3 . We live in a town with three beaches. There are two parts less than 10 minutes’ walk from home where neighborhood children gather to play. However, what my children want to do after school is pick up a screen — any screen — and stare at it for hours. They are not alone. Today’s children spend an average of four and a half hours a day looking at screens, split between watching television and using the Internet.

In the past few years, an increasing number of people and organisations have begun coming up with plans to counter this trend. A couple of years ago film-maker David Bond realised that his children, then aged five and three, were attached to screens to the point where he was able to say “chocolate” into his three-year-old son’s ear without getting a response. He realised that something needed to change, and, being a London media type, appointed himself “marketing director from Nature”. He documented his journey as he set about treating nature as a brand to be marketed to young people. The result was Project Wild Thing, a film which charts the birth of the World Network, a group of organisations with the common goal of getting children out into nature.

“Just five more minutes outdoors can make a difference,” David Bond says. “There is a lot of really interesting evidence which seems to be suggesting that if children are inspired up to the age of seven, then being outdoors will be on habit for life.” His own children have got into the habit of playing outside now: “We just send them out into the garden and tell them not to come back in for a while.”

Summer is upon us. There is an amazing world out there, and it needs our children as much as they need it. Let us get them out and let them play.

1. What is the problem with the author’s children?

A．They often annoy their neighbours.	B．They are tired of doing their homework.
C．They have no friends to play with	D．They stay in front of screens for too long.

2. How did David Bond advocate his idea?

A．By making a documentary film.	B．By organizing outdoor activities.
C．By advertising in London media.	D．By creating a network of friends.

3. Which of the following can replace the underlined word “charts” in paragraph 2?

A．records

B．predicts

C．delays

D．confirms

4. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A．Let Children Have Fun	B．Young Children Need More Free Time
C．Market Nature to Children	D．David Bond: A Role Model for Children

4 . The older I get, the more I understand how my teachers have transformed my life.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, I went to see Mr. C at Roxbury Park in Beverly Hills. His love of life has not dimmed despite the fact that his legs no longer work like they used to. He visited some of his former students while he was in town. At Beverly Hills High School, Mr. C taught ancient history, coached football and golf, and risked his life teaching driver’s training on Saturday mornings from 1964 to 1988. The gray and hobbled students lined up one after another to thank their favorite teacher. One called him a rock star. Another was grateful for helping him when he couldn’t say so. It was a beautiful tribute, especially in these times of catastrophic teacher shortages.

Spending that Sunday in the park with Mr. C was nothing short of magic. It was a reminder of all that is promising and possible in public education, including a teacher whose rare emotional honesty could be appreciated and honored decades later. It also brought to mind Maya Angelou’s saying “People will forget what you said and did, but never forget how you make them feel.” He made me and others in the park feel heard and seen.

Mr. C changed my perception of myself. Rather than seeing myself as a loser cheerleader who couldn’t compete with the smart kids, I realized how much I loved learning. His history class was so interesting. In his classes about the Persians, Greeks, and Romans, extra credits can be earned for creativity. During earthquake drills, we counted on Mr. C to scream his head off in mock terror.

It should come as little surprise that I’d value the role of teachers in my life. Both of my parents taught; so did my siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins. I, too, have become a teacher and I try to follow in Mr. C’s footsteps. Some days, I fantasize what it would be like to go on a teacher tour, reaching out to my mentors to express my deep gratitude for all they’ve given me. Seeing Mr. C sparked that fantasy again. When I finally worked up my courage to thank him, knowing a floodgate of tears would open, he said to me with his typical modesty: “You were doing me more good than I was doing you.”

1. What does the underlined word “tribute” mean in Paragraph 2?

A．enthusiasm

B．admiration

C．devotion

D．commitment

2. Why does the author mention Maya Angelou’s saying?

A．To make a suggestion.

B．To introduce a celebrity.

C．To show respect to an educator.

D．To interpret the influence of education.

3. What does the author think of her job as a teacher?

A．Enjoyable.

B．Intolerant.

C．Incompetent.

D．Patient.

4. Which of the following is a suitable title for the text?

A．A reunion.

B．A rock star.

C．A surprise.

D．A great teacher.

5 . 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。

My dad and I had been looking forward to the Stale cross-country race of my senior year of high school, which would be the climax (顶点) of my existence.

I was the fastest runner on my team, and I was supposed to make it into the top fifteen. We had been working towards this race for three years. It was everything to me, and it was everything to my dad. He was a runner and was wild with joy by my success in running. He made it to every race, even flying home early from business trips to see me run. I always listened for his voice, which rang above the crowd-telling me to relax my arms, calling out my time. He pushed me. He cheered for me. He believed in me. We spent countless hours on the sandy canals of Arizona. Breathing in the dust of the desert, the blossoms of the orange trees, and the terrible smell of the dairy farm, we made our way across the city. We pounded miles and miles into our running shoes, marking with every step the path to greatness. It was a journey that was just ours. A dream passed on from one generation to the next.

Then the big day came. It was hotter than normal - too hot. My throat felt like a field of cotton, cracked with the summer heat, as I waited for the gun to fire. I gazed out at the crowd; dozens of familiar faces from church and school flickered across my view. They had come for me. They were counting on me. I saw my dad set his watch, worry and excitement etched across his face. With the sound of a gunshot, the race began.

For the first two and half miles, I felt great. I had never before been so ready for something. The weeks leading up to the race were filled with hard practices and a strict diet. The scorching sun beat upon my back, blinding me with its brilliance. Nothing was going to stop me, though.

注意：
1. 所续写短文的词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。

However, without warning, my strength was running out.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I whispered, “I’m so sorry I disappointed you, Dad.”

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

7 . 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 China, the use and cultivation (种植) of green tea goes back thousands of years. While there is no precise way to know     1    (exact) when green tea was first cultivated, the following is     2    we know from historical records.

Legend assigns the discovery of tea to mythological emperor Shennong, who is said     3    (discover) tea in the 28th century BC. Shennong was sitting under a tea tree boiling a pot of water to drink. Some     4    (leaf) fell from the tree into the boiling water, creating the first ever pot of tea. During the Han Dynasty, written records referred     5    the cultivation of green tea. However, this wasn`t green tea for drinking     6    for medical purposes. The Tang Dynasty     7    (consider) by most to be the golden age of Chinese arts and culture. It was during this time that green tea became a popular drink and an important part of     8    (tradition) Chinese culture.

    9    first written account of tea culture, Cha jing or The Classic of Tea, was published by Lu Yu. This short but comprehensive work,     10    (cover) ten chapters, discusses everything from the mythological of tea, history, cultivation, preparation to tea culture.

8 . In August, Jason M. Allen’s piece “Theatre D’opéra Spatial” — which he created with Al image generator Midjourney — won first place in the emerging artist division’s “digital arts photography” category at the Colorado State Fair Fine Arts Competition. The definition for the category states that digital art refers to works that use “digital technology as part of the creative process”.

Allen’s award-winning image has led to debates about what, exactly, it means to be an artist and whether AI can truly make art. “It felt bad for the exact same reason we don’t let robots participate in the Olympics,” one Twitter user wrote. “This is the literal definition of ‘pressed a few buttons to make a digital art piece’,” another tweeted.

Yet while Allen didn’t use a paintbrush, there was plenty of work involved, he said. First, he played around with phrasing that led Midjourney to generate images of women in elegant dresses and space helmets, in an attempt to mix Victorian-style costuming with space themes. Over time, with many slight changes to his written prompt (提示符), he created 900 different versions of what led to his final image. Then he improved its resolution through Gigapixel AI and finally had the images printed.

Allen is glad the debate over whether AI can be used to make art is attracting so much attention. “Rather than hating on the technology, we need to recognize that it’s a powerful tool and use it for good so we can all move forward,” Allen said.

Cal Duran, one of the judges for the competition, said that while Allen’s piece included a mention of AI, he didn’t realize that when judging it. Still, he sticks by his decision to award it first place. “I think the AI technology may give more opportunities to people who may not find themselves artists in the conventional way,” he said.

1. Why has Jason’s work led to debates?

A．It was a copy of a photograph.

B．He challenged the older artists.

C．It was created with the help of AI.

D．He broke the rule of the competition.

2. What can best describe Allen’s creating process?

A．Cooperative.

B．Energy-consuming.

C．Straightforward.

D．Imagination-lacking.

3. What can we learn about AI from the last paragraph?

A．It is a double-edged sword.

B．It attracts conventional artists.

C．It strikes art judges as no surprise.

D．It may open a new world to artists.

4. What is the text mainly about?

A．A trend to be AI artists.

B．An AI-generated art contest.

C．Responses to a winning AI artwork.

D．Curiosity about an image generator.

9 . 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。

Eat or heat?

No more ironing, limited oven use and showering at work—Europeans are trying to keep energy use down but the bills still keep climbing. Costs of energy for British consumers will rise by 80% from October,    1     will take the average annual household bills to ￡3, 549. This makes the energy crisis severer than    2     of the 1970s and 1980s.

Keetley    3     (lose) his job as a council adviser in April and lives on ￡600 a month from a social security scheme. Half of that goes on rent, he said, with the remainder barely covering the     4       (essential). He now eats one meal a day and although he has reduced energy consumption to a minimum, he spends more than 15% of his income on energy bills. “    5     cost of living has increased and yet you are expected to live on the money    6     (provide) for when there wasn’t a crisis... I either can have my heating on or eat,” Keetley said.

A household is defined as living in fuel poverty if it is low income and needs to spend 10% or even    7       (much) of its income on energy, according to UK charity National Energy Action and other British charities. Experts agree that despite this     8       (be) a hard season, Europe will       9       (undoubted) make it through the winter, but the concern is    10     will happen next year.

10 . That dinosaurs ate the mammals (哺乳动物) that ran beneath their feet is not in doubt. Now an extraordinary fossil newly described in Scientific Reports, unearthed by a team led by Gang Han at Hainan Vocational University of Science and Technology in China, shows that sometimes the tables were turned.

The fossil -dated to about 125 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period-was formed when a flow of boiling volcanic mud swallowed two animals seemingly locked in a life-and-death fight. The one on top is a mammal. This animal is a herbivorous species closely related to the Triceratops (三角恐龙). Animal interactions such as this are exceptionally cam e in the fossil record.

One possibility is that the mammal was eating something already dead, other than hunting live prey. These days it is uncommon for small mammals to attack much larger animals. But it is not unheard of. And Dr. Han and his colleagues point out that those mammals which eat dead bodies typically leave tooth marks all over the bones of the animals. The dinosaur’s remains show no such marks. There is also a chance the fossil could be a fake. More and more convincing fake s have emerged, as this one did -though Dr. Han and his colleagues argue that the complexly connected nature of the skeletons (骨骼) makes that unlikely, too.

Assuming it is genuine, the discovery serves as a reminder that not all dinosaurs were enormous during the Cretaceous and not all mammals were tiny. From nose to tail, the dinosaur is just 1.2 meters long. The mammal is a bit under half a meter in length. Despite being half the size, the mammal has one paw firmly wrapped around one of its prey’s limbs, and another pulling on its jaw. It is biting down on the dinosaur’s chest, and has ripped off two of its ribs. Before they were interrupted, it seems that the mammal was winning.

1. Which idiom is closest in meaning to underlined part “the tables were turned” in paragraph 1?

A．The fittest survives.	B．The hunters become hunted.
C．Fortune always favors the brave.	D．The truth will always come to light.

2. Why does the author mention the “tooth mark” in paragraph 3?

A．To prove the fossil was fake.	B．To show the forming of the fossil.
C．To illustrate the process of hunting.	D．To suggest the dinosaur was hunted alive.

3. What makes Dr. Han think the fossil is genuine?

A．The size of the fossil.	B．The absence of fake fossils.
C．The complexity of the skeletons.	D．The consistency of the opinions.

4. What is the function of the last paragraph?

A．It offers a cause.	B．It highlights a solution.
C．It justifies the conclusion.	D．It provides a new discovery.