2 . Music is one of the most powerful forces in our lives. It can bring us joy, sorrow, or even inspiration. It can evoke emotions and memories that we didn’t even know we had.     1    

Music can be a source of comfort. It can provide a refuge（避难所）from the troubles of the world and provide a sense of peace and solace.     2     It can also bring people together, helping to create a sense of community and shared experience.

    3     It can be an uplifting force in times of struggle, helping us to persevere and overcome obstacles. It can inspire us to take action and make positive changes in our lives.

Finally, music can be a source of joy and celebration.     4     It can be a way to express our love and gratitude for the people in our lives.

Music has the power to change our lives in ways we may never have imagined. It can provide us with strength, courage, comfort, and joy. It can help us to find our inner voice and express ourselves in unique and creative ways.     5    

A．Poor people can live a happy life with music.

B．Music can also give us strength and courage.

C．Music can associate people with each other around the world.

D．Music can change a person’s life in ways that nothing else can.

E．Listening to music can help to reduce stress, anxiety, and depression.

F．It can bring us closer together, helping us to appreciate and celebrate the beauty of life.

G．Music can truly be a life-changing force, and one that should never be underestimated.

5 . It’s no secret that sleep is important to your overall health, but a lack of sleep could have great effects on your heart, a new study shows. The researchers said people with insomnia(失眠症)are more likely to have a heart attack.

Insomnia is the most common sleep disorder in the US, the researchers wrote in their report, noting that 10% to 15% of people in the US struggle with it. The meta-analysis of previously published research suggests that the potential association between insomnia and heart attack risk is strongest in women.

Dr. Martha Gulati, director of prevention at the Cedars-Sinai Smidt Heart Institute, said that most of her patients are women and that insomnia is a noted risk factor for women who have had any form of ischemic heart disease. “We see it probably in 1 in 10 patients in the United States,” said Gulati, who was not involved in the new research. “It is my impression that almost everyone experiences insomnia at some point in their life. The estimate is that 1 in 2 adults experience it at some point in their life, maybe in the short term because of stressful moments.”

For their analysis, the researchers defined insomnia as a sleep disorder with three main symptoms(症状): Difficulty falling asleep, difficulty staying asleep and waking early and being unable to fall back asleep.

The study also found an association between increased heart attack risk and how long a participant slept each night. Those who slept five hours or less had the highest association with heart attack risk and were 1.56 times more likely to have a heart attack than people who slept seven or eight hours. Longer sleep duration wasn’t always more protective. The study found that people who slept six hours a night had a lower risk of a heart attack than those who slept nine hours or more. “A lot of studies have pointed somewhere between seven and eight hours of sleep being the magic number for us,” another researcher said. “There is obviously variability for everyone, but too much sleep is rarely the issue.”

1. What’s the function of the first paragraph?

A．To list a fact.	B．To warn the readers.
C．To introduce the topic.	D．To draw the readers’ interest.

2. What can we infer from Gulati words?

A．Insomnia is unavoidable in the short term.

B．Insomnia is a common phenomenon in life.

C．Heart attack often happens during insomnia.

D．Women are less experienced in dealing with insomnia.

3. What inspiration can we get according to the sleeping time?

A．Put quality before quantity.	B．Too much is as bad as too little.
C．Bite off more than one can chew.	D．Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

4. What’s the author’s attitude to the relationship between insomnia and heart attack?

A．Pessimistic.

B．Indifferent.

C．Objective.

D．Positive.

6 . A solar tree is a structure like a tree that generates solar energy using photovoltaic panels (太阳能光伏板). It helps solve an urgent global challenge: Replacing greenhouse gas-emitting energy sources like oil and gas with renewable energy. But the power generation potential of solar trees is relatively limited, and their primary purpose is to raise public awareness about renewable energy by getting people to notice and interact with solar energy in new ways.

Solar trees generally have a firm metal, plastic, or stone base that extends up and out into “branches” on which solar panels are mounted. Beyond this basic structure, there is great diversity in the design of solar tree units. The solar tree’s photovoltaic “leaves” absorb sunlight, converting it into electricity that is conducted down through the trunk-like central pillar of the structure to an inside battery. Many designs feature rotating (旋转的) panels that can move throughout the day in order to obtain the greatest amount of sunlight.

Solar trees help power homes, businesses, and public services. They can create shade to help reduce the urban heat island effect and provide shelter in severe weather such as rainstorms and heatwaves, creating greater urban adapting ability in the face of climate change. They also enhance public spaces, providing charging stations, and powering streetlights.

In comparison to other kinds of ground-mounted solar panel devices, solar trees don’t require much land. They make solar energy generation possible in areas with little land that can’t support vast solar arrays, as well as places that lack sufficient rooftop space for panels. However, solar panels are much cheaper than solar trees at present and have far greater energy generation capacity. Therefore, present solar tree designs often serve as a extra source rather than as a primary energy source.

At present, solar trees aren’t designed as large-scale solar projects, which limits their ability to contribute to the low-carbon energy transition. Still, their varied designs are appealing. This makes solar trees effective at displaying and thereby educating people about solar energy, and promoting a business or organization’s commitment to renewable energy.

1. What is the main purpose of building solar trees?

A．To beautify the urban environment.	B．To draw public attention to solar energy.
C．To replace non-renewable energy resources.	D．To provide charging services in emergencies.

2. What do we know about a solar tree?

A．It stores energy in its own battery.

B．It can adjust its height automatically.

C．It is made of environmentally friendly materials.

D．It transforms sunlight into electricity by its metal base.

3. What does the third paragraph mainly talk about?

A．The design features of solar trees.	B．The ways of saving energy in cities.
C．The benefits of solar trees to humans.	D．The difficulties of promoting solar trees.

4. What is the advantage of solar trees over other ground-mounted solar panel devices?

A．They occupy much less land.	B．They are cheaper to manufacture.
C．They are more effective in generating energy.	D．They can work in various weather conditions.

7 . A new form of real estate(不动产)is appearing along the beaches of South Africa and on the dry islands off its coast-tiny white beach huts. With good ventilation and a sea view, they are just big enough to fit a family of African penguins. Their unique selling point: a safe and cool place for penguins to breed.

African penguins, unlike their relatives that live in snow and ice, live well in the cold currents of the South Atlantic Ocean. But when they come to land, their thick black coat absorbs the heat, and they desperately look for cover-both for themselves and their fragile eggs.

Historically, the penguins dug burrows in layers of guano-accumulated seabird and bat feces- that lined Africa’s penguin colonies, but in the 19th century, traders started selling guano(鸟粪)as fertilizer, leaving the penguins and their eggs increasingly exposed to predators and the baking sun. This, combined with other threats such as egg poaching, overfishing and climate change, has caused African penguin populations to plummet. In 2019, they were thought to be less than 20,000 breeding pairs, down from an estimated 1.5 to 3 million birds in 1900.For more than a decade, the species has been listed as endangered by the IUCN.

To date, the African Penguin Nest Project has installed more than 1,500 nests across five of South Africa’s penguin colonies, and plans to expand into Namibia next year, the only other country with breeding populations of the species.

“This is still just a drop in the bucket,” says Graham, who anticipates they will need to deploy at least 4,500 more ceramic homes to protect penguins currently nesting in exposed areas. “The goal is that every penguin that needs a nest will get one.”

1. What is the reason for building the beach huts?

A．To beautify the beach.	B．To conduct research.
C．To house the penguins.	D．To balance the ecology.

2. How many factors have affected the penguin populations according to the text?

A．Four.

B．Five.

C．Six.

D．Seven.

3. Which of the following can replace the underlined word “plummet” in Paragraph 4?

A．Innovate.

B．Increase.

C．Swing.

D．Decline.

4. Which column may the text appear in a newspaper?

A．Culture.

B．Environment.

C．Technology.

D．Art.

9 . To American ears, hearing the words “Black Grace” used together makes them feel a kind of quiet strength in times of hardship or perhaps a positive cultural stereotype (刻板印象). To choreographer Neil Ieremia, the words represent the joining of two ideas born from personal and cultural conflict.

In New Zealand, where Ieremia grew up in what he describes as “a fairly tough town” northeast of Wellington, black was used to describe brave, daring behavior. In Ieremia’s youth, brave people were called “black”, linking them to the neighborhood’ s heroes, New Zealand’ s great All Blacks, the national rugby (橄榄球) team.

Ieremia was born in New Zealand to Samoan immigrants who arrived in the country during the 1960s. Illnesses kept him from actively participating in the country’s widespread sports culture. This was difficult for a Pacific Island boy living in a neighborhood where boys were expected to be sporty and tough. In this world, he developed a passion for music.

At the age of 19, Ieremia decided to attend dance school. At his first ballet class, the instructor told him he lacked grace. Ieremia wasn’t discouraged. When he started his own dance company in 1995, he looked to his own experiences for a name that would also reflect his ambitions for dance grace and storytelling. Thus Black Grace was born. Since then, he has changed the face of modern dance in New Zealand and turned Black Grace into one of the most recognizable and successful cultural brands.

In the early years of Black Grace, Ieremia struggled with the conflict between Samoan and New Zealand cultures. Questions of how and where one belongs were at the forefront of his work. Ieremia draws inspiration from his Samoan and New Zealand roots to create innovative dance works that reach across social, cultural and generational barriers. The work itself is highly physical, rich in the storytelling traditions of the South Pacific, and expressed with unique beauty and power.

1. What is Neil Ieremia’s occupation?

A．a sports figure

B．a dancer

C．a psychologist

D．a great writer

2. What does “Black Grace” mean to Neil Ieremia?

A．Stay calm and positive when facing difficulties

B．The quality of being courageous and elegant

C．A kind of stereotype from cultural conflict

D．The expectation of being sporty and tough

3. According to the passage, what can we learn about Ieremia?

A．Ieremia immigrated from New Zealand to Samoan.

B．Ieremia played a key role in mainstream sports culture.

C．Ieremia had a talent for dance at an early age.

D．Ieremia made Black Grace become a successful cultural brand.

4. The best title for the message might be________.

A．Bridging cultures through dance	B．A conflict between two cultures
C．Breaking cultural stereotype	D．Neil Iremia—a successful choreographer