1 . Coastal communities around the world are using coir, material from coconuts (a kind of large fruit), to reduce shoreline erosion (侵蚀). People use coir to build barriers, protecting beaches from getting washed away by the force of waves. The material is common and costs a lot less than barriers made of other materials, like wood, steel or concrete.
One project is being built along part of an eroded riverbank in Neptune, New Jersey. The effort has already greatly improved areas that were badly damaged by erosion during Superstorm Sandy in 2012. “We’re always trying to reduce wave energy while protecting the shoreline,” said Tim Dillingham, the director of the group who runs the project. “And whenever we can, we like to use nature-based solutions.”
The coconut-based material is designed to break down over time. But before it does, it is sometimes pre-seeded with shoreline plants and grasses. The coir material holds the plants in place as they grow, finally breaking down and leaving the established plants in place to keep the shoreline from eroding.
In Boston, Julia Hopkins from Northeastern University is also using coir, wood chips and other material to create barriers to slow the force of waves. A test project has four coconut-based barriers in waterways around Boston. Hopkins is pleased with the results she has seen so far. She said the coconut material is not costly and is actually being recycled rather than thrown away.
The method does not always work, however. In 2016, the Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary (a wildlife protection area) in Edgartown, Massachusetts, built barriers around a salt marsh, an area of coastal grassland, that had eroded in the past. While the effort did help reduce erosion for a while, the material did not last long because of strong waves.
“It got blown out many times,” said Suzan Bellincampi, the sanctuary’s director.“ We had it in place for a few years and we decided not to fix it again. The project was really interesting in terms of what we wanted to do and how we changed it. It works in some places; it doesn’t work in all places.”
1. What are communities near the coast doing?| A．They are making use of wave energy. |
| B．They are building barriers to prepare for storms. |
| C．They are fighting to stop shoreline erosion. |
| D．They are developing new materials from coconuts. |
| A．Well developed. | B．Ready to plant. | C．Newly planted. | D．Hard to find. |
| A．Carefree. | B．Favorable. | C．Unclear. | D．Doubtful. |
| A．To encourage more places to follow the method. |
| B．To stress the importance of using the method to protect nature. |
| C．To show that the method is not a one-size-fits-all solution. |
| D．To explain how to change the method according to local conditions. |
2 . Disagreements have arisen in Northern France after many ancient standing stones were damaged to make way for a new hardware chain(五金连锁店).
About 39 stones, dating back at least 7,000 years, were removed from the site, which sits on one of Europe’s most famous prehistoric attractions, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported. “The site has been damaged,” local archaeologist Christian Obeltz told AFP.
Carnac, often described as “French Stonehenge”， is famous for its spreading fields of large tall stones. The stones are arranged in long, straight lines and, according to the Carnac Tourist Office, it is the largest collection of this type of standing stone in the world. The two main sites alone, at Menec and Kermarjo, house nearly 3,000 standing monuments covering over 4 miles.
The purpose of this ancient curiosity is still unknown. Many believe it may have had something to do with religion, while others think it could have served as a farming calendar. One idea even suggests that the stones are connected to a sad event that happened to a Roman army.
The Regional Office of Cultural Affairs for Brittany, which is responsible for protecting the cultural monument, made a statement on disagreements over building the store on Wednesday. “Given the uncertain and non-major character of the remains, damage to a site of historical value has not been established,” the statement said. However, Obeltz mentioned that there hasn’t been enough research in the area to decide whether the stones were historically important.
News of building the store has caused a storm of angry comments on social media, with many expressing their thoughts on the loss of the ancient stones. “Poor Carnac! The commodification(商品化) of the world prepares the man without memories,” said Philippe de Villiers, France’s former Secretary of State for Culture.
“In Carnac,39 standing stone monuments survived Julius Caesar, World War I and World War II. But not Mr. DIY!” the Twitter account Dom Revolution wrote.
1. What happened to the 39 stones?| A．They were sold to a store. | B．They were worn with time. |
| C．They were moved away. | D．They were used to build a building. |
| A．Its unique shape. | B．Its large size. |
| C．Its long rich history. | D．Its connection with an army. |
| A．The site has low historical value. | B．The site needs government protection. |
| C．The site is not very well-known. | D．The site should have been studied more. |
| A．To share people’s last memories of Carnac. |
| B．To stress the importance of protecting Carnac. |
| C．To show public anger at Carnac’s situation. |
| D．To give more information about Carnac’s history. |
3 . In September 2021, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared 23 species to be newly extinct. Where traditional conservation methods have stopped, there may be another option, one that’s highly debatable, to pull a species back from extinction: cloning.
“Cloning is one type of genetic rescue. Personally, it is a necessary approach used to restore genetic diversity in a population and lower the risk of extinction. Today, we can clone some mammals, fish and amphibians,” says Ben Novak, working to boost biodiversity through genetic rescue of endangered animals. Often, when a species’ population crashes to very low levels, it undergoes a genetic bottleneck, where only a few individuals remain to pass on genes to future generations. That reduces the overall genetic diversity of the population.
In December 2020, a team of researchers cloned the first black-footed ferret named Elizabeth Ann. Today, all black-footed ferrets breed (繁殖) from only seven individuals, so every ferret is related in some way. Elizabeth Ann is a clone from a different population and has three times more genetic diversity than other ferrets alive. If she breeds successfully, she will contribute new genetic diversity.
Cloning can’t happen unless tissues samples are biobanked, which means they’re frozen for preservation and stored in a biorepository (生物库). As a species descends, it loses genetic diversity within the populations. That’s why it’s important for researchers to collect tissue samples to leave options open for the future.
“To stop extinction, what we can do right now is saving as many tissue samples as possible. I believe through this effort cloning will be possible and save many endangered species,” says the Wildlife Alliance’s Ryder. However, an animal can only be cloned if the technology already exists to breed it, because researchers need to know how to handle it and how it reproduces.
1. Why is cloning needed according to Ben Novak?| A．It changes multiple genes in animals. |
| B．It helps to rescue endangered animals. |
| C．It helps understand how normal genes work. |
| D．It lowers the risk of the sudden change of genes. |
| A．She lives longer than any other ferret alive. |
| B．She has brought challenges to gene editing. |
| C．She owns more genetic diversity. |
| D．She has produced young ferrets. |
| A．Evolves. | B．Drops. | C．Booms. | D．Breeds. |
| A．Adventurous. | B．Debatable | C．Uncertain. | D．Promising. |
4 . Mayan civilization was a Central American (Mesoamerican) civilization that covered one third of Central America. Mayan civilization is famous for its fully developed written language, striking art, huge architecture, and advanced mathematical and astronomical knowledge. These features came out of the Preclassic Period but reached their highest development in the Classic Period (250 to 900 AD). When it prospered (繁荣), it was one of the most densely populated and culturally active societies in the world.
Mayan civilization was not one single empire, but rather many separate city-states which had a common cultural background. Strangely, after the Classic Period, these cities stopped to be centers of importance. Mayan culture continued and still exists today but in a rural setting. One question that interests scholars is why these cities just disappeared. They were swallowed up by the tropical jungles. Travelers and scholars rediscovered them and have studied them only in the last two hundred years or so. In fact, scholars have debates about what happened, but some factors seem to be part of the explanation of why they disappeared.
Toward the end there was large-scale, continuous warfare among the city-states. The rulers were highly competitive and made fierce wars on one another. Another factor considered is overpopulation. Scholars indicate that the Mayan population reached up to 200 people per square kilometer, among the highest in the pre-industrial world. Overpopulation led to overuse of the tropical forest, the source of their food.
Research from the pollen (花粉) indicates that there was almost no tropical forest left. This led to damage to the environment of the area, further resulting in a lack of water and then drought. Thus warfare, overpopulation, overuse of resources, and destruction of the environment appear to be active factors involved in the disappearance of Mayan cities.
1. What is the function of the first paragraph?| A．To present a different view. | B．To provide the main topic. |
| C．To lead to the main topic. | D．To provide the text’s road-map. |
| A．The disappearance of Mayan cities. | B．The continuation of Mayan culture. |
| C．The city-states’ cultural background. | D．The creation of Mayan civilization. |
| A．Serious flood. | B．Overpopulation. | C．Continuous wars. | D．Food shortage. |
| A．The Fall of Mayan Cities |
| B．The Golden Age of Mayan Cities |
| C．Tropical Jungles and Mayan Civilization |
| D．Mayan Civilization in the Classic Period |
5 . Suguey Carmona, a ninth-grade Latina student at KIPP Brave High School in Austin, Texas, published her first Alexa Skill in the Amazon Appstore this year. This was a notable achievement, but if you don’t know what it means, you are not alone.
Alexa is a virtual assistant developed by Amazon that responds to users’ questions. If you want to ask Alexa to do specific things, such as power up your Xbox or order a pizza, your Alexa has to have that skill. Suguey identified a skill that had not yet been created, so she decided to program it herself. She created an Alexa Skill that allows English- and Spanish-speaking immigrants to get answers to questions related to their rights. For example, users may ask Alexa, “Am I allowed to get my driver’s license?” or “How long does it take to get a visa?”
She chose to work on this application because she saw her own friends and relatives who had questions and struggled to make a living. Especially, when she saw her own parents struggle to find answers about their rights, she decided to take matters into her own hands.
There is no doubt that this new Alexa Skill will help others, and that Suguey, at age 14, is well on her way to becoming a key influencer. The ability to design an Alexa Skill from scratch is something most developers do not learn until after college. The project required her to diagram and model immigration-related conversation outcomes and translate her model into programming logic. Suguey also engaged with complex programming capabilities, such as learning about data system and management.
While cultural and social norms continually tell female students that they belong in certain fields or cannot excel at certain tasks, a personal experience that demonstrates the opposite can be life-changing. This is what happened with Suguey. Now she knows she is exceptional. This experience will serve as a continuous reminder that she can draw upon when faced with self-doubt. The same — could and should — be true for many other students just like her.
1. What’s Alexa Skill?| A．A test. | B．An app. | C．A voice box. | D．An organization. |
| A．Her educational background. | B．Her childhood memory. |
| C．The functions of Alexa. | D．Her personal experience. |
| A．Suguey’s talents. | B．Influences of Alexa Skill. |
| C．Suguey’s dilemma. | D．Requirements of Alexa Skill. |
| A．She succeeded as a result of progress of society. |
| B．She strongly opposed cultural and social norms. |
| C．She was continually reminded to be confident. |
| D．She used to think that she was not good enough. |
6 . Anxiety disorders are a type of mental health condition. Anxiety makes it difficult to get through your day. Symptoms include feelings of nervousness, panic and fear as well as sweating and a rapid heartbeat.
Have psychotherapy (心理疗法).
Psychotherapy or “talk therapy” can help people with anxiety disorders. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is an example of one type of psychotherapy that can help people with anxiety disorders. It teaches people different ways of thinking, behaving, and reacting to situations to help you feel less anxious and fearful. CBT has been well studied and is the gold standard for psychotherapy.
Medication does not cure anxiety disorders but often relieves symptoms. Generally, medication can only be advised by a medical doctor (such as a psychiatrist or a primary care provider). Medications are sometimes used as the initial treatment of an anxiety disorder.
Join support groups.
You are also recommended to join support groups to get their coping strategies. Some people with anxiety disorders might benefit from joining a self-help or support group and sharing their problems and achievements with others.
| A．Receive medication. |
| B．Choose the right doctors. |
| C．It’s a newer form of psychotherapy treatment. |
| D．Thankfully, there are effective ways to treat anxiety. |
| E．Besides, you may learn ways to manage anxiety disorders yourself. |
| F．Exposure therapy is a CBT method that is used to treat anxiety disorders. |
| G．They can also be adopted if there is no satisfying response to psychotherapy. |
7 . Harpreet Kaur has a passion for connecting with others of different faiths. She said “yes” when Zahabia Ahmed-Usmani, program manager at the Kaufman Institute for Interfaith Understanding (KIIU), asked her to introduce Valarie Kaur at a February event at Grand Valley State University. Valarie Kaur is a well-known author of See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love. The women share more than just a last name; both have a faith tradition rooted in service and equality.
The book’s message struck Harpreet as she listened to the author’s online presentations about welcoming all. “Valarie was such a good speaker. I wish I could be like her,” the freshman from Forest Hills Eastern High School thought.
She found out about the Kaufman Interfaith Leadership Scholars from her dad. This is her first year participating in this group that helps youth build bridges to help communities value, respect, and love all. The group of scholars meet every other Sunday and include students from many faiths. “I was surprised by how much I didn’t know about other faiths — and by how many similarities there are,” she said. “And it’s fun!”
She’s learned a lot about herself, too. “I’m always trying to better myself. I’ve always been really shy.” So, she decided to accept the opportunity to practice public speaking by introducing Valarie Kaur at the Grand Valley State University event — a clear indication of her drive to improve her own leadership skills.
While Harpreet may see herself as shy, Ahmed-Usmani sees the leadership qualities in her: “Since the first day I met her, I was impressed by how earnestly she learned, worked and played with her peers. She is a powerful young woman with the ability to convince others of following her lead.”
In the future, Harpreet will keep her hope for interfaith understanding: “The biggest lesson I have learned from my involvement in all these activities is that you never know what others are going through. Be open-minded. Hear other people’s side.”
1. What does the underlined word “both” in paragraph 1 refer to?| A．Valarie Kaur and her book. |
| B．Harpreet Kaur and Valarie Kaur. |
| C．KIIU and Grand Valley State University. |
| D．Harpreet Kaur and Zahabia Ahmed-Usmani. |
| A．Researching on building bridges. |
| B．Connecting people of different beliefs. |
| C．Learning about different communities. |
| D．Finding similarities of different values. |
| A．Persuasive. | B．Respectful. | C．Considerate. | D．Generous. |
| A．Hard work pays off. | B．One good turn deserves another. |
| C．Strike the iron while it is hot. | D．Put yourself in other’s shoes. |
8 . MacArthur’s devotion to sailing dates back to when she was just four years of age, when she first got the chance to have a try. “I’ll never forget that sailing as a kid of setting foot on a boat for the first time,” MacArthur said. “It kind of struck me that this boat had everything we needed to take us anywhere in th world. And as a child, that opened up everything.” She explained how it felt life the “greatest sense of freedom”.
This experience lighted a passion within MacArthur. She knew then that she wanted to sail around the world. She had no idea how to achieve it — growing up in the countryside, it wasn’t the most obvious career path — but she knew that was what she wanted to do at some stage. So she acquired knowledge and saved up for years to pursue a career in sailing. She would have potatoes and beans every day for eight years so that she could save up to buy the right equipment. By reaching certain financial goals and asking technical questions about sailing, MacArthur felt as though she was getting closer to her ambitions.
“When you know where you’re going, you can actually get there — even if it seems unlikely. The impossible could be possible and aiming high is not necessarily such a nutty thing to do.” And it seems that MacArthur’s drive to become a sailor went beyond her expectations. At the age of 24, she started to receive media attention after participating in the Vendee Globe, a single-handed non-stop yacht (帆船) race that goes around the world. She came in second place.
Some three to four years later, MacArthur chose to sail for 71 days and 14 hours, covering more than 26, 000 miles during the course of her journey. This led to MacArthur scoring a new world record in 2005, as the fastest person to sail around the globe single-handedly. While this record has since been surpassed, MacArthur is still considered as Britain’s most successful offshore racer.
1. What happened to MacArthur when she was four?| A．She prepared to sail around the world. | B．She got stuck in a boat. |
| C．She had her first taste of sailing. | D．She saw a boat for the first time. |
| A．She worked as a technician to earn money. |
| B．She sought financial support for her amibitions. |
| C．She planted potatoes and beans for profit . |
| D．She prepared herself for her goal. |
| A．She set the world sailing record. | B．She attracted media spotlight. |
| C．She secured second place in a yacht race. | D．She had her personal best surpassed. |
| A．Follow your own course, and let others talk | B．Nothing is impossible to a willing heart. |
| C．Practice makes perfect. | D．Doing is better than saying. |
9 . A century ago, kids were transported to school by all kinds of random vehicles. Because there were no national standards, it was up to states or individual school districts to hire buses, trucks and even horse-drawn wagons to convey kids to and from school.
Frank Cyr didn’t like this system. Back in the 1930s, Cyr was a professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, and an advocate for rural education. Cyr traveled the country conducting a study of school transportation. “In many cases, standards have been set up by more or less hit-and-miss methods,” reported Cyr in a New York Times article. He decided that something needed to be done to keep America’s schoolkids safe.
So in 1939, Cyr organized a conference in New York City dedicated to improving and standardizing the American school bus. He invited educators, transportation officials from 48 states and bus manufacturers to design a newer, safer school bus. At the meeting, Cyr hung up 50 paint samples on the walls of the conference room and formed a special committee to pick a winner. They chose the symbolic yellow-orange color that was originally known as “National School Bus Chrome”.
Cyr wasn’t a scientist or a safety expert, but he instinctively made the connection between bright colors, visibility and vehicle safety. “Based upon the standards of 1939, yellow was a very intelligent choice,” says Dr. Stephen Solomon, a retired optometrist (验光师) and founder of Visibility in Motion, which does consulting for emergency services providers. “The colors that are most easily seen by the human eye are the yellows — the yellow-green to yellow to greenish-yellow,” says Solomon. “That’s at the peak of the visibility range.”
Solomon explains that color vision is determined by photoreceptor cells in the retina (视网膜) called cones (视锥细胞). There are three types of cones, each tuned to detect different wavelengths of light: red, green and blue. Yellow light stimulates both the red and green cones at the same time, which is why the eye is most sensitive to colors in the yellow range.
1. What does the underlined word “hit-and-miss” in paragraph 2 probably mean?| A．Random. | B．Similar. | C．Effective. | D．Special. |
| A．Many schoolkids were invited. |
| B．A prize was chosen to award a winner. |
| C．Cyr was appointed as a transportation official. |
| D．The color yellow was selected for school buses. |
| A．It has different wavelengths. | B．It determines photoreceptor cells. |
| C．It affects two cones at the same time. | D．It covers the most visibility range. |
| A．Why Are School Buses Yellow? | B．Cyr: Father of School Buses |
| C．1939: a Year of School Bus Standards | D．What Vehicles Are Safe for Kids? |
10 . Teachers across America are struggling to decide whether to view artificial intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT as friends or enemies in the classroom. Our study on whether AI affects student creativity shows that the answer isn’t always simple.
In the study, we asked college students to brainstorm — without technology — all the ways a paper clip can be used. A month later, we asked them to do the same, but using ChatGPT. We found that AI can be a useful brainstorming tool, quickly generating ideas that can spark creative exploration. But there are also potential negative effects on students’ creative thinking skills and self-confidence. While students reported that it was helpful to “have another brain”, they also felt that using AI was “the easy way out” and didn’t allow them to think on their own.
The results call for a thoughtful approach to using AI in classrooms and striking a balance that inspires students’ creativity while utilizing AI’s capabilities. The good news is that the students in our study generated more diverse and detailed ideas when using AI. They found that AI was useful for kick-starting brainstorming sessions.
When it comes to brainstorming with AI, some students voiced concerns about over-reliance on the technology, fearing it might hurt their own thoughts and, consequently, confidence in their creative abilities. Some students reported a “fixation of the mind”, meaning that once they saw the AI’s ideas, they had a hard time coming up with their own. Some students also questioned the originality of ideas generated by AI. Our research noted that while using ChatGPT improved students’ creative output individually, the AI’s ideas tended to be repetitive overall.
The study results indicate that allowing students to practice creativity independently first will strengthen their belief in themselves and their abilities. Once they complete this, AI can be useful in furthering their learning, much like teaching long division to students before introducing a calculator. That’s to say, teaching students to be creative thinkers rather than rely on AI for answers is the key to answering the question mentioned above.
1. Why were the students required to use ChatGPT after a month in the study?| A．To clarify a concept. | B．To make a comparison. |
| C．To explain a definition. | D．To present an argument. |
| A．Learning. | B．Designing. |
| C．Taking advantage of. | D．Having control of. |
| A．Its negative aspects. | B．Its limited creativity. |
| C．Its reliable originality. | D．Its potential development. |
| A．The future of AI use is uncertain. | B．Traditional teaching still has a place. |
| C．AI’s capabilities are unquestionable. | D．Human creativity should come first. |
