1 . Eating out seems to have been as popular 5, 000 years ago as it is today, with archaeologists in Iraq uncovering an ancient tavern dating back to 2,700 BC. Researchers working in the ancient city of Lagash discovered the pub. It was hidden just 19 inches below the surface, which was split into (分成) an open-air dining area and a room with benches, an oven, ancient food and even a 5,000-year-old “fridge”.
They first found themselves in the open courtyard space, an area that was difficult to dig, being “open and exposed to the outdoors,” according to Reed Goodman, an archaeologist from the University of Pennsylvania. After returning to the ancient courtyard a few months later, field director Sara Pizzi from the University of Pisa, widened the trench (沟渠) instead of digging straight down in one spot.
The team discovered the industrial-sized oven, an ancient “fridge” to keep food cool, and dozens of bowls, many containing fish, showing the purpose of the courtyard to be an outdoor dining area.
Previous diggings focused on religious architecture and understanding the elites (上层人士) , but Holly Pittman, director of the Lagash Archaeological Project, concentrated on non-elite areas during these latest diggings to make people have a broader understanding of ancient cities. “Uncovering the pub supports the opinion of Pittman and her team that society was not organized into just elites but included ordinary people, ” Goodman said.
The discovery provides evidence into how people lived in this ancient city-state. It shows that even thousands of years ago, people enjoyed gathering in public places to socialize and enjoy food and drink.
1. What does the underlined word “tavern” in paragraph 1 refer to?| A．Pub. | B．City. | C．Bench. | D．Container. |
| A．By digging straight down in one spot. |
| B．By broadening the trench in the courtyard. |
| C．By making a hole in the middle of the outdoor space. |
| D．By splitting the open-air dining area into different parts. |
| A．It discovers the earliest settlers in Lagash. | B．It shows the social activities of the elites. |
| C．It reflects the life of the ancient ordinary people. | D．It focuses on studying religious architecture. |
| A．To share a travel experience. | B．To analyze a historical event. |
| C．To show the wisdom of ancient people. | D．To introduce an archaeological discovery. |
2 . The dragon is a great animal in Chinese culture. It brings the wind and rain. It is said that every year on the second day of the second lunar month the dragon wakes up from its winter sleep and raises its head. Because of this, the day is called “Dragon Head-raising Day (Longtaitou) ”. This year, it falls on March 4.
Old people believed that after Longtaitou, there would be more rain. And rain is very important to farming. So Longtaitou was the start of spring and farming.
People have many ways to celebrate the Longtaitou Festival. The most popular one is to have a haircut. Many believe that a haircut during the first lunar month may bring bad luck to your uncles, mainly your mother’s brothers. They hope getting a haircut on Longtaitou sweeps away bad luck.
Among Chinese people’s festival traditions, there is always a place for food. During the Longtaitou festival, people eat food named after dragons. Noodles are called dragon’s beard (longxu) . Dumplings are dragon’s ears (long’er) . And spring rolls are dragon’s scales (鳞片) (longlin) .
People also have activities like dragon dancing on the day. In some places in Shandong Province, people make dragon lanterns too. Small boats go down the rivers and carry the lanterns, which stand for people’s best wishes and good luck.
1. Which is NOT TRUE about the time of Longtaitou Festival?| A．It falls on Mar. 4 this year. |
| B．It’s on February 2 every year. |
| C．It comes on a different day every year. |
| D．It comes on the second day of the second lunar month. |
| A．It was the start of farming. | B．It was the end of Spring Festival. |
| C．It meant the weather would become windy. | D．It was a good time for bringing people luck. |
| A．It may bring more rain. | B．It may help their hair grow. |
| C．It’s believed it will get rid of bad luck. | D．It’s believed it will bring good luck to their uncles. |
| A．Spring rolls are called dragon’s beard. |
| B．Dragon dance is held before and after the festival. |
| C．There are different traditional food and activities on the festival. |
| D．Noodles and dumplings are the only traditional food of the festival. |
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1. Which column (栏目) can you choose if you want to share a story of your pets with the readers?| A．My Story | B．Smart Animals. |
| C．Power of Love. | D．Anecdotes and Jokes. |
| A．juliet@sws. com | B．susan@sws. com. |
| C．audrey@sws. com | D．nanjc@sws. com. |
| A．Stories that are real and original. | B．Stories that describe strange behaviors. |
| C．Stories that are published before. | D．Stories that include less than 800 words. |
4 . I like challenges, but this one was almost too difficult. I had begged Mom to take me on a completely new adventure for my sixteenth birthday. Now, here we were, just Mom and me with our guide, Milo, standing on the shore of Lake Arenal in Costa Rica.
Milo helped us onto our horses. Getting on the back of my horse was difficult, but controlling it was a little easier. We started on our ride. The guidebook said we would cross three rivers. As we tried to go through a gentle stream, I asked hopefully, “Is this the first river?” “I don't think so, Katie,” Mom said.
Soon enough, we came to a real river. I felt sick to my stomach when I saw that the far shore was half a football field away! The four-foot-deep river flowed over large rocks. So much for dry shoes or jeans.
After two more rivers, the path got steeper and muddier. The rainforest was splendid and absolutely beautiful. But I wondered whether my horse could keep its balance in knee-high mud. Three frightening hours later, we came to a corral (畜栏). I wondered whether we were stopping. To one side was a wonderful view of the lake and volcano, and to the other, a brightly painted restaurant. “OK,” I laughed nervously. “That was frightening, but I'm so glad we did it! ”
1. Why did the author want to have an adventure?| A．To take up a challenge. | B．To get close to nature. |
| C．To celebrate her birthday. | D．To explore the rainforest. |
| A．The horse always lost its balance. | B．The path became steeper and muddier. |
| C．There was more than one river to cross. | D．She found it difficult to cross the first river. |
| A．It was peaceful but tiring. | B．It was interesting and relaxing. |
| C．It was frightening and unpleasant. | D．It was was dangerous but worthwhile. |
| A．A travel blog | B．A science book. |
| C．A museum guide | D．A news report |
5 . In daily life, there exist some nutrition myths (谬见) that people firmly believe.
MYTH 1: Fresh fruits and vegetables are healthier
Despite the long-lasting belief that “fresh is best,” research has found that frozen, canned and dried fruits and vegetables can be just as nutritious as fresh.
MYTH2: All fat is bad
MYTH 3: Potatoes are bad for you
Potatoes have been disliked because of their high GI (升糖指数). However, research has shown that potatoes can actually be beneficial for health. Potatoes are rich in vitamin C, fiber and other nutrients. They are also inexpensive and available year-round.
| A．They can also be a money saver as they are cheaper. |
| B．However, healthy fats can help reduce your health risk. |
| C．For example, plant-based drinks are healthier than dairy milk. |
| D．The healthiest ways to prepare them include baking and boiling. |
| E．If you consume more calories than you burn, you’ll probably get fat. |
| F．Many people replaced calories from fat with calories from added sugar. |
| G．You’d better choose products with simple ingredients and no added sugars. |
6 . Alongside her impressive musical career, Leona Lewis is also the owner of a vegan (素食主义的) coffee shop, Coffee And Plants. She has great enthusiasm for the coffee shop and reveals the drink flavors that they’ve been working on lately. “We’ve just rolled out our new pumpkin drink at the coffee shop. It’s called Pumpkin Pie, and it’s really good! We use all real pumpkin puree, not flavored syrup.”
Coffee And Plants is a real passion project for Lewis, being fully plant-based. She has a long history of animal activism (行动主义), starting with going vegetarian (素食者) at the age of 12 after going on shopping trips with her mum and seeing protesters with animal testing signs. “I was so upset, I said, ‘Mum, I have to help the animals’,” she says. “That became my mission as a kid, and it’s fed into every aspect of my life.”
Her animal activism grew alongside her fame: in 2011 she supported a campaign to ban the use of wild animals in circuses, and in 2013 she released a cruelty-free makeup line with The Body Shop. When it came to opening a coffee shop, making it plant-based was a no-brainer.
“I wanted it to be plant-based because I’m plant-based,” she says. “I would often go into coffee shops and see milk cartons piled up high and think, how many cows are being milked for this? The dairy industry and mass farming—it’s so cruel and harms the environment too.”
Environmental awareness is also at the heart of Coffee And Plants, with all cups being recyclable. But ultimately, Lewis is hoping for a more widespread mindset shift. “What we really try and get people to do is actually bring in their own bottles to refill, or we encourage them to sit in and have a coffee in a cup instead,” she explains. “We need a mindset shift where we start to think, OK, we shouldn’t really be using stuff that just goes in the bin.”
1. What does the phrase “rolled out” underlined in the first paragraph mean?| A．improved | B．discovered | C．denied | D．launched |
| A．She hated to eat animal meat. | B．She wanted to protect animals. |
| C．She was inspired by her mom. | D．She was given a great mission. |
| A．To show Lewis influence on business. |
| B．To compare Lewis’ different activities. |
| C．To prove that the makeup line is plant-based. |
| D．To give an example of Lewis’ animal activism. |
| A．People have to start using reusable things. |
| B．The mind shift is quite easy to accomplish. |
| C．People shouldn’t use cups in the coffee shop. |
| D．Only vegetarians can go into the coffee shop. |
7 . Artificial intelligence(AI)models have long surpassed (超过) just creating text responses and images. Now, with only one sentence, OpenAI’s latest text-to-video model, Sora, can turn your words into video with good visual quality while faithfully following your content instructions.
Sora is said to perform better than many other existing models with similar functions. The Al model can create video at suitable aspect ratios (屏幕高宽比) for different devices, such as both widescreen videos and vertical videos that we usually see on social media. It also lets users quickly test out content in lower quality before making the high-quality version, which helps speed up output.
Aside from this, its ability to present videos in a realistic and smooth manner is amazing. Sora can create detailed scenes with several characters, scientific types of motion, and accurate subject and background details while generating multiple shots with a single video. Beyond the user’s requests, it also understands how these elements exist in the real world. For example, reflections in the water changes as a woman walks by.
Sora’s performance wouldn’t be possible without its helpful assistant, ChatGPT, which transforms simple sentences into detailed descriptions. improving the accuracy of output according to the user’s prompts (提示语).
However, the current model isn’t perfect. It may have trouble accurately showing how things move in a complicated scene and might not get how one action leads to another. For example, if someone eats part of a cookie in a Sora-made video, the cookie might not look like it’s been bitten into. The model might mix up directions like left and right, and find it hard to describe events in the right order.
As of February, Sora is still in the testing stage of development. OpenAI is now inviting cybersecurity professionals to make random attacks on Sora’s system, aiming to test the model’s possible weaknesses and risks. Sora has also been open to some visual artists, designers and filmmakers. Their feedback (反馈) will assist OpenAI in enhancing the model to better serve creative professionals.
1. What is the main focus of paragraphs 2-3?| A．Sora’s strengths. | B．Sora’s variety. |
| C．Sora’s development. | D．Sora’s techniques. |
| A．By specifying user input. | B．By providing verbal feedback. |
| C．By examining sample videos. | D．By improving video quality. |
| A．To stress Sora’s potential safety risks. |
| B．To illustrate Sora’s existing limitations. |
| C．To show Sora’s perfect performance. |
| D．To explain the concept of a space time patch. |
| A．It has been made available to various industries. |
| B．Its commercial release has been called off. |
| C．It has exposed alarming security issues. |
| D．It is undergoing testing and improvement. |
8 . When Zhou Longshan started filming birds 10 years ago at Baiyangdian Lake, a major wetland in northern China, he just wanted to record his favorite species—egrets. Then, things snowballed. In the following years, the teacher became a bird-watcher, a volunteer ranger at the lake, a photographer documenting over 110 bird species and an educator popularizing bird-related information among students.” Sharing bird-protection knowledge with children can make them feel the beauty of their hometown and the importance of birds, and help them cultivate the habit of protecting birds from an early age,” he says.
Over time, Zhou’s interest in birds continued to grow. In 2021, he was appointed as a bird observer by the natural resources bureau (自然资源局) of Anxin county, responsible for conducting regular patrols (巡逻) and popularizing bird-related knowledge. To monitor birds, Zhou would ride a bike to Baiyangdian almost every day before dawn, whatever the weather. He would record the birds appearing at the lake, along with their locations, where they fed and when they migrated, thus providing reference data for staff members of the natural resources bureau of Anxin county.
Although Zhou takes delight in the role, there are still many challenges. Sometimes, he has to navigate earth embankments on his bike. One summer day in 2021, he fell into a ditch with water more than a meter deep, resulting in water damage to his cellphone.
However, these difficult episodes have not undermined Zhou’s love of birds. Over the years, he has taken more than 100,000 pictures of the birds at Baiyangdian. During his spare time, he reads books on China’s birds, talks with other enthusiasts and university professors, and updates his WeChat official account to introduce Baiyangdian to a wider audience.
These days, Zhou’s schedule is growing busier. In addition to his regular patrols near the lake, he is sometimes invited to local schools to give lectures, keeping students informed about birds and how to protect them. Zhou will retire next month. “I will continue patrolling the lake and photographing the birds to contribute to the protection of birds in my hometown,” he says.
1. Why did Zhou start taking photos of birds at first?| A．To share bird-protection knowledge with children. |
| B．To cultivate the habit of protecting birds. |
| C．To keep track of his favorite species. |
| D．To become a volunteer ranger at the lake. |
| A．He rode a bike to Baiyangdian every day before dawn. |
| B．He went to Baiyangdian in all weathers. |
| C．He recorded all the birds along with their locations. |
| D．He provided reference data for natural resources bureau. |
| A．He didn’t meet any challenges while doing the job. |
| B．He reads books about birds all over the world in his free time. |
| C．He is invited to local schools to give lectures every day. |
| D．He uses social media to introduce Baiyangdian to more people. |
| A．Enthusiastic and controlling. | B．Knowledgeable and persistent. |
| C．Farsighted and reserved. | D．Considerate and stubborn. |
9 . In a large survey of people’s first memories, nearly 40% of participants reported a first memory that is likely to be fictional, according to findings published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
Current research indicates that people’s earliest memories date from around 3 to 3. 5 years of age. However, the study from researchers at City, University of London, the University of Bradford, and Nottingham Trent University found that 38.6% of 6, 641 participants claimed to have memories from age 2 or younger, with 893 people claiming memories from age 1 or younger. This was particularly prevalent among middle-aged and older adults.
As many of these memories dated before the age of 2 and younger, the authors suggest that these fictional memories are based on remembered fragments (碎片) of early experience — such as a pram (婴儿车), family relationships and feeling sad — and some facts or knowledge about their own infancy or childhood which may have been derived from photographs or family conversations.
“Further details may be unconsciously inferred or added” added Shazia Akhatr, first author on the study and Senior Research Associate at the University of Bradford.
“When we looked through the responses from participants we found that a lot of these first ‘memories’ were frequently related to infancy, and a typical example would be a memory based around a pram,” explained Martin Conway, Director at the Centre for Memory and Law at City, University of London and coauthor of the paper.
“For this person, this type of memory could have resulted from someone saying something like ‘mother and a large green pram’. The person then imagines what it would have looked like. Over time these fragments then become a memory and often the person will start to add things in such as a string of toys along the top,” he added.
“Crucially, the person remembering them doesn’t know this is fictional,” Conway noted. “In fact when people are told that their memories are false they often don’t believe it. This partly due to the fact that the systems that allow us to remember things are very complex, and it’s not until we’re 5 or 6 that we form adult-like memories due to the way that the brain develops and due to our maturing understanding of the world.”
1. What can be inferred from the study mentioned in the passage?| A．Some people have clear knowledge about their own infancy. |
| B．Added details are an important clue to recall the childhood. |
| C．Most people claimed to have memories from age 2 or younger. |
| D．Talks between family members affect the earliest memories. |
| A．By making comparison. | B．By setting examples. |
| C．By analyzing data. | D．By referring to documents. |
| A．They have a strong desire to remember things accurately. |
| B．They have a tendency to trust their own memories without questioning them. |
| C．Their brain development makes it hard to distinguish real and false memories. |
| D．Their memories are closely related to complex things in life. |
| A．Many people’s earliest memories may be fictional. |
| B．People’s earliest memories can date back to 2 or younger. |
| C．The middle-aged and adults specialize in detailing their first memory. |
| D．Memories develop due to our maturing understanding of the world. |
10 . How to Get Lucky in Life
Ever wish you could tip the scales in your favour? Well, good news—you can!
Embrace a positive mindset
By shifting your mindset from a focus on obstacles to a celebration of possibilities, you adopt a more optimistic approach to life. To do this, start your day by looking at yourself in the mirror, exclaim positive affirmations, and watch as your attitude shapes the universe around you. “I’m so lucky, everything works out for me”, “I deeply and completely love and accept myself”, “I am grateful for all the blessings in my life”—just a few examples.
When you cultivate a daily gratitude practice, you actively engage in recognising and appreciating the abundance that exists in your life, no matter how seemingly insignificant. Gratitude generates a positive feedback loop in your thoughts and emotions. This shift in perspective has profound effects on your mental and emotional state, offering a sense of contentment, joy and fulfilment.
Take risks
Taking risks and stepping beyond comfort zones, you not only expand your horizons but also create a fertile ground for good luck. To take risks effectively requires a mindset shift towards viewing challenges as opportunities rather than obstacles.
Taking proper action involves ensuring that your efforts and decisions are in harmony with your values, goals, and overall vision. To begin, it’s crucial to have a clear understanding of your objectives and what truly matters to you.
| A．Cultivate gratitude. |
| B．Engage actively. |
| C．Focusing on your life’s blessings, you cultivate a mindset of abundance. |
| D．Get creative and state them loud and proud. |
| E．Match your actions with your values. |
| F．Uncertainty is a natural part of the journey. |
| G．There are subtle yet powerful ways to get lucky every single day. |
