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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| A．Language study. | B．Environmental conservation. |
| C．Public education. | D．Intercultural communication. |
2 . The older I get, the more I understand how my teachers have transformed my life.
On a recent Sunday afternoon, I went to see Mr. C at Roxbury Park in Beverly Hills. His love of life has not dimmed despite the fact that his legs no longer work like they used to. He visited some of his former students while he was in town. At Beverly Hills High School, Mr. C taught ancient history, coached football and golf, and risked his life teaching driver’s training on Saturday mornings from 1964 to 1988. The gray and hobbled students lined up one after another to thank their favorite teacher. One called him a rock star. Another was grateful for helping him when he couldn’t say so. It was a beautiful tribute, especially in these times of catastrophic teacher shortages.
Spending that Sunday in the park with Mr. C was nothing short of magic. It was a reminder of all that is promising and possible in public education, including a teacher whose rare emotional honesty could be appreciated and honored decades later. It also brought to mind Maya Angelou’s saying “People will forget what you said and did, but never forget how you make them feel.” He made me and others in the park feel heard and seen.
Mr. C changed my perception of myself. Rather than seeing myself as a loser cheerleader who couldn’t compete with the smart kids, I realized how much I loved learning. His history class was so interesting. In his classes about the Persians, Greeks, and Romans, extra credits can be earned for creativity. During earthquake drills, we counted on Mr. C to scream his head off in mock terror.
It should come as little surprise that I’d value the role of teachers in my life. Both of my parents taught; so did my siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins. I, too, have become a teacher and I try to follow in Mr. C’s footsteps. Some days, I fantasize what it would be like to go on a teacher tour, reaching out to my mentors to express my deep gratitude for all they’ve given me. Seeing Mr. C sparked that fantasy again. When I finally worked up my courage to thank him, knowing a floodgate of tears would open, he said to me with his typical modesty: “You were doing me more good than I was doing you.”
1. What does the underlined word “tribute” mean in Paragraph 2?| A．enthusiasm | B．admiration | C．devotion | D．commitment |
| A．To make a suggestion. |
| B．To introduce a celebrity. |
| C．To show respect to an educator. |
| D．To interpret the influence of education. |
| A．Enjoyable. | B．Intolerant. | C．Incompetent. | D．Patient. |
| A．A reunion. | B．A rock star. | C．A surprise. | D．A great teacher. |
3 . Four Tips to Discover Your True Passion
True passion is the emotion, feeling, and desire that arises out of love for something. It’s the force that magnifies (放大) your capabilities for the benefit of excellent performance. This is because it’s a powerful motivation for best performance and everyone wants to get there.
Search your childhood.
The purity and truth of your being are in the early stages of life. To that end, going back to the things you loved back then is always an excellent indication of marked preferences. Did you want to be a doctor?
Experiment and discover.
Doing the same activities day after day closes any probabilities to succeed in finding your true passion.
Focus to find your true passion.
You must forget about the myth that doing what you’re passionate about will be easy and pleasant. This is because there’ll always be inconveniences in any activity you undertake. Beyond that, don’t lose focus on the fact that these are temporary moments.
Remember that your age doesn’t matter.
| A．Were you interested in insects? |
| B．Take a variety of courses each month. |
| C．Do you know the meaning of passion? |
| D．Age isn’t necessary to find out your true passion. |
| E．Be calm while finding out your motivation. |
| F．It’s vital to figure out what you’re passionate about. |
| G．Understanding this will make it easier to keep motivated. |
4 . If you look at the dynamic “Global Temperatures” map on NASA’s website, you can see the historic temperature change over time across the planet as the timeline goes from 1880 to the modern day. By 2019, the entire planet is in red, orange, and yellow colors, indicating temperatures much higher than the historical average in every country and human inhabitance.
If the timeline went to 2023, the map would look even worse. That’s because the summer of 2023 was the hottest ever, according to ocean monitors. July was the hottest month in recorded history. Next July could be worse. Unless we do something quickly, we face dealing with more and more dangerous and expensive natural disasters in the future.
Forest fires sent smoke from Canada across the North American continent, causing New York City to have the worst air quality in its recorded history. Heavy rainstorms fell on Vermont and the Northeastern United States in just a couple of days in the middle of July, which exceeded the amount that area would usually receive in two months and caused extreme damage to homes and businesses. Around the same time, flash flooding in Bucks County, Pennsylvania — north of Philadelphia — killed nearly a dozen people.
Erich Fischer, a researcher specializing in climate studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, is concerned that natural disasters could get much worse in the future—and in ways we cannot predict. He called for a “strike for climate justice,” which actually took place on Sept. 15, 2023. “The strategy needs to be twofold (双重的) . We need to decrease carbon emissions as much as realistically possible. That is already happening with people using electric cars and other green technologies. At the same time, we also need to find ways to predict the risk of natural disasters ahead of time,” said Erich Fischer.
1. Why does the writer mention the data on NASA’s website in paragraph 1?| A．To explain a concept. | B．To introduce a topic. |
| C．To provide a solution. | D．To make a prediction. |
| A．The severity of natural disasters. | B．The worst air quality in New York City. |
| C．The extreme damage by flash flooding. | D．The cause of the forests fires in Canada. |
| A．He advocated a twofold strategy. |
| B．He suggested forbidding carbon emissions. |
| C．He required people to use more electric cars. |
| D．He emphasized the awareness of climate changes. |
| A．The Hottest Month in History | B．Natural Disasters in the World |
| C．Extreme Weather Could Get Worse | D．Green Technology Would be Needed |
5 . Phonetic (语音) information—the smallest sound elements of speech - is considered by researchers to be the basis of language. Babies are thought to learn these small sound elements and add them together to make words. But a new study suggests that phonetic information is learnt too late and slowly for this to be the case. Instead, rhythmic (有韵律的) speech helps babies learn language and is effective even in the first few months of life.
Researchers from the Trinity College Dublin investigated babies’ ability to process phonetic information during their first year. Their study, published in the journal Nature Communications. found that phonetic information wasn’t successfully encoded (编码) until seven months old, and did not occur very often at 11 months old when babies began to say their first words. From then individual speech sounds are still added in very slowly—too slowly to form the basis of language.
The researchers recorded patterns of brain activity in 50 babies at four, seven, and eleven months old as they watched a video of a primary school teacher singing 18 nursery rhymes (童谣) to a baby. They found that phonetic encoding in babies appeared inchmeal over the first year of life, beginning with labial sounds (e.g. “d” for “daddy”) and nasal sounds (e.g. “m” for “mummy”), with the “read out” progressively looking more like that of adults.
“The reason why we use nursery rhymes is because that is the best way for babies to discover and connect sounds with language, so we are teaching them how to speak,” said Giovanni Di Liberto, lead author of the study at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. “Parents should talk and sing to their babies as much as possible or use baby-directed speech because it will make a difference to language outcome,” she added.
1. What should babies learn in the first few months of life according to the new study?| A．Small sound elements | B．Rhythmic information. |
| C．Phonetic information. | D．Individual words. |
| A．The poor phonetic encoding in babies. | B．The advantages of phonetic information. |
| C．The babies’ great ability to learn language. | D．The babies’ growing process in the first year. |
| A．Gradually. | B．Suddenly. | C．Successfully. | D．Occasionally. |
| A．When Babies Are Able to Say Their First Words |
| B．How Phonetic Information Changes Over Time |
| C．Why Phonetic Is Better Than Rhythmic for Babies |
| D．Why Babies Need Nursery Rhymes for Language Mastery |
6 . Imagine this. You need an image of a balloon for a work presentation and turn to an AI text-to- image generator, like Midjourney or DALL-E, to create a suitable image. You enter the prompt (提示词) “red balloon against a blue sky” but the generator returns an image of an egg instead.
What’s going on? The generator you’re using may have been “poisoned”. What does this mean? Text-to-image generators work by being trained on large datasets that include millions or billions of images. Some of the generators have been trained by indiscriminately scraping online images, many of which may be under copyright. This has led to many copyright infringement (侵害) cases where artists have accused big tech companies of stealing and profiting from their work.
This is also where the idea of “poison” comes in. Researchers who want to empower individual artists have recently created a tool named “Nightshade” to fight back against unauthorised image scraping. The tool works by slightly altering an image’s pixels (像素) in a way that confuses the computer vision system but leaves the image unaltered to a human’s eyes. If an organization then scrapes one of these images to train a future AI model, its data pool becomes “poisoned”. This can result in mistaken learning, which makes the generator return unintended results. As in our earlier example, a balloon might become an egg.
The higher the number of “poisoned” images in the training data, the greater the impact. Because of how generative AI works, the damage from “poisoned” images also affects related prompt keywords. For example, if a “poisoned” image of a Picasso work is used in training data, prompt results for masterpieces from other artists can also be affected.
Possibly, tools like Nightshade can be abused by some users to intentionally upload “poisoned” images in order to confuse AI generators. But the Nightshade’s developer hopes the tool will make big tech companies more respectful of copyright. It does challenge a common belief among computer scientists that data found online can be used for any purpose they see fit.
Human rights activists, for example, have been concerned for some time about the indiscriminate use of machine vision in wider society. This concern is particularly serious concerning facial recognition. There is a clear connection between facial recognition cases and data poisoning, as both relate to larger questions around technological governance. It may be better to see data poisoning as an innovative solution to the denial of some fundamental human rights.
1. The underlined word “scraping” (para. 2) is closest in meaning to ____.| A．facilitating | B．collecting | C．damaging | D．polishing |
| A．increase the accuracy of returned information |
| B．cause users to forget the prompt key words |
| C．interfere with the training of generative AI |
| D．discriminate against great masterpieces |
| A．Data poisoning is somehow justified to direct attention to human rights. |
| B．Computer scientists has learned to respect the copyright of most artists. |
| C．Nightshade is being abused by human rights activists to recognize faces. |
| D．The issue of technological governance has aroused the lawyers’ interest. |
| A．Data Poisoning: Government Empowering Citizens to Protect Themselves |
| B．Data Poisoning: Addressing Facial Recognition Issues Among Artists |
| C．Data Poisoning: Risks and Rewards of Generative AI Data Training |
| D．Data Poisoning: Restricting Innovation or Empowering Artists |
7 . Lying in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, the fishing village Huatulco is home to nine bays, 36 beaches and thousands of baby turtles that apparently needed me. I had three open days on my calendar, and a desire to save some turtles. And so, away I went to Huatulco with Wildcoast, a group of champions-for-change who were protecting coastal and marine ecosystem in the U. S. and Mexico.
I was taken to La Escobilla to experience Wildcoast in action. Just one hour north of Huatulco, this protected beach is where mass turtle nesting happens. This natural phenomenon lasts just four days during rainy season, hundreds of thousands of female sea turtles swinging their way ashore to lay their eggs.
Between threats of dogs, crabs, development and oil spills, the little creatures have the whole world against them. As recently as 2002, turtles hunting was not only a common practice, but an important part of the culture and diet in the Oaxaca communities. Luckily, Wildcoast rescues turtle eggs and recreates habitats by monitoring temperatures and humidity. Thanks to their efforts, the sea turtles have made a major comeback, with now over 72 million turtles being born on the beaches that Wildcoast protects.
I got to hold 50 of the tiny creatures in a bowl. Despite an average laying of 100 eggs, just one in 1, 000 baby turtles will make it to adulthood. Gazing into the bowl, I so badly wanted them to taste the sea and find shelter somewhere deep in the ocean. Finally, it was time to liberate those little creatures. Out spilled the creatures, some moving full steam ahead while others barely paddled in place. Literally, hundreds of them began to spread out across the beach.
With each set of waves, we witnessed the survival of the fittest, some pushing past the whitewash while others crashed back to shore. Their fight for life made my eyes wet. A flock of birds were ready to dive into the sea for their moving targets. “One in 1, 000.” Nature was cruel and compassionate at the same time. After 30 long minutes, the last creature made his way to the sea.
1. The baby turtles are threatened by various factors except ________.| A．the cruel hunters | B．the rapid development |
| C．the extreme weather | D．the oil-polluted ocean |
| A．With slow pace and fear. | B．With all energy and enthusiasm. |
| C．With full caution and curiosity. | D．With great satisfaction and responsibility. |
| A．One baby turtle in 1,000 can make his way to the sea. |
| B．Thousands of baby turtles were crashed back to shore. |
| C．The struggle of baby turtles for life touched the author. |
| D．Baby turtles can hardly survive the harsh living conditions. |
| A．Think twice before you leap. | B．God helps those who help themselves. |
| C．Cease to struggle and you cease to live. | D．When the buying stops, the killing can too. |
8 . More than two thirds of students are experiencing poor sleep quality and this is linked to mental health problems, new research suggests. The findings, based on more than 1,000 men and women attending university full-time, also show those with depressive (抑郁的) symptoms were almost four times as likely to suffer from inadequate sleep.
Excessive (过度的) daytime sleepiness (EDS) was a problem among over half the students—they were almost twice as likely to have depression or experience high stress levels.
The authors warn stressors, such as course demands, make college students have sleep disorders which in turn affect academic performance and health. They’re calling on universities to do more to promote positive sleep habits and good mental health.
Living away from home for the first time, using stimulants (刺激物) that damage sleep and keeping irregular bedtimes are all factors that make students suffer from a lock of quality rest at night. An average of seven hours’ sleep has been reported by those attending college while nine hours is considered the ideal for young adults.
Poor sleep and EDS in those attending university have already been identified by studies, but few have probed any link with stress or depression. This new research is the first of its kind. Participants were asked about their sleep quality, EDS, socioeconomic status, and their body mass index (BMI) was also assessed.
The data was used to evaluate the level of association between sleep quality and stress levels. Results showed a significant link between these factors, and depressive problems and high stress levels. The study also found that students studying biological and health sciences were more likely to suffer from poor quality of sleep than those studying social and human sciences. The mechanism (机制) behind sleep disturbance and depression is not unclear, as is whether mental health problems cause poor quality sleep or vice versa.
1. Why is it necessary for universities to promote positive sleep habits?| A．Because college students are under heavy course pressure. |
| B．Because college students are more likely to have depression |
| C．Because sleep disorders affect college students academically. |
| D．Because sleep disorders are common among all college students |
| A．approved of | B．believed in | C．left out | D．looked into |
| A．Majors play a role in students’ sleep quality. |
| B．The mechanism disturbing sleep is still unknown. |
| C．Mental health problems result from poor sleep habits. |
| D．Students studying health sciences have better sleep habits. |
| A．Good Sleep Habits Are Vital to Students |
| B．Lack of Sleep Affects Students’ Mental Health |
| C．Mental Health Problems Affect Students’ Sleep Quality |
| D．Mental health Guarantees Students’ Academic Performance |
9 . A mysterious illness is turning some black bears friendly and unafraid of humans, among other strange symptoms.
Researchers believe the illness, which young bears around a year old appear to suffer from, is a kind of encephalitis (脑炎), according to a news report by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife late last month. Since 2014, a handful of bears in Nevada and Caledonia have shown signs of the condition, and four California bears were confirmed to have it last year. One of them walked into a school and entered a classroom where she sat down among the children, behaving very much like a friendly dog.
The encephalitis has other serious effects on the nervous system of the bears, including tremble, head tilts and seizures (癫痫). Affected bears also tend to be seriously underweight. One female bear, observed in February picking up an apple and eating it among humans in a yard, weighed only 21 pounds when she should have been around 80 pounds. She was also covered in ticks (扁虱), walked strangely and was ultimately euthanized (安乐死).
It’s still unclear exactly what's causing the brain illness. But in the course of studying the phenomenon, scientists have identified five previously unknown viruses in the affected bears.
Bears suffering from encephalitis typically have to be euthanized. Their symptoms make them unequipped to survive in the wild, and those placed in zoos or shelters can become a huge burden due to the lifelong medical care they need.
Two bears exhibiting neurological (神经系统的) issues in recent years, however, were able to find new homes. One, now named Elinor, was brought to the Orange County Zoo. The other bear, who has become famous after being caught on camera sniffing a snowboarder and is now named Benji, lives at the San Diego Humane Society’s Ramona Wildlife Center. Last month, Benji celebrated his third birthday there with a cake made out of fruit and potatoes. Details are as follows.
1. Which of the following is uninvolved in the symptoms of the bears’ disease?| A．Serious weight loss. | B．Getting close to humans. |
| C．Some neurological issues. | D．Desiring to learn knowledge. |
| A．An environmental change. | B．A severe shortage of food. |
| C．Some unknown kinds of viruses. | D．The lack of necessary medical care. |
| A．Add some background knowledge. |
| B．Provide some advice for the readers. |
| C．Summarize the previous paragraphs. |
| D．Introduce some further information about Benji’s birthday. |
| A．Black Bears in Nevada and California |
| B．A Disease Making Bears Endangered |
| C．An Unknown Bear Species |
| D．Black Bears Getting Much Friendlier |
10 . In an era of endless notifications(通知) from apps, devices and social media platforms, as well as access to more information than we could possibly consider, how do we find ways to manage? And is the way we think, focus and process information changing as a result?
Maryanne Wolf is the director of the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice at the University of California in the United States. Wolf is concerned that “the amount of interaction we have with our screens and devices and the speed at which we necessarily have to function have changed us by removing from us the ability to be present. And we’re so accustomed to going so fast that becoming completely involved in an activity is difficult.”
Kai Lukoff is an assistant professor at Santa Clara University in the US. He researches how apps, social media platforms and technology designers attempt to attract a user’s attention. “There are a thousand or more engineers, developers, designers on the other side of the screen who are purposefully or intentionally designing these services in order to attract your attention, to get you to spend more time on the site and to get you to click on more ads.”
Daniel Le Roux is a senior lecturer at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. He looks at the effects of what we’re doing when we’re “media multitasking”. “Everybody’s doing it, and it’s, in a large way, a natural adaptation to the technological environment that has been created around us.” he said.
Media multitasking, like skimming, is an adaptive response to an environment filled with information. And media multitasking comes at a cognitive(认知的) cost. Le Roux points out. “We bring what we might call a switch cost; that means our performance in our central task is going to suffer. If you think of driving as the central task, the reason we prohibit drivers from using their smartphones while they’re driving is that it distracts them from the task of driving.”
1. What is the result of much interaction with screens and devices according to Maryanne Wolf?| A．Having trouble in concentrating. |
| B．Becoming addicted to the Internet. |
| C．Being exposed to harmful information |
| D．Building more relationships with others. |
| A．Why social media apps are popular. | B．How social media platforms operate. |
| C．Platform workers try to attract users. | D．Social media platforms provide great services. |
| A．To explain media multitasking is common. |
| B．To show the harm of media multitasking. |
| C．To explain why we’re media multitasking. |
| D．To show the difficulty avoiding media multitasking. |
| A．By quoting from some experts’ speeches. |
| B．By providing some typical examples. |
| C．By using the results of some surveys. |
| D．By analyzing some social phenomena. |
