1. Who did the man meet while waiting for the woman?
| A．Norman. | B．Mr Pope. | C．Mrs Pope. |
| A．There is something wrong with his ears. |
| B．The woman speaks in a low voice. |
| C．It is too noisy nearby. |
1. What is Dr Tony talking about?
| A．Making the best use of time. |
| B．Designing a daily study schedule. |
| C．Planning a weekly schedule. |
| A．A general guide for a daily schedule. |
| B．Amount of time to be spent on study time. |
| C．Things a best daily schedule should include. |
| A．Challenge themselves to finish more tasks. |
| B．Follow the guidelines all the time. |
| C．Suit their time to their needs. |
| A．It gives people satisfaction. |
| B．It helps people finish each task quickly. |
| C．It makes people find comfort in difficult things. |
| A．When she was a kid. |
| B．When she worked at a bookstore. |
| C．When she had some books published. |
1. Where does Mark usually read news now?
| A．In a newspaper. | B．In a magazine. | C．On the Internet. |
| A．It has a small glass window. |
| B．It can make a pizza in a short time. |
| C．It offers four types of pizzas at a time. |
| A．It is quite necessary. | B．It might not be popular. | C．It will certainly succeed. |
| A．The 24-hour service. | B．Tasty pizza made by it. | C．The low production cost. |
It is a hot sunny Saturday morning on the farm. Maya, Duksie and Doobie are helping Mama K in her vegetable garden. The children work all morning.
Mama K always gives the children a treat for helping her. Sometimes it’s cake or chocolate; sometimes it’s apples, pears or oranges. Mama K has only one rule. “Share it fair!” The children know they must share the treats equally, so they all get the same amount.
Today Mama K has baked a round strawberry cake with pink icing (糖霜) and berries from her garden. The children wait on the grass for their treat. “Here you go!” smiles Mama K. “But remember the rule. Share it fair!”
Maya has the first turn to share the cake. She uses the knife to draw lines in the icing. The others watch her. She does not cut the cake yet. The others must first agree if her way is fair. “I think I will make two cuts down like this. Now we have three slices, all the same!” Maya shows them. There is one line on the left and the other on the right.
“No way!” says Duksie. “The one in the middle is much too big!” Doobie also shakes his head. Maya laughs and tells Duksie to try.
“Pass me the knife.I’ll do it,” says Duksie First she rubs out Maya’s pattern in the icing, and then she makes one cut across and one down. “Look, I have made my three slices!” “That’s not fair!” shout Maya and Doobie together,.
“Why don’t you try, Doobie?” says Duksie. “I bet you can’t do it!”
“I wish the cake was a square, and then it would be easy!” says Doobie thoughtfully. And then! A picture comes into Doobie’s head. He sees the silver badge (标识) at the front of his father’s big red Benz truck. “I’ve got it! I’ve got it! I know how to do it,” shouts Doobie.
“How did you work it out?” Maya asks. Doobie smiles to himself. For now it’s his secret. Later, he will tell his dad.
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。
First Doobie uses a knife to smooth Duksie’s lines in the icing.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________With Mama K’s encouragement, Maya takes charge, expertly cutting along Doobie’s lines to make three equal slices.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________6 . Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras have been working on a fascinating new way to identify people: using the ways of their breath. This idea could change how we unlock our phones and access secure places.
The key to this technology lies in the way we breathe out. Every person has a unique way of breathing air, which creates specific turbulence (涡流) patterns. The IIT Madras team, led by Prof. Mahesh Panchagnula, has developed a method of catching these unique patterns and using them as a biometric (生物特征识别的) signature, similar to how fingerprints are used today.
They conducted tests with breath samples from 94 people and found that their system could correctly confirm the person’s identity with an impressive accuracy of 97%. However, when it came to identifying someone without knowing who they were beforehand, the accuracy was around 50%. This means the technology is great at confirming if someone is who they claim to be, but it still needs improvement in recognizing people without any prior information. What makes this research exciting is its potential beyond just unlocking phones. It could play a significant role in personalized medicine. Since the way we breathe can give insights into our health, this technology could help doctors tailor treatments to individual patients more effectively.
In a similar study at Kyushu University in Japan, researchers developed an artificial system that identifies people based on how their breath smells. This system showed a high accuracy rate of 97.8% in identifying individuals. However, this method currently requires people to fast (禁食) for six hours before testing, indicating that it still needs to be improved to be more practical for everyday use.
These advancements in using human breath for identification are not just about adding another cool feature to our smartphones. They represent a significant step forward in biometric technology, which could have far-reaching implications in security, medicine, and personal technology. This research at IIT Madras and Kyushu University is pioneering a new way of using the unique patterns of our breath for identification purposes, potentially revolutionizing (变革) how we interact with technology and receive medical care.
1. What makes the new technology possible according to paragraph 2?| A．The distinctive breath smells. | B．The unique patterns of breath. |
| C．The different patterns of fingerprints. | D．The speed of taking in air. |
| A．To eat no food for 6 hours is practical in everyday life. |
| B．To eat fast is a basic requirement for a higher accuracy rate. |
| C．The system is workable and will soon appear on the market. |
| D．Breath smells affected by food can decrease the accuracy rate. |
| A．It helps raise people’s awareness of health. | B．It will let people better understand their breath. |
| C．It makes unlocking our phones more easily. | D．It will introduce new ways to develop medicine. |
| A．Should We Still Use Fingerprints to Unlock Our Phone? |
| B．Fingerprint Patterns Can Identify Breath Types Easily |
| C．A Breath “Fingerprint” Could Be Used to Unlock Your Phone |
| D．Which Unlocking Method Is More Secure, Breath or Fingerprint? |
7 . Many people changed residences and are eager to get familiar with their new neighbors. Here’s a quick refresher on making the most of neighborhood relationships.
Begin at the beginning. Building good neighborly relationships starts when you or someone else moves into the area. If a new neighbor moves in, be proactive (主动的) and welcome them to the neighborhood.
Be inclusive. If you are hosting a large party, consider extending invitations to your neighbors. During the holiday season, remember the people next door with a card, a homemade goodie, or an offer of assistance. Give without expectations.
Allow people to be human.
Accept it. If you have tried your best to resolve a conflict without success, let it go. Sadly, some people won’t like you whatever you do. And you aren’t going to enjoy some people.
| A．Maintain your space |
| B．Be the first to stop by and say hello |
| C．It’s easier to accept it and move on |
| D．Everyone has a bad day now and then |
| E．Take steps to ensure it won’t happen again |
| F．Let others know you are thinking of them |
| G．Some neighbors are more easygoing than others |
8 . The first-ever fine for space junk was issued in early October in a case of off-planet environmental enforcement (执法). The television company, Dish Network, was hit with a $125,000 fine by the United States government for failing to remove a satellite in orbit that would have risked a collision (撞击) with other space equipment, a safety concern that will only grow with time as off-planet activities increase.
According to NASA, debris (碎片) orbiting in space can travel up to 15 kilometres per second, which is nearly 10 times faster than the velocity (速度) of a bullet. A huge amount of damage can be caused by something just a few centimetres in size, meaning that every effort must be taken to keep space as clear as possible. Collisions that take place in space have an effect back on Earth. Damaged satellites impact our ability to use the Internet and navigation (导航), leaving increasingly global critical infrastructure in an unstable state.
One solution for this may be to send autonomous space vehicles into orbit, which can then catch and effectively de-orbit space junk. By utilizing tools such as robotic arms, or nets, this approach will require very precise track and fine cooperation in order to be successful. Such measures are yet to catch up with the increase in space activity and pollution currently occurring. Therefore, fines and regulatory enforcement may presently be the only realistic method to hold organizations accountable.
The Dish Network satellite, fined $125,000 by the Federal Communications Commission, failed to de-orbit as a lack of fuel stopped the satellite from fully decommissioning (退役) a safe distance from Earth, falling short by around 75 miles (120 kilometres). It is hoped that significant fines like these will serve as a warning for companies, forcing them to make sure the safe decommissioning of their space operations.
1. Why was Dish Network fined?| A．It left space junk in orbit. | B．It increased off-planet activities. |
| C．It made collisions among space equipment. | D．It sent too much space equipment to space. |
| A．Space junk may turn into bullets. | B．Debris fragments are too tiny to track. |
| C．Debris may cause great damage in space. | D．A bad space environment will destroy the Earth. |
| A．The harm of space junk. | B．Ways to remove space junk. |
| C．Types of autonomous space vehicles. | D．Approaches to stopping satellites. |
| A．Unconcerned. | B．Doubtful. | C．Negative. | D．Approving. |
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 |
