1 . This year saw the publication, in stages, of the sixth report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—a report which was depressing reading for many climate scientists, and in some ways offered a ray of hope.

Why depressing? Because the report confirmed what scientists have been saying for years: that human activity, particularly in the form of emissions (排放) of greenhouse gases, is responsible for the warming in the past few centuries, and that unless such emissions are greatly reduced, we will soon bring about our entire ecosystem’s destruction.

The report concluded that 1.5°C of global warming over the next couple of hundred years is already “baked in”. This makes the goals outlined in the 2015 Paris Agreement—that nations agreed to keep warming below 2°C, and hopefully below 1.5°C-much harder to meet. Worse still, the IPCC report was followed later in the year by the COP27 summit (峰会), described by Prof Dann Mitchell, as “a complete failure, other than some commitment to loss and damage.”

And the ray of hope? The IPCC’s sixth report was broader in approach than previous studies—looking in-depth for the first time at the role played in warming by short-term greenhouse gases such as methane(甲烷), for instance.

“Reducing carbon emissions is always the best approach: stop the problem at its source,” said Mitchell. “But we also need other approaches to help with this. Methane is important, but it’s so short-lived-that’s why we haven’t been so bothered when compared with CO,.”

The IPCC working groups showed potential adaptation paths, and they are the other things we can do in terms of fighting climate change and relieving its worst effects, rather than simply reducing carbon emissions. This would include taking measures such as switching to a more plant-based diet (to reduce methane emissions), controlling population growth, reducing financial inequality and developing means by which we might remove CO, that’s already in our atmosphere, rather than simply preventing it being released.

1. Which of the following can best describe the sixth report by IPCC?

A．Seemingly contradictory.	B．Wholly promising.
C．Particularly hopeless.	D．Exceptionally new.

2. What does the underlined phrase “baked in” in paragraph 3 mean?

A．out of date.	B．to the full.
C．under discussion.	D．in progress

3. According to the passage, what can we learn about methane?

A．It has been long regarded as a major source of global warming.

B．Its role in global warming had been overlooked before the report.

C．Its boost to global warming is as much as other greenhouse gases.

D．It is considered as a new approach to reducing global warming.

4. How many aspects do the adaptation paths involve in the last paragraph?

A．2.

B．3.

C．4.

D．5.

3 . Urbanization refers to the migration of the population from rural regions to cities.    1    Therefore, migration isn’t a new phenomenon. And as the cities harvest most of the benefits of science and technology urbanization continues to take place. As a result, the cities and its suburbs extend to the rural as along their boundaries     2    

Urban expansion is linked to a number of factors. Lower housing costs in the suburb have attracted many to settle in these areas. There has been an increasing investment of infrastructure like transport and electricity in the suburbs.    3     The increase in family income of an average person has raised his standard of living. Driving private cars from the suburb to the city is affordable for many people.

On the other hand, expansion is featured by smaller populations, less traffic jams and noise pollution.    4     People are willing to live in expansion where they find life quieter and more peaceful than in cities.

    5     Some view expansion as a venue where, public money, is being spent on excessive (过度的) infrastructure outside the urban areas. People living in urban expansion go to cities in their cars. This has resulted in heavier traffic on the toads, leading to traffic jams, an increase in the levels of air pollution and car accidents.

A．This brings convenience to life.

B．This spread is named as urban expansion.

C．Expansion has been criticized for some problems.

D．Therefore, these areas have increased in number quickly.

E．Overall, urban expansion is a phenomenon that can be avoided.

F．Despite anti-expansion views, urban expansion has its own benefits.

G．Man has always moved to newer places for better opportunities and pay.

4 . Society tells us we should socialize to the fullest, and that those who are surrounded by people are the most successful and the happiest. These days, we’re almost always connected, whether in person or through our phone screens and online social networks. But there’s something to be said for solitude (独处) Being alone “ doesn’t necessarily mean ” being lonely”. In fact, spending time by yourself is an essential element of self-care.

Around the globe, different cultures have wide-ranging perspectives on what it means to spend time alone. If you live or have spent time in the United States, you’re probably aware that Americans tend to reject solitude. For many younger people, weekends are packed with social activities, ranging from brunch with friends to dinner parties to game nights to drinking at bars and everything in between.

The United States isn’t the only place where you’ll find a heavy emphasis on social time. Across the Atlantic, the United Kingdom is known for being an extremely extroverted (外向型的) country. A survey of Brits found that more than half had never done and would be unwilling to do activities like going to theme parks or seeing live music alone. Most Brits spend almost twice as much of their leisure time socializing with others a as they do being alone.

The home can be a place of rest, relaxation and recharge-that is, if you live by yourself or have the space to be alone in your home. The country in which people are least likely to live alone is India, at about 4 percent of the population. China is also quite fond of multiple-person households, with only about 10 percent of people living by themselves. In more collectivist cultures like these, many aspects of life revolve(围绕) around community. Thus, spending time alone isn’t as ingrained (根深蒂固的) as a social convention in places like these, and the good of the group takes priority over the needs of one person.

1. What can we learn from the first paragraph?

A．People can benefit more from solitude.	B．People tend to socialize more nowadays.
C．Bring alone generally equals being lonely.	D．Being alone enables people to be carefree.

2. Which of the following best describes young Americans?

A．Imaginative and wild.	B．Sensitive and energetic
C．Outgoing and sociable.	D．Optimistic and dutiful.

3. How does the author prove his point?

A．By making a summary.	B．By drawing comparisons.
C．By explaining a concept.	D．By providing examples.

4. Why are most Chinese people more likely to live together?

A．Because they share a specific culture.	B．Because they lack some local customs.
C．Because they possess enough home Space.	D．Because they give priority to their own needs.

5 . 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。

Canadians are extremely enthusiastic about renewable energy, and public opinion is     1     (clear) moving towards a clean energy vision for the future. But when you look at the latest polls, there are still some major obstacles to aggressive climate action.

You’ve probably heard that most Canadians want governments to do more on climate. That’s what two-thirds of the public tell pollsters when     2     (ask). But the same two-thirds will tell you they’re pretty satisfied and think Canada is doing a decent job dealing     3     climate change.

It’s not because Canadians aren’t worried. Three quarters of the public are concerned and the level of worry is rising — half of us now describe climate change as a “very serious threat.” But most people think we’re already pulling     4     (we) weight. Just 25 percent of Canadians think we’re doing less than our “fair share.”

One of the really     5     (worry) trends in public opinion is the number of people who think tackling climate change is already a lost cause. About half the public think we won’t be able to limit climate impacts “before it’s too late.” Just 35 percent have     6     (confident) in governments creating policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

And another big obstacle is     7     the majority doesn’t yet have a mental picture of the possible pathways forward.     8     there is good news in the latest public research. Canadians’ vision of the future is shifting rapidly. There is     9     (mass) support for renewable energy, across all demographics and across party lines. Meanwhile, support for fossil fuel expansion     10     (decrease).

6 . Live-stream marketing: A rural rags-to-riches story?

For many years, quality agricultural products were unable to sell in faraway provinces.     1     It prevented them from accessing a wider, urban client. In most cases, because farmers failed to directly reach consumers, their heavy physical labor resulted in very little income. In this regard, live-stream marketing may appeal to young migrant workers and convince them to return home in the countryside.     2    

In Yunnan Province, southwest China, live-stream marketing is currently the most popular way of pushing local products to consumers across the country.     3     It is turning the smartphone into a new farming tool by fashioning new shopping centers. Live-streaming has greatly boosted the province’s produce sales in the past two years. We now have a great business model in place, combining products with high-quality live stream platforms and support packages from the government.     4     Anyway, the continuous development of live-stream marketing is ready to play a big role in raising rural incomes in relatively backward provinces like Yunnan. E-commerce live-streaming is doing pretty well nowadays, but farm produce only accounts for a small share, mainly due to the lack of experienced hosts and infrastructure in rural areas.

    5     How to grow live stream marketing for farm products? Short videos or live-streams, the key is to meet consumers’ demand. High-quality products alone aren’t enough; they must consider buyers’ preferences as well.

A．There arises a question.

B．Government policies and guidance should follow up.

C．The expansion of 5G technology is a vital contribution.

D．The biggest barrier is lack of efficient marketing channels.

E．China has a tradition of intensive cultivation and a huge rural population.

F．But we should establish a complete supply chain based on strict standards.

G．Once back they can introduce more digitally advanced approaches to agricultural management.

7 . In the autumn of 1853 Thomas Butler Gunn got lost — temporarily rather than physically. On a visit to Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, and isolated from the outside world, his diary quickly divorced the time order of reality. Wednesdays are repeated and days go mislabelled. It took around a fortnight, and renewed contact with civilization, for Gunn to restore his weekly bearings.

The episode (经历), says David Henkin, suggests how fragile a sense of time can be — especially when it comes to weeks. Unlike months or years, these seven-day groupings have no real basis in astronomy. People from Nigeria to China have lived well without them.

And yet the week has become the measure not only of routine, but even of wisdom. “Weekly rhythms have become so thoroughly absorbed into ordinary human experience,” Mr Henkin writes, “that forgetting what day it is constitutes a singular symptom and feeling of disorientation (迷失方向).” His new book shows how the week came to rule the world.

But when newspapers, factory schedules and weekly paydays were all rarer, the weekly structure was less important. People got confused. As late as 1866, the Louisville Courier mentioned a man getting drunk on Friday because he thought it was Saturday.

As towns grew and society became more complicated, citizens “became differently and more intensely week-oriented, in ways we can now recognize as modern”. When his local charity met on Wednesdays in 1859, and choral concerts were scheduled for Fridays, James Fiske of Massachusetts couldn’t afford to mix up his days. Japan formally adopted the seven-day system only in 1873; all the same, a character in a novel by Haruki Murakami is as sure of something “as I am sure that today is Wednesday”.

1. What is the function of Paragraph 1?

A．To introduce the topic.	B．To clarify a concept.
C．To record some experience.	D．To make a prediction.

2. Why can a sense of week be so fragile?

A．Because it does rule the world.	B．Because it is tightly related to reality.
C．Because it is not used very often.	D．Because it is not based on astronomy.

3. What does Paragraph 4 mainly talk about?

A．The influence of abusing the week.

B．The change of weekly rhythms.

C．The disadvantage of using the week less.

D．The importance of changing the weekly structure.

4. What is the author’s attitude towards the use of the week?

A．Positive.

B．Intolerant.

C．Negative.

D．Unclear.

8 . One thing that determines how quickly a researcher climbs the academic ladder is his publication record. The quality of this clearly matters — but so does its quantity. A long list of papers attached to a job application tends to impress appointment committees. One way to make this list longer is co-authoring.

Say you write one paper a year. If you team up with a colleague doing similar work and write two half-papers instead, both parties end up with their names twice as many papers, but with no increase in workload. Find a third researcher to join in and you can get your name on three papers a year. And so on.

We reviewed data on more than 34 million research papers published between 1996 and 2015 in academic journals and found that the average number of authors per paper grew from 3.2 to 4.4. Meanwhile, the numbers of papers divided by the number of authors fell from 0.64 to 0.51. The boom in co-authorship more than compensated for the drop in individual productivity.

One particular trend behind these numbers is the rise of “guest authorship”, in which a very important person is invited as an author simply as a nod to his position or in the hope that this signals a study of high quality. This can lead to some researchers becoming incredibly prolific. For example, between 2013 and 2015 the 100 most published authors in physics and astronomy from American research centers had an average of 311 papers each to their names.

Another trend is that the meaning of authorship in massive science projects is getting more unclear. Some research that involves huge transnational teams are typical here. A paper published in 2015 in Physical Review Letters holds the record with 5,154 co-authors. Such studies as this are seemingly role models of scientific cooperation but they list as authors people who have contributed only a little to the projects. They should have been acknowledged in a thanks-to-all sentence but are now the bricks from which careers may be built.

1. What’s the purpose of Paragraph 2?

A．To defend an opinion.	B．To clarify a concept.
C．To describe a process.	D．To introduce a topic.

2. What does “prolific” probably mean in Paragraph 4?

A．Productive.

B．Generous.

C．Cooperative.

D．Honest.

3. What attitude does the writer take towards the second trend?

A．Supportive.

B．Opposed.

C．Uncertain.

D．Neutral.

4. Which of the following is a suitable title of this passage?

A．What can impress the appointment committees.

B．How authors cooperate in publishing a paper.

C．What effects co-authoring has on the research.

D．Why some research papers have many authors.

9 . How would you feel if you were invited to the moon? If you found a gold coin, would you save it, give it to charity or use it for a holiday? Personality quizzes of this kind, known as “psychometrics”, have bothered many job seekers. Now, it is being applied to the oldest problem in finance: will a borrower repay?

In rich countries, lenders use credit scores to weigh risk. But just 7% of Africans and 13% of South Asians are covered by credit bureaus (征信机构). Bailey Klinger of the Entrepreneurial Finance Lab (EFL), which explores new kinds of credit data, argues that psychometrics could include many more people in the financial system. Everyone has a personality, after all.

Judging character is not new. Psychometrics attempts to make it a science. The model developed by EFL has undergone many tests and adapted to different cultures. Its collected data reflect something unnoticed. For instance, young optimists are risky, but old ones are a safe bet.

Clever design cuts cheating. There are no obvious right answers; responses are cross-checked for consistency. The model monitors mouse movements for signs of indecision or distraction. When borrowers lie to get a loan, they often do so in predictable ways. In an EFL test, people are shown pictures of five drinks and asked which one they would be. Choosing water over something with small bubbles may be a sign of cheating.

This sounds fanciful, but there is evidence that it works. In one Indonesian bank, combining psychometrics with existing customer data cut default (违约) rates for small businesses by 45%. A study by the World Bank found that EFL’s model increased lending to those without a credit history.

The technique needs further development. At present, turning to credit bureaus is still the best way to tell if somebody will repay a loan. But bureaus improve more slowly than technology. Lenders will find ever more ways to look into their customers’ souls.

1. What are the figures intended to show in the second paragraph?

A．Racial discrimination from lenders.

B．Uncertain property of poor people.

C．Great risks brought by credit scores.

D．Current weakness of credit bureaus.

2. What can we learn about EFL’s model in the third paragraph?

A．It has been greatly improved.

B．Its data confirm some ideas.

C．Its effects vary with cultures.

D．It can’t tell character exactly.

3. What does “mouse movements” refer to in the fourth paragraph?

A．Borrowers’ responses.	B．Lenders’ answers.
C．Pictures of five drinks.	D．Drinks with bubbles.

4. What does the last paragraph imply about psychometrics in finance?

A．It will replace credit bureaus.

B．It will be mature in the future.

C．It has won most lenders’ love.

D．It is far from satisfactory.