1 . Researchers found that young netizens still desire to be in a romantic relationship, and only a few expressed no intention. But young netizens’ willingness to get married is much lower than their willingness to fall in love.

Sina Weibo data shows that among the 5,492 young netizens surveyed,16.4 percent expressed a desire for romance, while only 0.6 percent clearly said they have no intention to have a romantic relationship. However, only 3.4 percent expressed a positive attitude toward marriage as opposed to 1.2 percent who expressed a negative attitude.

Young netizens with a higher education background have a strong er willingness for both romance and marriage. Statistics show that compared to young netizens with a middle school or high school degree, those with a bachelor’s (学士的) or master’s degree are more willing to get involved in a romantic relationship and get married, which might correspond to their high income as people with a higher education level tend to have higher income and are more likely to be able to afford the costs associated with maintaining a healthy romantic relationship and marriage.

Regarding the difference between young netizens’ willingness to have a romantic relationship and their willingness to get married, an analysis of Sina Weibo posts shows a disconnection between relationships and marriage: to fall in love boldly but get married gingerly has become the main trend when it comes to young netizens’ relationship attitudes.

The analysis of Sina Weibo posts reveals that the reason young netizens are unwilling to get married is that they are under the influence of the “anti-social clock” concept and have a higher need to pursue individualized goals and ideals than to follow the ordinary social rhythm. The inequality between rights and duties in marriage and a gender trust crisis caused by issues like domestic violence — both due to insufficient social support systems — are also contributing factors.

1. Which is young netizens’ relationship attitude?

A．They relate love to marriage.

B．They prefer romance to marriage.

C．They value romance above education.

D．They disconnect income with education.

2. Why do highly-educated young netizens more desire both love and marriage?

A．They are more sociable.

B．They more obey the social rule.

C．They have a higher personal goal.

D．They are able to afford more time.

3. Which can replace the underlined word “gingerly” in paragraph 4?

A．Eagerly.

B．Simply.

C．Carefully.

D．Officially.

4. What is emphasized in the last paragraph?

A．The complexity of the reasons.

B．The role of social support systems.

C．The potential problems of marriage.

D．The social influence on marriage concept.

2 . 本学期一开始，你校就开展了“禁止手机进校园”活动，一些同学表示理解，一些同学表示反对，假设你是李华，就这一情况向你校报社投稿，内容包括：
1. 支持的理由；
2. 反对的原因；
3. 你的观点。
注意：1. 词数100左右；
2. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。

Can students bring cell phones into campus?

With the increasing popularity of smartphones, more and more students bring them to school. However, the debate over whether students should be allowed to bring phones to school continues.

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4 . In 2050, one in four people will be over 60 in the Asia-Pacific region. Are countries there prepared to fully address the needs of older persons so that they age with dignity?

In the past, senior citizens might have been supported by their families and communities. Yet times are changing.

    1     Meanwhile, more and more governments are wrestling with increasing healthcare costs and a decreasing workforce.

More than ever, there is an urgent need for policy reform in addressing population aging. This must be driven by a shift in mindset to turn the challenges into a demographic opportunity.

    2     More and more people are living longer due to the advancements in health, nutrition, economic and social well-being.     3     This is due to a variety of reasons such as challenges in striking a work-life balance to not being able to afford having more children. However, low fertility and longer life expectancy are not the problem. The real problem is not being ready to face this rapidly changing demographic shift.

It is noteworthy that, in the Asia-Pacific, with more than half of the older population being women, it is crucial to adopt a life-cycle approach to population aging, grounded in gender equality and human rights. Investing in each stage of life determines the path of a woman’s life course. When a girl has access to quality education, it helps her make informed decisions about life-changing matters.     4    

While there is no single comprehensive policy that can address population aging, we need to take action now.     5     In so doing, countries in the Asia-Pacific region can hope for, and achieve, a better future for all, where no one is left behind.

A．Couples are having fewer babies.

B．Pensions are increasing, pressuring governments further.

C．We must rethink population aging, celebrating it as the victory of development.

D．Migration and urbanization have shifted traditional support systems for the elderly.

E．The decisions she makes paves the way towards a healthier and wealthier silver age.

F．We must invest in better policies that focus on the needs of people at every age of their life.

G．Life-long gender discrimination leaves women even more disadvantaged in an aging society.

5 . “Beijing’s Forbidden City can be at risk of being flooded, but it’s not because modern technologies and repairs have deteriorated the drainage (排水) system,” Beijing News Radio reported.

The report is in response to a popular online view: The Forbidden City, the royal palace of Ming and Qing dynasties also known as the Palace Museum, has never been flooded throughout its history of more than 600 years.

Earlier, a video showed ankle-deep water near the Forbidden City’s Cining Palace, where the royal women used to live. Some netizens have questioned whether modern drainage repair works have made the system much weaker.

Di Yajing, an official in control of affairs relating to the site, told Beijing News Radio that the Forbidden City has a complex (复杂的) drainage system. “Rain coming down from roofs was guided to the basement and then to the drains,” she said, adding that rainwater would flow from the central of the palace to both sides, and from north to south, due to differences in heights.

“The drains were cleared once a year in springtime in ancient times and nowadays they are cleared three times a year except in winter,” the report said. “Although the number of clearing increased every year, it’s not modern technology that worsened the ability of the drainage system,” the report said. During the clearing process, workers found lots of modern objects such as plastic bottles and bags, even towels and clothing, and these things resulted in the blocking of the drainage system.

In addition, there are plenty of records that have recorded occasions in which the palace was flooded and some roofs or walls were damaged by floodwaters, according to the report. For example, a rain in 1885 led to floodwaters of about 1 meter deep. Every time people would have to find out the place of blockage, clear it and then the drainage system would work well right away.

1. What does the underlined word “deteriorated” in paragraph 1 mean?

A．Fixed up.	B．Caused damage to.
C．Taken control of.	D．Checked on.

2. Why was the report published?

A．To clarify a popular view online.

B．To praise the Forbidden City’s drainage system.

C．To introduce the challenge faced by the Forbidden City.

D．To stress the effect of technology on protecting old buildings.

3. What might have caused the Forbidden City’s being flooded in the video?

A．Poor management.	B．Buried bricks.
C．Pipe cracking.	D．Lots of rubbish.

4. What does the report want to say by mentioning the 1885 flood?

A．The palace was once destroyed by floods.

B．Beijing has experienced many natural disasters.

C．The drainage system doesn’t always operate perfectly.

D．Ancient architecture suffered a lot to survive until today.

6 . The next time you’re at an airport or hotel, you might notice a traveling group that consists of young kids, parents, and grandparents vacationing together.     1    But more and more families tend to bring multiple generations with them.

    2    In larger groups, for example, child-care responsibilities can be shared across family members, allowing parents to take a break. But the real value of these trips might be how they give relatives an opportunity to freshen their perception of the people they’ve known for perhaps their entire life. Travel can take us out of our familiar contexts and offer people a chance to see one another differently.

The shift toward multi-generational travel has a few explanations. For one, grandparents today stay healthy later in life, allowing them more energy for travel.     3    Plus, the average U.S. household has become more multi-generational. Americans are not just traveling with grandparents in order to spend time with them, they are traveling with them because they are more likely to live with them in the first place.     4    Americans are taking fewer vacation days than they did in the 1970s. They might want to make the most of that time by including as many people as possible.

Whatever the reason for its popularity, a multi-generational trip can be a rare time when younger and older generations can glimpse the complex people they have each become. Away from the family home, older generations get to see their adult children as responsible parents. Kids get to see their grandparents encounter a new environment.     5    

A．Another explanation is time pressure.

B．The benefits of multi-generational trips are numerous.

C．Decades ago, only wealthy families vacationed together.

D．A scene like this would have been rare a few decades ago.

E．Multi generational family travel tops the list of travel trends.

F．Everyone gets to break out of their family roles and figure out how to be together.

G．Also, big-group accommodation has become more affordable through online platforms.

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。

Socializing with my friends online is my life. The moment I wake     1     I check through all my social networking     2     (app), reading my emails and posting updates. I have 500 friends online and I live with several roommates, but I feel lonely. It seems that I have an active social life,     3     (attend) parties and playing sports, but I’m absent-minded because I     4     (strong) obsess over my phone.

Social networking     5     (be) the master of my life. Though sometimes I set deadlines    6     (tear) myself away from my phone, I fail again and again. Spending so much time socializing online. I always feel     7     (depress) and alone. As a result, I can’t finish what I should do in my real life.

It is common that at parties or at a family holiday, most members fix their eyes on their phones,     8    they think is normal rather than rude.

What is most worrying is that it is     9     (possible) to drop my phone. I need it for my studies because my teachers and classmates need to contact me. It is     10     problem that we are so close but really so far.

8 . The U. S. is in the midst of a “loneliness epidemic”. For a lot of people, the feeling is even more noticeable during the holidays. In addition to the emotional impact of chronic loneliness, it has some dramatic health consequences: increased risk of heart disease and stroke, infections, cancer, even death.

People may feel lonely when their social needs are not met by the people around them. Laetitia Mwilambwe-Tshilobo, a social cognitive neuroscientist at Princeton University, says loneliness epidemic captures two distinct groups: first, people with a low number of social connections; second, people who feel they have poor quality existing relationships.

Elisa Baek, a social neuroscientist at the University of Southern California, co-authored a study that looked at whether lonely people view the world differently than non-lonely people, specifically among college freshmen. Baek found that while non-lonely people were all similar in their neural responses, lonely people had responses that were really different — not just from the non-lonely group, but also from each other. Baek says that these idiosyncrasies (特性) in how lonely participants process the world, “may pose challenges in how these people are able to achieve social connection and feel connected with others.”

To study these changes to the brain, Baek’s team collected fMRI data — a measure of blood flow changes in the brain — while first-year college students watched short videos to measure how similarly participants’ brains responded to the videos. The videos ranged from dramatic and comedic clips to instructional demonstrations in order to reproduce experiences participants might have in daily life. She says it’s the closest they could get to study people’s brain activity — and how they process the world — while they were going about their lives.

Mwilambwe-Tshilobo, who is not involved in the study, says the research accurately highlights how individual differences affect people in experiencing loneliness. “Trying to connect more deeply with one or two or three other people may be more important than to try to get to know everybody and being on good terms with everybody. It doesn’t have to be someone who is like-minded. It’s more like: How can we get on the same page with people who we might not start off on the same page with, but that might form deeper connections afterwards?” she adds.

1. Which description best characterizes the “loneliness epidemic”?

A．Harmful mentally and physically.	B．Exclusive to people with few friends.
C．Striking throughout the year.	D．Spreading between people.

2. What can be inferred from the study conducted by Elisa Baek?

A．Its findings focus on the differences between lonely and non-lonely people.

B．It targets freshman students at the University of Southern California.

C．It casts light on how lonely people perceive the world.

D．It challenges lonely people to be more social.

3. What is required of the videos for the study?

A．To monitor the response speed.	B．To model everyday situations.
C．To study the recreational activities.	D．To look into the brain structures.

4. What advice might Mwilambwe-Tshilobo give to lonely people?

A．Expand the social network.	B．Befriend with those in high places.
C．Seek out friends who think alike.	D．Deepen connections with patience.

9 . 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.