Never had I thought I would end up playing computer games in my bedroom during the summer break before university. In fact, I studied hard in my senior year and got admitted into my dream school with a full scholarship. I should have been throwing parties or hanging out with my friends. Where was this sense of disorientation (迷失方向) from?
I missed my high school years. My classmates were nice and my teachers were helpful. Everything was well-planned and prepared. All I had to do was follow the rules and hand in my work on time. While I also complained about the rigid life like my fellow schoolmates, I adapted to it quite well. Three-year high school life moulded me into a “good” student.
Now everything was different. Without work and pressure from my high school teachers, I had no idea what I was supposed to do with all this free time until my best friend called.
“You know what, Dennis? Sally has acquired a full scholarship to study at a school abroad and Alex is starting his internship at a television station.”Leo kept me update d of everyone’s interesting and meaningful new life. “And I’m considering applying for a pre-college exchange program. What have you been up to, Dennis?” Unwilling to tell him the fact, my tongue twisted and my face flushed with embarrassment, “Well, nothing worth sharing.” But I felt a strong urge to ask, “How do you manage to arrange your life so well?”
“Well,” answered Leo, “I just want to make each day a masterpiece.” Hearing his words, I couldn’t help but reflect on the days that I had already let slide by. Sensing my depression, Leo offered, “I can forward the information about my program to you if you want. Just let me know if you want to check it out.” “I’ll think about it. Thanks, bro.”
注意：(1)续写词数应为150左右;(2)请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Paragraph 1:
Hanging up the phone, I began to wonder what a “masterpiece day” looked like to me.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Paragraph 2:
I applied for the same pre-college exchange program as Leo did.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________When you travel in China, you can simply stick to popular attractions. But it can’t be
Chinese food and the differences between Chinese and Western diets are both things that spark the
You might also notice some distinct differences in meal preparation and cooking
Cooking classes now
3 . It might surprise you to learn that there are conservationists on four legs as well as two. In the 1890s, realizing that imported stoats (白鼬) were having a disastrous impact on local birds such as kiwi, conservationist Richard Henry relied upon his pet dog to help translocate birds to a reserve on Resolution Island. From then on, he kept working and contributed to the world’s first government-backed conservation dogs programme established in 1998.
Dogs have many qualities that recommend them for field work, but it’s their nose that puts them ahead of many humans. Damp surfaces trap odour molecules (气味分子), but dog noses are also remarkably sensitive. Add in a set of other adaptations that allow dogs to filter the air they breathe in to a dedicated smelling area at the back of the nose, you’ve got an extremely excellent detective machine.
Worldwide, dogs have helped scientists to track snow leopards, koalas, gorillas and even killer whales, whose muck (排泄物) only floats on the ocean’s surface for a limited time. For their cooperation, the dogs receive their favourite treat. “We reward our dogs for locating the target by playing balls,” says Hartman, a research scientist. She explains that around 98% of the dogs are from rescue shelters, given up by owners who could not match their energy levels. Enthusiastic dogs are a must for the programme, but trainers need to match this with patience curiosity and hard work.
After the muck sniffers (嗅探器), the next most common task for conservation dogs is live animal detection. Many working dogs were first bred to be pest controllers in agricultural settings. Now conservation dogs are used to find introduced rats and stoats on New Zealand’s island safe havens, feral cats in Australia, mongooses in Japan — even mussels and ants in the US that cause destruction and upset ecosystems. It’s just one of the ways dogs are being employed to keep human activity in check.
1. Why is Richard Henry’s story mentioned in paragraph 1?| A．To illustrate stoats’ impact. |
| B．To tell dogs’ position in animal protection. |
| C．To present different kinds of conservationists. |
| D．To highlight Henry’s passion for making a reserve. |
| A．Loyalty. | B．Smelling. | C．Bravery. | D．Wisdom. |
| A．Dogs need training to achieve their potential. |
| B．Dogs located their targets by playing balls. |
| C．Humans could be as energetic as their dogs. |
| D．Dogs from rescue shelters are best for the job. |
| A．Be friendly to your pet dog. |
| B．Train your dogs to detect wildlife. |
| C．Cooperate with dogs for a better living. |
| D．Meet the dogs saving some animal species. |
4 . Nature has so much to offer us, from its strikingly attractive beauty and peaceful settings to its healing(治愈) power and positive energy.
Hiking is one of the most popular ways to explore nature. You can find a hiking trail near you or plan an adventure to a far-off destination. Hiking allows you to experience the beauty of nature and appreciate the outdoors in a way that is not possible from the comfort of your home.
Before hitting the trails, make sure you are familiar with the area and the trails you plan to take.
| A．Hiking often brings you new friends. |
| B．Hiking is beneficial to your body and mind. |
| C．It also provides a way to stay active and build strength. |
| D．Check the weather and potential dangers such as wildlife. |
| E．Then you can challenge yourself with more difficult hikes. |
| F．The good news is that hiking is an option to connect with nature. |
| G．One of the best things about hiking is that it’s relatively easy to get started. |
5 . Seasonality is a big part of business. For some industries, seasonal patterns are a defining feature. Agriculture is one obvious example; tourism another. Western toymakers notch up a huge proportion of their annual sales during Christmas. Construction is harder during cold weather, when that industry employs fewer people.
Firms less obviously tied to the seasons can still be deeply affected by them, as a recent review by Ian Hohm of the University of British Columbia makes clear. An analysis of social-media posts on the Internet found that dieting-related posts peak in the spring, as the season of body dysmorphia(变形) approaches.
Even when overall demand doesn’t vary greatly between the seasons, preterences change. Beef-eaters buy roasts in the slow-cooking winter season and plump for steaks during the summer months. Starbucks is among those firms that make seasonality a marketing event. The pumpkin-spiced latte is a reliable sign that autumn is on its way, along with falling leaves.
Seasonality also leaves a less obvious imprint(印记) inside organisations. This week, with so many bosses stuck on a mountain for the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, productive employees can get on with some work and lazy ones can relax. School holidays offer an obvious form of seasonality, when employees without children are upset that they are covering for colleagues on holiday, and colleagues on holiday are upset that they have children.
Pay decisions are seasonal events, too. The time when employees find out their salary rises and bonuses sets off disappointment and happiness in all workplaces. In some, they are more like tsunamis. The actual date on which bonuses are paid matters too—once the money is safely put in the bank, people are more likely to move jobs.
There are other forms of corporate seasonality. While there isn’t much research on the impact of seasonality within firms, it’s certain that they have their own annual rhythms.
1. Why do people focus on dieting in spring posts according to the analysis?| A．They want to take time to get refreshed in spring. |
| B．They fear the summer heat will ruin their health. |
| C．They fear summer will reveal their body shapes. |
| D．They suffer a lack of proper food during winter. |
| A．Throw away. | B．Decide on. | C．Rule out. | D．Turn up. |
| A．Being unable to relax in the absence of the boss. |
| B．Staying in step with the change of the seasons. |
| C．Accompanying the children of their colleagues. |
| D．Sharing the work of the employees with children. |
| A．Companies Have Their Own Seasonal Rhythms |
| B．School Holidays Have an Effect on Companies |
| C．Corporate Seasonality Has Vast Social Effect |
| D．Employees Must Watch Beyond the Seasons |
6 . My mother was born on a farm in Wisconsin in 1897. She attended college in Milwaukee.
One of my earliest memories, when I was about 3, was on a bitter cold day in 1932, the middle of the Great Depression. A man knocked on our back door and asked my mother for something to eat, as he hadn’t eaten for three days. Mom gave him a plate of stew (炖菜) plus two slices of bread. When he took the plate and fork, tears streamed down his cheeks.At age 21, in 1918, my mother began employment with a local charity in northern Georgia. She was assigned alone to create valuable programs for a small community. She often told us the stories about those old days after she retired. In her later years, my mother established Georgia’s Garden Club, the Professional Women’s Club, the town’s first lending library and other “firsts”.
There were quite a lot of people at her funeral in 1990, when she passed away at 93. My sister and I moved among her many friends, exchanging memories about her. At one point, we saw a stranger with tears on his face. We approached him and my sister asked, “Did you know my mother well?” He replied, “I owe my life to her!” He told us that when he was a young child, in 1918, his family of seven all came down with the flu. The “new lady from the charity” heard about their illness and came to help. He said, “We’d never have made it without her loving care.”
Amazingly, the night before I had read a brief account of that very incident in one of my mother’s diaries. I’m certain I have a responsibility to inform the world of what my mother’s life in northern Georgia was like.
1. Why does the author mention the story that happened in 1932?| A．To complain about the Great Depression. |
| B．To explain there were many poor people. |
| C．To prove his family was so wealthy then. |
| D．To show his mother was very sympathetic. |
| A．Ambitious and active. | B．Traditional but brave. |
| C．Determined and humorous. | D．Demanding but straightforward. |
| A．Puzzled. | B．Grateful. | C．Proud. | D．Sad. |
| A．Her education experiences. | B．Her childhood memories. |
| C．The challenges in her career. | D．The stories in her programs. |
7 . Must-Reads of This Year and Beyond
Memphis, Tara M. StringfellowIt’s Stringfellow’s first novel, a story about three generations of Black women in the American South and their challenges, failures, joys, sorrows, and achievements. I had heard about this novel months before its release and looked forward to reading it, but I was excited with the extent of Stringfellow’s storytelling talent. The author shows great insight about Black women in America.
Very Cold People, Sarah MangusoIt follows a girl’s coming-of-age in the 1980s and 1990s. Set in a fictional town in Massachusetts, which is proud of its old history and rigid class structures, this is an unforgettable book about the loneliness of growing up in a place where you are deeply aware you don’t belong , but pretend that you do in order to survive.
The Star that Always Stays, Anna Rose JohnsonIt is set in the early 1900s. Johnson’s writing is gentle, unhurried and reflective—with touches of humor and heartbreak. She showcases Norvia, a courageous young hero fighting against universal daily-life challenges. This new release could be paired well with The Birchbark House series by Louise Erdrich.
Tell Me I’m an Artist, Chelsea MartinJoey, a college student from a lower-class family, feels out of her depth at art school, where wealth seems necessary for self-realization. To finish an experimental-film assignment, she has decided to remake the movie Rushmore without ever having seen it. The book perfectly deals with the problems of financial insecurity and artistic self-doubt.
1. Who does “I” refer to in the first part?| A．The book’s author. | B．The book’s reviewer. |
| C．The book’s publisher. | D．The book’s character. |
| A．Memphis. | B．Very Cold People. |
| C．Tell Me I’m an Artist. | D．The Star that Always Stays. |
| A．She wants a breakthrough in art. | B．She was born into a rich family. |
| C．She wrote the play Rushmore. | D．She’s directed many films in college. |
8 . Creativity is always about finding inspiration. If you think your well of ideas has dried up, you need to look at the little things in life.
Write down every moment. The best moments pass by so fast that many people fail to notice and appreciate them. This is not the case for creative types. There is inspiration in every encounter and conversation. For example, you could look at a man at a cafe reading a newspaper and come up with an interesting background story about him.
Take time to meditate (冥思). Look for a quiet and secluded (僻静的) place. Take a seat, close your eyes and focus on your breathing.
Search the web. Apart from focusing on your inner self, you should also look for external inspiration.
| A．Find more inspiration |
| B．Learn to deal with stress |
| C．Every moment is worth recording |
| D．Try to empty your mind of any distracting thoughts |
| E．Here is how you can source creative inspiration each day |
| F．Creative types turn out to be appealing to those people around you |
| G．You can find tons of ideas that will stimulate your creativity online |
9 . AP at a Glance
Get an Overview of the AP ProgramThe Advanced Placement ® Program (AP) enables willing and academically-prepared students to pursue college-level studies while they are still in high school. The program develops college-level courses that high schools can choose to offer and corresponding AP exams that are administered once a year.
Fast Facts·AP courses are available in seven subject categories.
·Each AP course is modeled on a comparable introductory college course in the subject.
·Each course comes to an end in a standardized college-level assessment or an AP exam.
·AP exams are given in May each year at testing locations all over the world.
·Schools must be authorized by the AP Course Audit to offer approved AP courses and use the “AP” designation (名称).
AdvantagesTaking AP courses and exams can help students:
·Stand out on college applications. AP courses on a student’s transcript (学生成绩报告单) show that they’ve challenged themselves with the strictest courses available to them. And success on an AP exam shows that they’re ready for college-level coursework.
·Earn college credits and skip introductory courses in college. Most four-year colleges and universities in the United States, as well as many institutions in more than 100 other countries, grant students’ credit, placement, or both for qualifying AP exam scores.
1. Who are suitable to apply for the program?| A．Middle school teachers. |
| B．High school students. |
| C．Program designers. |
| D．Company administrators. |
| A．Study seven reports. |
| B．Earn enough credits. |
| C．Take a relevant exam. |
| D．Use the “AP” designation. |
| A．Getting a high school transcript sooner. |
| B．More foreign universities to be chosen from. |
| C．Studying more introductory courses in college. |
| D．Higher possibility of being admitted to a university. |
10 . A New Jersey high schooler, Selina Zhang is no stranger to the spotted lanternfly (斑衣蜡蝉). The now 18-year-old first noticed it when visiting a market near her hometown of Annandale in primary school. It jumped from a plant to a plant to feed on their sap (汁液), affecting over 70 species. In its wake, the plants became stressed, which increased their chances of falling ill and being attacked.
“As I got older, I wanted to take concrete action,” says Zhang. “So I’ve built ArTreeficial, a solar -powered, self-cleaning and artificial -intelligence-driven tree that attracts the spotted lanternfly and removes it using an electric shock.”
On top of conducting an extensive literature review of existing researches, Zhang carefully observed the spotted lanternflies in the wild for weeks, tracking how they grew over time and how they travelled over unfamiliar structures. She took over 500 photos of them, which she logged in a personal database.
Zhang wanted to create a tree-like structure that copied the tree of heaven, a known host plant of the spotted lanternfly, as the primary lure (诱饵) for her trap. So, she uprooted the umbrella from her family’s yard and got to work. First, she used ultrasound to give off a smell made from the essence of the tree of heaven from ArTreeficial’s trunk to attract them. Second, she designed a double-layered electric net for the tree, which would use machine learning to shock spotted lanternflies once they landed on the tree. Then, Zhang used her database of photos to inform and program her AI model.
Zhang’s net s are divided into multiple squares going up and down the structure. When a spotted lanternfly steps on the inner net, the Al model operates. Electricity courses through that particular section, while the rest remain inactive, and the insect is attacked.
Julie Urban, a spotted lanternfly expert at Pennsylvania State University, says that Zhang’s AI approach is incredibly innovative and could be useful in multiple environments.
1. Why does the spotted lanternfly jump onto the plants?| A．To avoid falling ill. | B．To satisfy its hunger. |
| C．To attract other species. | D．To play with them. |
| A．She conducted field observation. | B．She copied online photos. |
| C．She referred to others’ database. | D．She consulted researchers. |
| A．The electricity. | B．The net. | C．The smell. | D．The umbrella. |
| A．Critical. | B．Unclear. | C．Unconcerned. | D．Approving. |
