1 . When I was 10 years old, my aunt and uncle lived far away from my parents.
Suffering from a severe disease
One day, my father and I went to see them, and my aunt asked me to get a
I learned a lot from my father about
| A．forced | B．enabled | C．arranged | D．expected |
| A．detected | B．wished | C．considered | D．reserved |
| A．Already | B．Instead | C．Also | D．Strangely |
| A．social | B．different | C．mental | D．financial |
| A．box | B．cup | C．shock | D．rise |
| A．turned over | B．put back | C．reached into | D．looked at |
| A．pitiful | B．curious | C．guilty | D．lucky |
| A．result | B．account | C．establishment | D．amount |
| A．admitted | B．agreed | C．believed | D．learned |
| A．hidden | B．returned | C．found | D．withdrawn |
| A．supported | B．attracted | C．embarrassed | D．surprised |
| A．forgotten | B．declined | C．blamed | D．offered |
| A．instruction | B．leave | C．help | D．discovery |
| A．comment | B．introduction | C．speech | D．debate |
| A．generosity | B．praise | C．honesty | D．friendship |
I still remember what I felt on a bright Saturday morning in late September, at a five-kilometer race in Clarkston, Georgia.
It was an unusual morning. About an hour earlier, when we drove into town to participate in the race, my 11-year-old son noticed a green tree cricket（蟋蟀） on my car. It was friendly, no longer than a fingernail. It jumped onto my son’s finger, and walked across my shirt, and then went back to my son’s hand, where it stayed so long that we eventually gave it a name: Little Friend.
The walk from the car to the registration table was perhaps a quarter of a mile. Little Friend stayed with my son. Then, we walked back across the railroad tracks and waited for the race to start. A few minutes before the race, Little Friend either fell or jumped off my son’s hand and landed on the sidewalk. Maybe it wanted to go free. But this was not a good place for that. Pedestrian（行人） traffic was heavy, so Little Friend was in danger. My son knelt and reached out his hand. It came back.
The race was about to start, and the tiny green insect was in for a wild ride. My son would run fast, and the race would be long. The race began. I ran well enough, and felt excited at the finish line. But that thrill gave way to anxiety when my son didn’t show up.
I knew he could run 5 kilometers in about 30 minutes. When I didn’t see him at the 35-minute mark, I began to wonder what had gone wrong. And as the 40-minute mark approached and he still didn’t appear, I went out looking for him. Had he got lost? I crossed the railroad tracks and looked down a long straightaway, hoping to see his face. Finally, there he was, just ahead of the 45-minute mark.
注意：1. 续写词数应为150个左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Little Friend was riding proudly on one finger of my son’s right hand.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Smiling, we walked back to the car with Little Friend.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________China’s “ice city” Harbin in Northeast Heilongjiang Province has definitely become a tourism hotspot,
At the tourist-packed Central Street, a street famous
The Aoluguya Ewenki is the only ethnic group in China
Since the Aoluguya Ewenki people’s public appearance, more and more local ethnic minority groups
4 . Self-learning can help you develop important skills and gain valuable knowledge. Understanding strategies for self-learning is important. They can help you study new concepts with ease.
Determine your learning style. People often prefer to learn new information or a new skill using varied approaches.
Find a purpose. Determine what you want to learn about and why you want to be a self-learner.
Determine a schedule. To create an effective plan, it may be helpful to create an agenda for your self-learning sessions.
| A．Assess your strengths |
| B．Be sure to set reasonable goals |
| C．Identify a skill set you’re interested in learning |
| D．Here’re some tips for effective self-learning practices |
| E．Consider giving yourself a set of achievable deadlines |
| F．You can find the most useful methods and techniques for yourself |
| G．Having a specific goal can also help you set accurate self-learning sessions |
5 . If you’re looking for inspiration to get healthy and stay active, look no further than Edna Giordano.
Edna, who lives in Canada, has become famous for the fitness level she maintains at age 91. The mom of five, grandmother of twenty-one and great-grandmother of four still drives now. “I’ve always had a busy lifestyle because, let’s face it, with that many children, you have to be busy,” Edna said. “So, I never really thought about it. That’s just the way I live.” She said she only really began to focus on her fitness in her 60s, when she was forced to retire from her job at a local hospital. She had to face the fact that she was 60.
To keep herself busy, Edna began gardening again that she had to abandon due to her busy work. She said she also started going to the gym in her 60s, which she still does every other day. “I have to keep my feet to the fire because it’s cold in the morning in winter, and when it’s snowy or icy out there, I don’t really get enthusiastic about going outside,” she said. “But I make myself do it and mark it on the calendar. So I cannot take any shortcuts.”
Edna said she focused on walking at the gym for her cardiovascular (心血管) health and also included lots of weight lifting in her routine to maintain her bone strength. “When in the gym, I don’t try to break any records or compete with anyone else,” Edna said. “I only push myself to do better all the time, and I only compete with myself.”
When it came to her age, Edna said the people at the gym didn’t realize she’s 91. She prefers it that way, because when people do realize she’s in her 90s, they’ll surely demand to help her. “I know them well. But I don’t really want help,” said Edna. “It’s funny to say that, but I like to be independent.”
1. What made Edna leave her job in the hospital?| A．Her turning 60. | B．Her looking after many kids. |
| C．Her wish to live a busy life. | D．Her suffering from a disease. |
| A．She lives in a cold place all year round. | B．She manages to be a regular at the gym. |
| C．She develops a new hobby for gardening. | D．She likes to take shortcuts in her daily life. |
| A．Competitive. | B．Humorous. | C．Humble. | D．Caring. |
| A．The elderly also enjoy trends. | B．Experience beats youth. |
| C．A positive attitude extends life. | D．Fitness is fit for everyone. |
6 . Drugs that could save tens of thousands of lives in Britain should be prescribed (开药) to three times as many patients as at present, medical experts recommended after a study showed these drugs have great effects on heart disease and stroke (中风).
British research has shown that statins, a class of drug that lowers cholesterol (胆固醇), can prevent a third of all cases of heart disease or stroke in patients at highest risk. If statins were given to 10 million high-risk patients, they could save at least 50,000 lives a year worldwide. In Britain, where heart disease is the leading cause of death, statins could save up to 10,000 lives a year.
Studies have found that safety issues surrounding statins were so tiny that they were significant. The risk of muscle problems was only about one in ten thousand. Fears that statins could increase deaths from other diseases, such as cancer, were assuaged by the study. At present, only people with high cholesterol are prescribed statins, but the eight-year study found that anyone at risk of heart disease or stroke could benefit. Statins are now given to fewer than one in twenty people aged over 40, mostly men with heart disease or high cholesterol. Under the recommendation, this would increase to one in eight.
A total of 20,000 volunteers aged 40 to 80 took part in the study, which looked at the effects of statins on patients for whom the benefits were uncertain. The guidelines previously said that female patients aged over 65 would not benefit from the drug, but the five years of monitoring all types of patients at high risk of heart attacks and stroke showed that everyone benefited as much from statins. The new recommendations will be easy to put into practice because statins are readily available and the patients who benefit from them most are already known to doctors.
1. What does paragraph 2 focus on?| A．Main diseases in Britain. | B．Side effects caused by statins. |
| C．Positive effects of statins. | D．The numbers of heart disease cases. |
| A．Eased. | B．Discovered. | C．Ignored. | D．Compared. |
| A．The effects of the drug are unclear. | B．The drug can be widely prescribed. |
| C．The drug hardly benefits female patients. | D．The drug should be limited in application. |
| A．To call for the monitoring of drug studies. | B．To explain different ways of testing drugs. |
| C．To seek improvement in the drug research. | D．To spread medical experts’ recommendation. |
7 . A recent survey of British parents found that in all, 7% of respondents give their baby a made-up name and 65% are at least willing to consider such a move in new age.
A few examples of these new age baby names include Jaspin, Elisobelle, Wrenlow, and Maevery. Don’t see any names you like? How about Evabeth? Even if they themselves aren’t willing to choose such a name, a surprising 94% of respondents admit that made-up baby names are very much “in” these days.
Apparently, these parents believe they are helping their kids by selecting a rarer name. The survey noted that 72% of all respondents believe a unique name will help their child stand out from the crowd. Another 2% choose a made-up name for their baby with social media in mind, thinking a more unique name means their child’s social media account will be much easier for potential followers to find. But 16% also believe that a strange name may reflect poorly on the parents.
A popular strategy for parents to decide on a name is taking two names that both parents like, and combining them into one name（10%）. Another 9% combine the names of older relatives as a way to honor family. Similarly, many parents（30%） are drawing inspiration from popular movies and books.
However, the majority of surveyed parents（92%） at least admitted that giving their child an odd name is bound to result in a few drawbacks. For example, two-thirds worry that an odd name will be hard to spell and pronounce, and a third worry that their child’s teachers will judge them based on their unusual name. Of course, for those parents who are confident they’ve picked a winning made-up name, 13% actually worry about other parents stealing their child’s name.
1. How does the author illustrate the new trend?| A．By making comparisons. | B．By asking questions. |
| C．By listing statistics. | D．By stating opinions. |
| A．To make their children feel less special. | B．To reflect their higher social status. |
| C．To draw others’ attention more easily. | D．To attract more followers online. |
| A．It will be advised by teachers. | B．It can actually be double-edged. |
| C．It should be protected carefully. | D．It surely makes parents confident. |
| A．Ordinary Names Are Parents’ New Pursuit | B．An Odd Name Can Influence One’s Life |
| C．Trendy Names Appear on Social Media | D．Newborns’ Unique Names Are Coming |
8 . Organizations design courses to help you learn new skills or improve your current skill set. Here’re the best course providers of 2024.
Codecademy
It provides information technology (IT) and other technical users with courses in coding and other software engineering areas. You can choose from several subscription plans or choose a free option to explore the website’s course collection.
Memrise
It’s a website and an application created to help you learn another language. It’s free to use and offers up to 23 languages to pursue. It aims to work on developing your long-term memory to support your learning journey and make it more effective. Additionally, it provides video examples of individuals using the language’s terms and phrases in everyday life.
Pluralsight
It’s a paid subscription site but offers a free trial, so you can try a few classes to determine if it fits your needs. You can take a Skill IQ assessment to know your skill levels and help you determine a plan to improve your abilities. It employs certified experts as the course instructors, which benefits you as a learner.
Alison
It’s a free learning platform offering classes, including fields such as personal development, health, language, finance and science. It offers learners the flexibility of taking the courses anywhere and anytime, so users can fit it into their schedule. And the platform is for individuals with various skill levels, from beginner to expert. Additionally, the site has two types of courses, allowing you to choose between earning a certificate or getting a diploma.
1. Which is most likely to be the course provided on Codecademy?| A．Computer Science. | B．Drawing for Beginners. |
| C．Advanced Parenting Skills. | D．Civil Engineering. |
| A．Codecademy. | B．Pluralsight. | C．Alison. | D．Memrise. |
| A．They are designed for adults. | B．They require learners to pay. |
| C．They offer no certificates. | D．They are self-paced. |
9 . Ancient humans were hunter-gatherers. They followed herds of animals on the hunt and gathered eatable plants as well. Starting around 10,000 years ago, humans in a handful of regions around the world discovered agriculture. People discovered that certain seeds could be planted and crops could be reliably grown. It is impossible to overstate how important the change was. Some time after that, people in the same regions began to domesticate animals, keeping cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats in controlled conditions, eating them and using their hides.
Even fairly primitive agriculture can produce fifty times more caloric energy than hunting and gathering does. The very basis of human life is how much energy we can gain from food; with agriculture and animal domestication, it was possible for families to grow much larger and overall population levels to rise dramatically.
One of the noteworthy aspects of this change is that hunter-gatherers actually had much more leisure time than farmers did. Archaeologists (考古学家) have determined that hunter-gatherers generally only“worked”for a few hours a day, and spent the rest of their time in leisure activities. Meanwhile, farmers always worked incredibly hard for very long hours. In many places in the ancient world, there were groups of people who remained hunter-gatherers despite knowing about agriculture, and it was quite possible they did that because they saw no particular advantage in adopting agriculture. There were also many areas that practiced both—right up until the modern time, many farmers tried to forage in wild areas near their farms.
Agriculture was developed in a few different places completely independently. According to archaeological evidence, agriculture did not start in one place and then spread; it started in a few distinct areas and then spread from those areas, sometimes meeting in the middle. For example, agriculture developed independently in China by 5000 BCE, and of course agriculture in the Americas (starting in western South America) had nothing to do with its earlier invention in the Fertile Crescent.
1. What’s the great change of early humans?| A．Increasing population. | B．Keeping pet animals. |
| C．Learning to plant. | D．Using the hides. |
| A．It employed more time and efforts. |
| B．It was less productive than hunting. |
| C．It rewarded people with fewer gains. |
| D．It needed more skills and techniques. |
| A．Grow plants. | B．Exchange goods. |
| C．Gather together. | D．Hunt for food. |
| A．Agriculture spread from one place to another. |
| B．China made great contributions to agriculture. |
| C．Agriculture developed separately in the world. |
| D．Earlier inventions had something in common with agriculture. |
10 . The world’s largest iceberg (冰山) is moving over Antarctic waters and satellites are tracking its movement from space.
The iceberg, called A23a, has broken loose and is moving past the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula after being grounded for more than three decades. Recent satellite images reveal that the iceberg, weighing nearly a trillion tons, is moving at a rate of three miles each day, assisted by strong winds and ocean currents, Smithsonian Magazine reported.
The European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission has been closely tracking the movement of A23a. Copernicus EU shared four separate satellite images comparing the iceberg’s changing position over the last month in a post online. The images were taken on Oct. 19 and Oct. 31, and Nov. 12 and Nov. 24 by the Sentinel-1A satellite.
“The largest iceberg, A23a, is on the move!” The British Antarctic Survey said in its post. Measuring about 1,500 square miles (4,000 sq km), the iceberg is roughly three times the size of New York City and more than twice the size of Greater London. While it split from the Antarctic’s Filchner Ice Shelf in 1986, it became stuck to the ocean floor in the Weddell Sea, where it had remained grounded for the last 37 years.
While researchers haven’t identified a specific event that would have caused the moving, it is believed that the iceberg may have thinned over time, providing extra buoyancy (浮力) that’s allowed it to lift off the ocean floor, after which strong winds and ocean currents would be able to move the iceberg along its current route, according to Oliver Marsh, a glaciologist at the British Antarctic Survey.
Astronauts on the International Space Station have also been able to track the iceberg’s movement out of the Weddell Sea, which is part of the Southern Ocean between Antarctica and South America.
1. What make the iceberg A23a move faster?| A．Winds and currents. | B．Its weight and size. |
| C．Its position and weather. | D．Buoyancy and waves. |
| A．By contrasting the photos. | B．By reading an article online. |
| C．By locating a nearby satellite. | D．By measuring its recent weight. |
| A．Its great height. | B．Its large size. |
| C．Its reduced weight. | D．The rising sea level. |
| A．Satellites Make Great Contributions | B．Scientists Make Analysis on Icebergs |
| C．What Causes the Melting of Icebergs | D．The World’s Largest Iceberg Is Moving |
