1 . As cities balloon with growth, access to nature for people living in urban areas is becoming harder to find. If you’re lucky, there might be a pocket park near where you live, but it’s unusual to find places in a city that are relatively wild.

Past research has found health and wellness benefits of nature for humans, but a new study shows that wildness in urban areas is extremely important for human well-being.

The research team focused on a large urban park. They surveyed several hundred park-goers, asking them to submit a written summary online of a meaningful interaction they had with nature in the park. The researchers then examined these submissions, coding (编码) experiences into different categories. For example, one participant’s experience of “We sat and listened to the waves at the beach for a while” was assigned the categories “sitting at beach” and “listening to waves.”

Across the 320 submissions, a pattern of categories the researchers call a “nature language” began to emerge. After the coding of all submissions, half a dozen categories were noted most often as important to visitors. These include encountering wildlife, walking along the edge of water, and following an established trail.

Naming each nature experience creates a usable language, which helps people recognize and take part in the activities that are most satisfying and meaningful to them. For example, the experience of walking along the edge of water might be satisfying for a young professional on a weekend hike in the park. Back downtown during a workday, they can enjoy a more domestic form of this interaction by walking along a fountain on their lunch break.

“We’re trying to generate a language that helps bring the human-nature interactions back into our daily lives. And for that to happen, we also need to protect nature so that we can interact with it,” said Peter Kahn, a senior author of the study.

1. What phenomenon does the author describe at the beginning of the text?

A．Pocket parks are now popular.	B．Wild nature is hard to find in cities.
C．Many cities are overpopulated.	D．People enjoy living close to nature.

2. Why did the researchers code participant submissions into categories?

A．To compare different types of park-goers.	B．To explain why the park attracts tourists.
C．To analyze the main features of the park.	D．To find patterns in the visitors’ summaries.

3. What can we learn from the example given in paragraph 5?

A．Walking is the best way to gain access to nature.

B．Young people are too busy to interact with nature.

C．The same nature experience takes different forms.

D．The nature language enhances work performance.

4. What should be done before we can interact with nature according to Kahn?

A．Language study.	B．Environmental conservation.
C．Public education.	D．Intercultural communication.

2 . You’ve heard that plastic is polluting the oceans — between 4.8 and 12.7 million tonnes enter ocean ecosystems every year. But does one plastic straw or cup really make a difference? Artist Benjamin Von Wong wants you to know that it does. He builds massive sculptures out of plastic garbage, forcing viewers to re-examine their relationship to single-use plastic products.

At the beginning of the year, the artist built a piece called “Strawpocalypse,” a pair of 10-foot-tall plastic waves, frozen mid-crash. Made of 168,000 plastic straws collected from several volunteer beach cleanups, the sculpture made its first appearance at the Estella Place shopping center in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Just 9% of global plastic waste is recycled. Plastic straws are by no means the biggest source (来源) of plastic pollution, but they’ve recently come under fire because most people don’t need them to drink with and, because of their small size and weight, they cannot be recycled. Every straw that’s part of Von Wong’s artwork likely came from a drink that someone used for only a few minutes. Once the drink is gone, the straw will take centuries to disappear.

In a piece from 2018, Von Wong wanted to illustrate (说明) a specific statistic: Every 60 seconds, a truckload’s worth of plastic enters the ocean. For this work, titled “Truckload of Plastic,” Von Wong and a group of volunteers collected more than 10,000 pieces of plastic, which were then tied together to look like they’d been dumped (倾倒) from a truck all at once.

Von Wong hopes that his work will also help pressure big companies to reduce their plastic footprint.

1. What are Von Wong’s artworks intended for?

A．Beautifying the city he lives in.	B．Introducing eco-friendly products.
C．Drawing public attention to plastic waste.	D．Reducing garbage on the beach.

2. Why does the author discuss plastic straws in paragraph 3?

A．To show the difficulty of their recycling.

B．To explain why they are useful.

C．To voice his views on modern art.

D．To find a substitute for them.

3. What effect would “Truckload of Plastic” have on viewers?

A．Calming.	B．Disturbing.
C．Refreshing.	D．Challenging.

4. Which of the following can be the best title for the text?

A．Artists’ Opinions on Plastic Safety

B．Media Interest in Contemporary Art

C．Responsibility Demanded of Big Companies

D．Ocean Plastics Transformed into Sculptures

3 . Antony Aumann, a religious studies and philosophy professor at Northern Michigan University told Insider he had caught his student submitting essays written by the AI chatbot, and Aumann had his student rewrite the essay.

It’s not just his struggling with the rise of AI chatbots like ChatGPT. As a result of these tools becoming accessible to anybody with an Internet connection, education departments across the entire country are adjusting work process and redesigning entire courses, according to the NYT, forcing students to submit handwritten essays or introducing oral exams. The New York City and Seattle public school systems have already banned ChatGPT on their own networks and devices. “I think the consideration behind the ban is reasonable,” Aumann said. “They want to make sure that their students are learning the critical thinking skills that are part of learning how to write.”

But universities aren’t likely to follow the ban. After all, going around these restrictions is quite easy. Even tools designed to assist teachers in catching students secretly making use of AI tools like ChatGPT will probably be of little use, because students can change a few words from what ChatGPT produced, add some grammatical mistakes on purpose, and the detectors no longer think it’s written by a chatbot.

Besides, some professors including Aumann argued that the cat is already out of the bag. Once students are captured by ChatGPT’s convenience and efficiency, it’d be pointless to fight ChatGPT in the classroom.

Instead of absolute prohibition, Aumann suggested encouraging their students to react to ChatGPT in the same way they react to learning source—they will be asked to evaluate its reasons and arguments.

1. Why did the author mention Aumann’s case in paragraph 1?

A．To spread a tool of AI chatbots.	B．To start a discussion on ChatGPT.
C．To introduce ChatGPT technology.	D．To share a public concern on college education.

2. Why is ChatGPT banned by some school systems?

A．Teachers can have easy access to ChatGPT.

B．Teachers can catch students cheating easily.

C．ChatGPT fails to develop learners’ competence.

D．ChatGPT blocks the improvement of education systems.

3. What does “the cat is already out of the bag” really mean in paragraph 4?

A．Students will be caught cheating through ChatGPT.

B．It cannot be avoided that ChatGPT attracts students.

C．Teachers decide to lake action to address the problem.

D．The cat manages to escape from being caught eventually.

4. What’s Aumann’s attitude to ChatGPT?

A．Worried.	B．Subjective.
C．Objective.	D．Indifferent.

4 . With no special equipment, no fences and no watering, two abandoned agricultural fields in the UK have been rewilded (重新野化), in large part due to the efforts of jays, which actually “engineered” these new woodlands. Researchers now hope that rewilding projects can take a more natural and hands-off approach and that jays can shed some of their bad reputations.

The two fields, which researchers have called the New Wilderness and the Old Wilderness, had been abandoned in 1996 and 1961 respectively. The former was a bare field, while the latter was grassland—both lay next to ancient woodlands. Researchers had suspected that the fields would gradually return to wilderness, but it was impressive to see just how quickly this happened, and how much of it was owed to birds.

Using aerial data, the researchers monitored the two sites. After just 24 years, the New Wilderness had grown into a young, healthy wood with 132 live trees per hectare, over half of which (57%) were oaks. Meanwhile, the Old Wilderness resembled a mature woodland after 39 years, with 390 trees per hectare.

“This native woodland restoration was approaching the structure (but not the species composition) of long-established woodlands within six decades,” the researchers explained in the study.

Part of this reforestation was done by the wind, and researchers suspect that previous ground disturbance may have aided the woodland establishment—which is good news, as it would suggest that agricultural areas may be reforested faster than anticipated. However, animals—Eurasian jays, thrushes, wood mice, and squirrels—also played an important role in helping the forests take shape. This handful of species provided much of the natural regeneration needed for the forest to develop. Jays, in particular, seem to have done a lot of heavy lifting.

1. What does the underlined word “shed” in Paragraph 1 refer to?

A．Be opposed to.

B．Be ashamed of.

C．Get used to.

D．Get rid of.

2. Which aspect of the changes in the two fields impressed the researchers?

A．The scale of the woodlands.

B．The diversity of the fields.

C．The rate of the changes.

D．The frequency of the wilderness.

3. What does the author want to tell us by providing some data in Paragragh 3?

A．The woodland restoration was approaching the structure of long-established ones.

B．Much of the wilderness of the fields was owed to birds.

C．Previous ground disturbance aided the woodland establishment.

D．How quickly the fields returned to wilderness over time.

4. What does the last paragraph mainly talk about?

A．The essential role of humans in the reforestation.

B．The factors that contribute to the reforestation.

C．The importance of woodland establishment.

D．The threats faced by a handful of wild animals.

5 . Smarter ways to learn from failure

Many of us were told from an early age that, at school or in life, “you learn from your mistakes.”     1       

The short answer is “yes” — failure can be a teachable moment. But learning from our mistakes is, in reality, very hard because we don’t like to fail.     2     So we react to failure in emotional ways, like giving up on a task easily, telling ourselves we don’t care whether we succeed, or finding fault with the task itself. This is self-protective, according to Hallgeir Sjastad, a professor of psychology and leadership at the Norwegian School of Economics. “Most of us want to think of ourselves as capable”, he says, “so when we fail, it causes a serious threat to our self-image”.

Fortunately, there is a research to suggest that there are some strategies to help us overcome the emotional barriers around failure.     3     Instead of asking “Why did I fail?”, we could ask “Why did Sam fail?”, for example. Multiple studies by psychologist Ethan Kross at the University of Michigan show that adopting a third-person perspective helps to soften our negative emotional reactions, allowing us to look at failure more objectively.

A second strategy involves offering advice to others who may be in the same position as us.     4     The group of adults and children were asked to give advice based on their own failures. Professors Eskreis-Winkler, Fishbach and Duckworth found that the satisfaction of helping others “forces people to connect with their experience and what they have learned”. 

    5     But it now seems that we should be saying: “fail again, fail smarter”. Failure is an unavoidable part of life, but by learning to overcome the emotional barriers around it, we may find the road to success is a little easier to find.

A．It doesn’t feel good.

B．But is this actually true?

C．Here are some reasons why we think so.

D．But how to overcome them is a question.

E．One of them is to adopt a third-person view.

F．The writer Samuel Beckett once said: “fail again, fail better.”

G．It led to better levels of motivation and academic success in the test groups.

6 . What is the most shocking about the heatwave affecting the Pacific Northwest is not that it has hit a usually mild area, nor that so many long-standing temperature records are being broken. It is that those records are being broken by such large margins (幅度). In Portland, Oregon, temperature reached 46.6℃(116°F) — making it one of several cities in the region where former records have been beaten by a full 5℃(9°F). At the same time, heatwaves are also hitting central Europe and even Siberia.

Heatwaves may become headlines, but less attention is paid to them. In 2018 about 300,000 people over the age of 65 died as a result of extreme heat, mainly in India, a 54% increase since 2000, according to a report in the Lancet, a medical journal. The report also shows that, unlike storms and floods, heat does not lead to dramatic before-and-after pictures or widespread damage to belongings. It is a silent killer. As many as 70,000 people died due to a heatwave in Europe in 2003.

Heat also kills by worsening health conditions such as heart problems, so not all the deaths it causes may be directly attributed (归因) to it. Climate change will make heatwaves more common and more extreme. Even if greenhouse-gas emissions (排放) are cut to zero by the middle of this century, temperatures will go on rising for decades. So other measures are needed to protect people against extreme heat.

Governments can set up early warning systems to alarm health workers, shut down schools and stop outdoor activities. They can provide the public with forecasts of coming heatwaves, explanations of the dangers and detailed advice on what to do. Improved facilities can also help. This includes providing shaded areas, water parks and “misting stations” to help people cool down, and get to airconditioned “cooling centers” where they can find shelter and sleep if necessary.

The world is, undoubtedly, facing a big health challenge right now. There is no excuse for ignoring heatwaves and their effects.

1. What shocks us most about the heatwave in the Pacific Northwest?

A．It has stricken a usually mild area.

B．It hits central Europe except Siberia.

C．Many temperature records are being broken.

D．Many records are being broken by large margins.

2. What can we learn from the report in the Lancer?

A．People have paid much attention to heatwaves.

B．Heat doesn’t cause widespread damage to belongings.

C．The damage of heat is as obvious as storms and floods.

D．About 300,000 middle-aged people died from extreme heat.

3. What can governments do to protect people against heatwaves?

A．Provide some cool places.	B．Build nursing homes.
C．Organize outdoor activities.	D．Shelter the homeless.

4. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A．Improving Public Facilities	B．Taking Heatwaves Seriously
C．Preventing Natural Disasters	D．Reducing Greenhouse-gas Emission

7 . Music influences your emotions. In turn, your emotions influence your behavior. One of these is your food intake.     1     What does science say about this subject?

Researchers at the University of Arkansas studied how music influences people when they eat in a restaurant. For the study, they used four types of music: jazz, classical, rock, and hip-hop. Their results showed that people had more appetite when they listened to jazz music while they ate.     2     This has a lot to do with emotions. For instance, when you listen to music with harmonic rhythms like jazz, you feel happier. This increases your appetite.

However, another study published in Psychological Reports suggests it isn’t only increased appetite that causes people to eat more.     3     A more stimuli-filled environment makes you eat more. In fact, they tend to urge you on to eat and even “encourage” you to eat faster. On the other hand, if the atmosphere in the restaurant is relaxed, you’re likely to feel more relaxed and spend more time enjoying yourself. For this reason, you’ll tend to eat less.

Besides, the study conducted by the Journal of the Academy suggests that the volume of music can also have an effect on how you eat. More specifically, the study states that, with low-volume music, you eat better because you make healthier choices. On the other hand, the study claims that music at high volume increases stimulation and stress.     4    

For this reason, restaurants should consider the fact when thinking about the optimization of their products and services.     5     They equip themselves with the technology needed to provide memorable experiences through music, greatly strengthening their relationship with the customer.

A．Does music influence how you eat?

B．Being in a rush to eat also plays a part.

C．Does your emotion boost your appetite?

D．However, they had less appetite when listening to hip-hop.

E．In fact, many catering establishments have already taken action.

F．This could prove to be quite an interesting concept for restaurants.

G．This means you’re more likely to order comfort food or other unhealthy options.

8 . When it came to imaging the future, Arthur C. Clarke stubbornly refused to take credit for any predictions. The Internet, 3-D printers, email: he may have described them all long before they existed. As a science fiction writer, he came up with the idea of a “personal transceiver” that is small enough to be carried about, able to contact with anyone in the world and perform global positioning, making getting lost a thing of the past. Elsewhere, he predicted everything from online banking to reusable spacecraft. His best remembered fictional work of all is 2001: A Space Odyssey. It also happened to forecast the iPad, computer software that is able to read lips, and space stations.

Interestingly, his vision of the future has barely aged. For example, life in Sri Lanka inspired his 1979 novel, featuring a “space elevator”, a planet-to-space transportation system that would do away with the need for rocket travel. Those human settlements on Mars or Venus are decidedly behind schedule(we humans were expected to have set foot on both by 1980), and we’re still looking for the key that should have fully unlocked the languages of whales and dolphins by 1970.

It’s a way of thinking that was likely fuelled by his inability to be anything other than utterly absorbed in all that interested him. At the very start of his career, he shared a flat on London’s Gray’s Inn Road with fellow science fiction writers who nicknamed him “Ego” because of his talent for turning out (关掉) distraction. Once he’d become a big enough name to be interviewed, he’d send journalists home loaded with research papers.

He once said, “Trying to predict the future is a discouraging and risky occupation.” If a prediction sounds at all reasonable, technological progress is sure to leave it seeming “ridiculously conservative”. But if, by a miracle, a person were to be able to describe the future exactly as it will unfold, “His predictions will sound so absurd and far-fetched that everybody would laugh him to scorn (轻蔑).”

1. What can we infer from the first paragraph?

A．Clarke is an imaginative science fiction writer.	B．Clarke is crazy about the future devices.
C．Clarke is expert at telling one’s fortune.	D．Clarke is a rarely talented inventor.

2. The examples in Paragraph 2 prove ________.

A．there is no need for rocket travel in future

B．unlocking the languages of animals is ahead of time

C．humans were expecting to settle on Mars by 1980

D．Clarke’s predictions still seem impossibly distant

3. Why was Clarke called “Ego” by his fellows?

A．He could focus all his mind on something.	B．He cared more about himself than others.
C．He was absorbed in what interested him.	D．He was proud of being a big name.

4. What does Clarke stress in the last paragraph?

A．The rapid progress of technology.	B．The absurdness of some predictions.
C．The difficulty of predicting the future.	D．The miracle of dependable predictions.

9 . Earth’s wildlife populations have decreased by an average of 69% in just under 50 years, according to a leading scientific assessment, as humans continue to clear forests, consume beyond the limits of the planet, and pollute on an industrial scale. Two years ago, the estimated decline since 1970 stood at 68%, and four years ago, it was under 60%.

Many scientists believe we are living through the sixth mass extinction-the largest loss of life on Earth since the time of the dinosaurs-and that it as being driven by humans. The report’s 89 authors urged world leaders to reach an ambitious agreement at the Cop 15 biodiversity summit in Canada this December and to cut carbon emissions to limit global heating to below 1. 5 C this decade to stop to serious destruction of nature.

Latin America and the Caribbean have seen the steepest declines in average wildlife population size, with a 94% drop in 48 years. Africa had the second largest fall at 66%, followed by Asia and the Pacific with 55% and North America at 20%. Europe and Central Asia experienced an 18% fall. The total loss is akin to the human population of Europe, the Americas, Africa, Oceania and China disappearing, according to the report.

Land use change is still the leading driver of biodiversity loss across the planet. Robin Freeman, head of one unit at Zoological Society of London’s, said it was clear humanity is eroding the very foundations of life, and argent action is needed. He mentioned, “It’s not just about conservation, it’s about changing production and consumption-and the only way we are going to be able to make laws or call for that is to have these clear measurable targets that ask for recovery of abundance, reduction of extinction risk and the ending of extinctions at Cop 15 in December.”

1. What do the data in paragraph 1 show?

A．The sixth mass extinction of forests is going down.

B．The industrial pollution is becoming more widespread.

C．The consumption level is beyond the limits of the earth.

D．The decline rate of wildlife populations is beyond the estimation.

2. What does the underlined word “akin” mean in paragraph 3?

A．Similar.

B．Different.

C．Contrary.

D．Normal.

3. What can we learn from Robin Freeman’s words in paragraph 4?

A．Stable land use can prevent the loss of wildlife populations.

B．Cop 15 should take the responsibility for biodiversity reduction.

C．Making laws for recovery of wildlife abundance seems impossible.

D．Changing ways of production and consumption matters in protection.

4. What is the best title of the passage?

A．Wildlife Faces Great Challenges to Survive

B．All Continents Suffer from Wildlife Disappearance

C．Human Activities Contribute to Wildlife’s Habitat Loss

D．Animal Numbers Decrease by an Average of 69%under 5 Decades

10 . Learn a new language and, at some point, you’ll meet native speakers that have you questioning your language abilities.     1     And what’s that slang (俚语) they’re using?! If this sounds all too familiar to you, then welcome! You’ve leveled up to a new stage of language learning best known as the dialect. The differences between a dialect and a language have a number of technicalities and exceptions tied to them. But as a language learner, you’re probably more interested in the practical takeaway.

    2    . We can see how the standard elements of English change across the US, the UK, and even Singapore, where Singlish exists as a hyper-regional dialect of English.

The first thing you’ll notice about each English dialect is the shift in pronunciation. This shift, better known as an accent, is an important element of a dialect.     3    . Don’t worry too much about this. What’s important is that you’re able to identify differences during conversations and feel comfortable adapting to them.

Studies show that children who primarily speak a dialect are hyper-aware of the differences, and are able to reach reading and writing goals more quickly as a result.     4     Learning a dialect, rather than just the standard language, requires a deeper dig into cultural nuances (细微差异) that aren’t lost on native speakers. In short: Learning a dialect shows that you care! It’s an incredible way to connect with new cultural communities in the process.

Before you learn a dialect, you should have a firm grasp of the fundamentals of a “standard” language. That way, you’ll be able to gain meaning through context.     5     Movies, music, books, and news are all fantastic ways to pick up on those dialectical nuances.

A．Then, enlarge your exposure.

B．There’re many varieties of English.

C．How does their accent sound so different?

D．But accent isn’t always necessary to a dialect.

E．Dialects also allow you to build deeper connections.

F．Some people are good at shifting between different accents.

G．Dialects are often closely tied with geographical boundaries.