1 . Resting on a branch in the dark is a Xingu screech owl with piercing eyes. Created by British artist Sarah Ball, the artwork refers to the scientific name of this species only found in the indigenous Xingu region of Brazil. The striking work is unique not just for its subject matter, but for how it was made: It was created with ash (灰烬) left behind after wildfires in the Amazon rainforest.
It’s part of a project called “From the Ashes”, an exhibition that ran in February in London. “Featuring 29 indigenous and non-indigenous artists, all the works were created using ink, colour and pastels produced from ash and charcoal (木炭),” said Migrate Art, the London-based social enterprise (企业) that created the project, whose goal is to help fix damage from the fires by raising money.
In March, the artworks were auctioned (拍卖) in London with estimates for individual pieces ranging from £2,000 to over £50,000, according to Simon Butler, founder of MigrateArt. “We keep 20% of what we make. The rest of it goes to the indigenous Xingu community, primarily for firefighting equipment,” he said.
Butler visited the Amazon rainforest two years ago. Witnessing the areas of the forest that had been burnt down, which he described as a “red desert that looked like the end of the world”, motivated him to create change through art. He collected the burnt remains of the rainforest, and shipped it back to London to be made into art materials. The materials were then sent to artists around the world. British artist Piers Secunda used black ink to create a painting titled Smoke In The Jungle. The collection also includes works made by members of the indigenous community.
“The sale of my work to help the Xingu Reserve buy firefighting equipment to extinguish Amazon fires is the best use of my time and resources that I can imagine,” said Secunda. “These art advocacy actions are grains of sand which build a pile. For now, the pile is small, but it is growing and will become substantial.”
1. What is the author’s purpose of describing the artwork in paragraph 1?| A．To detail the artist’s motivation. | B．To discuss climate change effects. |
| C．To highlight its unique creation method. | D．To provide insights into a new bird. |
| A．They will be stored by Simon Bulter. |
| B．Migrate Art will cooperate with more artists. |
| C．Artists will make more contribution to the poor. |
| D．Indigenous Xingu community will afford firefighting equipment. |
| A．By visiting Amazon rainforest. | B．By watching relevant information. |
| C．By talking with rainforest protectors. | D．By appealing to artists to create related works. |
| A．Promising. | B．Uncaring. | C．Demanding. | D．Controversial. |
2 . On the surface, Western Australia’s Great Sandy Desert might appear calm. But deep underground, blind moles (鼹鼠), also called kakarratul, covered in silky yellow fur are “swimming” through the sand. These creatures that are considered elusive spend so much of their lives below the surface that they remain largely unknown to wildlife biologists.
Now, Aboriginal rangers (护林员) have made a sight of one of the kakarratuls by the Martu, the local people of central Western Australia. This marks the second kakarratul sight in just six months. Historically, people only see the species five to ten times every decade.
Kakarratuls are very small and can’t see very clearly. Their bodies are covered in soft fur, and they primarily eat worms (蠕虫). They’re also perfectly adapted for life in the tough Australian land. Rather than living in the hot sun, they live almost entirely underground — digging holes as far as 8.2 feet below the surface — where they move through the sand in a unique way. The kakarratul is an amazing creature that “swims” through the sand of Australia’s western deserts. They carve a path and fill it in as they go forward through the sand.
“The creatures can survive by just breathing the air that moves between sand,” wrote Joe Benshemesh, a biologist with the National Malleefowl Recovery Group, for Australian Geographic. “They save energy and resources by allowing their body temperature to reflect that of the surrounding sand,” he added.
The moles periodically come to the surface, especially during periods of cool, rainy weather. But they don’t appear often, so wildlife scientists don’t know their population size. They are regarded as a species of “least concern”. “Local rangers try their best to take good care of kakarratuls, but they aren’t easy to find,” said Lynette Wildridge, a senior Nyangumarta ranger.
1. What does the underlined word “elusive” in paragraph I mean?| A．Dangerous to approach. | B．Difficult to find. |
| C．Expensive to buy. | D．Easy to feed. |
| A．Attractive. | B．Frightening. | C．Unforgettable. | D．Unusual. |
| A．They may appear in rainy days. |
| B．They are well taken care of by the rangers. |
| C．They can find food more easily underground. |
| D．They dig holes to get away from the extreme weather. |
| A．Kakarratuls: Swimmers Through Desert Sand | B．Kakarratuls: Unique Animals to Australia |
| C．Local Rangers Look After Kakarratuls Well | D．Australia Is Trying Hard to Save Kakarratuls |
3 . A 2021 York University study showed that weekly dance training improved motor function and daily living for those with mild Parkinson’s disease. So what is it about dance that’s different from other exercises?
Helena Blumen, a scientist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, says the mental multitasking that dance requires activates various parts of the brain at the same time, which can lead to the building of better connections across different brain regions. Basically, dancing requires more “brain power” than simpler repetitive exercises.
While scientists are still learning how dancing works in the brain, a clearer picture is beginning to take shape. In 2018, researchers at Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg in Germany, did MRI scans (扫描) of older adults who had taken part in one of the two programs over six months: one group practiced dance and the other did a traditional exercise program with cycling and strength training.
Both groups improved their level of physical fitness, but the dancers grew more white and grey matter in the parts of the brain that are responsible for cognitive (认知的) processes. What’s more, the dancers showed an increase in blood plasma BDNF, a factor known to play an important role in the development of brain capacity (能力). Together, the researchers suppose, these brain changes contribute to more of the brain’s ability to form new connections and pathways.
In a different study in 2022, Blumen and other researchers from Albert Einstein College of Medicine found that social ballroom dancing, when compared with treadmill walking among adults over 65, was connected with diminished possibility of developing Alzheimer’s disease and improved overall quality of life.
Similar studies have shown the benefits of dance in conditions ranging from MS to Huntington’s disease or other mental illnesses. Dance therapy (疗法) might even help people with brain injuries. A small Finnish study of 11 people with severe brain injury showed that dance-based therapy may improve mobility, cognition and overall well-being.
1. How is dancing different from other exercises according to the text?| A．Dancing is more fun. | B．Dancing is more challenging. |
| C．Dancing is better for the heart. | D．Dancing requires more brain activities. |
| A．By making a detailed survey. | B．By referring to previous studies. |
| C．By making comparative analyses. | D．By setting up a modeling pattern. |
| A．Reduced. | B．imagined. | C．Flexible. | D．Existent. |
| A．It’s risky. | B．It’s beneficial. | C．It’s informal. | D．It’s traditional. |
4 . You’ve made the decision that you want to travel more this year. You’ve realized that experiences are more important than possessions (财产) and you’ve put together a plan to start saving for your next big trip.
Be open-minded.
Haven’t heard of a place?
You want to travel to a certain destination but flights are really expensive? Don’t let this put you off, unlock your creativity and find a solution. Using the example of Ljubljana again, it’s really expensive to fly direct but flights to Venice are cheap and then there’s a 2-hour shuttle (往返) bus from Venice Ljubljana. Problem solved.
Explore travel websites and blogs.
Seek suggestions from locals.
Locals are often the best sources of information when it comes to discovering hidden destinations. Engage (接触) with locals through conversations, or social media groups related to your destination.
| A．Be creative. |
| B．Can’t even pronounce a place? |
| C．Avoid the common misunderstandings. |
| D．Can’t find a way to write your journal? |
| E．But how are you going to decide where to actually go? |
| F．The Internet is a place full of valuable information when it comes to travel. |
| G．Ask for their recommendations that might not be widely known but are worth exploring. |
5 . Exhibitions (展览) in the USA 2024
For those who are keen on attending various exhibitions and looking for the latest information on certain fields, there is always one exhibition for you.
Annual (一年一度的) Builders St. Charles Home Show, 2024
June 15th, 2024—June 17th, 2024
Saint Charles, USA
The Annual Builders St. Charles Home Show is the only national event that brings remodelers, custom builders, residential architects, and designers together to meet face to face with top producers to preview creative products, information, tools &services.
Novi Home & Garden Show, 2024
June 18th, 2024—June 20th, 2024
Novi, USA
The Novi Home & Garden Show is the one- stop destination to find home improvement products and services for every type of project imaginable, decorating and landscaping exhibits as well as experienced businesses to provide services.
Acadiana Bird Club-Bird Fair, 2024
June 23rd, 2024—June 24th, 2024
Lafayette, USA
The aim of the Acadiana Bird Club-Bird Fair is the preservation of all bird species through public education on the proper care and breeding (饲养) of birds and to promote the health and well-being of all pet birds.
ACC Annual Scientific Session & Expo, 2024
June 26th, 2024—June 28th, 2024
Atlanta, USA
The ACC Annual Scientific Session & Expo will provide the attendees with the opportunity to gain insights relating to the latest heart disease researches and related treatments. At the exhibition, you can also see the latest and most advanced medical facilities on display.
1. When can you go to the Novi Home & Garden Show?| A．On June 15th. | B．On June 19th. |
| C．On June 23rd. | D．On June 28th. |
| A．Exhibiting and trading pet birds. | B．Promoting research on bird species. |
| C．Increasing public awareness of bird care. | D．Providing bird entertainment performances. |
| A．Saint Charles. | B．Novi. | C．Lafayette. | D．Atlanta. |
6 . Among those history, science and literature for teenagers, Sophie’s World is definitely a classic. The defining theme (主题) of Sophie’s World is, pretty clearly, philosophy. As the book moves along, Sophie Amundsen, a teenaged girl, learns important lessons in the history of Western philosophy from her teacher, Alberto Knox. Alberto, an intelligent man, guides Sophie through the history of philosophy.
It would take too long to summarize every philosophical system that Alberto reviews with Sophie—in fact, doing so would be beside the point. By the end of the book, Sophie certainly hasn’t settled on any one system of ideas. There are things about Plato, Hegel, Kant, and Nietzsche that she admires, and a few moral issues that she’s particularly interested in but she’s not prepared to throw in her lot as a Kantian or a Nietzschean. Even after learning about 3,000 years of Western thought, Sophie continues to wonder what to believe.
The concept of “wonder”—both in the sense of questioning what is true, and in the sense of being continually amazed by the world—is the key to understanding Sophie’s World. One reason why the novel doesn’t end with Sophie arriving at an answer to her questions is that any such answer would be a little unsatisfactory, since it would make the universe seem “fixed”, predictable, and dry. Alberto teaches Sophie about philosophy not to give her answers but to train her to ask questions—to think of herself as an outsider, trying to make sense of what’s right in front of her nose. A good philosopher will never lose her sense of wonder at the universe’s mysteries. One could even say that the goal of philosophy as Alberto understands it is to escape banality (平庸) and boredom.
In this way, Sophie’s World arrives at the strange conclusion (结论) that although it’s important to ask philosophical questions, it’s not particularly important to choose definite answers to these questions. Philosophy is about preserving one’s sense of wonder—this, it’s suggested, is the only real wisdom.
1. What is the main subject matter of Sophie’s World?| A．History. | B．Philosophy. | C．Science. | D．Literature. |
| A．She is too young to understand the diverse ideas. |
| B．She wants to relate science knowledge to philosophy. |
| C．She finds the philosophical systems too boring to follow. |
| D．She wants to continue exploring different philosophy ideas. |
| A．To train people to become critical thinkers. |
| B．To teach the history of Western philosophical thought. |
| C．To provide definitive answers about the meaning of life. |
| D．To help people keep a sense of wonder about the world. |
| A．A book review. | B．A diary entry. | C．A research paper. | D．A short story. |
7 . Each spring, scientists hide more than 1,600 lunchbox-size recorders across the forests of the Sierra Nevada range in the western U. S.
Until they’re taken back at summer’s end, these recorders record a million hours of audio (音频), which often contains the hoots, barks, and whistles of the California spotted owl — valuable information about where the endangered species spends its time. But it’s a lot of recordings for a human to go through. “There’s no way we can listen to that — not even close,” says Connor Wood, a researcher who co-leads the owl project at the K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics, part of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York.
It turns out that this team actually can process this huge amount of data — they just need a little help from BirdNET, an AI-powered system launched in 2018 that can identify more than 6,000 species of birds, including the migration (迁徙) birds, across the globe just by their call.
“We need tools that are really flexible and capable of identifying as many acoustically (听觉上) active animals as possible,” says Wood, whose lab developed BirdNET with the Chemnitz University of Technology in Germany. “I cannot stress enough the significant influence BirdNET has brought to bird research.”
Two years later, the team launched the official BirdNET app, which allows people across the world to upload their own recordings from laptops or smartphones. Since then, BirdNET has gathered roughly 150 million high-quality bird sounds. With funding from the U. S. Forest Service and National Park Service, Wood and his team recently used BirdNET to create the first ecosystem-wide assessment of spotted owl populations across the Sierra Nevada, which increasingly face threats from enemy species or wildfires.
However, like most AI-based technology, these apps are not without drawbacks. In his recent study, ecologist Cristian Pérez-Granados, who works at the University of Alicante in Spain, reviewed a range of scientific literature on BirdNET. His research found that BirdNET didn’t always register a bird’s song, and sometimes misidentified it as another species, which results in “false positives”.
1. What is the main challenge in processing the audio data?| A．The data contain mostly useless background noise. |
| B．There is too much audio data to handle. |
| C．The data are too small to provide enough information. |
| D．The recorders frequently fail to function and record properly. |
| A．To play bird sounds. | B．To take photos of birds. |
| C．To recognize bird species. | D．To track bird migration. |
| A．Curious. | B．Appreciative. | C．Doubtful. | D．Carefree. |
| A．Limitations of the BirdNET application. | B．Benefits of BirdNET for bird conservation. |
| C．Supporting evidence for the research results. | D．Reasonable doubts about the research process. |
8 . Do you know the following fun holidays?
Yellow Pig Day
The unofficial holiday that falls on July 17 was created in the early 1960s by Princeton mathematics students, David Kelly and Michael Spivak, while they were working on the special properties (属性) of the number 17, which is a prime number (质数) that has significance in mathematics.
Mole Day
It’s celebrated every year with a theme by scientists and chemistry students throughout the United States and around the world between 6:02 am and 6:02 pm(18:02)on October 23 because when written in the month-date format (格式), the date and time 6.02, 10/23 include the digits (数字) in Avogadro’s number (602×1023) in honor of the mole, a measuring unit in chemistry.
Tau Day
This has much to do with Pi Day (圆周率日). It has been held every year since 2010 on June 28. The day began as a way to recognize tau. Tau is equal to 2π or 6.283. In recent years, some mathematicians and physicists have argued for the replacement of pi(π) by tau, but it is not yet widely accepted within the scientific community.
Palindrome Day
Palindrome (回文) is a word or phrase that reads the same backwards as forwards, for example madam. Palindrome Day happens when the day’s date can be read the same way backward and forward. Because date formats vary from country to country, not all dates that are palindromic in one kind of date format are Palindrome Days in another. For instance, April 21, 2024 or 4-21-24 is a palindromic date in the m-dd-yy format, but it isn’t if you write the date as dd-m-yy yy(21-4-2024)or dd-mm-yyyy(21-04-2024).
1. What is special about Mole Day?| A．It has a different theme every year. | B．It was created by a scientist. |
| C．It’s the oldest of the four holidays. | D．It’s celebrated only in America. |
| A．Palindrome Day. | B．Mole Day. | C．Yellow Pig Day. | D．Tau Day. |
| A．They’re celebrated several times a year. | B．They each represent a scientific idea. |
| C．They are enjoyed mainly by students. | D．They are accepted by governments. |
9 . Grace Choi, whose nickname is Sunny, is a gymnast in America. “I remember her doing cartwheels (翻跟头) when she was a kid,” her brother Jin says.
One night at college, Choi saw members of a breaking (霹雳舞) club dancing by accident. She was immediately attracted to the dance and came to a class. Choi’s gymnastics skills gave her an advantage. After graduating from business school, she began working in the cosmetics (化妆品) industry. But on the side, she kept breaking.
Breaking was added to the Paris Olympics program in 2020. In late 2021, Choi attended a camp. It was for the top U. S. breakers. A coach there asked those who wanted to become Olympians to raise their hands. Everyone’s hand went up except Choi’s. Working full-time while training to make the Olympic team seemed impossible.
But after finishing second at the World Games in July 2022, Choi left the cosmetics industry. In 2023, she was chosen for the 2024 Paris Olympics by winning the Pan American Games.“I’m so much happier,” she says. “I feel lighter. I have more energy for the things I want to do.”
Thirty-two breakers will go to Paris. “Choi has power moves,” says Mary Fogarty, a professor of dance at York University, in Toronto, Canada. “Choi is someone who has enough material to go all the way through.” Choi struggles with self-doubt. She’ll work on her mindset. She’ll lift weights with a strength coach. And she’ll eat a healthy diet.
Choi is confident about one thing: If you give breaking a chance, you won’t be disappointed. “You feel the energy,” she says. “You feel the excitement. You feel the happiness or the anger or whatever emotion that the dancer is expressing in that moment. What’s so cool about breaking is that you get to be really you.”
1. What introduced Choi to break dancing?| A．An accidental chance. | B．Her gymnastics skills. |
| C．Her brother’s encouragement. | D．The camp for the top breakers. |
| A．Her job. | B．Her health. |
| C．Her college education. | D．Her chance of promotion. |
| A．Anxious. | B．Confident. | C．Uncertain. | D．Unexpected. |
| A．A youth is to be regarded with respect. | B．The young thirst for being famous. |
| C．Where there’s interest, there’s success. | D．Curious minds never feel contented. |
10 . In June 1938, writer Jerry Siegel and illustrator Joe Shuster introduced Superman to readers. Since then, the Superman has become a cultural symbol, appearing in films, novels, TV series and more.
On April 4, 2024, a copy of that original 1938 Superman comic (漫画) book—called Action Comics No. 1—sold for $6 million during a Heritage Auctions sale. It’s now the most valuable comic book in the world.
“Thursday was a historic day for a historic comic book, and we expected no less,” says Barry Sandoval, vice president at Heritage Auctions.
The comic has been given a “very fine” grade of 8.5 out of 10 by CGC, a third-party grading service for pop culture collectibles. It’s one of just 78 copies CGC has graded, though the company thinks around 100 still exist. Just 200,000 copies of Action Comics No. I were published in 1938. The price beats out the previous record-holder, a 1939 issue of Superman No. I that sold privately for $5.3 million in 2022. Until then, the record had belonged to a copy of Amazing Fantasy No. 15—which introduced readers to Spider-Man in 1962—that sold for $3.6 million in 2021.
Action Comics No. 1 tells the story of a baby boy who was born on a dying faraway planet. His father places him in a space capsule (太空舱) and sends him away just before his home planet gets destroyed. Finally, the capsule lands on Earth, where a passing driver discovers the sleeping baby and saves him. The child—Clark Kent—grows up and realizes he has superhuman strengths and abilities.
Superman’s popularity skyrocketed in the following decades, and Action Comics continues to this day. “Without Superman and Action Comics No. 1, who knows whether there ever would have been a Golden Age of comics—or if the medium would have become what it is today?” says Sandoval.
1. What do we know about Action Comics No.1?| A．It is based on the writer’s true story. | B．It contains the character of Spider-Man. |
| C．It has a history of more than 80 years. | D．It is the world’s most expensive novel. |
| A．To present a topic. | B．To explain a phenomenon. |
| C．To raise a question. | D．To make a comparison. |
| A．He destroys his home planet. | B．He inspires Siege l to write. |
| C．He is the Superman. | D．He is the passing driver. |
| A．To remember a writer. | B．To introduce a book. |
| C．To promote values of comics. | D．To encourage studies on culture. |
