1 . Born in London on 28 November 1772, Luke Howard was interested in the weather from an early age     1     He was instead easily distracted (分心) by the clouds he could see through the window. He started his career as a pharmacist, producing and sending out medicines for people.     2     He soon became an amateur meteorologist (业余气象学者).

In 1802, Howard presented his research in a lecture to the Askesian Society, a club for people who were interested in science. At this point, meteorology hadn't progressed as much as other sciences, because it was difficult to take observations when the weather was always changing. To take his observations, Howard did sketches (草图) of the clouds as they moved and changed in the sky.     3    

Howard suggested that although the shapes of clouds were changing, there were three basic types of clouds in the sky, to which he gave Latin names.     4    . The second was“cumulus”, meaning heap (一堆) or pile. And the third was “stratus”, meaning layer or sheet. He also introduced four other cloud types to recognize the changing clouds when they are joining together or breaking apart. In 1803, he published his research in a paper called “On the Modifications of Clouds”.

After the publication of Howard's research, the field of meteorology continued to develop. Scientists now have a much greater understanding of weather patterns (模式) all around the world.     5     Professor Liz Bentley, Chief Executive of the Royal Meteorological Society, said, “His scientific work helped us understand our climate.”

A．There are now 10 types of clouds.

B．But his true passion was meteorology.

C．But it was Howard's work that started it all.

D．He couldn't stay focused when he was at school.

E．This helped him to recognize the forms we know today.

F．Howard's findings also inspired the artist John Constable.

G．The first was called “cirrus”, which means tendril or hair in Latin.

2 . Do you have plastic bottles at home? Did you throw empty plastic bottles into the trash, just because you didn’t know how to use them? However, there are many interesting things you can do with empty plastic bottles!     1    

●Spray for your garden.     2     Then adjust the rubber bracelet to the mouth of the bottle, and make sure the plastic bottle mouth neatly fits through the hole in the lid. When everything is ready, you will have a spray bottle for your garden!

●Separate eggs. Do you find it challenging to separate eggs? In some recipes, you just need the yolks (蛋黄) or the whites, but the process is a bit complicated.     3     Break the egg into a bowl. Remove the lid from the bottle and pinch a little. Then continue the pressure, put the ends into the yolks and stop the pressure. In this way, the yolks will be absorbed into the bottle while the whites will remain on the plate.

    4     When making biscuits, you may need tools to cut them. Plastic bottles will do again. Making a homemade biscuit cutter from plastic bottles is the best way to reuse plastic bottles, as you never know the situation when you need to use it. You just need a small or a large plastic bottle depending on your needs.     5     And then take one of two sections to cut the biscuits.

A．Cut off the biscuits.

B．Make biscuits easily.

C．Cut the bottle into half.

D．So next time take advantage of them.

E．Use bottles to kill garden pests effectively.

F．Don’t worry, and you can solve this problem with a plastic bottle.

G．For this trick, you only need to drill a few holes in a plastic bottle.

3 . Is art boring? It’s not, really. I don’t think so, at least. But there’s a problem with how we look at art, how we approach it.

Museums are formal and strangely dry. There’s no embrace. Barriers prevent us from leaving the path set by the curator (馆长). Glass traps the paintings permanently in their frames – an invisible barrier that prevents us from ever getting close to the art, from touching it, feeling it. Guides and guards are constantly observing us, stopping us from taking photos, or using selfie sticks, or talking too loud. Museums have too many rules. And they’ve made our art boring.

We should be able to see art, to sometimes touch it. How can we feel any connection to the world? Art is a way to connect to the world, and yet so much of our art (and it is our art, not theirs, not yours — but ours) is unreachable.

Why can’t we laugh in museums? Why can’t we take silly selfies in front of art, our tongues sticking out, our hands in the air? Art is not boring and yet, we as a society, have made it so. We’ve trapped incredible artists behind glass boxes, with random rules governing noise levels, lights, flashes, sounds, photos, selfies, pens & pencils.

I love art. I think it has this incredible power to change our world. It can move us — as individuals, or as a collective society. Art is so often a window to something else. And yet we’ve allowed museums and galleries and collectors to prevent us from ever opening those windows.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy art museums. There are many fantastic ones around the world. And without so many wonderful curators and collectors, we wouldn’t be able to enjoy much of the art that is created -the masterpieces and the newer, more contemporary (and sometimes crazy) art. But at the same time, we’ ve allowed museums too much control.

They’ve taken our art. They’ve controlled our world. And our world, our art — it’s not meant to be controlled. It’s meant to be experienced — however that may be. It’s an individual, personal choice. Let’s take back our art, our museums. And take some selfies.

1. According to the writer, how may visitors to museums feel?

A．Interested.

B．Unwelcome.

C．Excited.

D．Ashamed.

2. What can we infer from paragraph 5?

A．The writer believes that art should never be kept in museums.

B．The writer is losing his love of art due to museums’ policies.

C．The writer believes museums are taking away the power of art.

D．The writer believes that art should be replaced by something else.

3. What does the underlined phrase “get me wrong” in paragraph 6 mean?

A．Help me.

B．Control me.

C．Misunderstand me.

D．Frighten me.

4. Which of the following statements would the writer agree with?

A．All of us can create art.	B．Museums are of little use.
C．Admission to museums should be free.	D．Museums should give visitors more freedom.

4 . We get it. Students are busy. Among a challenging curriculum, exciting social life and personal commitments, sometimes it can be difficult to remember to take care of yourself.     1     That’s why it’s so important to develop great habits now that you can follow for a lifetime. Check out the following health tips to ensure you stay at the top of your game for the rest of the semester and beyond. Here’s what you should do to stay healthy.

Eat Right. This can seem difficult, but, when broken down, is a bit more attainable. The principles you should follow are very simple.     2     Balance your meals by ensuring you have the proper amounts of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, dairy and proteins while leaving sugary and fatty foods by the wayside.

Exercise. Keeping your body healthy and in shape is important.     3     You can simply walk to your classes, take a class that involves physical fitness or check out the student facilities your campus offers for students to use.

Get Enough Sleep. It can be difficult to ensure you’ re getting enough sleep when you’ve got a huge load of class work or other commitments. But getting enough sleep can really improve your overall health and wellness. Try to stick to a sleep schedule so that you can stay well-rested throughout the day.     4     Also, try not to eat or drink caffeinated beverages near bedtime.

Drink Lots of Water. Staying hydrated will give you more energy throughout the day, refresh your body, stop you from overeating and aid in concentration. It also helps prevent those headaches, so fill up your water bottle daily.     5    

A．It doesn’t have to be extreme either!

B．Joining a gym is essential for every high-school student.

C．Remember to use a refillable bottle for the environment.

D．Of course, when you’ re really busy, you may turn to fast food.

E．But, without your health, none of your other activities are possible.

F．Always eat breakfast, never skip meals and snack often to avoid hunger.

G．So don’t pull all-nighters, and turn off all of your electronic devices on time.

5 . Many people want to grow their own food in their own backyard, but they don’t know how to start. This article will teach you how to start!

Find out what plants to get. Get plants that can grow in your area, and make sure you plant them at the right time of the year.     1     Usually you should start your garden after the last frost date in the spring t While they’re technically fruits, a good starter plant to grow is tomatoes. You can plant these in a pot or in your garden.

    2     Make sure there is enough space to grow your plants. Use a tiller (犁) and till the whole space you will be gardening. Then pull out any weeds and move any large rocks. Find out how big your plants get and space them accordingly. If your plant needs slightly acidic (酸性的) soil, get an acid metre and make sure the soil has enough acidity.     3     To grow them well, you can buy fertilizer that can add acidity to the soil.

Buy your plants and fertilizers. You can either get seeds or get plant seedlings. Go to your local nursery and see what they have. Get fertilizer as well.     4     This will make your plants grow, better and faster!

Plant your plants in the garden. Use a hand shovel and dig a small hole big enough to put your plant in. Water your plant before you put it in so you can wet the root ball. Sprinkle (撒) in a little bit of fertilizer and put your plant in.     5    

For seeds, stick your finger into the dirt where you want to plant the seed until the dirt reaches the second joint on your finger.

A．Learn how to start a garden.

B．Plan out your garden wisely.

C．Make sure to get the right fertilizer for your plants.

D．Some plants that need acidity are tomatoes and blueberries.

E．You should grow and water them in spring if you want to have a good start.

F．Then surround the plant with dirt and make a small circle around it for water.

G．If you plant them too early or too late, they could freeze and die before you can harvest vegetables.

6 . Scientists looking to uncover the mysteries of the underwater world have more valuable information thanks to an international team that has produced a list of species confirmed or expected to produce sounds underwater.

Led by Audrey Looby from the University of Florida, the Global Library of Underwater Biological Sounds working group collaborated with the World Register of Marine Species to document 729 mammals (哺乳动物), fishes, and invertebrates (无脊椎动物) that produce active or passive sounds. In addition, the list includes another 21,911 species that are considered to likely produce sounds.

“With more than 70% of the Earth’s surface covered by water, most of the planet’s habitats are aquatic, and there is a misconception that most aquatic organisms are silent. The newly published comprehensive digital database on what animals are known to make sounds is the first of its kind and can revolutionize marine and aquatic science,” the researchers said.

“Listening to underwater sounds can reveal a lot of information about the species that produce them and is useful for a variety of applications, ranging from fisheries management, invasive species detection to assessing human environmental impacts,” said Looby, who also co-created FishSounds, which offers a collection of fish sound production research records.

The team’s research was published in Scientific Data and involved 19 authors from six countries. “Understanding how marine species interact with their environments is of global importance, and this data being freely available is a major step toward that goal,” said Kieran Cox, a member of the research team.

“Most people are familiar with whale or dolphin sounds but are often surprised to learn that many fishes and invertebrates use sounds to communicate, too,” Looby said. “Our database helps demonstrate how widespread underwater sound production really is across a variety of animals, but we still have a lot to learn.”

1. Why is the data listed in paragraph 2?

A．To show the types of biological sounds.

B．To show the sum of documents on animals.

C．To show the species of underwater animals.

D．To show the number of the sound-producing species.

2. What is people’s misunderstanding according to the text?

A．Many mammals can live in water.	B．Most fishes cannot make sounds.
C．Different species can communicate.	D．Ocean animals can’t get onto the land.

3. What is the goal mentioned by Kieran Cox?

A．To document ocean animals’ sounds.

B．To set up a free database for scientists.

C．To learn how ocean animals communicate.

D．To publish the team’s research in Scientific Data.

4. What is the main purpose of the text?

A．To call on people to protect ocean animals.

B．To introduce the finding of a research team.

C．To list the animals that can produce sounds.

D．To describe the mysterious underwater world.

7 . Every day, people share more than 2 billion photos on the Internet. While visual content provides a fun and expressive way for people to communicate online, consuming and creating it poses challenges for people who are blind or severely visually impaired (受损的). With more than 39 million people who are blind, and over 246 million who have a severe visual impairment, many people may feel excluded from the conversation around photos on the Internet. The researchers from Harvard University want to build technology that helps the blind community appreciate photos in the same way others enjoy them.

Automatic alternative text is a new development that generates a description of a photo using advancements in object recognition technology. People using screen readers on digital devices will hear a list of items a photo may contain as they click photos on the Internet. Before today, people using screen readers would only hear the name of the person who shared the photo, followed by the term “photo” when they came upon an image. Now they can offer a richer description of what’s in a photo thanks to automatic alternative text. For instance, someone could now hear “an image containing three people, smiling, outdoors”.

This is possible because of Harvard University’s object recognition technology, which is based on a network that has billions of parameters and is trained with millions of examples. Each advancement in object recognition technology means that the researchers will be able to make technology even more accessible to more people. When people are connected, they can achieve extraordinary things as individuals and as a community, and when everyone is connected, we all benefit from it.

They are launching automatic alternative text first on cellphone screen readers set to English, but they plan to add this functionality for other languages and platforms soon. While this technology is still nascent, using its current capabilities to describe photos is an important step toward providing our visually impaired community with the same benefits and enjoyment that everyone else gets from photos.

1. Why is the technology launched?

A．There are so many photos on the Internet.

B．There are many people suffering from blindness.

C．Some digital devices are in need of the technology.

D．People with vision problems fail to enjoy photos online.

2. What is the advantage of the technology over the previous one?

A．It can offer more photos to blind people.

B．It can describe more about online photos.

C．It can recognize the person who shares photos.

D．It can satisfy the common needs of blind people.

3. What is the key to promoting the technology?

A．The photos on the Internet.	B．People’s care for blind people.
C．People’s connections to each other.	D．The object recognition technology.

4. Which can best explain the underlined word “nascent” in the last paragraph?

A．Emerging.

B．Reliable.

C．Powerful.

D．Conventional.

8 . What distinguishes an outstanding city? The Global Cities Index assesses cities based on diverse criteria, including:

·Business – The presence of multinational corporations. How many global companies are in the city? Does the city do a lot of international business?

·People – The city’s ability to attract talents globally. Does the city attract talented people from around the world? What’s proportion of residents with higher education?

·Media – The accessibility of varied information channels. How many residents have Internet access?

·Entertainment – The availability of leisure and cultural activities. Does the city have many entertainment options: museums, sports, music, and different types of restaurants?

Future Leaders       

Most cities on the Global Cities Index are strong in certain areas. Beijing’s strength, for example, is business, while Los Angeles’s strength is people. Which cities will become more powerful in the future?

·Asia: Beijing and Shanghai are both business centers and will continue to grow. In a few years, they will potentially match New York’s influence. Indian cities such as Mumbai and New Delhi have a lot of business potential, too.

·South America: urban centers like Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo in Brazil will gain influence. In these cities, the middle class is growing, and life for many people is improving.

·The Middle East: Istanbul in Turkey, Cairo in Egypt, and the cities of the United Arab Emirates such as Dubai will hold more power in international politics and business, especially in helping East and West work together.

In 10 years, the top cities on the index may be different, but one thing is certain: With over 50 percent of the world’s people now living in urban areas, tomorrow’s global cities will be more powerful than ever.

1. Which aspect is considered in the Global Cities Index?

A．Education.

B．Climate.

C．Transportation.

D．Location

2. Which parts of the world are predicted to grow in the area of business?

A．Asia and Europe.	B．Asia and South America.
C．Asia and the Middle East.	D．South America and the Middle East.

3. What is the passage mainly about?

A．Similarities between top cities.	B．The ways to become global cities.
C．Daily life in fastest-growing cities.	D．Forecast on future influential cities.

9 . Mei Lum is the fifth-generation owner of Wing on Wo & Co. in Manhattan’s Chinatown.

For Lum, the oldest-running business in Manhattan’s Chinatown sees the neighbourhood growing larger and larger and is an informal living room where she came of age. In the store on Mott Street, she shared meals with her family, took Chinese lessons with her grandparents and helped clean the store as a young girl.

Wing on Wo was started in the 1890s. In the early days, Wing on Wo was a general store that mainly sold dried fish and canned (罐装的) goods. It was also an informal post office. When Lum’s grandmother, Nancy, took over in 1965, she decided to focus on porcelain (瓷器) specifically. Its heyday (全盛时期) was the late 70s to the late 80s. A lot of the goods came from Hong Kong, where Lum’s grandfather grew up.

In 2016, her grandmother planned to sell the porcelain specialty shop and its building. Lum, who was preparing to study international relations at Columbia University, decided to take over the store — not only to preserve (保护) its cultural value, but to create a community centre.

“I see the store as a place for conversation for Asian Americans. They want to learn about family history and tradition, and are curious about their cultural identity. I want them to learn about their identity through our porcelain,” Lum said.

Wing on Wo has remained a family business from its founding. Lum’s father, Gary, has been manning the counter (柜台) for the past 30 years. Her mother, Lorraine, processes orders and manages the website. Even her grandmother helps out with some work in the store.

The pandemic pushed Lum to start learning how to run an online store. She’s also added a lot of new activities, including youth programs, an artist residency and a ceramicist fair, to ensure that in addition to preserving tradition, the business is shaping the future of Chinatown.

1. What did the store mean to Lum according to paragraph 2?

A．It gave her a chance to help her neighbours.

B．It played an important role in her childhood.

C．It helped her to develop a money-saving lifestyle.

D．It had a great influence on her choice of university.

2. What did Nancy do in 1965?

A．She sold Wing on Wo.	B．She opened a new general store.
C．She began selling only porcelain in the store.	D．She changed the store into a porcelain factory.

3. Why did Lum decide to take over the store?

A．To collect money for her college education.

B．To learn business skills from her grandmother.

C．To encourage young people to start a family business.

D．To provide a historical connection for Asian Americans.

4. Which of the following best describes Lum?

A．Responsible and forward-looking.	B．Humorous and hard-working.
C．Creative and honest.	D．Kind and patient.

10 . I had no idea that the Boulder International Film Festival (BIFF) existed (存在) until I went to the University of Colorado (CU) Boulder club fair with my best friend in September. There was a stand that was run to find volunteers for the festival in the spring, and I signed up. I wasn't quite passionate (狂热的) about films but just wanted to do some volunteer work.

The first volunteer shift I had was before the festival started, and I got to organize all of the passes needed for the festival, including those of all the volunteers, sponsors, filmmakers, and VIP members. I even managed to get a picture of myself and Ale c Baldwin's pass.

During the festival, I worked as a vaccine (疫苗) checker, checking people's vaccination cards and giving out wristbands since BIFF required everyone to be vaccinated to enter the many halls. This job-wasn't terrible, except for the fact that we were outside most of the time and it was snowing. By the end, I could hardly feel my feet, but I kept in high spirits.

After finishing my volunteer work, I was able to see a few films for free. Besides some short films, I really enjoyed “The Last Mountain,” a documentary about the life and death on a mountain in 2019 of the British climber, Tom Ballard, and the mountaineering history of his family. While I was crying throughout most of the movie, it was an inspiring story about love and passion.

I really enjoyed my time at BIFF. It was well-organized and everyone working for the festival was passionate about making it a great experience for everyone alike. Next year, I hope to invite some of my friends to volunteer with me, or at least encourage them to watch a couple of amazing films!

1. Where did the author find out about BIFF?

A．At a volunteer event he had attended.	B．At the CU Boulder club fair.
C．From a volunteer of BIFF.	D．From his best friend.

2. What volunteer work did the author do during the festival?

A．He guided people to different places at the festival.

B．He made wristbands for people who asked for them.

C．He gave out passes to filmmakers and VIP members.

D．He made sure everyone attending the festival was vaccinated.

3. What can we learn about the film “The Last Mountain”?

A．It is about a wealthy British family.	B．It is difficult to understand.
C．It is a sad story.	D．It is really short.

4. What is the author's purpose in writing this text?

A．To introduce a special film festival.

B．To share his experiences at a film festival.

C．To show how he developed an interest in films.

D．To discuss the benefits of volunteering at film festivals.