1 . We all have memories of what our fathers enjoyed, and all the fun we had with him: travelling, reading, or exploring the neighborhood hiking trail. Each of us has treasured stories and memories of times with dad.
The charm of storytelling,the fun of traveling, the immersion in a book...these are the gifts of a lifetime my father helped me unwrap.
My father, turning 75 this year, is still a storyteller, but his exploration of the world has turned virtual. Like almost all children, I spent my twenties walking away from his stories since I was always “occupied with my work.”
Have you ever put your ear to a seashell and heard the waves whooshing in there? On the outside, it is a hard shell — pitted, untidily edged and boldly patterned.
| A．I am no exception. |
| B．A father brings the world to us. |
| C．In some ways, this describes fathers. |
| D．However, a father can sometimes be hard on us. |
| E．Inside are some valuable contents that should be treasured. |
| F．Now older and wiser, I restarted listening attentively to his tales. |
| G．As I look back on my childhood, I see loads of books and miles of travel. |
2 . Everyone wants to perform well at school. Add these tips to your life and you should be on your way to being a top student!
Taking notes is important. You don’t need to write down every single word your teacher says but write down what he or she writes on the blackboard, or any special fact you think you might need for a test.
Don’t skip school. You will be missing courses.
Keep a good attitude (态度) towards things. If you have an “ I don’t care about school or this class” attitude, then teachers will be less willing to help you with problems. The same goes for lazy attitude. Have a respectful attitude to the teacher and other students.
Always ask questions.
| A．Be prepared. |
| B．Write in your own words. |
| C．Staying organized will be helpful. |
| D．Pay attention to what the teacher says. |
| E．It is true that you could make up the work. |
| F．There is no shame (羞愧)in needing some help. |
| G．Try not to laugh when other students make mistakes. |
3 . In looking through your social media, there’s a good chance you’ve noticed pictures accompanied by texts. The pictures are likely made possible by a text-to-image program called DALL-E. For example, Twitter user posted a tweet with the text, “To be or not to be, rabbi holding avocado, marble sculpture.” Then a matching picture appears below.
The AI models come from Google’s Imagen software as well as OpenAI. a start-up backed by Microsoft. On its website, OpenAI calls DALL-E “a new Al system that can create realistic images and art from a description in natural language.” But most of what’s happening in this area is coming from a relatively small group of people sharing their pictures. That’s because Google and OpenAI have not made the technology broadly available to the public.
The text-to-picture services identify the most important parts of a user’s text and then guess the best way to picture those terms. There’s generally a text box, a button to start the generation process and an area below to display images. To indicate the source. Google and OpenAI add watermarks in the bottom right comer of images from DALL-E and Imagen.
Engineers trained the models on various collections of words and pictures from the web. OpenAI recognizes the potential for harm that could come from a model. To avoid the risk, employees removed violent content from training data, and there are filters（筛选）stopping DALL-E from producing images if users submit（提交）violent or illegal content.
Boris Dayma, a developer from Texas spelled out the problems in an explanation of their software. Despite the risks, Dhariwal, a research scientist at OpenAI, said it could open up creative opportunities for individuals and could help with commercial applications for dressing up websites. Results should continue to improve over time.
| A．Beautifying pictures at users’ request. |
| B．Producing pictures from human words. |
| C．Changing pictures into vivid descriptions. |
| D．Providing pictures for users to choose from. |
| A．Its users’ rights. | B．Its operating conditions |
| C．Its working process. | D．Its company’s prospect. |
| A．All images come from a unified model. |
| B．The training data is selected beforehand. |
| C．Improper requests can’t be submitted. |
| D．Filters remove the unhealthy description. |
| A．Positive. | B．Objective. | C．Uncertain. | D．Worried. |
4 . Picture the scene: you’ve spent years working towards a very specific goal. You’ve put in countless hours of work and made many efforts along the way, but now that you’ve got there it doesn’t feel quite like you imagined. Instead of celebration, you feel emptiness, confusion and doubt.
Welcome to the anti-climax. The often-experienced but seldom-discussed downside of achieving life’s biggest milestones. Many of us work tirelessly towards our goals. We may spend our lives dreaming of the day we get married, publish our first hook or buy our first home. However, oftentimes, when we achieve these things it doesn’t feel quite as expected. In fact, the achievement of these goals feels a bit of a letdown.
So why do we often experience an anti-climax with big goals, even though we’re happy to achieve them? “An anti-climax can be an unexpected by-product of a milestone achievement. Usually, the more significant the milestone, the greater the anti-climax may be. The intensity（强度）of an anti-climax often relies on what we expect of this achievement.” says Rachel Vora. a psychotherapist（心理治疗师）.“The journey to achieving a milestone can he exciting and tiring in addition to giving us a sense of purpose and focus. Therefore, when this disappears overnight. we can often feel lost and confused, in spite of feeling proud of our achievement.
When this happens it can contribute to a mixture of emotions. We often falsely believe that we’ll feel completely different afterwards or that our feelings of low self-worth will disappear, but this is rarely the case. “Clients（客户）often present to me with an extremely great sense of ‘is this it?’ and ‘what now?’.” says Vora. “These feelings of confusion and disappointment, if let ignored, have the potential to cause clients to be in low spirits, or even worse.”
1. Why does the author mention the examples in paragraph 2?| A．To present a fact. | B．To prove a rule. |
| C．To explain a term. | D．To make a prediction. |
| A．Low self-worth. | B．High expectations. |
| C．Sense of purpose. | D．Unexpected achievements. |
| A．Amy felt empty before giving a speech. |
| B．Jack felt lost after his first novel came out. |
| C．Mary felt proud when she joined a ballet club. |
| D．Tom felt doubtful about taking further education. |
| A．How to hold back feelings. |
| B．How to improve self-worth. |
| C．Hon to identify the anti-climax. |
| D．How to deal with the anti-climax. |
5 . When water is cold, people will find it uncomfortable to swim. Wetsuits(潜水服）can help keep people warm.
The wetsuit doesn't have a long history. According to studies, the wetsuit only began during WWII when Italians started wearing wetsuits that were made of rubber. And it was widely believed in 1951, Hugh Bradner began working to improve the equipment.
Now there are many kinds of wetsuits. Contrary to what some may think, wetsuits do not work by keeping the diver(潜水员）dry; they are designed to let water into the suit. This thin layer of water is trapped（保存）between the diver and the suit. And it's allowed to move between the skin of the diver and the inside layer.
Wetsuits can also differ in thickness. They range from about 0. 5mm to 8mm in thickness. It's true that thicker wetsuits are more likely to affect your movement.
| A．But they're much better at giving you warmth. |
| B．As for the difference, wetsuits can differ in size. |
| C．The history of the wetsuit is an interesting story. |
| D．This led to the development of a kind of new wetsuit. |
| E．Many wetsuits are very light and easy to wear and take off. |
| F．As a result, the water gradually warms up to body temperature. |
| G．And they can provide protection from the sun and cuts from rocks. |
6 . Important Things to Know When Dining Out
Cultural dining etiquette (礼节) might surprise you with some of its important rules.
The way you handle chopsticks is important to avoid annoying your companions. When you put them down between bites, always put them down together so they are parallel with the edge of the table in front of you.
In India and the Middle East, it’s considered very rude to eat with your left hand. People in France expect you to eat with a utensil in each hand.
Some of these cultural dining etiquette rules may seem random and strange, but they are important in various countries.
| A．The more friends you make in your lifetime |
| B．The more time you spend in any given country |
| C．Mexicans consider it inappropriate to eat with utensils |
| D．Don’t get caught making an embarrassing mistake at a restaurant |
| E．It’s a good sign for the chef if you make a mess around your plate |
| F．Never stick them upright in your food or cross them as you use them |
| G．It may seem like a simple request to ask for salt and pepper at a meal |
7 . As more people move into their golden years, many families are welcoming their senior parents into their homes. While most seniors claim to prefer to age in their own homes, safety and health concerns don’t always make this possible.
If you are preparing to welcome a senior parent into your home, everyone will have an adjustment period. This type of move will have physical, emotional, and mental influences for the whole family. Here’re a few tips to help you open your heart and home to your senior parents.
You may be excited about having your senior parent move in, but that doesn’t mean they will share your enthusiasm. Being asked to move out of their own home can be very upsetting for your parents. So it’s important to be patient with them and allow them the time to adjust to their new environment.
It’s also important to give your parents a space of their own. Before you decide to bring a senior parent into your home, you need to consider if you have enough space for them.
Then, for adult children, offering a senior parent a safe home is a priority. Before moving, you will need to make some changes around your home to help your parents stay safe. For example, install grab bars in the bathroom, repair all stairways, add anti-slip mats to the kitchen and so on. And arm yourself with knowledge like First Aid courses.
In addition, your senior parent will be used to being in charge of their own home and is likely to feel like a bother as they begin to settle in your home. One effective way is to assign them a household responsibility. Ask your parents to look after the dog or cook a meal to make them feel like an active and important part of the family.
1. Who may be the intended readers of the text?| A．People moving into their golden years. |
| B．People having senior parents to take care of. |
| C．People wanting to age in their own homes. |
| D．Senior people having safety and health concerns. |
| A．Being patient with your parents. |
| B．Giving them enough space. |
| C．Making sure of their safety. |
| D．Assigning them a household responsibility. |
| A．To make them feel like a bother. |
| B．To make them think themselves useful. |
| C．To make them in charge of the family. |
| D．To encourage them to exercise actively. |
| A．Troubles to live with senior parents. |
| B．A good way to age for senior people. |
| C．Take your responsibility to adjust yourself. |
| D．Open your heart and home to your senior parents. |
8 . Humans have been living and working on the space station for 20 years. Their meals are packaged, though sometimes astronauts receive fresh treats from resupply missions. The longer that packaged food is stored, the more it loses nutrients like vitamin C and vitamin K.
Astronauts have successfully grown 10 different crops on the space station since 2015 and had the chance to sample each one. The International Space Station hosted a party for astronauts on Friday as they celebrated the harvest of the first Chili (辣椒) grown in space. The crew finally had a chance to taste the peppers after initially kicking off the plant experiment on the space station in July.
Plant Habitat-04 is one of the most complex plant experiments on the orbiting laboratory to date because peppers take much longer to grow than the previous experiment plants. After growing for four months, the peppers were harvested on Friday.
Peppers provide a great source of vitamin C, as well as other key nutrients. Pepper plants self-pollinate, so they are easy to grow, and they are a pick-and-eat crop that doesn’t have to be cooked. They are also safe to eat raw.
A side effect of life in zero gravity is that astronauts often lose some of their taste and smell, so spicy or well-seasoned foods are a favorite. Adding fresh greens or peppers to the menu allows astronauts to liven up their regular meals. But growing and tending to the plants can also produce other benefits.
Astronauts have described the joy from seeing—as well as smelling and caring for—leafy green plants on the space station that remind them of Earth.
“Growing colorful vegetables in space can have long-term benefits for physical and psychological health,” said Matt Romeyn, principal investigator for the experiment.” We are discovering that growing plants and vegetables with colors and smells helps to improve astronauts’ well-being.”
1. What does underlined “kicking off” in the 2nd paragraph mean?| A．Launch. | B．Complete. | C．Quit. | D．Announce. |
| A．The technology. | B．Growing process. |
| C．The varieties of plants. | D．Growing time required. |
| A．They are delicious. | B．They restore their appetite. |
| C．They help kill diseases. | D．They improve their memory. |
| A．The Fun in the Space Life |
| B．The Common Goal in the Space Mission |
| C．The First Chili Peppers Grown in Space |
| D．A Research Finding from the Space Mission |
9 . Scientists have discovered how plants manage to live alongside each other in places that are dark and shady. Plants in the deep darkness of a thick forest, where natural supplies are not very great in amount, won’t attempt to top their neighbors in growth as those in moderate (中度的) shade do. In deep shade conditions, it would be a waste of energy and harmful to survival because green shoots would never be able to top their larger neighbors in growth.
So how do plants prevent such growth in deep shade conditions? The secret lies in the clocks insides them, say scientists from the John Ines Centre and the University of Bristol.
They have discovered that when plants notice deep shade, this changes the expression of genes parts of the circadian clock (昼夜节律时钟) — the inner daily timer found in plants and other things. These clock parts perform an additional role in preventing plants from lengthening and overtopping neighbors.
The work identifies a previously unknown role of the circadian clock in controlling plant development and the findings may have possible effects on both natural plant populations and crops. Professor Antony Dodd of the John Innes Centre said, “The biological clock of plants plays a big part in their development and fitness. This work casts new light on a new role of the circadian clock in adapting plants to competition with other plants in their environments.” “It also gives us new insights into how plants adapt to very deep shade, where resources are very limited,” said Professor Kerry Franklin at the University of Bristol.
This work provides evidence for the firmness of the circadian clock in stressful environments, and information that may be useful in developing new generations of crops in a challenging climate.
1. What do plants normally do in moderate shade?| A．Struggle to preserve energy. | B．Compete for limited resources. |
| C．Try to outgrow their neighbors. | D．Depend on each other to survive. |
| A．By changing their gene expression. | B．By making them realize light change. |
| C．By helping them adapt to the darkness. | D．By controlling their growth in deep shade. |
| A．To share a new discovery about plants. | B．To introduce the role of the circadian clock. |
| C．To explain plants secret of living in forests. | D．To compare plants living in certain condition. |
| A．How plants face a challenging climate |
| B．Why plants respond to different shade levels |
| C．Why the circadian clock is vital to plants' growth |
| D．How plants become good neighbors in times of stress |
10 . How to Stop Spam Calls for Good
If you made a list of the little things that bothered you the most, phone call scams would no doubt be at the top. Telemarketers, or more often, automated robot-callers, have tricks for interrupting you at the worst possible moment.
Fact is that robot-callers are never going to stop trying to reach you. Their schemes bring in hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of dollars annually. And unfortunately, older people are more likely to fall prey to these scams.
Sign up for the National Do Not Call Registry
Your first move: Join the Federal Trade Commission’s National Do Not Call Registry. You can get on the list by calling 1-888-382-1222 from the phone number you want to register.
Use spam-filtering apps and tech
You probably know that a caller who insists you owe money to the IRS or says you’ll be arrested if you don’t settle a debt is a scammer. But your 10-year-old kid and your older parents and grandparents may be tricked. And remember: Knowing how to stop spam calls is just one step toward avoiding scams; don’t forget to explain how to stop spam texts to your loved ones, too.
| A．Warn family members |
| B．Report to the police at once |
| C．Follow these steps to pull the plug on them once and for all. |
| D．If you have multiple numbers to input, register them at DoNotCall. gov. |
| E．Spam calls can reach you anytime and anywhere when you use your smartphone. |
| F．They’re annoying, but that’s not the only reason you should know how to stop spam calls. |
| G．The National Do Not Call Registry will prevent a lot of unwanted calls, but it won’t stop all of them. |
