein (蛋白质); if it senses another signal, it’ll express a different protein, kicking off an entirely separate chain of events. If both signals are there, the plant may be able to express something else entirely. “Using circuits, you can have plants respond in new ways to all these different inputs,” she says.

“Normally, a plant doesn’t necessarily know what’s coming. It just knows if it’s hot or temperate right now,” says Brophy. This can lead to problems when weather becomes unstable: A plant that usually flowers in spring may flower in winter if there’re a few unseasonably warm days. When temperatures fall quickly again, the flowers die and ruin a year of crops. “It’d be great to be able to communicate with plants to tell them, ‘Hey, you should wait on that flowering, ’” she adds.

Controlling plants’ growth at this level is exciting, but actually putting it into practice is not an easy task. At the moment, Brophy is testing the method in the lab using a small weedy plant called Arabidopsis. She’s still in the process of figuring out how to activate certain genes on command.

1. Why is California’s San Joaquin Valley mentioned?

A．To prove the significance of growing more crops.

B．To point out the barrier to increasing water supplies.

C．To show the harmful effect of climate change on farming.

D．To tell the root cause of more severe global climate change.

2. What is the expected function of genetic circuits?

A．Creating warmer living conditions.	B．Increasing plants’ exposure to nature.
C．Controlling plants’ growth on demand.	D．Monitoring the protein in the plants.

3. What does the text say about Jennifer Brophy’s research？

A．It still has a long way to go.	B．It is actually an easy task.
C．It has proved successful.	D．It turns out meaningless.

4. What is the text mainly about？

A．A victorious battle against global warming.	B．A way to help crops survive climate change.
C．A scientific breakthrough in bioengineering.	D．A new type of crops resistant to heat waves.

5 . Whether it’s a cup of coffee, a cup of hot tea, or a bottle of soda, consuming caffeine (咖啡因) is a good choice for millions who want to wake up or stay up. Now, researchers at Johns Hopkins University have found its another use: improving our memory.

“We’ve always known that caffeine has effects on raising cognitive (认知的) abilities, but its particular effect on strengthening memory has never been proved,” said Michael Yassa, one of the scientists of the research team.

The researchers conducted a double-blind trial in which participants who did not regularly eat or drink products consisting of caffeine received either a placebo (安慰剂) or a caffeine pill five minutes after studying a series of pictures. The next day, both groups were tested on their ability to recognize pictures from the previous day’s study session. On the test, some of the pictures were the same as those from the day before, and some were new additions which were similar but not the same.

More members of the caffeine group were able to correctly identify the new pictures as “similar” to previously viewed pictures rather than mistakenly see them as the same. The brain’s ability to recognize the difference between two similar but not the same items reflected better memory, the researchers said.

“If we used a standard recognition memory task without these similar items, we would have found no effect of caffeine,” Yassa said. “However, using these items requires the brain to make a more difficult discrimination — what we call pattern separation, which seems to be the process that is improved by caffeine in our case.”

“Almost all the previous studies distributed caffeine before the study session, so if there is an improvement, it’s not clear whether it’s due to caffeine’s effects on attention, focus, or other factors,” Yassa said. “By offering caffeine after the study session, we rule out all of these effects and make sure that if there is an improvement, it's due to memory and nothing else.”

1. Which paragraph mainly tells the process of the experiment in detail？

A．Paragraph 2.

B．Paragraph 3.

C．Paragraph 4.

D．Paragraph 5.

2. Why did the researchers use similar pictures？

A．To measure participants’ attention.	B．To test participants’ ability to learn.
C．To add the difficulty of discrimination.	D．To further explain pattern separation.

3. How is this experiment different from the previous ones？

A．Participants had few coffee drinking experiences.	B．Participants were forced to drink stronger coffee.
C．Participants studied the pictures after a long break.	D．Participants took in caffeine after studying the pictures.

4. The purpose of the experiment is to prove caffeine ________．

A．helps people stay energetic	B．strengthens learning ability
C．does harm to cognitive abilities	D．has a positive effect on memory

6 . A girls’ soccer team has gone from losing 20-0 each week to winning promotion to the top division—after a dad started coaching.

Golden Hill got routinely thrashed every time they competed in a game. The team now win regularly and secured promotion for next year. That is thanks to Stuart Henley. The 41-year-old car valeter (代客泊车的人), whose 14-year-old daughter plays for the team, took the job two years ago when the previous manager quit because no one else would.

Stuart renamed the team Leek Town Devils and started training hard in February 2020. Many players had never kicked a soccer before joining the team, so training them took hours of hard work and patience. Stuart’s first season was disturbed by the pandemic (疫情), which forced him to get creative with training. He organized team-building activities with the girls to help them bond on and off the field. Stuart then spent the sessions they could hold focusing on the basics of soccer like passing, shooting and movement. Each week the girls were asked to work on the bits that went wrong the previous Saturday and learn from them, which really helped the team improve.

Stuart recalled,“In our first game together, when we scored a goal it was like winning the World Cup. Although we lost the game, we didn’t care because the goal was a sign of progress.”

Stuart watched the girls develop over the course of last year, and in September they played their another match. They won the game, and since then went on an unbeaten run of eight games. Their newfound form led them to a top-of-the-table battle this February, where they were sadly beaten. However, the team still have gone beyond expectation by winning promotion to the county's top division.

Stuart added,“We are about giving girls the chance to play soccer. We’re going into next season full of confidence and ready to compete against tougher competitors, but for now we’re really enjoying our victory.”

1. What does the underlined word “thrashed” in paragraph 2 probably mean？

A．Defeated.

B．Challenged.

C．Trained.

D．Praised.

2. What did Stuart Henley ask the team to do for the training？

A．Learn from the wrong.	B．Avoid team-building activities.
C．Abandon previous kicking skills.	D．Focus on high-level techniques.

3. What did Stuart Henley think of the team’s performance for their first game？

A．It meant nothing to him.	B．It was a complete failure.
C．It hardly lived up to his expectation.	D．It deserved recognition and cheers.

4. What does the author intend to stress about the team in paragraph 5？

A．Its future expectations.	B．Its amazing achievements.
C．Its disappointing failures.	D．Its true competing goals.

7 . Best International Photography Contests to Enter

RHS Photographic Competition

If you are interested in taking photos of your garden, enter this flower-photo-friendly contest, which includes categories for 11~17-year-olds and even kids under 11 years old. This photo competition is organized by the Royal Horticulture (园艺) Society, which is intended for photographers, horticulturists and garden lovers.

Entry Fee: Free

Prize: $6,000 for each winner of first prize

Istanbul Photo Awards

Organized by the Anadolu Agency, the international news photography contest aims to develop the news photography area and seeks to reward hard-working news photographers around the world. The categories in this contest are Photo of the Year, Single News, Story News, Single Sports and Story Sports.

Entry Fee: Free

Prize: $8, 000 for Photo of the Year and first prize in Single News Category. The first prize in other categories is $5,000.

ZEISS Photography Award

ZEISS Photography Award is organized with the partnership of Zeiss and the World Photography Organization. The photographers are invited to submit photos themed "Seeing Beyond Discoveries". Each photographer has to submit 5~10 images which have not been published before. Winners will be invited to London to participate in the Sony World Photography Awards exhibition opening.

Entry Fee: Free

Prize: ZEISS lenses (镜头) of your choice(worth 12,000 Euros) and 3,000 Euros to cover travel expenses

MonoVisions Photography Awards

Leading photography magazine Mono Visions will award creative expression in the black and white medium. This black and white photography competition is also open for amateurs, and photos taken with traditional or digital media are accepted. The two sections of the competition are the Black and White Series of the Year and Black and White Photo of the Year.

Entry Fee: $ 20 for a single photo; $ 25 for a series(maximum 8 photos with common concept & idea)

Prize: $2,000 for the top single; $3,000 for the top series

1. Which of the following is the organizer of a news photography contest?

A．Zeiss.	B．The Anadolu Agency.
C．The Royal Horticulture Society.	D．The World Photography Organization.

2. What can the winner of ZEISS Photography Award get?

A．A full-time job offer from London.	B．12,000 Euros to cover travel expenses.
C．An invitation to an exhibition opening.	D．A camera with high-quality ZEISS lenses.

3. What are the participants of MonoVisions Photography Awards required to do?

A．Submit colorful pictures.	B．Work for MonoVisions.
C．Use digital media only.	D．Pay for their entry.