1 . 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

2. According to the passage, adding poisoned data might ____.

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

3. What can be inferred from the last two paragraphs?

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.

4. Which of the following might be the best title of the passage?

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

2 . 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.

2. What does the author mainly discuss in paragraph 2?

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.

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

A．Gradually.

B．Suddenly.

C．Successfully.

D．Occasionally.

4. What is the best title of the text?

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

3 . 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。

Brit works full time as a fourth-grade teacher at Kula Elementary School. It was there that she met Seth Snyder, a student who had flown under the radar with previous teachers. Every year, Brit is given a nine-month window in which to connect with a group of new students. And with each batch of new students, she hopes to have a positive impact on their lives. But Seth was a tough cookie to crack. For the first few months of the school year, she struggled to connect with her student, who was shy but nevertheless a pleasure to have in the classroom.

One day, Brit showed her students a clip of skateboarders going all out at Tony Hawk’s ramp in California. Brit glanced over and watched Seth’s face light up; she found their connection. She went one step further to connect with Seth by inviting him to join her at the skate park after school one day. Instead of excitement, Seth shut down. He politely declined his teacher’s offer and withdrew once more. In spite of that, Brit wouldn’t give up so easily. She asked again a few weeks later, the day Seth and his fellow students were cut loose for spring break.

“What are you going to do?” she asked. “Are you going to skate?”

“No,” he mumbled, almost embarrassed. “I don’t have a skateboard.”

Brit’s heart sank into her stomach. Kula Elementary comprises mostly underprivileged (缺少机遇的) students who come from low-income families. Teachers like Brit have to tread (行事) carefully when it comes to even the smallest conversations or assignments, because a question as innocent as “What are your plans for spring break?” can be hurtful, sometimes embarrassing, for students who have so little.

Brit said to the reporter, “If your parents are working three jobs to be able to pay rent, of course they’re not going to have time to take you to skate park or, you know, take you surfing, or let alone buy you that $400 surfboard or $ 200 skateboard.”

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。
Brit shared the story with her best friend, Zach, a professional skateboarder.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
What began as two people coming together to do a good deed for one young boy quickly blossomed (发展) into a grassroots effort.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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。

During the Christmas season, Care Bears dressed in Santa Claus hats and other decorations, an     1       (adore) toy favoured by kids, can be     2     (easy) found on the shelves of shopping malls in the United States. Care Bears are multicoloured bears     3     are used on greeting cards and later turned into plush (毛绒) bears.

Before these stuffed animals reached their destination, they     4     (produce) in Qinling Mountains in China and journeyed for almost a month across the ocean.

Min Hua, manager of Ankang Heng’an Toy Ltd., said the production of a Care Bear involves nearly 20 workers covering eight     5     (procedure). After     6     (apply) textile (纺织品) printing on piece goods, workers would add embroidery (纺织品刺绣). Then, they use machines to cut patterns, sew them by following the given draft,     7     stuff them. Min Hua noted the toy factory is highly labor-hungry, and that was     8     the company chose to settle down in Ankang, where labour and land costs were relatively low.

    9     (ensure) quick delivery, in 2020, the local government and Shanghai International Port (Group) Co., Ltd. (SIPG) co-found a logistics (物流的) company named Ankang SIPG, ensuring multimodal transport     10     a lower cost.

5 . Any schoolchild knows that a whale breathes through its blowhole. Fewer know that a blowhole is a nostril (鼻孔) slightly changed by evolution into a form more useful for a mammal that spends its life at sea. And only a dedicated expert would know that while toothed whales, such as sperm whales, have one hole, baleen (鲸须) whales, such as humpback and Rice whales, have two.

Even among the baleen whales, the placing of those nostrils differs. In some species they are close together. In others, they are much further apart. In a paper published in Biology Letters Conor Ryan, a marine biologist at the Scottish Association for Marine Science, suggests why that might be. Having two nostrils, he argues, helps whales smell in stereo (立体空间).

Many types of baleen whales eat tiny animals known as zooplankton (浮游动物), which they catch by filtering (过滤) them from seawater using the sheets of fibrous baleen that have replaced teeth in their mouths. But to eat something you first have to find it. Toothed whales do not hunt by scent. In fact, the olfactory bulb—the part of the brain that processes smell—is absent in such creatures. But baleen whales still have olfactory bulbs, which suggests smell remains important. And scent can indeed give zooplankton away. Zooplankton like to eat other tiny creatures called phytoplankton (浮游植物). When these are under attack, they release a special gas called dimethyl sulphide, which in turn attracts baleen whales.

Most animals have stereoscopic senses. Having two eyes, for instance, allows an animal to compare the images from each in order to perceive depth. Having two ears lets them locate the direction from which a sound is coming. Dr Ryan theorized that paired blowholes might bring baleen whales the same sorts of benefits.

The farther apart the sensory organs are, the more information can be extracted by the animal that bears them. The researchers used drones to photograph the nostrils of 143 whales belonging to 14 different species. Sure enough, baleen whales that often eat zooplankton, such as the North Atlantic right whale, have nostrils that are farther apart than do those, such as humpback whales, that eat zooplankton occasionally. Besides allowing them to breathe, it seems that some whales use their blowholes to determine in which direction dinner lies.

1. What do we know about whales’ nostrils according to the first two paragraphs?

A．They are adapted ones.	B．They are developed merely for smell.
C．They are not easy to detect.	D．They are fixed universally in numbers.

2. What plays a role when baleen whales hunt zooplankton?

A．The teeth that baleen whales have.

B．The smell that phytoplankton send.

C．The sound waves that zooplankton create.

D．The chemical signals that zooplankton give off.

3. How is the concept of stereoscopic senses explained in paragraph 4?

A．By quoting a theory.	B．By using examples.
C．By making contrast.	D．By making inferences.

4. What is the position of nostrils related to according to the last paragraph?

A．The sense of smell.	B．The possibility to attract food.
C．The ability to locate food.	D．The ability to communicate.

6 . The most hated day of the week is misunderstood. When the Boomtown Rats, an Irish band, released   “I Don’t Like Mondays” in 1979, the song became an instant hit.

What many do recognise all too well is the difficulty of gathering the energy to get out of bed on Monday mornings in order to face the week ahead. Many bosses argue that starting off the week in person in the office creates good energy. However, plenty of employees beg to differ.

A paper published by the Journal of Applied Psychology, found that people tend to be more ill-mannered on Mondays, and grow more polite as the week unfolds. The authors have diagnosed a new condition, Mondayitis, which is defined. as “a systemic illness with collections of symptoms including tiredness, light-headedness, dry mouth and headache”. These symptoms typically appear on the first working day after a period off work, which could be a weekend or a longer holiday. They can lead sufferers to call in sick, decide to work from home or, if they do show up in the office, come across as detached (冷漠的) and unavailable. Mondayitis appears to be infecting other days of the week.

However, the covid-19 pandemic has led many people to re-evaluate their work-life balance. A lawyer in London who spends weekends working on cases likes to ease into the formal workweek with an elegant breakfast in a fancy restaurant. A broader movement is promoting the idea of a four-day work week, one arrangement of which would make Monday part of the weekend. Less ambitiously, and more realistically, asocial-media campaign for   “bare-minimum Mondays” argues for a gentle start to the week.

You may have prepared or merely enjoyed a more elaborate meal than a sandwich. You may have gone for a walk in the park or simply lay in bed. Either way, you almost certainly cleared your head. When revived and spirited, you will have a fresh start.

1. What does the underlined part “beg to differ” in Paragraph 2 mean?

A．Approve.

B．Object.

C．Submit.

D．Complain.

2. What can we know about employees on Mondays in Paragraph 3?

A．They are ill-mannered but ready to help others.

B．They may suffer from tiredness or light-headedness.

C．They tend to infect others with their bad performance.

D．They want to come to the office rather than work from home.

3. What can we do to refresh ourselves on Mondays according to the author?

A．Start to work early.	B．Grab a quick meal.
C．Take a walk in the park.	D．Have a tight schedule.

4. What is the author’s purpose in writing the last two paragraphs?

A．To tell us ways to tackle Mondayitis.	B．To explain how to gain work-life balance.
C．To offer tips on how to keep fit on weekdays.	D．To persuade us not to work too hard on Mondays.

7 . 阅读下面材料，在空白处填入适当的内容（一个词）或括号内单词的正确形式。

Have you ever felt stressed and anxious when your maths teacher asks you     1     question? Or when you are doing your maths homework? If so, you might have experienced     2     is called maths anxiety — the feeling of being extremely nervous when     3     (face) with doing basic mathematics. If you have experienced maths anxiety, you are not alone.

Mathematics     4     (be) a necessary skill that people use throughout their lives.     5     (fortunate), many people feel anxious when they have to do maths. That seed of fear may come from many sources. Cultural expectations may also be     6     (blame) — girls may be more likely to catch maths anxiety, perhaps because of stereotypes (刻板印象) that girls are naturally not very good at maths. Your genes, meanwhile, might lead you to anxiety more generally —    7     (make) you more likely to respond unwillingly to maths.

Whatever its origins, once the seed of the fear takes root, it may grow by     8     (it): the more anxious you feel, the worse you perform; the more you shy away from maths, the more you worry when you face it again. Adults with maths anxiety often have trouble     9     maths in their careers and everyday life. Adults with maths anxiety are     10     (little) likely to show interest, enter, and succeed in careers relating to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

8 . If you’re in search of some botanical inspiration for the summer, just look to the following!

Sky Garden — London

Situated on the 35th floor of the iconic “Walkie-Talkie” building in central London, this stunning garden consists of over three stories, combining Mediterranean and South African plantings. The garden temperature here is monitored around the clock to mirror the conditions these plants would experience in a warm temperate climate.

Bambalan — Bristol

Bristol’s Bambalan restaurant appeared in 2016. Known for its leisurely atmosphere, it’s located right in the middle of the city centre. Hidden in plain sight above Bristol’s busy and noisy city centre, the roof terrace is a true hidden garden. With Mediterranean and Middle Eastern food on the menu, this is the ideal place to bring a group, and enjoy the views and tasty treats.

Library of Birmingham — Birmingham

Hidden away on the seventh floor of Birmingham’s public library is a scenic rooftop garden offering an extremely quiet spot to enjoy a good book in the sun. Created entirely by volunteers and reached via glass elevator, the bright garden offers visitors spectacular views over the city. 3, 500 varieties of plants in this garden have been carefully selected to ensure the terrace will offer blooms all year round, so that visitors to this unique library can enjoy the inspiring views.

New Lanark Roof Garden — New Lanark

With impressive views from the roof of an old mill (磨坊) building in the heart of the New Lanark World Heritage Site, this garden isn’t one to miss. Created on the 9, 000 square feet roof of our historic mill, the New Lanark Roof Garden is the largest of its kind in Scotland. Imaginatively designed, the garden contains decorative planting with over 70 different plants and shrubs, a water feature and animal sculptures.

1. What can you do in Bambalan?

A．Make special flower gifts.	B．Buy beautiful jewels.
C．Walk in the countryside.	D．Enjoy tasty food.

2. Which place appeals to book lovers?

A．Sky Garden.	B．Bambalan.
C．Library of Birmingham.	D．New Lanark Roof Garden.

3. What do all the four places have?

A．Plants.

B．Food.

C．Books.

D．Animals.

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。

BEIJING — The 2024 Spring Festival box office (票房) in China, within the holiday’s first three     1    (day), has achieved 3.5 billion yuan ($492.7million), which marks a     2     (strike) increase of nearly 17 percent compared to last year.

Running from Feb.10 to Feb. 17 this year, the Spring Festival period traditionally serves as a profitable period for movie ticket sales. The extended holiday contributes     3     drawing more movie-goers to cinemas,     4     (ensure) a successful start to the Chinese film market in 2024.

On Feb.10, eight films were put on, eager     5     (draw) audience attention. Among them, the domestic comedy-drama YOLO, directed by and starring famous comedian Jia Ling, has appeared as the highest-grossing title so far, adding over 1.3 billion yuan to     6     (it) profit account until Tuesday morning, according to box office tracker Dengta Data.

This success narrowly beat the comedy Pegasus 2     7     earned nearly 1.2 billion yuan in the first period of release.     8     (write) and directed by writer-turned-director and racing driver Han Han, the film serves as a sequel (续篇) to his 2019 Spring Festival holiday hit Pegasus.

During the Spring Festival, the animation Boonie Bears: Time Twist     9     (enjoy) great popularity, winning the third place in the Spring Festival box office rankings and bringing     10     large amount of box office profit.

10 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passages coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank. How to Start a New Business

An entrepreneur is a person who creates , launches, and begins a new business, typically in response to a market demand that has not been met. Entrepreneurs are often imaginative, self-motivated individuals who develop full-time, successful, and sustainable businesses. Successful entrepreneurs frequently have relevant insights, expertise, and advice they may offer aspiring on their respective paths. Interviewing entrepreneurs to aid     1     might provide insight into the steps they took     2     (achieve) success. Here is the interview of entrepreneur-related questions , and you will find more preparations for it.

Question: How would you describe an entrepreneur?

Answer: An individual who establishes and expands their own company through innovative strategies     3     (know) as an entrepreneur. During the expansion of their companies, entrepreneurs are responsible for several important tasks in addition to cash generation. An entrepreneur perceives a commercial need in their society,     4     (develop) an idea for a business, and then takes the initiative to start their firm. Suppose a business idea does not center on producing a product that fills a gap in the     5     (exist) market. In that case, it most often centers on applying technical advancements to simplify the process of obtaining a product or service.

Question: How do entrepreneurs identify business prospects?

Answer: Entrepreneurs routinely seek chances to expand or increase their company’s revenues. They determine which product to include and which market to enter. An entrepreneur should listen to prospective customers and look for chances to build items that meet their demands. An entrepreneur can determine     6     other businesses in the area are doing and how they succeed by conducting a competitive analysis. This technique may involve conducting a physical survey or reading industry-specific materials. Conversations with consumers also facilitate the identification of their frustrations and negative experiences,     7     they may use to enhance a firm..

Question: What makes an entrepreneur successful?

Answer:     8     an entrepreneur, you are both your manager and the manager of others. To achieve success, you must possess a wide range of abilities. An entrepreneur must be able to manage people, a budget, operations, and in certain cases , investors. It necessitates a work style     9     (characterize) by multitasking and planning for the firm’s short- and long-term goals.     10     successful entrepreneur must be able to spend his time wisely, regularly analyzing and prioritizing projects based on their relevance and significance. It includes engaging in short- and long-term planning, economic forecasts, and market research.