1 . We all want to know what happiness means and try to find ways to help make our life better. Happiness — you know it when you see it, but it’s hard to define. You might call it a sense of well-being, optimism or meaningfulness in life, although those could also be treated separately.
We also know that we don’t always have control over our happiness. Research suggests that genetics may play a big role in our level of happiness, so some of us may start out at a disadvantage. On top of that, environmental factors can bring down mood and dry up our thirst for living.
A 2022 review of more than 200 studies found a connection between positive psychological features, such as happiness, optimism and life satisfaction, and a lowered risk of heart disease.
If what you mean by happiness is specifically “enjoyment of life”, there’s newer evidence to support that, too. A study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found that people aged 60 and over who said they enjoyed life less were more likely to develop disability over an 8-year period.
| A．But whatever happiness really is. |
| B．It might take more work if your mood is low. |
| C．For now these studies can only show associations. |
| D．That refers to the person, and the situation he or she is in. |
| E．Being able to travel around was also related to enjoyment of life. |
| F．To manage our emotions is important for both our body and mind. |
| G．It’s not as simple as “you must be happy to prevent heart attacks”, though. |
2 . Waterways are important for every country around the world. They provide not only water for everyday use but also routes for transport. However, due to industrial activity, many of them are now polluted.
Dakota Perry from the US has experienced water pollution first-hand. The 15-year-old high school girl told Alabama Local News that she spends a lot of time going on boat rides with her dad on the river behind their house. However, the river has become littered with plastic bags, bottles and cups. Perry wanted to clean up the water so she could continue to enjoy the river. So, with the help of her father, she designed a system to collect and remove rubbish in waterways.
In May, Perry put forward her solution at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair held in Georgia, US, and received a Judge’s Award from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for her project.
According to the Science News for Students website, her system was inspired by the Dutch Great Bubble (气泡) Barrier in Amsterdam, which creates a flow of bubbles that trap waste and directs it to a catchment system. But Perry tried to challenge herself and make her system more environment-friendly. She planned to create a curtain of bubbles that stretched the river diagonally (对角地). The curtain would stop the floating rubbish and then push it toward the shore. Once there, a conveyor run by a solar-powered battery would carry the waste to a dustbin.
In her backyard pool, Perry used an air compressor (压缩机) to send air through a pipe full of holes to create a stream of bubbles. She experimented with different amounts of pressure to make sure there would be enough bubbles to form a full curtain. “For the bubble system to actually work and collect rubbish,” she explained to Science News for Students, “I have to know how much pressure the air compressor is supposed to push out.”
After she tested her system for collecting rubbish, Perry found that it worked better than expected. Next, she plans to work out how to use the power of the river to run the air compressor.
1. What motivated Perry to design a rubbish-collecting system?| A．Her father’s encouragement. |
| B．Her desire to protect a nearby river. |
| C．A visit to a science and engineering fair. |
| D．An invention of a Dutch high school student. |
| A．It was designed by Perry alone. |
| B．It makes power to run the air compressor. |
| C．It collects solar energy to remove rubbish. |
| D．It creates a bubble curtain to block rubbish. |
| A．Advantages of the system. | B．The way of testing the system. |
| C．The improvement on the system. | D．Challenges in the design process. |
| A．Efficient and ambitious. | B．Helpful and hardworking. |
| C．Responsible and creative. | D．Professional and adventurous. |
3 . Hard work has been part of every prize-winner’s journey towards the Nobel Prize. Early-career scientists often ask prize-winner how to strike a balance between work and life.
Spend time with your family and friends.
Many winners stress the value of maintaining personal relationships. Doctor Brian Kobilka was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Sleep well at night.
Family, work and sleep are all important to a scientist’s success. But they don’t all have to be a constant focus. Sometimes it will be important to avoid maintaining everything at a high level. Don’t be frightened by the idea you have to do everything perfectly at once. You can have a different focus at different times.
Don’t work too hard.
Ultimately, working too hard won’t be beneficial. Not only do you risk burning yourself out, but you are also restricted in your thinking. Taking time away from work can allow you to approach problems in a new way.
| A．Going for a walk, for example, gives you the chance to take a step back and see things differently. |
| B．Sleep, exercise and eating well can all conflict with working long hours. |
| C．He would moonlight in an emergency room as well as working in the lab. |
| D．Never hesitate to bravely rise to challenge. |
| E．Focus on different aspects of your life. |
| F．Their answers can be enlightening. |
| G．My solutions may be of some help. |
4 . Scientists agree that predicting (预测) when and where an earthquake will occur and how big it will be is not yet possible. Therefore, much research has focused on coming up with ways to reduce the damage from earthquakes, rather than trying to predict when they will occur. Specifically, finding more information about the place under the surface helps developers and others make safer choices when constructing a building. This is where Navakanesh M Batmanathan is putting his efforts.
Batmanathan is an earthquake geologist at the National University of Malaysia. He is actively engaged in mapping the areas surrounding earthquakes in Borneo. Faults (断层) are places in the Earth’s crust (地壳) that are weak to sudden movement between masses of rock, resulting in occasional earthquakes. Batmanathan is working to map the faults, as well as the infrastructure (基础设施) in the area of the faults, to hopefully reduce the potential damage that can be caused by an earthquake. Developers and engineers can use this knowledge to plan where it is safest to build and where earthquake-resistant structures are needed.
Batmanathan is using a variety of tools to map faults. Working on the ground to map the area is just one of the methods he employs. He also uses images from satellites and ground-penetrating radar (GPR). GPR is a technology that creates an underground image without digging. It has many applications, from finding the water level to understand soil and rock types for construction projects. Batmanathan and others are using this technology to map faults, and the areas around faults, to gain a clearer picture of potential earthquake damage.
It might not ever be possible to know exactly when or where an earthquake will happen, but Batmanathan hopes that his work will help educate people and better prepare them for earthquakes.
1. What is the function of paragraph 1?| A．Providing evidence. | B．Giving suggestions. |
| C．Introducing the topic. | D．Drawing a conclusion. |
| A．Studying volcanoes. | B．Recording rivers. |
| C．Predicting earthquakes. | D．Studying faults. |
| A．It can predict where an earthquake will happen. |
| B．It can be applied in mapping faults. |
| C．It can predict the time of earthquakes. |
| D．It can test the quality of the soil. |
| A．Mapping Faults for Safer Construction |
| B．Challenges in Predicting Earthquakes |
| C．The Future of Earthquake Prediction |
| D．Technology for Reducing Earthquakes |
5 . I couldn’t sleep at all last night, and my sister believes it was because I ate a bowl of really spicy (辛辣的) food before bedtime. However, I was skeptical about the connection between spicy foods and sleep. Can eating spicy foods before bedtime truly impact one’s sleep quality? Some people believe that eating spicy foods before bedtime can disrupt sleep by increasing body temperature and causing heartburn. It may be worth avoiding spicy foods close to bedtime.
To find out the relation, the researchers in Australia conducted an experiment to investigate the effects of spicy foods on sleep. They provided a group of individuals with delicious late-night meals, alternating (交替) between spicy and mild options. The results revealed that consuming spicy foods led to disrupted sleep patterns, causing participants to take longer to fall asleep and sleep for shorter time. This data supported the belief that there is a correlation between eating spicy foods and experiencing sleep disturbances.
While the exact mechanism(机制)by which spicy foods influence sleep remains unclear, researchers have proposed several possibilities. One is that stomach discomfort resulting from spicy food consumption may affect sleep quality. Additionally, the long digestion (消化) of spicy foods could delay the start of sleep. Furthermore, spicy foods contain something that can raise body temperature, which has been linked to poor sleep in previous studies.
Given these findings, it is advisable to avoid consuming spicy foods before bedtime to promote better sleep. Next time, I will follow my sister’s advice and opt for a milder meal in the evening to ensure a restful night’s sleep.
1. What do people usually think of eating spicy foods before bedtime?| A．It can make people addictive to it. |
| B．It can be bad for digestion. |
| C．It can make sleep difficult. |
| D．It can lead to an increase in energy levels. |
| A．By analyzing data. | B．By studying papers. |
| C．By doing an experiment. | D．By doing interviews. |
| A．Spicy foods take long to digest. |
| B．Body temperature has no effect on sleep. |
| C．Bad eating habit changes sleep patterns. |
| D．Sleep problems may be caused by bad habits. |
| A．To forbid children from having spicy foods. |
| B．To suggest not eating spicy foods before bedtime. |
| C．To promote some healthy food that is not spicy. |
| D．To keep up with the latest healthy food research. |
6 . Jiang Shumei wasn’t educated as a child, learning her first Chinese character at the age of 60. Now, the 87-year-old grandmother is the proud author of six books. She learned her first character in 1996, after her husband died in a car accident, when her daughter Zhang Ailing suggested that she learn to read to take her mind off the loneliness and sorrow.
Zhang says that her mother had her own way of learning. Whenever she came across characters she didn’t know at bus stops or shop signs, she found someone to ask. Once Jiang had learned enough characters, Zhang started giving her books to read. Enjoying the books, Jiang told her daughter that she wanted to write down her own stories to share.
She first put pen to paper in 2012, at the age of 75. It was not easy. Sometimes,completing a single sentence could take a day. Jiang usually started writing at 3 or 4 am, and revised the pieces several times until she was satisfied.
Zhang began publishing her mother’s stories on social media platforms in 2013. When Zhang and her mother drew the attention of Zhang’s writer friends, the pair made a decision to publish them. The first book, Time of Trouble, Time of Poverty, was published later that year, and proved to be a success. Some critics even praised it as the “live history of a nation plagued by tough times”. The book earned Jiang a lot of fans and sympathy.
So far, the elderly woman has published six books, totaling more than 600, 000characters in length. She lives a healthy life, exercising every day, drinking milk and soy milk, as well as having regular exercise. “If I could live as long as 130, would you still say that it is too late for me to start after 60?” she asks, jokingly.
1. Why did Jiang learn to read in her later years?| A．To become a proud author. |
| B．To make up for not going to school. |
| C．To encourage her friends and families. |
| D．To reduce the impact of her husband’s death. |
| A．A strong inner desire. | B．The attention from other writers. |
| C．Her daughter’s encouragement. | D．The development of social media. |
| A．Aided. | B．Enlarged. | C．Troubled. | D．Defeated. |
| A．One is never too old to learn. |
| B．All roads lead to Rome. |
| C．Where there is life, there is love. |
| D．Gold can’t be pure and man can’t be perfect. |
7 . Eradajere Oleita thinks she may have a partial solution to two of her country’s problems: garbage and poverty. It’s called the Chip Bag Project. The 26-year-old student and environmentalist from Detroit is asking a favor of local snack lovers: Rather than throw your empty chip bags into the trash, donate them so she can turn them into sleeping bags for the homeless.
Chip waters drop off their empty bags from Doritos. Lays. and other favorites at two locations in Detroit:a print shop and a clothing store. where Oleita and her volunteer helpers collect them. After they clean the chip bags in soapy hot water, they slice them open, lay them flat, and iron them together. They use padding (衬垫) and liners (衬里) from old coats to line the insides.
It takes about four hours to sew a sleeping bag and each takes around 150 to 300 chip bags depending on whether they’re single-serve or family size. The result is a sleeping bag that is “waterproof lightweight and easy to carry around”. Oleita told the Detroit News.
Since its start in 2020, the Chip Bag Project has collected more than 800,000 chip bags and, as of last December, created 110 sleeping bags. Sure, it would be simpler to raise the money to buy new sleeping bags. But that’s only half the goal for Oleita — whose family moved to the United States from Nigeria a decade ago with the hope of attaining a better life —and her fellow volunteers. “We are devoted to making an impact not only socially, but environmentally,”she says.
And, of course, there’s the symbolism of rescuing bags that would otherwise land in the trash and using them to help the homeless. It’s a powerful reminder that environmental problem and poverty often go hand in hand. As Oleita told hourdetroit.com, “I think it’s time to show connections between all of these issues.”
1. What did Oleita ask the snack lovers to do with their empty chip bags?| A．To turn them into sleeping bags. | B．To give them away to her. |
| C．To throw them into the trash. | D．To donate them to the homeless directly. |
| A．Its size is adjustable. | B．It is only made of old coats. |
| C．It has the function of heating | D．It is portable. |
| A．The aim of the project is more than social issues. |
| B．Poverty results from environmental problems. |
| C．Oleita’s project made 110 sleeping bags per month. |
| D．Oleita started the project mainly to raise money. |
| A．Hardworking and loyal. | B．Talented and social. |
| C．Responsible and creative. | D．Selfless and modest. |
8 . If you want to become a fluent English speaker you should take some advice. There are four skills in learning English. They are reading, listening, speaking and writing. The most important thing you must remember is that if you want to improve your speaking and writing skills you should first master the skills of reading and listening.
Read as much as you can. But your reading must be active. It means that you must think about the meaning of the sentence, the meaning of the unfamiliar words, etc. There is no need for you to pay much attention to grammars or try to understand all the unfamiliar words you come across, but the fact that you see them for the first time and recognize them whenever you see them, for example in other passages or books, is enough. It would be better to prepare yourself a notebook so you can write down the important words or sentences in it.
As for listening, there are two choices: besides reading, you can listen every day for about 30 minutes. You can only pay attention to your reading and become skillful at your reading, then you can catch up on your listening. Since you have lots of inputs in your mind, you can easily guess what the speaker is going to say. This never means that you should not practice listening.
For listening you can listen to cartoons or some movies that are specially made for children. Their languages are easy. Or if you are good at listening you can listen to VOA or BBC programs every day. Again the thing to remember is being active in listening and preferably taking some notes.
If you follow these pieces of advice, your speaking and writing will improve automatically, and you can be sure that with a little effort they will become perfect.
1. According to the author, which should you improve first among the four skills?| A．Reading and listening. | B．Reading and writing. |
| C．Writing and speaking. | D．Speaking and listening. |
| A．look up all the new words in the dictionary | B．think about what you are reading actively |
| C．spend more time studying grammar | D．copy as many words and sentences as possible |
| A．meet by accident | B．discover | C．find on purpose | D．look for |
| A．When you become skillful at your listening, you can catch up on your reading. |
| B．If you have enough input in your mind, it’s not necessary to practice listening. |
| C．It is not advised to take notes, because it will take up too much and affect listening. |
| D．VOA or BBC is a good listening resource if you do quite well in listening. |
9 . It was June 15, and in two days I would be turning thirty. I was insecure about entering a new decade of my life and feared that my best years were now behind me.
My daily routine included going to the gym for a workout before going to work. Every morning I would see my friend Nicholas at the gym. He was seventy-nine years old and in terrific shape. As I greeted Nicholas on this particular day, he noticed I wasn’t full of my usual vitality and asked if there was anything wrong. I told him I was feeling anxious about turning thirty. I wondered how I would look back on my life once I reached Nicholas’ sage, so I asked him, “What was the best time of your life?”
Without hesitation, Nicholas replied, “Well, Joe, this is my philosophical answer to your philosophical question.”
“When I was a child in Austria and everything was taken care of for me and I was nurtured by my parents, that was the best time of my life.”
“When I was going to school and learning the things I know today, that was the best time of my life.”
“When I got my first job and had responsibilities and got paid for my efforts, that was the best time of my life.”
“When I met my wife and fell in love, that was the best time of my life.”
“The Second World War came, and my wife and I had to flee Austria to save our lives. When we were together and safe on a ship bound for North America, that was the best time of my life.”
“When we came to Canada and started a family, that was the best time of my life.”
“When I was a young father, watching my children grow up, that was the best time of my life.”
“And now, Joe, I am seventy-nine years old. I have my health, I feel good and I am in love with my wife just as I was when we first met. This is the best time of my life.”
1. Why did the author feel anxious according to the article?| A．He would be 30 in two days. |
| B．He was worried about getting old. |
| C．He didn’t go to the gym to exercise. |
| D．Nicholas asked questions he didn’t want to answer. |
| A．He spent his childhood with his grandparents in Austria. |
| B．He dropped out of school, found a job and got paid. |
| C．He took part in the Second World War and met his wife. |
| D．He started a family and became a young father in Canada. |
| A．Casual. | B．Anxious. | C．Positive. | D．Negative. |
| A．Live a day at a time. | B．You get what you pay for. |
| C．Every man has his price. | D．Strike while the iron is hot. |
10 . Like many others, Animal Lovers League (ALL) all started with a love for animals. ALL is a charity and home to over 500 dogs and cats. It encourages the public to adopt (领养) instead of buying animals and tries to help the animals at ALL find loving families.
Tasks that the founders, Cathy and Mohan, as well as volunteers carry out to care for the animals include feeding them, taking sick animals to hospital and bringing them for checkups.
The adoption process at ALL:
STEP 1 Contact us
Learn more details about our animals for adoption, or view them on our website www.animalloversleague.com .
For dog adoptions, please WhatsApp Catheryn at 9753 3320.
For cat adoptions, please WhatsApp Mohan at 9670 8052.
STEP 2 Meet our furry kids
Get a chance to play with our furry kids, one-on-one, to find your perfect match!
All adoption visits are by appointment (预约) only. No walk-ins are allowed.
STEP 3 Homestay
We will interview you and do a home visit to ensure you are able to take care of our kids.
After that, you will go through the adoption initiation (开始) process with a 2-week homestay to see if our furry baby is able to get used to the environment of your home and if you can follow the lifestyle of having a furry kid to care for.
STEP 4 Successful adoption
You will be asked to fill in an adoption form upon the completion of this process.
We will keep in contact with you to check up on your progress.
No adoption fees are required as we do not put a price on the lives of our furry kids.
1. What do we know about Animal Lovers League?| A．It focuses on taking care of animals. |
| B．It offers professional medical treatment to animals. |
| C．It is home to many animals including dogs and cats. |
| D．It was set up to stop the buying and selling of animals. |
| A．To give people some detailed information about the animals at ALL. |
| B．To ask people to provide a home for the animals at ALL. |
| C．To teach people how to get along with animals at ALL. |
| D．To invite people to get close to the animals at ALL. |
| A．Give some money to ALL. | B．Complete an adoption form. |
| C．Attend an adoption interview. | D．Do some volunteer work for ALL. |
