2 . Holly Cooke wasn’t a fan of weekends. Whenever Friday rolled around, it was a reminder that she had no one to spend her spare time with.

“I was lonely,” said Cooke, who relocated from Stoke-on-Trent — a city in central England — to London when she was 22. “I moved here knowing no one.” She had high hopes of going to restaurants, bars and the theater as she had done before, but she didn’t want to do those activities alone. “I was desiring community: people who wanted to hang out and have fun,” said Cooke, now 26.

She grew so eager for company, she said that she eventually found herself Googling: “How to make friends in London.” The search proved futile, though she found a few other women who were also lonely in London on some social media apps.

Cooke decided to create a Facebook group called “The London Lonely Girls Club,” and invited the people she connected with on the apps to join. She then asked everyone to meet for brunch (早午餐). “It was so difficult,” she said, adding that she asked a friend from out of town to come in for the brunch, in case no one else showed up. “Saying that you’re lonely and you don’t have people around, admitting to that was really scary.”

Cooke was pleasantly surprised when five women showed up and they all got along well. This proved she was not alone in her loneliness, and that she could help others in the same situation. She decided to start planning meetups every few weeks, and word slowly spread about the Facebook group. Now, five years later, the London Lonely Girls Club has more than 35,000 members.

Cooke said she lost count of how many women have made lasting friendships through her group. “It’s beautiful and rewarding, and it’s the reason I’ve carried on,” she said. “As long as there is a need, we will be here.”

1. What can we learn about Holly Cooke?

A．She was alone because of being addicted to social media apps.

B．She got used to the lifestyle of being alone on weekends.

C．She had little time to make friends after moving to London.

D．She used to meet friends on weekends when in Stoke-on-Trent.

2. What does the underlined word “futile” in paragraph 3 mean?

A．Unsuccessful.	B．Unstoppable.
C．Unusual.	D．Unclear.

3. Why did Holly Cooke ask a friend from out of town to come to the brunch?

A．She wanted to have an optional plan in case it didn’t work.

B．She wanted to introduce her friend to the other women.

C．She needed someone to help her to organize the meetup.

D．She was afraid that no one else would come as planned.

4. What do we know about the London Lonely Girls Club?

A．It is well received.	B．It is not rewarding.
C．It is less creative.	D．It is not fruitful.

4 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

In the Palace Museum, visitors put themselves in an architectural complex full of characteristics of Chinese culture. To improve     1     (it) capacity for cultural exhibition, communication, tourism services and heritage protection, the Palace Museum made great efforts. It makes use of     2     (tradition) restoration (修复) techniques and modern science and technology.

With a research team, the Palace Museum has been finding     3     (variety) ways to protect the heritage. So far,     4    research team has combined 14 types of special monitoring equipment with independent intellectual property rights. The historical risk data is used    5     (study) safety risk assessment index system, risk judgment and early warning systems. After AI was introduced, the museum     6     (establish) a complete monitoring and response system and an emergency platform for the immovable cultural heritage.

And digital technologies     7     (apply) by the Palace Museum to protect cultural relics (遗址) several years ago. It has introduced 1.86 million     8     (piece) of cultural relic information, and has collected 1,500 3D models and high-precision panoramic images (全景图) of all open areas. It brought cultural resources to life and offered better digital services     9     Internet users. The Palace Museum is truly an amazing example     10     connects modern and traditional technologies to preserve the cultural heritage.

6 . 阅读下面材料，根据其内容和所给段落开头语续写两段，使之构成一篇完整的短文。

One day my grandfather gave me a gift — a piggy bank. It had an opening through which one could put money in, but the opening was not big enough to reach in and get the money out. The only way to get at the money was to break the piggy bank open. My grandfather explained that was the whole idea: the piggy bank would help save my money so that, at the end of the year, I might have enough for that bike I dreamt about. He asked if I would put some of the money he gave me into the piggy bank. I agreed immediately and promised that I wouldn’t break it open until I could afford my dream bike.

Whenever he gave me a little bit of money, he would say, “This is for spending. But you can save some and put it in the piggy bank if you want to save it up.” When he gave me larger amounts, it was clearly for saving in the piggy bank. For some time, this worked fine. I loved shaking the piggy bank and hearing the sound of the coins. As it became heavier, I grew more excited, dreaming about buying my new bike, and all the adventures I could have on it.

Whenever I wanted to take some money from the piggy bank to buy delicious ice-creams or beautiful pens, I would imagine riding my bike on the street, and thinking of that, my thoughts about ice-creams or pens went away. So for almost six months, I only put money into the piggy bank without taking any out. I thought I wouldn’t break my piggy bank for anything. But one day something unexpected happened. I saw a piece of news on the television that a serious earthquake (地震) had happened in a nearby province. As many houses were destroyed, a lot of children became homeless. Seeing their shabby clothes and crying faces, I was sleepless that night.

注意：
1.所续写短文的词数应为150左右；
2.续写部分分为两段，每段的开头语已为你写好；
Paragraph 1: I knew I should do something.__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Paragraph 2: My grandfather was surprised by my behavior._____________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

7 . A 15-year-old student has been praised a hero. Because he had _______ the life of a man who had suffered a heart attack. Sheng Xiaohan hadn’t told students and teachers the story until the man _______ at the school to thank him.

Sheng said he was _______ home at 9:00 pm. after working late at school, when he saw people surrounding a unconscious man on the ground, with a man making _______ to pat (轻拍) on his back.

Then Sheng measured the man’s pulse (脉搏) and found it was _______. “I had learned first _______ since primary school. And the latest time was during military (军事的)_______,” he said. He thought the old man might have_______ a heart attack. Then he tried cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). He pressed down on the man’s chest _______, while asking another man to help with artificial respiration. Sheng kept doing CPR for about six minutes without nervousness until the ambulance ________, and sent the man to the hospital.

“I can’t stop or ask others to replace me in case of any ________,” he added. “During the process, he started to breathe again, which made me ________ to go on.”

Sheng said he didn’t feel tired during the ________, but afterwards his arms were ________. After the experience, he didn’t ________ it as an unusual thing, because he was always ready to help others.

1.

A．striked

B．saved

C．delivered

D．destroyed

2.

A．appeared

B．studied

C．competed

D．exercised

3.

A．leaving

B．staying

C．returning

D．attending

4.

A．context

B．comment

C．package

D．effort

5.

A．weak

B．strong

C．positive

D．powerful

6.

A．sight

B．hike

C．architecture

D．aid

7.

A．credit

B．training

C．damage

D．strength

8.

A．suffered

B．changed

C．requested

D．cheated

9.

A．politely

B．hardly

C．calmly

D．awkwardly

10.

A．left

B．slided

C．affected

D．arrived

11.

A．brochures

B．prizes

C．risks

D．comments

12.

A．confident

B．unique

C．curious

D．suitable

13.

A．meeting

B．lecture

C．drought

D．process

14.

A．broken

B．painful

C．official

D．specific

15.

A．demand

B．master

C．regard

D．track

8 . Anyone who has studied a foreign language knows how difficult it is to become really fluent. Below are tips to help you practice your language skills.

Find a conversation partner

    1     And ask him or her to meet with you regularly to have conversations in that language. Talking to someone you know is a great way to get experience with actual usage.

Watch TV

Try to find a foreign language TV station and watch often. At first the actors will seem to speak too quickly, but try to recognize a few words or phrases.     2     Pay attention to patterns (模式) of pronunciation and the way that the voices rise and fall when questions are asked and statements are made. Children’s shows are great for learning and reviewing basic concepts (概念).

    3    

If you are visiting a foreign country and trying to learn the language, you’ll want to take every chance to go out and practice.     4     Successfully making a purchase (购买) in a foreign language will help you become more confident. Going grocery shopping in your hometown may not be very interesting, but in a foreign country things are different.     5    

A．Later it’ll become easier to follow the dialogues.

B．There are less and less fluent speakers.

C．Go out and practice.

D．Any situation can be a really interesting learning experience.

E．Find a suitable dictionary.

F．Try to find someone in your school who is a native speaker.

G．Each day, try developing the habit of going to a place like a restaurant or bank.

9 . Tourists visiting La Gomera and EI Hierro in the Canary-Islands can often hear locals communicating over long distances by whistling — not a tune (曲调), but the Spanish language. The locals are communicating in Silbo, a whistled Spanish language.

Whistled languages are almost developed in rough, mountainous regions or in thick forest. That’s because whistled speech carries much farther than ordinary speech or shouting. As a result, whistled speech can be understood up to 10 times as far away as ordinary shouting. That lets people communicate even when they cannot easily approach close enough to shout. On La Gomera, for example, a few traditional shepherds (牧羊人) still whistle to one another across mountain valleys that could take hours to cross.

Whistled languages work because many of the key elements of speech can be produced in a whistle, says Meyer. We distinguish one speech sound from another by small differences in their sound frequency patterns. A long “e”, for example, is formed higher in the mouth than along “o”, giving it a higher sound.

To language scientists, such languages are more than just a curiosity. By studying whistled languages, they hope to learn about how our brains get meaning from the complex sound patterns of speech. Whisting may even provide a chance to know one of the most dramatic jump forward in human evolution (进化); the origin of language itself.

Despite their interest to both language experts and casual observers, whistled languages are disappearing rapidly all over the world, and some, such as the whistled form of the Tepehua language in Mexico, have disappeared. “Now you still find whistled speech only in places that are very, very remote, that have had less contact with modernity and less access to roads,” Meyer says.

Fortunately, there is still hope. UNESCO, the UN cultural organization, has listed two whistled languages, Silbo, and a whistled Turkish, as the world’s cultural heritage. Such attention can lead to conservation efforts.

1. What led to the development of whistled languages?

A．Geographic inaccessibility.	B．Rapid increase in tourism.
C．Greater information capacity.	D．Interest of language experts.

2. Why are a long “e” and a long “o” mentioned in Paragraph 3?

A．To show what key elements speech has.

B．To explain the differences between speech sound frequency patterns.

C．To prove the popularity of whistled language in the world.

D．To show the disadvantages of whistled languages.

3. What might be a reason for the disappearance of whistled languages according to Meyer?

A．Difficulty of understanding.	B．Lack of attention.
C．Expansion of other cultures.	D．Modernization.

4. What does the underlined word “conservation” mean in the last paragraph?

A．Impression.

B．Experiment.

C．Protection.

D．Graduation.

10 . For people suffering from depression, there’s an all-natural treatment they should use — getting more exercise. It could help fight depression, even if people have a genetic risk, new research shows.

For the study, researchers collected information from nearly 8,000 people and found those with related genes were more likely to have depression over the next two years after examining them. But that was less likely for people who were more active at the study’s start, even if they had a family history of depression. Higher levels of physical activity helped protect even those with the highest genetic risk of depression.

Both high-intensity (高强度) exercise and low-intensity activities were associated with a reduced risk of depression. Adding four hours of exercise a week could lower the risk of a new episode (一段经历) of depression by 17%, according to the study. “Our findings strongly suggest that, when it comes to depression, being physically active has the potential to remove the added risk of future episodes in individuals who are genetically risky,” said lead author Karmel Choi. “On average, about 35 additional minutes of physical activity each day may help people to reduce their risk and protect against future depression episodes.”

Depression is a common mental illness globally, with more than 264 million people affected. “Depression is so ubiquitous, and that underlines the need for effective approaches that can impact as many people as possible,” Choi said. And mental health and primary care providers can use the findings to advise patients that there’s something meaningful they can do to lower their risk of depression.

1. How did the researchers reach their conclusion?

A．By analyzing a mass of data.

B．By conducting genetic research.

C．By comparing various levels of activity.

D．By tracking the subjects for many years.

2. What does the study show about depression?

A．Physical activity betters medical treatment.

B．Exercise is able to decrease and prevent it.

C．Different levels of exercise intensity matter the same.

D．Exercising 35 minutes daily is the most effective treatment.

3. What does the underlined word “ubiquitous” in paragraph 4 mean?

A．Harmful.	B．Complex.
C．Unusual.	D．Common.

4. What is the purpose of the text?

A．To discuss a disease.

B．To introduce a method.

C．To analyze a genetic risk.

D．To explain a phenomenon.