2 . In the past five years, a revolution (革命) has gathered pace in the transport sector. Electric cars have hit the mainstream.

The latest figures released on 26 April by the International Energy Agency (IEA) suggest almost one-in-five new cars sold worldwide this year will be either a full-battery or plug-in hybrid (插电式混合动力) models. In total, 14 million of these kinds of vehicles are expected to be sold this year, up from around a million in 2017.

This explosive growth is a testament to industry innovation and government interventions (干预). Falling battery costs have delivered longer-range cars, boosting their consumer appeal. Meanwhile, government policies, including upcoming restrictions on the sale of new petrol and diesel (柴油) cars in some countries, have caused people to choose zero-emission driving.

But although electrification of the global vehicle fleet brings climate benefits, there is also cause for concern. SUVs have been growing in popularity in recent years, accounting for 42% of all car sales in 2020. At the same time, electric SUVs have also gained ground, representing roughly 35% of electric passenger car sales in 2022.

Electric SUVs are still greener than their petrol and diesel counterparts, but their size and weight erase some of the climate gains from moving to electric vehicles. Their larger batteries also require more raw minerals, putting extra pressure on already stretched global supplies. “The trend towards larger cars is definitely not desirable at all,” says Christian Brand from the University of Oxford.

Air pollution is another worry. “The benefit of moving to an electric vehicle, from an exhaust (废气) emission point of view is pretty small,” says Frank Kelly from Imperial College London. And since electric vehicles still produce pollution from their tyres, brakes and road wear, air pollution won’t fully go away. “We’re still going to have a pretty big problem in our cities,” says Kelly.

As such, governments must do more to reduce car dependency, particularly in urban areas, says Kelly. “Clean public transport is the solution to our air pollution problem in urban areas.” he says.

1. What does Paragraph 3 mainly talk about?

A．How the car industry transformed.

B．Why people turn to electric vehicles.

C．A prediction of the car industry’s future.

D．A comparison between electric vehicles and traditional ones.

2. Which of the following can best replace the underlined part “gained ground” in paragraph 4?

A．Met with opposition.	B．Control the market.
C．Made significant progress.	D．Gone into gradual decline (下降).

3. What does Kelly suggest people do?

A．Use public transport.	B．Share cars with others.
C．Stop using petrol vehicles.	D．Choose smaller electric vehicles.

4. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A．Electric vehicles are rapidly taking off — but is that a good thing?

B．The future of electric vehicles and material resources?

C．How green are electric vehicles? Well, that depends.

D．Did SUVs just win the electric vehicle market?

4 . Some immigrants (外来移民) in the northeastern part of the US, Maine, are learning to lose their accents. They speak English fluently but have a difficult time being understood because they have heavy accents.

Nyirabahizi said she left her home and job in Rwanda two years ago, coming to America in hopes of a brighter future. She has a master’s degree in computer science and speaks English fluently. She said all of her classes in Rwanda were taught in English, but here she had to learn again because of her accent.

She attended a free class to reduce her accent with seven other students. The city of Portland conducted the class and Greenlaw was the teacher. She said immigrants who had reduced their accents had greater success at work. And they could communicate more easily with store workers, teachers, doctors and neighbors. “It’s a basic need to be understood,” Greenlaw told the newspaper, “It affects every part of their lives.”

Greenlaw began the class by telling students the 44 sounds of the English language. She told the students how the lips and jaws worked to form the sound. She told the students that some American English pronunciation rules didn’t make a lot of sense. But she said it was important to learn them if immigrants wanted to be understood by Americans.

Losing one’s accent is especially important for immigrants who live in Maine. More than 90 percent of the population of Maine are whites. Many people who live in Maine have not heard foreign accents except in movies or on televisions.

Greenlaw said some Mainers were impatient with people who spoke English with heavy accents. Her students said some Mainers ignored them or were unfriendly toward them because of their accents. They said this made them less likely to speak.

1. Why do some immigrants have difficulty making themselves understood?

A．Their classes aren’t taught in English.	B．They don’t master English at school.
C．They speak English with heavy accents.	D．They don’t speak English fluently.

2. Why did Nyirabahizi and other students attend the free class?

A．To change their low social positions.	B．To hide their identities of immigrants.
C．To forget their native languages.	D．To help them better work and communicate.

3. What is some Mainers’ attitude toward immigrants with heavy accents?

A．Grateful.

B．Cold.

C．Doubtful.

D．Supportive.

4. What can be a suitable title for the text?

A．Immigrants Learn to Change Their Accents	B．Immigrants Are Required to Speak Well
C．Heavy Accents Cause Failures	D．Good English Makes Success

5 . What will most help you lead a long happy and healthy life? Is it making lots of money? Is it a great job that you enjoy? Perhaps it’s fame. If you ask a young person, many are likely to give you one of those answers. Or possibly all three.

Some cultures put more importance on work and money than others. Americans can be obsessed with their jobs and making money. They might feel the need to make lots of money for education, medical care, homes and cars. But it’s not just about the money. For many Americans, self­worth is linked to our professional success or failure.

We could learn about what makes people happy, and what does not, by studying people over the course of their lives. For almost 80 years, Harvard Medical School researchers have been doing just that. The Harvard Study of Adult Development is one of the most comprehensive studies in history. Since 1938, Henry, one of its professor has followed the lives of a group of men from their teen years to old age. Later, he began to follow their wives and children as well. The study finds that wealth, social position and an important job title do not necessarily lead to health and happiness.

Robert Waldinger is the current director of the study. He is a professor at Harvard Medical School. Waldinger shared some of the findings with a Harvard Gazette reporter. He said, “The surprising finding is that our relationships and how happy we are in our relationships has a powerful influence on our health.” He added, “Taking care of your body is important, but tending to your relationships is a form of self­care too.”

1. What is the questions’ function in the first paragraph?

A．To remind people to keep happy.	B．To help people reflect on their health.
C．To remind people health is important.	D．To introduce the main topic of the passage.

2. Which phrase can replace the underlined part “be obsessed with” in Paragraph 2?

A．be addicted to

B．be aware of

C．be upset about

D．be tired of

3. What does Henry find by following some men and their family?

A．Making money is important for Americans.

B．Every person should have his or her own goal.

C．Seeking after fame can bring people excitement.

D．Health and happiness do not only rely on status and wealth.

4. What should we do to keep healthy according to Waldinger?

A．Try our best to make money.	B．Have our bodies examined every day.
C．Keeping in touch with our friends regularly.	D．Eating or drinking with our friends every night.

6 . China’s tea culture has undergone dramatic, changes in recent years. The appearance of new-style teas can be traced back to the cheap roadside milk tea stands of the 1990s. Most of these drinks were made from powdered mixes and contained neither fresh milk nor fresh tea. The base ingredients weren’t updated until the arrival of Taiwan-based brands like CoCo and A Little Tea in the 2000s, leading to innovations such as “cheese tea”. These businesses started the “Milk Tea 2.0” era, transforming the milk tea business from a mixture of small stands into a standardized and fast-moving industry.

But even as the Taiwan-centric “Milk Tea 2.0” revolution was sweeping the world, the seeds of its next evolution were already sprouting (发芽) on the Chinese mainland. In 2012, a 21-year-old man named Nie Yunchen opened a milk tea store in the small southern city of Jiangmen, where he sold milk tea. By 2020, Nie’s HeyTea had 695 stores worldwide; was worth an estimated, 16 billion yuan, and had attracted a large number of imitators.

The new brands made their mark, by offering a more diverse range of tea bases, often with extras like seasonal fruit sparkling water, cream cheese or nuts.

The viability (可行性) of this business model owes much to China’s widespread embrace of high-end consumerism. Jason Yu, general manager of the market research firm Kantar World panel China, told me that “mothers with refined tastes”, urban white-collar workers, and those born after 1990 are the main drivers of Chinas new-style tea market—and, more broadly, the consumer market as a whole. These groups tend to be defined by busywork and home lives, and they see upscale drinks like tea and coffee not only as a way to quench their thirst (解渴), but also as a source of comfort. In this sense, new-style teas are filling a psychological, rather than a physical need. Many tea brands are aware of this and they have sought to associate themselves with healthy and relaxed lifestyle through their marketing campaigns.

Another driver of new-style tea consumption, according to Yu, is the desire among young people to combine consumption with social activity. “The goal of consumption for this generation of consumers is socializing,” Yu, said “You rarely see a person drinking Hey Tea by himself.”

1. How were new-style teas influenced by Taiwan-based brands?

A．These brands gave them a new name.

B．These brands changed their ingredients.

C．These brands in proved-their marketing.

D．These brands made them a healthier drink.

2. What can We learn about Nie’s HeyTea?

A．It can compete with “Milk Tea 2.0”.	B．It is targeted at high-income groups.
C．It has a good market at home and abroad.	D．It gradually develops the domestic market.

3. How do many tea brands advertise their products?

A．By improving the brand image.	B．By stressing their relaxing effect.
C．By showing their nutritious value.	D．By comparing them with other products.

4. What makes new-style teas popular with young people according to Yu?

A．The low price.	B．Their rich variety.
C．The chance to socialize.	D．Their desire To show off.

7 . 语法填空

In the 19th century, newspapers often published novels in parts. Chapters were printed once at a time.    1     (tell) the whole story took several weeks or months. At the start of the 21st century, the cell phone novel was born.     2     married an old idea with new technology.

There are several ways to read a cell phone novel. Readers may go to special websites to read a chapter     3     download it to their phone.    4     (chapter) may be sent to a person’s phone via e-mail or short messages. They are short — often no     5     (many) than a few hundred words long.

The first cell phone novel, Deep Love, was written by Yoshi,    6     Japanese writer. It was very popular. In fact, the story was later published as a book and then     7     (make) into a movie. Other Japanese authors, like Naito and Chaco, have also been     8     (success) in the field.

The first Chinese cell phone novel was Distance,     9     was written in 2004 by Huang Xuan. The story    10     (contain) 1,008 characters and is divided into 15 chapters.

There are also cell phone novels in French, English, and other languages. Romance and horror stories are growing in popularity. Thousands of these mini-novels are on the market. It’s a fast, easy and convenient way to read a great story.

8 . At noon, the Tongxin Cafeteria near the Jing’an Temple downtown has a queue that exemplifies its multi-generational popularity. The menu, with over 60 dishes rotated daily, is liked by a series of tastes.

“Compared with food ordered for lunch online, this place is much better.” said Chen Luo, an accountant from a nearby office building. Chen, who lives alone, formerly depended heavily on delivered meals ordered online until her parents raised concerns about the nutritional value and what they called “bad food materials.”

Cooking for herself is too time-wasting, she said. “I used to spend two hours cooking and washing dishes, only to eat for 10 minutes,” Chen said. “The nearby community canteen (餐厅) is a perfect solution. These cafeterias, once known as ‘senior canteens’, were originally built to provide healthy meals at affordable prices to older folks who might not be getting enough nutrition at home. From 2019 to 2021, the Shanghai government set a goal of building 200 new community canteens, bringing the total at the end of last year to 1,608.

A basic meal with one meat dish and two vegetables costs less than 20 yuan (US$2.70), far cheaper than prices in mainstream downtown restaurants. And all meals are prepared on site with fresh materials. The government supports these cafeterias—sometimes with rent-free space; sometimes with reduced water and electricity charges.

Li Jiajun, the manager of a local community canteen, said the prices of the dishes are 20 percent lower than popular market rates because of the government assistance. His canteen provides elderly diners from 10:30—11:30 am and 4:30—5:30 pm. Apart from those hours, people of all ages are welcome.

Li said cafeteria managers are required to maintain detailed records, including 48-hour food samples and daily uploads to food safety platforms. This approach ensures the paths of all materials. Some community cafeterias have become so popular that they appear on WeChat and other lifestyle sharing platforms.

1. Why is the menu mentioned in paragraph 1?

A．To describe the menu.	B．To introduce the topic.
C．To arouse readers’ curiosity.	D．To highlight the dishes.

2. What can we learn from the passage?

A．Chen Luo’s parents were too busy to cook nutritional meals for her.

B．From 2019 to 2021, the Shanghai government built 1,608 new community canteens.

C．The community canteens needn’t pay for electricity with the government assistance.

D．The community canteens were once built to provide healthy meals for seniors.

3. Which of the following is not the reason why community canteens become popular?

A．nutrition value	B．fresh materials
C．government support	D．lower prices

4. What can probably be the best title for the passage?

A．Community canteens growing in popularity

B．Tongxin canteen liked by multi-generations

C．Community canteens shared on platforms

D．More community canteens built for seniors

9 . Leah Brown aged 36 fell several hundred feet from Oregon’s highest mountain right before the eyes of a group of volunteer rescue workers who rushed to her aid and helped save her life.

The woman was coming down a popular path (小路) on Mt. Hood, about 70 miles east of Portland, on Saturday morning, according to the local police. Mt. Hood is the highest in Oregon, standing at around11.240 feet.

The fall was seen by members of Portland Mountain Rescue (PMR), a volunteer organization focused on helping people in mountainous areas. The group called 911 and rushed to the woman, providing medical care. They helped keep the woman warm for seven hours as the police worked to get her off the mountain safely. Finally, the woman was evacuated (转移) to a parking lot at 9:30 pm and taken to a hospital.

The climber, Leah Brown, said she didn’t know what caused her fall. “I can only guess it was either an ice tool or a crampon (冰爪) that didn’t land and stick like it should have, so I became detached from the mountain,” Brown said. “The thing I’d like to most stress is my appreciation for the members of PMR who evacuated me and took good care of me the whole time,” Brown added. “They saved my life. ”

In a statement after the rescue, PMR warned of the dangerous winter conditions at the mountain. “The short days and lower temperatures mean that the snow tends to be very hard and icy, and the conditions tend to be much steeper. Climbing the mountain in icy conditions is much more difficult,” the group said.

1. What happened to Brown on Saturday morning?

A．She lost her way in a forest.	B．She hurt her eye unexpectedly.
C．She failed to call her family.	D．She fell down on a downhill path.

2. What does the underlined word “detached” in paragraph 4 mean?

A．Different.

B．Hidden.

C．Separated.

D．Tired.

3. How did Brown feel about the members of PMR?

A．Thankful.

B．Regretful.

C．Surprised.

D．Concerned.

4. What did PMR intend to tell us?

A．Climbing requires teamwork.	B．Climbing in winter is too risky.
C．We must remain positive in hard times.	D．We can admire the view on sunny days.