1 . How To Find Spring Fashion Trends
Fashion changes faster than most people can keep up with.
Look through fashion magazines to get fashion ideas. Magazines like GQ, Vogue, and Cosmo are generally considered “taste makers”.
Find your favorite fashion blogs. What’s on the catwalk isn’t necessarily what’s on the streets, so I also like getting inspiration from travel blogs, fashion blogs, and smaller designers. Many brands, designers, and fashionistas post their inspiration online, as well as recommendations on where to find the best new fashions.
Explore social media. More and more often, people are using the Internet to broadcast their personal fashion recommendations, which is a great way to get a pulse on spring fashion. Sites like Tumblr and Pintrest have specific sections devoted to fashion.
Make your own spring trends. Having confidence in yourself and rocking your outfit is more important than following any trend. Sometimes you still can’t figure out what spring fashion trend to follow.
| A．Make notes of fashions you see often |
| B．Look to warmer areas for inspiration |
| C．They are selling the right clothes for the right season |
| D．Find an outfit you like and make up your own trend |
| E．They are in touch with the big clothing designers |
| F．Spring is often when people launch new and inventive fashion for the warming weather |
| G．Search “Spring Fashion Blogs” and browse through a few to see styles you enjoy |
2 . The UK is experiencing a boom in book clubs, according to new data from event listing companies. Book club listings on the ticketing site Eventbrite increased by 350% between 2019 and 2023. Between 2022 and 2023 alone, book club listings on the site rose by 41%. Another event listing site, Meetup, reported a 14% increase in the number of RSVPs to book clubs between January 2023 and January 2024, compared with a 4% increase in RSVPs for all UK-based events.
Victoria Okafor, who co-runs the book club Between2Books, said the heightened interest in reading may be partly the result of a general “shift in hobbies”, as GenZ (the generation around 00s) turned to other ways to spend their free time. Besides, during the global health crisis period, many people were forced to slow down and pick up or reignite hobbies, and online book clubs provided a platform to connect with others.
Social media may be helping with the visibility of book clubs, too, said Okafor. “People may come across your page accidentally, but from there people have the knowledge to attend should they wish. I think this makes a big difference compared to just hearing things from word of mouth.”
Many of the book clubs listed on Eventbrite carry specific themes — Sheffield Feminist Book Club, Bring Your Baby Book Club, and Modern Chinese Literature Online Book Club.
Okafor’s club, Between2Books, focuses on books by writers traditionally excluded (排除) from the classics. She thought she began seeking out such stories “embarrassingly late”. “Reading authors of color brought back a joy to my reading that came from not only seeing elements of myself and culture reflected in novels but also reading stories that could be funny or empowering as opposed to the accounts of struggle that can often surround stories of people of color,” she said. “The variety of books makes reading and discussion so rich and I think that’s what attenders are drawn to.”
1. How is paragraph 1 mainly developed?| A．By giving examples. | B．By listing figures. |
| C．By analyzing causes. | D．By presenting theories. |
| A．Return. | B．Reward. | C．Regain. | D．Reconnect. |
| A．The influence of social media. | B．The recommendation of old generations. |
| C．GenZ having a stronger thirst for knowledge. | D．Some people shifting the focus of their lives. |
| A．The diversity of books. | B．The reputation of writers. |
| C．The humor of the works. | D．The suggestion of the organizer. |
3 . Late last month a team of researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine transplanted a genetically modified pig heart into a person — the second such surgery ever attempted — and it has kept him alive for the past few weeks.
The patient, 58-year-old Lawrence Faucette, underwent the highly experimental procedure under a “compassionate use” pathway, in which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration permits an unapproved therapy when a person is seriously ill or dying and has no other options available. Faucette was not eligible for a conventional human heart transplant because he had peripheral vascular disease and other complications, which narrowed the outlook for success.
By mid-October, Faucette was continuing to recover. “He’s had a rough time,” however, Bartley Griffith, a surgeon who performed Faucette’s procedure as well as the previous one, said at that time. According to Griffith, Faucette was living at home when the FDA first approved the surgery, but he was subsequently hospitalized with fluid in his lungs. Then he suffered a cardiac arrest the night before the surgery. Still, he had so far responded well to the transplant.
More than 100,000 people are waiting for an organ transplant, so researchers have long been exploring xenotransplantation (异种器官移植): transplanting other species’ organs into humans. To prevent the human immune system from attacking these alien organs, scientists have begun to breed genetically modified donor pigs that lack certain genes or have other genes added.
In the past couple of years, pig xenotransplants have been tested in both nonhuman primates and deceased humans — but the ultimate goal is to conduct human clinical trials on a bigger scale. The results of the recent compassionate use transplant will likely influence the FDA’s consideration of whether and when to allow such trials to take place. Many researchers hope this could happen in the next year or two.
“We took a pretty good swing at the ball the first time, and we got very close to a prolonged success, we think,” Griffith says. Although there were some unforeseen circumstances in that first xenotransplant, his team and others have developed better methods to test for these conditions.
1. Why did Faucette undergo the pig-to-human heart transplant?| A．Because he was seriously ill and there was no better options. |
| B．Because the pig heart fits well in human body. |
| C．Because FDA has long approved such transplant. |
| D．Because the surgery has been applied in medical treatment already. |
| A．Faucette highly praises the surgery. |
| B．Faucette responds well to the alien organ. |
| C．Faucette has suffered a lot after the transplant. |
| D．Faucette experienced cardic arrest after the surgery. |
| A．The FDA is taking great care on human clinical trials. |
| B．The patients will receive the best of care after the transplant. |
| C．The human immune system is greatly changed before the transplant. |
| D．Scientists modified the donor pig’s genes or added other genes before breeding it. |
| A．Skeptical. | B．Neutral. | C．Supportive. | D．Indifferent. |
4 . I was ten years old when I started watching lawn tennis. Having developed interest in tennis, I started following and gaining knowledge about the game. The play of the 100th seed was the best according to me until I asked my father who is the number 1 ranked player in the world, to which he replied — Roger Federer.
That was it! I watched his play at Wimbledon and really couldn’t stop admiring this personality. His silky smooth movement, flawless serve, unreachable powerful forehand, amazing footwork—all of it was pretty amazing. I started playing tennis because of him; he was undoubtedly my role model. I followed his career off the tennis court and learned things about him that really made me a better person in life.
There is a feeling of joy in each stroke that Federer plays and a feeling of excitement in each thing he does whether it is giving an interview, doing a press conference, practicing on court or mere signing the tennis balls for fans. There is never a dull moment when he is around, which inspires everyone to be happy and joyous in life in whatever they do. One of the most important things about him which inspires me is his sense of humor.
Federer first congratulates his opponents and never shies from telling them they played wonderfully well, and that luck was on his side today or that he had a good day, instead of attributing the victory to his hours of hard work and training. He always looks for opportunities to praise others.
Another admirable thing about Federer is his love for the game. It teaches me that it’s great to do what you love. You can excel in any profession if you love it from your heart; it then becomes no more a profession but a thing of joy from which you can get satisfaction and fulfilment each day you practice it. It is no more a duty but a sense of fulfilment（成就）.
He is the most respected player in the game and everyone feels privileged to play against him, and some don’t even mind losing to him! This kind of respect is not gained in a few days but in many years by achieving perfectionism both on and off the court, by inspiring and motivating generations to come and becoming a part of history, by not just getting awards on the court but also by being a good man. Federer’s energy motivates me to keep moving on and on in my life, fighting difficulties with a smile and cherishing good moments as well as not so good.
1. How did the author initially know Federer?| A．By watching the play of the 100th seed player. |
| B．By following a Wimbledon tournament. |
| C．By participating in a tennis camp. |
| D．By requiring his father. |
| A．Federer’s optimistic and humorous features. |
| B．How Federer reacted when being interviewed. |
| C．The influence Federer has on his fans. |
| D．How Federer achieved victories through hard exercise. |
| A．We should never cares about losing a game. |
| B．We’d better keep a good relationship with anyone. |
| C．We should treasure both good and not-so-good moments in life. |
| D．We can learn to handle challenges brought by our opponents. |
| A．The Significance of Following a Model | B．An Inspiring Legend: Roger Federer |
| C．The Way to Gain the Sense of Fulfilment | D．The Privilege of Being a Tennis Star |
5 . Thanksgiving is basically a harvest-related festival which celebrates communal harmony. Though this festival is said to have originated in America, a number of other countries also celebrate harvest-related festivals. The festival is observed with different names and in different seasons. In Australia we can see a number of harvest festivals.
Apple Festival & Grape Festival
The harvest for apples and grapes takes place in the month of March in Australia in the granite belt, a special area. The festival is celebrated for 3-4 days. During the festival, various cultural and fun events are organized. Activities like grape crushing competitions, apple picking competitions, street carnivals (狂欢), and grand parades are also part of the festival.
Renmark Orange Week Festival
In August or September, the large orange growing area along the Murray River in South Australia holds a festival in Renmark, which is called the Renmark Orange Week. All kinds of games, competitions and fun last for a week during the carnival. Fireworks are another feature of the festival. The two varieties that are being harvested in Australia are the Valencia, which is from October to May and the Navel, which is from May to October.
Cane Festival
The cane is harvested from June to December in Australia. Most of the cane crop is grow n in Queensland and some in Maclean, New South Wales. And June is time for cane festivals. Just before harvest, the cane is burnt to remove dead leaves and to drive out pests. Machines are being used to cut the cane to the ground.
Wheat Festival
Wheat is harvested in the month of December and is usually finished by the end of January. Harvesting is done by machines. A new harvester invented by Headlie Taylor makes it easier to harvest crops which get flattened or damaged by bad weather.
1. Which festival takes place in June?| A．Cane Festival. | B．Wheat Festival. |
| C．Renmark Orange Week Festival. | D．Apple Festival & Grape Festival. |
| A．Appreciate fireworks. | B．Taste delicious grape wine. |
| C．Join in apple eating competitions. | D．Take part in grand parades. |
| A．Wheat Festival begins in January. |
| B．Harvest-related festivals originated in America. |
| C．Oranges are being harvested in Australia all the year round. |
| D．Renmark Orange Week Festival takes place in the granite belt. |
6 . 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 |
7 . How to have an attractive personality
Demonstrating an attractive personality is key to making friends and having lasting relationships. These traits (特性) give you the ability to inspire and fascinate others, making others more drawn to you as a result.
Listen to others.
Speak sincerely. No one likes to be cheated.
Know “how” vs “what”. How you say things is arguably more important than what you say. If you try to give someone a genuine compliment, but he or she thinks you say it with a sarcastic undertone, your compliment won’t mean a thing.
Show enthusiasm for everything. Even if something makes you slightly uncomfortable, handle it with a smile on your face, an open mind, and a sense of humor. Not every day is going to be perfect, but being enthusiastic can help you accomplish anything.
| A．Tell people the truth. |
| B．You may make things bad. |
| C．Be aware of the way you speak. |
| D．Have confidence in how you speak and act. |
| E．When you act this way, people will love being around you. |
| F．Asking questions is important when it comes to confidence. |
| G．Listening is a trait that is often forgotten in today’s society. |
8 . In America, the “Big Dig”, a highway project that resulted in a mess of traffic in the centre of Boston for years, came in five times over its initial budget. Even the Germans get huge projects wrong. Conception to operation of Berlin Brandenburg Airport has taken 30 years, with seven missed opening dates. The airport ended up costing $8.2 billion. However, the original estimate was about $2.7 billion.
Huge projects like Berlin Brandenburg Airport are the subject of an amusing new book called How Big Things Get Done by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner. Mr. Flyvbjerg sets up a database of over 16, 000 projects and data analysis reveals that only 8.5% of the projects meet their initial estimates on cost and time, and 0.5% of them achieve what they set out to do on cost, time and benefits.
Over-optimistic time and cost estimates originate from both psychological and political perceptions: the reliance on intuition (直觉) rather than data, and a problem that Mr. Flyvbjerg calls “strategic misrepresentation”. This is when budgets are intentionally reduced in order to get things going. And once the projects are under way, they will not be stopped, because money spent on them will thus be wasted.
Mr. Flyvbjerg speaks highly of Pixar’s methodical approach to developing and testing films in great detail before they go into production. He also tells the story of how Frank Gehry’s well-developed architectural models helped ensure the success of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. Narrowing down the producing window of a project before it is actually carried out reduces the probability of unexpected events.
Big customized projects are particularly likely to run into trouble. However, the more a project can be divided into standardized processes, the better its prospects are. Projects run into problems for specific reasons as well as general ones: Britain’s trouble is not something that China has to worry about, for instance. But the iron law is that if you plan strictly and standardize where possible, you are less likely to dig yourself into a hole.
1. How does the author introduce the topic of the passage?| A．By making a contrast. | B．By giving an explanation. |
| C．By presenting examples. | D．By showing an experience. |
| A．Projects’ success rates can be estimated. |
| B．Projects’ desired outcome can’t be achieved. |
| C．Most projects suffer overspending and delays. |
| D．Most projects lack comprehensive data analysis. |
| A．Failures in decision-making. | B．Methods of reducing massive costs. |
| C．Strategies for getting work done. | D．Reasons behind inaccurate estimates. |
| A．Planning thoroughly in advance. |
| B．Analyzing specific and general reasons. |
| C．Focusing on efficiency of projects. |
| D．Drawing lessons from former experiences. |
9 . 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 |
10 . 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 |
