1 . Hao Ruoqi is known for playing the heroic fighter “Hua Mulan”. She is one of China’s most popular female dancers of the post-90s generation.
In 2017, Hao Ruoqi starred in the lead role of the historical dance drama Hua Mulan. “The spirit of Mulan exists in everyone’s mind, expressing the power of women. I am fortunate to be able to spread the energy of Mulan through dance. I think Mulan was not only a strong person, but also a woman who was capable of great love and wisdom, and had the ability to accept everything.” Hao said.
Hao said that the first practices for Hua Mulan did not go very smoothly. However, she pushed her limits to get closer to the character. She described taking the role as a learning experience and a great challenge.
“During practices, I cried every night when I returned to the hotel, just to reduce the pressure. At that time, I thought to myself that never again in my life would I want to dance after Hua Mulan,” she said, “but I grew up during that period, which took quite some time. I tried hard to act out every aspect of Mulan’s character very carefully. ”
When it came to the action scenes, she said “This was the most difficult because dancing is a smooth and beautiful art while martial arts(武术) focus on speed and strength. We struggled sometimes to deliver fast and correct hits while maintaining our attractive dance moves. I remember my body was covered in bruises(瘀伤) at that time.”
The production won the top award for dancing and has received admiration from audiences across the nation, having been performed on stage almost 100 times.
Hao’s talent may have been widely recognized, but she’s not resting on her laurels just yet. “I will keep moving forward with my career as a dancer. I hope I can tell more stories of famous figures from Chinese history through the power of dance, she said, “and I’m proud that I can contribute to spreading traditional Chinese culture. I’m not done yet. ”
1. According to Hao Ruoqi, which word can NOT describe Hua Mulan?| A．Fortunate. | B．Wise. | C．Open. | D．Strong. |
| A．She gave up the acting after some time. |
| B．She cried at night when returning to the hotel. |
| C．She tried hard to practice by herself again and again. |
| D．She told herself not to dance in Hua Mulan any more. |
| A．Attractive dancing moves. |
| B．Getting bruises before practices. |
| C．Martial arts focusing on speed. |
| D．Performing dancing with martial arts. |
| A．Having a rest to travel around the world. |
| B．Not continuing with her career as a dancer. |
| C．Not feeling satisfied with her achievements. |
| D．Having more stories to tell people in the world. |
| A．A Dance Performance with Martial Arts |
| B．A Talent Widely Recognized by the Audience. |
| C．Girl Power Expressed through Chinese Dance |
| D．The Heroic Fighter Hua Mulan in the Dance Drama |
2 . Earth Hour is a yearly event which asks people to turn off all lights and use no electricity (电) for an hour. The aim is to get people to think about the planet they live on and the energy they use.
What is Earth Hour?
Earth Hour is a yearly activity that encourages people and businesses around the world to turn off electricity at the same time for one hour. Earth Hour started in Australia in 2007 when 2.2 million people in the city of Sydney turned off all unnecessary lights for an hour. Since then it has grown to a large worldwide event. In2013, millions of people in 7,000 cities and towns around the world turned off their lights for 60 minutes at the end of March. Everyyear landmarks and well-known buildings around the world take part and “go dark”for Earth Hour.
Who organises Earth Hour?
Earth Hour is organised by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). It was started by Andy Ridley, who is in charge of this activity in WWF. He came up with the idea of Earth Hour because he wanted to raise awareness of environmental problems by asking people to do something good to help the planet. Turning off the lights for an hour can make a small difference to the amount of energy we use, but Earth Hour is also a representative event to make people think about the problems of climate change.
Why March?
The end of March is around the time when day and night are of equal length in the northern and southern hemispheres (半球), so sunset times in both hemispheres are at similar times. This means that a worldwide “lights out” event has most visual impact at this time of year.
1. What are people asked to do in Earth Hour?| A．Care for their businesses. |
| B．Use no electricity for an hour. |
| C．Turn off the lights during the day. |
| D．Think about the buildings they live in. |
| A．Earth Hour takes place twice a year. |
| B．Earth Hour is only popular in Sydney. |
| C．Earth Hour began in Australia in 2007. |
| D．In 2013, 2.2 million people took part in Earth Hour. |
| A．make people become more environmentally aware. |
| B．be in total charge of the World Wide Fund for Nature. |
| C．ask people to do something good only for themselves. |
| D．call on people to turn off all the lights in their houses. |
| A．the length of day and night |
| B．the visual impact of the event |
| C．the sunset times around the world |
| D．the places in the southern hemisphere |
| A．To explain the reason for climate change. |
| B．To take in more volunteers for Earth Hour. |
| C．To introduce a yearly event of energy saving. |
| D．To present the achievements brought by Earth Hour. |
3 . Do you know someone who has a hard time opening bottles or jars at home? Eighth-grade students in Mark Bolt’s engineering class were tasked with making changes to a product to make it easier for people with challenges to use.
Rather than requiring step-by-step directions for creating their projects, Mr. Bolt preferred to leave students’ creative paths open. Let’s see some of the students’ products.
A Device That Easily Opens BottlesTo find a solution for her grandmother who had difficulty in opening bottles, Alana looked at existing bottle openers and then she created her own.
She used a piece of wood shaped like a cellphone. Next, she made three holes of different sizes in the wood so that they could match common bottle cap sizes. Each hole also had a layer of dried, sticky hot glue, which provided a firm grip for the bottle caps. With a simple twist of the device, her grandmother could open bottles without help.
A Coffee Cup With A Supportive “Thumb”Due to arthritis, a disease that causes pain in or around the joints, Robert’s grandfather had trouble holding a coffee cup. Robert simplified a robotic “third thumb” device created by a London designer. He used rubber bands and a 3D-printed plastic form to make the extra “thumb” which can firmly support the bottom of a cup.
A Reading ToolMichael noticed how dyslexia——a common reading disorder, made it difficult for a friend to follow along on pages full of text. It is a language-processing condition. The brain tends to confuse the order of numbers, letters and other images.
So, Michael created a small adjustable window-blind-style device. “My friend could isolate small sections of text while reading,” he said.
1. Alana’s grandmother could open bottles easily by______.| A．sticking bottle caps to the device |
| B．connecting the device to a cellphone |
| C．twisting the device that has holes in it |
| D．cutting holes of different sizes in wood |
| A．He reformed a process to form a metal “thumb”. |
| B．He created a simpler “thumb” device in the cup. |
| C．He added plastic materials to the “thumb” device. |
| D．He used bands and a 3D-printed form to make a “thumb”. |
| A．Independent and patient. | B．Creative and considerate. |
| C．Ambitious and hardworking. | D．Open-minded and generous. |
4 . Have you ever wished you could be better organized or more sociable? Perhaps you’re a constant worrier, and you’d prefer to be a little more carefree? Actually at least 2/3 of people would like to change some elements of their personality. In the past, such desires appeared to be fruitless. One’s personality was thought to be formed in childhood and to remain fixed throughout his entire life.
Recent research from psychology professor Nathan Hudson and his colleagues, however, challenges this expectation of a fixed personality. With the right psychological strategies and enough effort, they say, many people can successfully shape their desired personality.
Their interventions (干预) typically involve recommending regular activities that reflect the personality traits(特征) people wish to adopt. Introverts who wish to be more outgoing, for example, might have the goal of introducing themselves to a stranger once a week, or making small talk with the cashier in the supermarket. Someone who wishes to be more organized and disciplined might be asked to carefully double-check an email before sending it, or to write a to-do list before going to bed.
While these tasks may seem insignificant, the aim is for the thinking patterns and behaviors they produce to become habitual. And the evidence so far suggests it works remarkably well. In one 15-week trial of 400 people, participants accepted an average of two challenges each week. After they completed those tasks, their traits shifted in the desired direction, according to a personality questionnaire (调查问卷).
The unexpected personality change should be good news for anyone who wishes they were a bit more sociable, organized, or happy-go-lucky. Another potential benefit is that awareness of this research could help improve mental health.
People always believe negative feelings are just part of who they are, and there is little they can do to change them. But what if educating people about their potential for personality change could place them on a more positive track? To test this idea, Harvard professor of psychology, John Weisz, and his partner selected a group of 100 teenagers who had previously shown signs of anxiety or depression. They took a computerized course that explained the science of brain plasticity(可塑性), and were then given worksheets to strengthen what they had learned.
When Weisz checked in on the teens’ mental health nine months later, the students reported a significant decrease in their anxiety and depression compared with those who had instead taken part in a course on “emotional expression”.
Whether you are struggling with serious issues or simply want to polish off your rougher edges, remember that character is within your own hands and you have the power to become what you want to be.
1. According to the passage, an old belief about personality is that ________.| A．most people are satisfied with their personality |
| B．sociable or organized people are more popular |
| C．childhood has nothing to do with personality |
| D．people can’t change their personality traits |
| A．became more aware of their mental health |
| B．formed new thinking patterns and behaviors |
| C．reported their completed tasks in the questionnaire |
| D．were advised to work as cashiers in the supermarket |
| A．question the result of | B．make a comparison with |
| C．explain the method used in | D．show an additional benefit of |
| A．Mental Issues: More than Meets the Eye | B．Personality: It Is Not Set in Stone |
| C．Your Personality Shapes Your Future | D．A Great Cure for Mental Problems |
5 . Anuar Abdullah has always had a special feeling for the ocean. In the 1980s, he settled in Perhentian as a diving instructor and fell in love with corals. Twice daily, he went out to sea, staying underwater for as long as his oxygen supply allowed. He learned the shapes and textures (纹理) of coral reefs long before he knew their Latin names. He studied the living conditions—the water temperature, the sunshine, the diversity(多样性) of ocean life—and saw how just one of those factors could bring about large-scale death.
Abdullah spent two decades experimenting with how to grow coral reefs in the ocean. He didn’t have a degree in marine (海洋的) biology or a research lab, but he had his own ways. Almost all the materials he used to grow corals came directly from the ocean. He didn’t use steel pipes or bricks—which he couldn’t afford—instead, he gathered rocks from the seafloor, piling them so they wouldn’t be knocked down by tidal waves. While others might depend on a lab to break live coral into pieces that were in turn used for growing, he searched for broken pieces of coral in existing reefs and fixed them to the rocks using animal-friendly glue. When he needed other materials, he started by searching the beach for waste.
Every day, the locals saw him on his knees examining corals in the ocean. Sometimes, he picked up a rock to which he had fixed a piece of coral several weeks earlier, and said very quietly, “My little acropora (鹿角大珊瑚), how are you doing today?” The locals whispered about how he’d spent days in the water speaking to corals as if they were people. “Everyone thought I was stupid,” said Abdullah, “But I knew I was doing the most important thing in the world.”
Actually, Abdullah was right. Now, in a world rapidly losing its coral reefs to climate change and environmental damage, he has become an increasingly influential expert on how to bring them back to life. Thousands have traveled from around the world to learn from Abdullah how to grow corals, with some eventually leaving their jobs to join his projects full time. With his 700 active volunteers, he has already saved about 125 acres of coral reefs.
1. Abdullah went out to sea twice daily to ________.| A．study coral reefs | B．have diving training |
| C．check his oxygen supply | D．share his feelings for the sea |
| A．eco-friendly and practical | B．traditional and indirect |
| C．high-tech and affordable | D．scientific and expensive |
| A．searched for waste to make a living | B．received a degree in marine biology |
| C．talked to everyone about coral reefs | D．became an expert on coral protection |
| A．Anyone with a dream is amazing. | B．Achievement provides true pleasure. |
| C．An individual can make a difference. | D．The strong man is strongest when alone. |
6 . Often, there is a false idea that one must be “in-the-know” to truly appreciate artworks. However, fine art opens the door to everyone. Learning how to look at and understand artworks requires us to take the time to view, identify and think.
Look at the Art
As the first step, it’s necessary to take a moment to identify the artwork’s general features:
● Is it a painting, sculpture or craftwork?
● Does it appear chaotic (混乱的) or organized?
● Are the colors bright or soft?
Identify the Art and Artist
Knowing when or how the artwork was made and learning something about the artist can reveal more context. We all know the famous painting Guernica is a masterpiece created by Picasso in 1937. However, if we can find out Picasso composed the painting to reflect a bombing during the Spanish Civil War, we’ll know more about its anti-war meaning.
Even if the historical context of an artwork is not obvious, knowing the year of its creation offers more context.
Think About the Meaning
Use what you observed in the first two steps to think about meanings the artwork could have.
Consider what the title, the subjects, or the symbols meant to the artist when he or she created the artwork. What do the colors say about the artist, and how do they apply to the subjects in the art? For example, the owls in Lebo’s works represent wisdom, but why are they so brightly colored?
In addition, ask how the art makes you feel. Many artists have specific meanings behind their art, but also encourage viewers to come up with their own explanations. Still, every explanation is not automatically correct, which is why the techniques described above are helpful in finding clues.
The next time you’re admiring a work of art, keep these techniques in mind, and its meaning may unfold before your eyes.
1. What is the first step when viewing art?| A．Doing some research on the artist. | B．Being “in-the-know” about the work |
| C．Identifying the work’s general features | D．Knowing the year of an artwork’s creation |
| A．explain it freely | B．choose a title for it |
| C．describe it to the viewers | D．ask how it makes you feel |
| A．museum staff | B．gallery visitors |
| C．professional artists | D．exhibition organizers |
7 . Nicholas Epley, a behavioural scientist, and I conducted a series of studies and concluded that kind acts as simple as buying a cup of coffee for someone can promote a person’s happiness. Everyday life affords many opportunities for such actions, yet people do not always catch them.
We firstly studied acts of kindness done for familiar people such as friends, classmates or family.
Across our studies, several strong patterns appeared. For one, both performers and receivers of the acts of kindness were in more positive moods than normal after these kind acts.
These findings suggest that what might seem small when we are deciding whether or not to do something nice for someone else could matter a great deal to the person we do it for, These warm acts can improve our own emotional health and brighten the day of another person.
| A．So why not choose kindness when we can? |
| B．For another, it was clear that performers undervalued their impacts. |
| C．From one situation to the next, the specific acts of kindness differed. |
| D．We found that participants didn’t realize their positive impacts on strangers as well. |
| E．Our research also revealed one reason why people may not realize their actions’ impacts. |
| F．We compared the performers’ expectation of the receivers’ moods with their actual experiences. |
| G．It is because people performing kind acts undervalue how much receivers value their behaviour. |
8 . After years of blue-collar(蓝领)jobs being replaced by machines, advanced chatbots are now breathing down white collars. Generative Al tools, such as ChatGPT, have made impressive progress in generating human-sounding language and understanding context. So much so that humans are no match for them in some tasks. Up to 300 million full-time jobs could be lost around the world, which is as much as 18% of the global workforce.
A recent study by OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, looked at the potential for automation across 1,016 jobs. Humans and AI separately rated how well software powered by large-language models, which are trained on a sea of information from the Internet and then reacted quickly to specific functions, could perform 19,000 tasks involved in the jobs. If the software was considered able to reduce the time it takes humans to complete the task by at least half, without a drop in quality, the task was considered ready for AI replacement. For other tasks, the company imagined additional software that could be added to the model, such as computer tools that can automatically pull fresh data from the Internet. They found that 80% of Americans could have at least 10% of their work tasks done by advanced Al tools. The figure rises to 50% of tasks for around 19% of workers.
This automation should not be feared. It could free workers from repeated tasks, contributing to greater productivity. A study published on April 5 suggests that generative AI could bring about sweeping changes to the global economy. As these tools could drive a 7% increase in global GDP and lift productivity by 1. 5 percentage points over a 10-year period.
But studies like this may overstate the potential for automation, ignoring some tacit skills(隐性技能)in professions they know less about. Human qualities important for some jobs, such as empathy or charisma(感召力), will be overlooked. And not all tasks capable of being carried out by AI should be: a man in love should feel it a shame for using it to write a love letter to his beloved girlfriend however touching and sincere it may sound.
Many businesses are also not willing to accept AI. And those who have already accepted it are at the risk of practical and legal(法律的) confusion. When chatbots do not know what to say, they often talk nonsense. The “creative” output they produce is based on a mixture of data sourced from the Internet, raising issues around accuracy, privacy and intellectual property(知识产权).
While much is unknown about how generative AI will influence the world economy and society, and it will take time to play out, there are clear signs that the effects could be profound. But in the real world, AI tools will still need handlers. That may even end up creating new jobs.
1. What is the function of Paragraph 1?| A．To show the popularity of AI tools. |
| B．To give examples of using generative AI tools. |
| C．To draw readers’ attention to the possible threat of AI. |
| D．To compare the impacts of AI on blue and white collars. |
| A．it can perform certain creative tasks |
| B．automation is powered by large-language models |
| C．it develops important human qualities like empathy |
| D．Al tools improve productivity without damaging quality |
| A．AI tools may help increase employment |
| B．AI will eventually take over human jobs |
| C．AI and automation do more harm than good |
| D．human qualities are not necessary for automation |
9 . Episodic memory (情景记忆) allows humans to revisit past personal experiences in their minds, and it was once thought to be a special skill of humans. Although there are still arguments about the extent of this type of memory in non-human animals, scientists have proved that creatures like rats and dogs can pass tests that are developed to assess episodic memory over the past two decades. “Curiously, there is a lack of research investigating dolphins’ episodic memory,” University of Cambridge cognitive (认知的) scientist James Davies says. Therefore, this surprising fact encourages him to fill this gap.
The team used “where” and “who” questions in their research, each on a different test. Each dolphin was first trained to retrieve a ball from the water, and then trained to get a ball by approaching a person holding it in front of them while ignoring an empty-handed person standing at a different spot. During this training, the locations were randomized (使随机化) and the person holding the ball differed each time, so that those details were irrelevant to learning the retrieving behavior. Then, for the tests, the dolphins were asked to retrieve the ball as they had learned to do, but after 10 minutes, something changed-this time, the ball couldn’t be seen, as it was now behind one of the two people’s backs. In the “where” tests, the ball was hidden in the same spot as in the training, but both people had been changed, while in the “who” tests, the locations of the people changed but the ball remained with the person who’d had it previously.
Eight dolphins went through each of the two tests, separated by at least 48 hours. All the dolphins got it right in choosing the correct spot on the “where” experiments, and seven achieved success on the “who” experiments.
Kelly Jaakkola, a psychologist, says that based on their cognitive skills, dolphins are a good candidate for having episodic-like memory, and this study goes really far in showing that. She also says, “The more we look for such capabilities in non-human animals, the more species we’ll likely find them in.” She adds, “An exciting question is therefore ‘Where do we draw that line? Which animals do have it, which animals don’t, and what sort of cognitive or neurological or social characteristics do those animals share? ’ That’s going to be the fun part of the game.”
1. What does the underlined word “retrieve” in Paragraph 2 probably mean?| A．Fetch. | B．Move. | C．Throw. | D．Play. |
| A．The locations of the people involved in the tests. |
| B．The memory tasks that dolphins need to perform. |
| C．The ability of dolphins to communicate with humans. |
| D．The dolphins’ characteristics related to their memory processing. |
| A．Dolphins pass the tests as a result of training. |
| B．It is very likely that dolphins are affected by people during the tests. |
| C．Scientists will probably find episodic memory in all non-human animals. |
| D．The influence of dolphins’ familiarity with a location or a person is avoided. |
| A．Dolphins Are the Most Intelligent Animals |
| B．Dolphins May Remember Personal Experiences |
| C．Episodic Memory Is Important for Humans and Animals |
| D．A Scientific Method Is Used to Study Dolphins’ Memory |
10 . Coastal cities worldwide are squeezed by two opposing forces: urban sprawl (扩张) and the rising sea. This struggle is intensely visible in the flatlands where expanding neighborhoods routinely flood and saltwater flooding damages the river mouths that protect communities from the worst of our climate crisis.
Massive resources are being put into environmental restoration projects, and development is subject to many layers of approvals. Yet in 2022 the commissioners of a coastal city voted to expand a legal boundary that contains sprawl to allow a 400-acre warehouse project. They are failing to see the value of this land in the greater ecosystem.
Wetlands, coastal plains and forests do cheaply (or even for free) what seawalls and pumps do at a cost of billions of dollars. They are vital infrastructure (基础设施) that makes us more resilient against climate change, and the cost of destroying them or weakening their ability to function must be factored into the decisions we make to build and grow.
To do so, the economic incentives to develop any natural landscape should be weighed against the protective economic value that land already provides. Economists call this an “avoided damage” valuation. Local planning boards might consider the value of a sand dune or swamp in flood protection versus the expense of replacing it with a seawall and water pump system. Maintaining and restoring natural infrastructure to support healthy functioning saves money, time and lives.
The concept of “natural capital”, or the idea that ecosystem services should be valued in a similar manner as any form of wealth, dates back to the 1970s. Markets have always valued wood as a commodity (商品), for example, but not the services that came along with producing it, such as soil maintenance, carbon storage, and nutrient cycling. We didn’t need a market for resources that industrialists saw as abundant (丰富的) and endlessly renewable. This exploitative (开发资源的) assumption turned out to be very wrong. Failing to measure the benefits of ecosystem services in policy and management decisions is a major reason many of those ecosystems disappeared.
It also seems crass to place a dollar amount on ecosystems that we’d rather view as priceless, existing for their own sake and valuable to humans in ways that are beyond capitalism. This preciousness is ethically sound. But developers have long confused pricelessness with worthlessness, allowing them to profit without paying for the consequences of destroying the environment.
Economic value is never the only reason nature is worth preserving; it is simply a powerful, underused tool to help us make decisions about how to live more sustainably in a climate-changed world. If policy makers considered natural infrastructure in the language of economics, they might recognize just how deeply we rely on it.
1. What are the first two paragraphs mainly about?| A．The consequences of the saltwater flooding. |
| B．The cause of the urban sprawl and the rising sea. |
| C．An approval to an environmental restoration project. |
| D．The problem caused by the expansion of coastal cities |
| A．The idea of natural capital can enhance the profit of commodity. |
| B．The economic growth boosts the protection of natural landscape. |
| C．The abundance of resources is not the reason for devaluing them. |
| D．The exploitation of nature reflects the “avoided damage” valuation. |
| A．Inadvisable. | B．Beneficial. |
| C．Relevant. | D．Unrealistic. |
| A．To appeal for stricter control over city scale. |
| B．To propose the use of nature as infrastructure. |
| C．To stress the importance of ecosystem services. |
| D．To promote public awareness of nature protection. |
