1 . The case for and against social media

Is social media harmful to teenagers?     1     Social media sites have been blamed for most of the world’s social problems from feeling disconnected and lonely to having difficulty forming meaningful relationships. Yet, many of us feel a need to use social media because it offers something we cannot find elsewhere, despite knowing the downsides.     2    

An argument for social media claims it can strengthen social bonds by facilitating relationships with people in different geographical areas. For example, social media has helped old school friends to get back in touch after many years without contact.     3     These are real benefits of using social media.

    4     The argument used by many people is that interactions on social media are no substitute for face-to-face communication. When you are out with friends how many times do they check their phones? for example.     5     Research highlights it is far more satisfying to physically laugh out loud in real life rather than to replace the act with a typed representation of laughter such as “haha” or “LOL”.       

Ideally, we should have enough self-control to be able to limit our use of social media, enjoying the benefits it can bring.

A．The disadvantages of social media.

B．In my opinion, the disadvantages of social media outweigh the benefits.

C．It is all too easy to become absorbed in this online life rather than communicate in real life.

D．People secure jobs now through social media or research information for their studies.

E．This is the question we are going to examine.

F．We will look at the arguments for and against using social media before answering the question.

G．We aim to control our use of social media.

3 . The first wave of concerns over artificial intelligence(AI)in 2023 appeared soon after New Year’s Day when classrooms reopened and schools from Seattle to Paris started blocking ChatGPT, a powerful software based on AI large language models, because teenagers were using it to do their homework.

The AI large language models behind such products as ChatGPT work by repeatedly guessing the next word in a sentence after having “learned” the rules from a huge amount of/human-written works. Although they often get facts wrong, their answers appear so natural that Keven, their inventors begin to worry about their possible use for spreading false information.

People became more worried when various AI products started to create not just texts but novel images, music and human voices, which threatened the livelihoods of anyone who writes, draws or sings for a living. It led to strikes by Hollywood writers and actors and legal challenges from artists and bestselling authors. Some of the most respected scientists even warned that the technology’s unchecked progress was possibly threatening human existence. “In the longer term, they might manage our attention,” pioneering AI scientist Fei Fei Lisaid. “They would tell us which video to watch, which book to read or whose communication to respond as AI technology’s abilities improve rapidly. They could be a very good assistant, but also with really big risks.”

Li hoped that 2023 is going to be a year for people to think about what Al is, how to use it and what the effects are — all the good, the bad and the ugly.

“It’s easy to forget that they are not the first wave of AI products. Computer vision techniques developed by Li and other scientists have helped sort through a huge database of photos to recognize objects and individual faces and guide self-driving cars. Speech recognition advances have made voice assistants like Siri and Alexa a normal thing in many people’s lives,” said Tom Gruber, co-founder of Siri Inc.

1. Why did schools try to stop their students from using ChatGPT?

A．ChatGPT often got facts wrong in the class.

B．Students spent too much time on the software.

C．ChatGPT helped students spread false information.

D．Students used the software to cheat at their homework.

2. What are the second and third paragraphs mainly about?

A．AI’s training costs.	B．ATs amazing abilities.
C．AI’s possible threats.	D．AI’s fast developments.

3. What would Tom Gruber most probably suggest people do?

A．Think carefully about AI’s impact.	B．Welcome AI technology
C．Do use ChatGPT more carefully.	D．Upgrade ChatGPT in time.

4. Where is the text most probably taken from?

A．A news report.	B．A guide book to a software.
C．A product review.	D．An introduction to a person.

4 . 听下面一段较长对话，回答以下小题。

1. What’s the topic of the conversation?

A．The news media.

B．The food production.

C．The economic situation.

2. What does the man think of the TV report?

A．It sounds funny.

B．It tells the truth.

C．It’s encouraging.

3. What will probably happen this summer according to the man?

A．The prices of certain goods will decline.

B．The materials will cost even more.

C．The workers will get higher wages.

5 . 下面短文中共有10处语言错误，请在有错误的地方增加、删除或修改某个单词。
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号（∧），并在其下面写上该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线（\）划掉。
修改：在错词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意：
1. 每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；
2. 只允许修改10处, 多者（从第11处起）不计分。

Do you often talk with your parents? A recently survey shows that nearly half of the high school students doesn’t like to talk with their parents. 43. 3% of them have trouble communicate with their parents. What was worse, 82. 8% of them don’t want to share their secrets their parents. Actually, it is important for us to communicate with our parents though they are the dearest people in our life, whom care for us all the time. By letting them know that what we think, we can get practical advice from them, which can help us to deal with many problem in life.

In this way, we can feel more confident about us and live happily.

6 . A middle-aged woman playing by herself in the snow is an undeniably odd sight, but maybe it shouldn’t be. New research suggests that modern adults are suffering from overmuch depression, so play may be as essential to our health as sleep. We’ve been in our nature to play, which is causing all kinds of problems—for ourselves, our children, and our planet.

It’s believed that adult play can lead to useful discoveries, which is supported by a study on Bali’s long-tailed monkeys. For her doctoral paper at the University of Lethbridge, animal researcher Camilla Cenni left two types of puzzle boxes for the monkeys to solve. To get the food inside, they had to drop a rock into the container or use it to hit the box. She found the monkeys that previously had been observed dropping rocks for fun were more likely to solve the rock-dropping puzzle, while those that had discovered the joy of tapping rocks together think of the answer to the tapping puzzle.

This finding also suggests that somewhere, deep in our evolutionary history, a playful proto-human(原始人) came up with the concept of stone tools. Even today, the urge to play underlies most of humanity’s greatest inventions, artworks, and scientific breakthroughs, Brown says. “When I interviewed Nobel winners, I was struck by how most of them didn’t separate work and play. Their labs were their playgrounds”.

“The opposite of play isn’t work; it’s depression,” says play researcher Stuart Brown, “Play is all about looking at a tough world with creativity and optimism. It gives us the ability to cooperate and get along with people who differ from us,” He goes so far as to declare that “adult play is necessary for our survival as a species.”

The next time I’m caught playing, I know exactly what I’ll say: “I am not wasting time, or acting immature. I’m doing nothing for the benefit of all humanity. You’re welcome.”

1. What is the phenomenon the author describes at the beginning of the text?

A．Playing with snow is strange.	B．Wild nature is difficult to find.
C．Many people are stressed out.	D．People enjoy living close to nature.

2. What is paragraph 2 of the text mainly about?

A．The necessity of the study.	B．The importance of adult play.
C．Main activities of monkeys.	D．Various functions of a rock.

3. What is the author’s purpose in mentioning a playful proto-human?

A．To explain the concept of play.	B．To compare two research findings.
C．To highlight scientific breakthroughs.	D．To offer some background information.

4. Which of the following best describes the author in the last paragraph?

A．Humorous.

B．Optimistic.

C．Caring.

D．Active.

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。

Have you ever wondered what life is like now     1     (compare) to, say, the 1980s or the 1990s? I went to ask some people I know who were adults in the ‘80s and 90s’, and the answer I got was that “Overall, life is a lot     2     (good) now!” This didn’t really surprise me. I mean, these days we’ve got mobile phones and the internet and so on — but     3    (actual) those weren’t the things they talked about.

So what did they talk about? For     4     start, we don’t have to work physically hard since now there are a lot of things like dishwashers for housework. Then there’s the matter of how, these days,     5     is possible to work at home — it’s mainly     6    (computer) that have made this possible. Not only that, there’s a lot more     7     (equal) now. It’s easier for all people, whatever their social background, gender (性别), colour and so on, to have equal access     8     a variety of career opportunities.

That said, it’s not all a matter of improvement. Quite a few people told me that they feel more stressed these days because they rely a lot on technology and they are always     9    (anxiety) about security on the internet. Plus, we spend a lot of our time     10     (use) smartphones. One person said, “Wouldn’t it be great to be off the grid (不上网) for a few days?”

9 . We tend to think of large cities as melting pots — places where people from all sorts of backgrounds can mix and interact. But according to new research, people in big cities tend to primarily interact with other individuals in the same socioeconomic bracket (阶层), but people in small cities and rural areas are much more likely to have diverse interactions.

The researchers used GPS data collected in 2017 from 9.6 million cellphones across 382 metropolitan (大都市的) areas in the United States to determine how often people of different socioeconomic ranks crossed paths during the day — essentially how many times people had the opportunity to interact, even briefly, with someone in a different income bracket. They collected data on almost 1.6 billion path-crossings.

This large amount of extremely precise data allowed the researchers to see what has been missed by similar studies in the past. People living in the 10 most populous metropolitan areas, which include cities like New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago, along with their surrounding areas, were significantly less likely to interact with people of different socioeconomic ranks than people in metropolitan areas with fewer than 100,000 residents.

The good news is that there are ways to build cities to promote more socioeconomic mixing. Looking at large cities, the researchers found that those that placed frequently-visited hubs (中心) in between different neighborhoods — instead of in the center of each neighborhood — were less separated.

“These big cities have managed to develop diverse interactions because the hubs that people visit the most — which turn out to be shopping centers, squares, and similar places — are between rich and poor neighborhoods,” said Hamed Nilforoshan, a doctoral researcher at Stanford University. “Those hubs act as bridges, allowing people to see each other and interact.”

1. What might be a conclusion of the new research?

A．Urban residents interact more.	B．Large cities act as melting pots.
C．Urbanization leads to different social ranks.	D．Big cities showcase socioeconomic separation.

2. How was the research carried out?

A．By bridging the income brackets.	B．By studying the frequency of interaction.
C．By comparing residents’ behavior patterns.	D．By collecting data on people’s social ranks.

3. What should city planners do to promote socioeconomic mixing?

A．Position the hubs properly.	B．Construct more shopping centers.
C．Control the urban expansion.	D．Design unique residential neighborhoods.

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．Income Bracket: What to Do with It?	B．Diverse Interactions Count in Big Cities
C．Socioeconomic Separation: How to Fix It?	D．Metropolitan Cities Are Great Melting Pots