1 . J. K. Rowling frequently shows there is magic every day. Her Harry Potter series has helped people through times of stress and depression and she is always there to deliver wise words of encouragement.
She is one celebrity who is very active on Twitter. So when a single dad named Matt Burke sent her a message thanking her for the series, she noticed. Her series had helped strengthen his relationship with his 9yearold daughter Bailey.
He included a link to his article titled Being a Broke Parent. He explained how he hadn’t found a level of financial stability that allowed him to pay bills on time and take his daughter on more activities and events. The family also doesn’t have the Internet or TV, which means there’s no “digital babysitter” and he has to rely on his own creative ways to bond with his daughter. Since he received the series, the main thing that has occupied them these days is reading books together.
Burke admits that he thought he was “too cool” for the books when they first came out and he was in his twenties, but he’s loving reading them now. “We switch off chapter by chapter reading them out loud，“Burke explains.” This not only allows her to get more used to reading aloud in front of someone, but it gets me directly involved in something she loves, and it gives me the chance to be very dramatic when I read my chapters and bring myself into the characters in the book, which has proven to be a ton of fun.”
After hearing Burke’s story, Rowling said how honored she was when Harry Potter was a part of his family’s life and offered Burke more books. Besides, people are also offering to send Burke more books as gifts. For Burke, this experience, far more than gifts, will be what he treasures.
1. Why did Burke thank J. K. Rowling according to the text?| A．She guided him how to write a good story. |
| B．She encouraged him when he was in trouble. |
| C．Her books helped him through times of confusion. |
| D．Her books helped him improve his bond with his daughter. |
| A．He has found it interesting to read the series. | B．He was too old to understand the series better. |
| C．He has chosen a better way of reading the series. | D．He hopes to play a role in the drama in the future. |
| A．Useless. | B．Normal. | C．Valuable. | D．Boring. |
| A．J. K. Rowling chooses to help improve kids’ health. |
| B．J. K. Rowling gives a magical gift to a single father. |
| C．J. K. Rowling has a deep influence on others’ growth. |
| D．Burke comes to know J. K. Rowling through her series. |
2 . Going for a picnic is a good experience to be in nature, but it’s terrible to have a picnic that will do harm to the environment. Here are some ways to keep your picnic green.
Use reusable plates and cups. You don’t need to wash disposable (—次性的) plates and cups because they pollute the environment. It’s greener and cheaper to bring metal plates and cups from home. After the picnic, you can take them home and wash them.
Try to buy food from local farmers’ markets. In general, if you bring less food for your picnic, you’ll create less pollution.
Try to have an all-vegetarian picnic. Modern production of meat uses lots of energy and creates lots of pollution.
Instead of driving, ride a bike or walk to the park. If the park you want to visit is too far from your home, you can take public transportation like buses or subways.
After your picnic, remember to pick up all your trash. Try to keep the picnic area clean. If possible, try not to create any trash at all and reuse whatever you can.
1. It’s ________ to have a picnic that will do harm to the environment.| A．good | B．useful | C．bad | D．possible |
| A．Three. | B．Four. | C．Five. | D．Six. |
| A．Because they are very hard. |
| B．Because we can bring them home to reuse them after washing them. |
| C．Because they are cheap. |
| D．Because they look nice. |
| A．buy the food from the big shop in the city |
| B．buy the food from local farmers’ markets |
| C．buy the food from the supermarket near your house |
| D．buy the food from the restaurants in the city |
3 . Technology seems to discourage slow, immersive reading. Reading on a screen tires your eyes and makes it harder for you to keep your place. Online writing tends to be more skimmable than print. The cognitive neuroscientist Mary Walt argued recently that this “new norm” of skim reading is producing “an invisible, game-changing transformation” in how readers process words. The neuronal circuit (回路) that sustains the brain’s capacity to read now favors the rapid absorption of information.
We shouldn’t exaggerate this danger. All readers skim. From about the age of nine, our eyes start to bounce around the page, reading only about a quarter of the words properly, and filling in the gaps by inference. So far, the anxieties have proved to be false alarms. “Quite a few critics have been worried about attention spans lately and see very short stories as signs of cultural decline,” the American author Selvin Brown wrote. “No one ever said that poems were evidence of short attention spans.”
And yet the Internet has certainly changed the way we read. For a start, it means that there is more to read, because more people than ever are writing. And digital writing is meant for rapid release and response. This mode of writing and reading can be interactive and fun. But often it treats other people’s words as something to be quickly harvested as fodder (素材) to say something else. Everyone talks over the top of everyone else, desperate to be heard.
Perhaps we should slow down. Reading is constantly promoted as a social good and source of personal achievement. To a slow reader, a piece of writing can only be fully understood by immersing oneself in the words. and their slow comprehension of a line of thought,
The human need for this kind of deep reading is too tenacious for any new technology to destroy. We often assume that technological change can’t be stopped and happens in one direction, so that older media like “dead-tree” books are kicked out by newer, more virtual forms. In practice, older technologies can coexist with new ones. The Kindle has not killed off the printed book any more than the car killed off the bicycle. We still want to enjoy slowly formed ideas and carefully-chosen words. Even in a fast-moving age, there is time for slow reading.
1. What would Selvin Brown probably agree?| A．The culture is on the decline. | B．Online writing ruins immersive reading. |
| C．Worries of attention spans are unnecessary. | D．Reading poems is important to attention spans. |
| A．It lays the foundation for fast reading. |
| B．It counts on regular interaction with the readers. |
| C．It requires writers to give up traditional writing modes. |
| D．It causes too much talking and inadequate deep reflection. |
| A．Slowly-changed. | B．Fast-advanced. | C．Deep-rooted. | D．Rarely-noticed. |
| A．Slow Reading: Here to Stay | B．Immersive Reading: So Wonderful |
| C．Reading Habits: Constantly Changing | D．Digital vs Print: A Life-and-Death Struggle |
4 . You may have read that light coming into your eyes sets the body’s clock. Similarly, food changes the clocks in tissues in your liver, muscles, and fat. Human beings developed to eat only during daylight, which lasted 12 hours. That meant we didn’t eat for 12 hours a day. Sticking to that plan may help you stay healthier as well as thinner. However, it’s a surprisingly bad idea to ignore breakfast, eat lunch or dinner late, eat a big bedtime snack, or eat in the middle of the night.
In a study with 776 participants, people who ignored breakfast were 80 percent more likely to have obesity (肥胖症). People who ate lunch after 12:30 (or dinner after 21:00) were 60 percent more likely to have those extra pounds. That was true for both men and women at different ages and regardless of other factors that affect weight including your diet and exercise habits.
Odd hours seem to contribute to uncontrollable eating. When you eat late at night, you tend to eat more. Perhaps driven by hormone (荷尔蒙) increases, we long for sweeter, saltier food at night, research suggests. In one study, night eaters ate about 300 more calories each day.
“Eating late in the day aggravates reflux, writes Jamie A. Koufman, who specializes in voice disorders and acid reflux (胃酸倒流). Many of my patients find that eating late makes them suffer more from their allergies and diabetes symptoms,” he says. “Give your stomach at least three hours to digest before sleeping,” advises Jonathan Aviv, another specialist in acid reflux.
Eating breakfast late may also increase your breast cancer risk by about 17 percent for every hour you delay, according to a study of nearly 1,200 women with breast cancer in Spain, compared to more than 1,300 women who didn’t develop breast cancer. If you eat late at night, another research suggests, you may up the chance of breast cancer occurrence. While researchers work out the details of how our body clocks affect digestion and their downstream effects, one point is clear: Early is better.
1. What can be learned from the first two paragraphs?| A．What you eat makes no difference to your clocks. |
| B．Not eating for a half day may do good to your health. |
| C．Eating late may be more harmful than ignoring breakfast. |
| D．People gain weight because of their diet and exercise habits. |
| A．Worsens. | B．Comforts. | C．Causes | D．Improves. |
| A．By experimenting on people of different ages. |
| B．By summarizing the data from various surveys. |
| C．By comparing the studies about the eating disorder. |
| D．By concluding some researches concerning eating habits. |
| A．Ignore Breakfast to Lose Weight. | B．Night Eaters Are Much Healthier. |
| C．Eating Late Is Really Bad for You. | D．Eating More Damages Body Clock. |
5 . Christ Mocked, by the Florentine master Cimabue, was sold at auction(拍卖)for €24 million in 2019. But the Chilean buyers never got to include the work in their collection because the French government refused to give it an export licence.
Ministers declared the painting a national treasure, officially giving the Louvre 30 months to raise the funds for its purchase. The Louvre recently reached an agreement with the owners.
Laurence des Cars, the president of the Louvre, said it was a “great joy” to have acquired the painting, which “constitutes a crucial landmark in the history of art”. The museum did not say how much it had paid, nor who had sold the painting, which will be exhibited in 2025.
The painting was spotted four years ago by Philomene Wolf, an auctioneer, when she was asked to assess the content s of a house that was being cleared. The owner, in her nineties, thought it was a painting from Russia of no value and was preparing to put it in the dustbin.
Wolf was struck by its quality and guessed that it could be Italian. Experts using modern technology confirmed that it was by Cimabue, who is widely regarded as having opened the gateway to Renaissance art. It is believed to date from 1280. Christ Mocked is one of about 15 known Cimabue’s works.
The Louvre launched an appeal on Tuesday for donations to buy another painting, The Basket of Wild Strawberries by Jean Simeon Chardin, the 18th-century French still life(静物画)master. The work, which was first exhibited in 1761, was in a private collection from the 19th century until last year, when it was sold for €24.3 million to an American art museum at an auction in Paris.
Luckily, many groups and individuals donated two-thirds of the sum. The museum must pay the remaining € 8 million and is hoping that members of the public will help to ease the burden by responding to its appeal, which aims to raise € 1.3 million.
1. What can we know about Christ Mocked?| A．It is a painting from Russia. |
| B．It was discovered by Cimabue. |
| C．It is seen as a treasure of France. |
| D．It was taken away by Chilean buyers. |
| A．Sums up. | B．Acts as. | C．Finds out. | D．Points out. |
| A．She purchased it at auction. | B．Cimabue sent it to her. |
| C．She got it from an old woman. | D．She found it when she cleaned up. |
| A．The Painting Christ Mocked Was Sold |
| B．The Louvre Was Appealing for Donation |
| C．French Government Takes Back Its Words |
| D．Painting Saved From Bin Was to Hang in the Louvre |
6 . Insect numbers have plunged (骤降) by half in some parts of the world due to climate change and intensive agriculture, a study has found. The combined pressures of global heating and farming are driving a “substantial decline” of insects across the globe, according to UK researchers. They say we must acknowledge the threats we pose to insects, before some species are lost forever. But preserving habitat for nature could help ensure vital insects thrive.
Lead researcher, Dr Charlie Outhwaite of UCL, said losing insect populations could be harmful not only to the natural environment, but to “human health and food security, particularly with losses of pollinators(传粉昆虫)”. “Our findings highlight the urgency of actions to preserve natural habitats, slow the expansion of high-intensity agriculture, and cut emissions to mitigate climate change,” she added.
Plummeting populations of insects around the world — a so-called “insect apocalypse” — have caused widespread concern. However, scientific data gives a mixed picture, with some types of insects showing sharp declines, while others are staying steady. In the latest study, the researchers pulled together data on the range and number of nearly 20,000 insect species, including bees, ants, butterflies, grasshoppers and dragonflies, at about 6,000 different locations. In areas with high-intensity agriculture and substantial warming, insect numbers have plunged by 49% and the number of different species by 27%, compared with relatively untouched places that have so far avoided the most severe impacts of climate change, according to the research published in Nature.
But the researchers said there was some cause for hope in that setting aside areas of land for nature created a shelter for insects, which need shade to survive in hot weather. “Careful management of agricultural areas, such as preserving natural habitats near farmland, may help to ensure that vital insects can still thrive,” said Dr. Tim Newbold, also of UCL.
Study researcher, Peter MeCann, added: “We need to acknowledge how important insects are for the environment as a whole, and for human health and wellbeing, in order to address the threats we pose to them before many species are lost forever.”
1. What caused the number of insects to decrease quickly?| A．The natural law of survival of the fittest. | B．Improvement of human environment. |
| C．Global heating and farming. | D．Destruction of the food chain of insects. |
| A．release | B．stop | C．relieve | D．prevent |
| A．Not all types of insects show decline in numbers. |
| B．The number of insects in untouched places shows the most severe decline. |
| C．There is no need to set aside areas of land for nature. |
| D．Careful management of agriculture areas can help all the insects thrive. |
| A．To stress the effect of global warming. |
| B．To arouse people’s concern for the decline of insect numbers. |
| C．To show the relationship between insects and human beings. |
| D．To present the process of the research. |
7 . The world’s most famous tire (轮胎) graveyard (坟地) of 42 million tires in the sands of Kuwait is finally being cleaned up and recycled. This news in itself would be a major relief to locals who have to suffer from the clouds of black smoke arising during fires. But the government isn’t stopping there. They are aiming to create a green city of 25,000 homes in line with a post-oil Persian Gulf, with a focus on sustainability and tourism.
The first step is to clear the ground. The Salmiya area, nicknamed “Rubber (橡胶) Mountain”, is formed from hundreds of small mountains of spent tires — a reaction from the one million cars which were added to Kuwait’s roads over the decade.
EPSCO Global General Trading recycling company has opened a recycling plant for the tires, where they’ve been collected, sorted, cut up, and pressed into other materials like rubbery coloured flooring tiles (铺地砖). The plant opened in January of 2021, and can recycle up to 3 million tires a year. The recycled material is then exported out to nearby gulf neighbours and Asia. In the place of the tires will be South Saad Al-Abdullah City, a green city characterizing a new era in the Middle-Eastern country.
Spent tires are a major environmental problem worldwide due to the room they take up and the chemicals they can release.
“We have moved from a difficult stage that was characterized by great environmental risk,” says Oil Minister Mohammed al-Fares. “Today the area is becoming clean and all tires are being removed to begin the launch of the project of Saad Al-Abdullah city.”
Expected to cost €3.3 billion and require 30 years to complete, the city hopes to feature green technology, probably like the kind one can see in other cities on the Persian Gulf, both existing and not. Saudi Arabia is planning to build a zero-emissions, car-less future city that’s centered around access to big data rather than water or crops.
1. Why is the Salmiya area called “Rubber Mountain”?| A．It is rich in rubber. | B．It has too many waste tires. |
| C．It used to be a mountain. | D．It has been a tradition. |
| A．A recycling company. | B．The purpose for removing tires. |
| C．How to build a green city. | D．What is done with the spent tires. |
| A．To make a prediction. | B．To explain an idea. | C．To present a fact. | D．To analyze a cause. |
| A．The Transformation of a Huge Landfill | B．Spent Tires, a Big Threat to the Environment |
| C．The Salmiya Area’s Measures to Kick Pollution | D．Kuwait Tire Mountain to Be into a Green City |
8 . As much as 80 percent of premature (早期的) heart disease is preventable by making specific lifestyle choices. Some strategies, such as exercising and managing weight, are well known.
Get eight hours of sleep. “When you're not rested, everything that happens in your life is a lot more stressful,” says Dr. Arya Sharma, founder of the Canadian Obesity Network. If we lack sleep, our bodies also have more difficulty controlling blood pressure, inflammation and glucose levels.
Avoid polluted air.
Treat depression. “Depression can affect the way we behave,” says Dr. Arya Sharma. Not only are we more likely to drink too much alcohol and to avoid exercise,
| A．Avoid loneliness. |
| B．Engage in volunteer work. |
| C．But others may not have crossed your mind. |
| D．These factors can all have an impact on heart health. |
| E．there are also physiologic effects of this condition on the body. |
| F．Here are four other ways which can improve your heart disease. |
| G．Exposure to this kind of pollution over time raises your risk of heart disease. |
9 . The term “Hudson River school” was applied to the foremost representatives of nineteenth-century North American landscape painting. Apparently unknown during the golden days of the American landscape movement, which began around 1850s and lasted until the late 1860s, the Hudson River school seems to have emerged in the 1870s as a direct result of the struggle between the old and the new generations of artists each to assert its own style as the representative American art. The older painters, most of whom were born before 1835, practiced in a mode often self-taught and monopolized by landscape subject matter and were securely established in and fostered by the reigning American art organization, the National Academy of Design.
The younger painters returning home from training in Europe worked more with figural subject matter and in a bold and impressionistic technique; their prospects for patronage in their own country were uncertain, and they sought to attract it by attaining academic recognition in New York. One of the results of the conflict between the two factions was that what in previous years had been referred to as the American, native, or, occasionally New York school — the most representative school of American art in any genre — had by 1890s become firmly established in the minds of critics and public alike as the Hudson River school.
The sobriquet was first applied around 1879. While it was not intended as flattering, it was hardly inappropriate. The Academicians at whom it was aimed had worked and socialized in New York, the Hudson’s port city, and had painted the river and its shores with varying frequency. Most important, perhaps, was that they had all maintained with a certain fidelity a manner of technique and composition consistent with those of America’s first popular landscape artist, Thomas Cole, who built a career painting the Catskill Mountain scenery bordering the Hudson River.
A possible implication in the term applied to the group of landscapists was that many of them had, like Cole, lived on or near the banks of the Hudson. Further, the river had long served as the principal route to other sketching grounds favored by the Academicians, particularly the Adirondacks and the mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire different ways.
1. According to the passage what was the function of the National Academy of Design for the painters born before 1835?| A．It mediated conflicts between artists. | B．It supervised the incorporation of new artistic techniques. |
| C．It supported their growth and development. | D．It determined which subjects were appropriate. |
| A．In New Hampshire. | B．In the Adirondacks. |
| C．In Vermon. | D．In Europe. |
| A．people | B．sides | C．cities | D．images |
| A．Hudson River School | B．The Nature’s Nation |
| C．Early Painters and Their Drawings | D．North American Landscape Painting |
10 . Between the 16th and 17th century, the efforts of France’s Jesuits played a key role in the transportation of science and culture between China and the West. Their first mission to reach China dates back to 1552, when St. Francis Xavier arrived on a Chinese island. He died on the island a year later, having never reached the mainland. But three decades later, the Jesuits made a second and successful attempt. During their stay, the Jesuits introduced Western science, mathematics, astronomy, and visual arts to China and took part in philosophical conversations with representatives of Confucianism. Importantly, the Jesuits also took precious art and cultural artworks back to France. Their furniture, architecture and design all became influenced by the Chinese style.
At the beginning of the 19th century, the popularity of chinoiserie (中国风格) continued to increase, particularly in England. Many of the architectures were covered with chinoiserie wallpaper relating to flowers, birds and trees. But shortly after, the popularity began to wane. The appeal of China and East Asia had to compete with other tastes, such as Turkish, Egyptian and Greek.
The first three decades of the 20th century witnessed a revival (复兴) in the popularity of chinoiserie both in Europe and America. Chinese dragons were drawn on cushions, curtains and wallpaper, while Chinese coats and hairstyles proved popular with women. The style was associated with modernity and was a by-product of World War I. Chinoiserie was associated with wealthy, stylish women and attached itself to the boom in entertainment as people dressed up to visit cinemas.
In 2024, chinoiserie is making yet another comeback. The rise of social media and home blog lifestyle pages has seen demand increase for imitations (模仿) of Chinese artwork and furniture. But critics point out how much of it is based on an idea of Chinese art and design and who actually creates it.
1. What happened to the second attempt of France’s Jesuits to China?| A．It ended up as a total failure. |
| B．It took the Jesuits 3 decades to finish. |
| C．St. Francis Xavier died on the mainland. |
| D．The Jesuits exchanged with China in many aspects. |
| A．Disappear. | B．Increase. |
| C．Reduce. | D．Exist. |
| A．By making comparisons. | B．By providing examples. |
| C．By following the order of time. | D．By listing data. |
| A．Culture. | B．Science. |
| C．Art. | D．Philosophy. |
