1 . Edinburgh is famous for its many museums where you can learn its rich history.

Museum on the Mound

Located in the heart of Edinburgh’s city center, this appealing museum takes a fresh look at money — and much, much more. You will see coins and banknotes from over the ages, including the first Scottish banknote printed in 1727. There are also interesting interactive displays and you can even try your hand at opening a safe!

The Writers’ Museum

It is housed in the beautiful Lady Stair’s House, a category A listed building. The collection celebrates the legacy (遗产) of Scotland’s literary contributions, with special emphasis given to Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson and Robert Burns. The museum is home to numerous paintings, books and manuscripts (手稿), and you can also see Burns’ writing desk and Scott’s chess set.

Our Dynamic Earth

It celebrates the beauty of the earth via technology. Interactive exhibits allow visitors to experience earthquakes, the ocean floor, ice ages and mountains by the use of computer software. Particularly interesting is the “tour” around the eleven Earthscapes. It is educational fun for the whole family and can serve as a good introduction to concepts surrounding the formation of the planet and the creatures we share the earth with.

National Museum of Scotland

The diverse collections here include the history of Scotland with exhibitions of international interest. The natural world, science and technology, discoveries, art, and world cultures are all explored. There are interactive elements and activities to suit children of all ages, including science experiments and musical instruments.

1. Which might be the most attractive to finance majors?

A．Our Dynamic Earth.	B．Museum on the Mound.
C．The Writers’ Museum.	D．National Museum of Scotland.

2. What do The Writers’ Museum and National Museum of Scotland have in common?

A．They have an artistic atmosphere.	B．They have interactive exhibits.
C．They provide hands-on activities.	D．They showcase world cultures.

3. What can you do at Our Dynamic Earth?

A．Play with your family.	B．Tour the world virtually.
C．Design computer software.	D．Learn about ancient creatures.

2 . Eating more plants is a great move for your health and the environment.     1     There are some common mistakes people make when going meatless:

Not replacing meat with other protein sources. When you take something out of your diet, you take out the nutrients that food provided.     2     Some nutritionists recommend including protein sources like beans, soy foods, nuts and nut butters, seeds and seed butters, and whole grains.

    3     There are more choices than ever for plant-based burgers, sausage, and ground “meat”, and they seem like a no-brainer good choice. But man-made meats also tend to be heavily processed, which contain ingredients (成分) that offer zero nutrition such as preservatives and coloring.

Taking too much cheese. Limit your intake of refined carbohydrates (碳水化合物), sweets and cheese. Cheese is an easy way to get meat-free protein, but too much can end up adding a lot of saturated (饱和的) animal fat in your diet. People are suggested to get most of their protein from plant-based sources and use smaller amounts of cheese to give flavor.     4    

Not having enough vegetables. The point of eating more plant-based food is to eat more plants!     5     The trick is that no matter what you are eating, throw a handful of greens onto your plate or bowl.

A．Making an effort to eat protein.

B．But that doesn’t always happen.

C．Take a look at your plate before you eat.

D．Eating too many processed man-made meats.

E．Meat is a rich source of protein, iron and B vitamins.

F．But simply eating less meat doesn’t guarantee health benefits.

G．Replace cheese with things like nut-based sauces in some dishes.

3 . Scientists have observed a planet being swallowed by its host star for the first time. They believe this could be a preview of what could one day happen to Earth — but don’t worry, that won’t be for about another five billion years.

The US astronomers said that when the sun finally does swallow Earth, it will cause only a “tiny change” compared to the cosmic (宇宙的) explosion they just witnessed. Most planets are believed to meet their end when their host star runs out of energy, turning into a red giant that massively expands, destroying anything unlucky enough to be in its path.

Astronomers had previously seen the before-and-after effects of this process, but had never caught a planet in the act of being consumed. Lead researcher Kishalay De said the accidental discovery unfolded like a “detective story”.

“It all started about three years ago when I was looking at data from the Zwicky Transient Facility survey, which took images of the sky every night,” Dr. De said.

He came across a star that had suddenly increased in brightness by more than 100 times over a 10-day period. The star is in the Milky Way galaxy (银河系), around 12,000 light years from Earth near the Aquila constellation (天鹰座). Dr. De had been searching for binary star (双星) systems, in which the larger star takes bites out of its companion, creating incredibly bright explosions called outbursts. But data showed that this outburst was surrounded by cold gas, suggesting it was not a binary star system.

And NASA’s infra-red space telescope NEOWISE showed that dust had started to shoot out of the area months before the outburst. More puzzling still was that the outburst produced around 1,000 times less energy than previously observed mergers (合并) between stars.

1. What is paragraph 2 mainly about?

A．US astronomers are concerned about the future of Earth.

B．The harm the cosmic explosion may bring.

C．A prediction made by US astronomers about Earth.

D．Harmony between the Earth and the Sun is of great importance.

2. What can be learned from what Kishalay De said?

A．He loves detective stories.	B．His efforts paid off at last.
C．The survey made him suffer.	D．He took pride in his discovery.

3. What is the feature of the star newly found by Dr. De?

A．It is near the Aquila constellation.	B．It has the strongest brightness.
C．It can swallow other host stars.	D．It causes explosions constantly.

4. In which section of a website can you read the text?

A．Science.

B．Literature.

C．Documentary.

D．Education.

4 . A great skill to have is the ability to solve problems effectively, specifically interpersonal and behavioral problems. In order to achieve this, you need to follow a few key requirements.     1    

First, you should understand “why” the problem exists.     2     If you know something about why the problem exists, you’ll have a better time to resolve the problem. Let’s take the example of a child who doesn’t want to come to school. Before you can reach a solution, it is important to find out why the child doesn’t want to come to school.

Once you have clearly identified the problem, you need to understand what you have control over and what don’t.     3     You may not control whether a child comes to school, but you are able to deal with the barrier to the child not wanting to attend school.

Don’t jump to conclusions. Once you have all of your information, analyze it carefully and look at it from various viewpoints. Be as objective as possible and don’t be quick to judge.     4     This is a time for you to use your critical thinking skills.

    5     How many options do you have? Are you sure? Which options seem reasonable? Have you weighed the pros and cons (事物的利与弊) of your options? Are there any limitations of your options? Are there any options better than others and why? Are there advantages and disadvantages you need to take into consideration?

A．Now determine your options for solutions.

B．Remain judgment-free as much as possible.

C．Ask yourself questions about what options you have.

D．That means figuring out the actual root cause of the problem.

E．Read on to find how to become a more effective problem solver.

F．The strategies in problem-solving are good lifelong skills to have.

G．Your efforts must be within the areas where you are in the driver’s seat.

5 . Writer Andrew Leland started losing his sight 20 years ago, when he was in high school, as a result of a progressive eye disease called retinitis pigmentosa (色素性视网膜炎). His first experience of loss of sight happened temporarily at night, in which he was confused that everyone else seemed to see in the dark so much better than he did. Over the years, his disease has progressed gradually. He’s now legally blind, although he still has a narrow field of vision, which allows him to see about 6% of what a fully sighted person sees.

Leland analogized his vision to the view you might get by looking through a toilet paper tube or a keyhole. He said, “Imagine having that toilet paper tube tied to your head and trying to walk down the street; there’s a whole bunch of things you don’t see but that you really ought to, like dogs.”

In his new book, The Country of the Blind, Leland writes about losing his vision and preparing for blindness, how his condition impacts his identity, how the world sees him and his marriage, and something valuable he has learned.

He said he was not going to try to tell people that having vision was not an unbelievably useful thing for a human being for many reasons. When talking about the experience of being alive and being conscious, he referred to James Joyce — Joyce believed that he was only losing one world among many, and that vision was only a tiny part of experiences when he was going blind.

He thought if you looked at the things that blind people were capable of imagining, like John Milton writing Paradise Lost as a blind person, there was this unbelievable richness in humans’ consciousness that vision had nothing to do with. Other realms (领域) such as the mental and emotional realms were all so rich that they could also help unfold things on earth before you.

1. What do we know about Leland?

A．He went totally blind in high school.

B．He experienced night blindness at first.

C．He was born with a narrow field of vision.

D．He was aware of his condition throughout.

2. Which is closest in meaning to “analogized” underlined in paragraph 2?

A．Connected.

B．Reduced.

C．Compared.

D．Exposed.

3. Why is James Joyce mentioned?

A．To help explain an opinion.

B．To stress the value of good vision.

C．To state his considerable influence.

D．To show the inconvenience of blindness.

4. What message is conveyed in the last paragraph?

A．Practice is the best teacher.

B．The blind have more vivid imagination.

C．Things are not set in concrete.

D．Vision is not the only window in the world.

6 . About 12% of the total global energy demand comes from heating and cooling homes and businesses. A new study suggests that using underground water to maintain comfortable temperatures could reduce consumption of natural gas and electricity in this section by 40% in the US. The approach is called ATES, short for aquifer thermal energy storage (含水层热能储存).

“We need storage to absorb energy from the sun and wind. It’s crucial to creating affordable, reliable, and deeply environmental-friendly electricity systems. Most people are interested in batteries and other kinds of electrical storage. But we were wondering whether there was any opportunity to use geothermal (地热的) energy storage,” said first author A.T.D Perera. “With ATES, energy can be stored for a long period of time, without adding an additional burden to the grid (输电网).”

ATES is a pleasantly simple concept that takes advantage of the heat-absorbing property of water and the natural geological features of the planet. You simply pull existing underground water up and heat it at the surface in the summer with environmental heat or energy. Then you send it back down. It stays fairly hot because the Earth is a good insulator (绝热体).

“Unlike above-ground tank-based water or ice storage systems, ATES will not need space. It’s also more efficient and can support larger communities in cooling or heating than traditional geothermal heat pump systems that rely on heat moving with the underground soil,” added co-author Hong Tianzhen.

A major beneft of ATES is that it will become more efficient as weather becomes more extreme in the coming years due to climate change. The hotter summers and severer winters could increase the amount of free thermal energy that can be stored with ATES. “It’s very much a realistic thing to do and this work is really about showing its value,” said Perera. “This technology is ready to go, so to speak. We just need to do it.”

1. What do we know about ATES?

A．It is technologically demanding.

B．It is aimed at replacing natural energy.

C．It mainly relies on batteries to function.

D．It helps achieve an environmentally friendly society

2. How does Hong Tianzhen explain ATES’s advantages?

A．By giving examples.	B．By discussing results.
C．By making comparisons.	D．By analyzing principles.

3. Which will affect ATES’s efficiency most?

A．Temperature variations.	B．Insulated materials.
C．The duration of storage.	D．The category of energy.

4. What can be the best title for the text?

A．A Turning Point in Energy Usage

B．A Solution to Green Cooling and Heating

C．A Transformation in the US Electricity System

D．A Discovery About Geothermal Energy Storage

7 . When you look at yourself in the mirror, do you focus on something you wish were different, and hear a critical inside voice?     1    . But if you are ready to be kind to yourself and willing to send that negative voice away forever, how do you begin? There are three steps to overcome our “negativity bias” (负面偏见).

1. Start with Mindful Awareness

Being aware of how you are treating yourself is really the first step.     2    . Use your actual name as you describe what you are doing, seeing, and feeling.

Then, instead of criticizing yourself, be curious about what you did and the reasons behind it. Remind yourself that you are doing the best with what you have. And pay your attention to the positive side of the situation.

2.     3    

We all are worthy of love and we need to show loving kindness to ourselves. That might seem awkward at first, but with a little practice, the process will become easier. Soon the positive feeling you receive from self-kindness will provide you with a sense of happiness.

One of the best practices to build up your self-kindness is called “Note to a Dear Friend”. When you are facing a challenge or difficulty, write a note to a friend as if they were facing the same problem.     4    . Then, take the note and change your friend’s name to your own.

3. Recognize That You Aren’t Alone

Not one of us lives a perfect life. Everyone faces challenges and makes mistakes.     5    . First, you get a little bit less lonely. You are not the only person suffering, and knowing that takes a weight off your shoulders. Second, it becomes a little easier to open up to others, and say, “I need help.” We don’t have to pretend that everything is great when it isn’t. It’s OK to take off our masks and let people know exactly how we feel!

A．Practice Kindness

B．Show Others Kindness

C．It is important to face them

D．Simply name your feeling and inside voice

E．Write down what you think would help your friend

F．When we recognize that, valuable things will happen

G．If so, you may have the tendency to criticize yourself

8 . The 2023 China-Germany Automobile Conference was held in Jilin, Henan, and Zhejiang recently. At the conference, people discussed plans for new energy vehicles (NEVs) and collaboration (合作) between Germany and China.

China has established a competitive edge in NEVs. In 2022, China’s market share of NEVs accounted for more than 65 percent of the global total, maintaining its position as the world’s leading NEV market for eight years, China Daily reported.

Reflecting on the journey of leading Chinese electric car manufacturer (制造商) BYD, Chairman Wang Chuanfu recalled about 2003 when BYD entered into the NEV industry amid doubts and mockery, as few people back then believed in the future of NEVs. Surprisingly, within a few years, China’s NEV exports increased greatly. In 2022, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers reported an impressive total export volume of 679,000 NEVs.

In the European market, Chinese brands, such as BYD and Hongqi, have entered the top 50 best-selling motor companies across Europe, The Times reported. Shu Youxing, general manager of BYD International Cooperation Division and the European Automobile Sales Division, said that the company’s pure electric buses have now hit the roads of more than 100 major European cities such as Amsterdam, London, and Copenhagen, helping Europeans cut carbon emissions by over 200,000 tons.

NEVs made in China are also popular in Mexico. One local, Israel Aguilar, is deeply impressed. After nearly a year of trying out a Chinese NEV, Aguilar said he may never go back to driving his traditional petrol car, stating that the NEV offers better comfort.

“Technology is truly very important in these times, especially for a vehicle. And it has been truly extraordinary for me to handle these technologies that come from China,” Aguilar told Xinhua.

The thriving global expansion of Chinese NEVs is primarily thanks to the efforts of companies to improve their capability for innovation. One major example of this is China’s drive to become the global leader in making EV batteries, fueled by an advantage in the supply chain and raw materials such as lithium (锂) and cobalt (钴).

1. What can we learn about BYD?

A．BYD always maintains the world’s leading position.

B．BYD lost hope due to doubts and mockery.

C．BYD suffered hardship in its development.

D．BYD exports 679,000 NEVs each year.

2. What can we infer from the fourth paragraph?

A．Only BYD and Hongqi have entered the European market.

B．Chinese NEVs can help protect the environment.

C．Pure electric buses have caused many road accidents.

D．Importing Chinese NEVs is a main task for The Times.

3. What is Aguilar’s attitude to the technology from China?

A．Dismissive.

B．Satisfied.

C．Unclear.

D．Doubtful.

4. What is the key factor for the global expansion of Chinese NEVs?

A．The ability of creation.	B．Cooperation with partners.
C．The big overseas markets.	D．Making EV batteries.

9 . A solar tree is a structure like a tree that generates solar energy using photovoltaic panels (太阳能光伏板). It helps solve an urgent global challenge: Replacing greenhouse gas-emitting energy sources like oil and gas with renewable energy. But the power generation potential of solar trees is relatively limited, and their primary purpose is to raise public awareness about renewable energy by getting people to notice and interact with solar energy in new ways.

Solar trees generally have a firm metal, plastic, or stone base that extends up and out into “branches” on which solar panels are mounted. Beyond this basic structure, there is great diversity in the design of solar tree units. The solar tree’s photovoltaic “leaves” absorb sunlight, converting it into electricity that is conducted down through the trunk-like central pillar of the structure to an inside battery. Many designs feature rotating (旋转的) panels that can move throughout the day in order to obtain the greatest amount of sunlight.

Solar trees help power homes, businesses, and public services. They can create shade to help reduce the urban heat island effect and provide shelter in severe weather such as rainstorms and heatwaves, creating greater urban adapting ability in the face of climate change. They also enhance public spaces, providing charging stations, and powering streetlights.

In comparison to other kinds of ground-mounted solar panel devices, solar trees don’t require much land. They make solar energy generation possible in areas with little land that can’t support vast solar arrays, as well as places that lack sufficient rooftop space for panels. However, solar panels are much cheaper than solar trees at present and have far greater energy generation capacity. Therefore, present solar tree designs often serve as a extra source rather than as a primary energy source.

At present, solar trees aren’t designed as large-scale solar projects, which limits their ability to contribute to the low-carbon energy transition. Still, their varied designs are appealing. This makes solar trees effective at displaying and thereby educating people about solar energy, and promoting a business or organization’s commitment to renewable energy.

1. What is the main purpose of building solar trees?

A．To beautify the urban environment.	B．To draw public attention to solar energy.
C．To replace non-renewable energy resources.	D．To provide charging services in emergencies.

2. What do we know about a solar tree?

A．It stores energy in its own battery.

B．It can adjust its height automatically.

C．It is made of environmentally friendly materials.

D．It transforms sunlight into electricity by its metal base.

3. What does the third paragraph mainly talk about?

A．The design features of solar trees.	B．The ways of saving energy in cities.
C．The benefits of solar trees to humans.	D．The difficulties of promoting solar trees.

4. What is the advantage of solar trees over other ground-mounted solar panel devices?

A．They occupy much less land.	B．They are cheaper to manufacture.
C．They are more effective in generating energy.	D．They can work in various weather conditions.

10 . Lightning (闪电) is a beautiful and inspiring phenomenon, but it can be deadly. Over the past 30 years, lightning has killed an average of 67 people per year in the United States alone.     1     . Follow these steps to safety the next time there’s fire in the sky.

Find shelter immediately

If you find yourself caught in a lightning storm, never stand under a tree, and avoid being close to power lines as they’re both excellent conductors (导体) of electricity and could potentially cause death, if not serious injury.     2     . It’s the key to minimizing danger.

Watch out for dangers

Windows provide a direct path for the lightning to travel. Keep windows closed, stay away from them and try to stay within inner rooms of the structure.     3     Using a landline phone is the main cause of lightning-related injuries. Lightning can travel into the home from through any material that conducts electricity. This includes landlines, electrical wiring, and plumbing.

    4    

Being near water is extremely dangerous during a lightning storm, so move away from the body of water. If you are fishing, swimming or on a boat, get out of the water immediately and hurry back to the bank.

Stay inside

Stay inside at least 30 minutes after the last strike. Don’t go out just because the rain is starting to let up. There is still a significant risk of lightning strikes from a departing storm.     5     .

Lightning is dangerous but you can minimize your risk. The advice is simple: increase the awareness of avoiding danger and master proper knowledge to protect yourself from a thunderstorm.

A．Get away from the water

B．Prepare enough water

C．Go to hospital quickly

D．Don’t touch anything metal or electrical

E．Find shelter near or under a stony shelter

F．Wait for news that the danger has passed

G．Fortunately, most lightning-related deaths are preventable