1 . Santosh Jadhav, a 28-year-old farmer from Maharashtra’s Sangli district, had never dreamed he would be trending on YouTube tending to his land. But as you watch his videos on Indian Farmer—the channel he runs with his friend, Akash Jadhav, 27—you quickly understand why he is attracting millions of views.
Set up in 2018, Indian Farmer was a result of the two friends’ love of farming, technology and filmmaking. Their videos offer tips, advice and information on various aspects of agriculture, including direct-farming techniques, agriculture-related activities, new farming tools, and agricultural apps. In addition to explaining how agricultural markets function, the channel shares success stories from across the country. A section that draws the most attention features workable solutions to everyday problems and do-it-yourself mechanical quick-fixes.
“We were looking to do something together. Agriculture was something we had in common. Plus, we were young and idealistic—we wanted to do something with a social impact,” says Santosh.
The channel has certainly made a mark, as the numbers show. Since 2018, their channel has built a user base of 21.5 million, thanks to the affordable mobile data revolution and the increasing popularity of smartphones in India. While Akash takes charge of the production side of things, Santosh offers his hands-on knowledge obtained from running his family farm. According to them, the Indian Farmer channel adds an average of 60,000 subscribers and earns between 70,000 and 100,000 in revenue every month.
“Knowledge in this sector is often inter-generational: a farmer is limited to what the others nearby know and do. There was very little by way of books or culture channels that addressed the needs, mistakes and scarcities of farmers. Social media has changed things, enabling cross-sharing of knowledge, all for free,” Akash says.
1. What’s the channel’s most popular section?| A．Inspiring stories. | B．Advanced tools. |
| C．Practical solutions. | D．Agricultural activities. |
| A．Experienced and sociable. | B．Cooperative and devoted. |
| C．Conservative and diligent. | D．Courageous and humorous. |
| A．To show the economic gains. | B．To imply the cooperation relationship. |
| C．To highlight social media engagement. | D．To indicate the success of the channel. |
| A．Resources were available to address farmers’ needs. |
| B．Farming knowledge relies on books and the Internet. |
| C．Agricultural modernization is dependent on technology. |
| D．Social media facilitates free knowledge exchange in agriculture. |
2 . California has been using recycled wastewater for many years. A team has used it to make ice surfaces for the game of hockey(冰球运动). It has been used to make snow for the sport of skiing. And farmers use it to water their crops. But it has not been used directly for drinking water.
Recently, California officials approved new rules to let water agencies recycle wastewater and put it right back into the pipes that carry drinking water to homes, schools, and businesses. It is a big step for California.
California’s new rules would let—but not require—water agencies to take wastewater, treat it, and then put it right back into the drinking water system. That means proving to people that recycled water is not only safe to drink but also not dirty. California would be just the second US state to permit this, following Colorado. It has taken officials more than 10 years to develop these rules, a process that included several studies by independent groups of scientists.
A project in San Diego is aiming to produce nearly half of the city’s water through recycling wastewater by 2035. And the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California aims to produce up to nearly 570 million liters(升)a day for its 19 million people. Adel Hagekhalil is with Metropolitan Water. He said the new rules will permit new projects that have not yet been considered.
California’s new rules require the wastewater be treated for all bacteria and viruses, even if they are not present in the wastewater. In fact, the treatment is so intense that it removes all of the minerals that make fresh drinking water taste good. That means the minerals need to be added back at the end of the process. Polhemus is a director of the drinking water group for the California Water Resources Control Board. “It’s at the same drinking water quality, and probably better in many instances,” he said, adding that it takes time and money to build these treatment centers. So, they will only be available for bigger cities at first.
1. What does paragraph 1 mainly tell us about the recycled wastewater?| A．Its qualities. | B．Its functions. |
| C．Its target users. | D．Its disadvantages. |
| A．They made some new rules on pollution. |
| B．They spent ten years recycling wastewater. |
| C．They tried to make wastewater safe to drink. |
| D．They requested water agencies to speed up treating water. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Favorable. | C．Pessimistic. | D．Indifferent. |
| A．The Process of Recycling Wastewater Is Complicated |
| B．California Tries to Reduce the Wastewater Generation |
| C．California Permits Turning Wastewater to Drinking Water |
| D．New Wastewater Treatment Projects Have Been Approved |
3 . Traditionally, the number of meaningful social relationships one can maintain is around 150. This concept finds its roots in the natural development of the human brain. However, in the digital age, where our social connections extend far beyond the geographical boundaries (界限), we easily create more connections with the help of the rising online platforms. Then, a question arises: Does the digital age rewrite the rules of social connection?
A study published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking explored the effect of social media usage on the size of social circles and the closeness of relationships. The researchers found that more time spent on social media made for a larger number of online “friends,” but not a larger number of offline friends. Further, the findings were not linked to feelings of closeness towards online or offline friends.
Another study from the European Journal of Information Systems studied the link between social media usage and “social overload” — the feeling that too much of the energy for socializing is being used up by online relationships. The authors found that social media usage directly contributed to the experience of social overload, related to digital tiredness and dissatisfaction with social media.
With social media platforms rising, one’s ability to connect with people challenges the traditional concept. The brain, used to manage a limited number of relationships, now fights against the difficulties of dealing with a large number of digital connections, leading to a less attention and feeling investment (投入) in a relationship. And the online shallow connections can not develop meaningful, lasting relationships that stand the test of digital distance.
Therefore, in the digital age’s social whirlwind, instead of drowning (淹没) in a sea of weak interaction (互动), choose to engage in meaningful conversations and focus on the handful of relationships that truly fit your heart. Hug the beauty of face-to-face connections, allowing the richness of human interaction to flower beyond the digital world. By doing so, we create digital and physical spaces that truly improve our well-being.
1. Why did the author mention the traditional concept in the first paragraph?| A．To tell a story. | B．To develop the topic. |
| C．To show his sincerity. | D．To give an example. |
| A．Online relationships were closer. |
| B．Spending more time online improved one’s health. |
| C．Social media usage had no effect on one’s social circles. |
| D．The large online social circles didn’t mean the large number of offline friends. |
| A．It resulted in one’s less attention to a relationship. |
| B．It caused the brain to break down and damaged the health. |
| C．It led to expression errors when one socialized with friends. |
| D．It developed shallow connections that stand the test of distance. |
| A．Offline Relationships: The Source of Well-being. |
| B．Social Overload: Do You Have Too Many Friends? |
| C．Social Media: The Bridge of People’s Connections? |
| D．Online Friends: The Cause of Digital Dissatisfaction. |
4 . The project, called Nemo’s Garden, is the brainchild of Sergio Gamberini, a chemical engineer who runs a scuba (水肺) diving business. In 2013, he was chatting with local farmers when he came up with the idea. Several days later, he dived to the bottom of Noli’s bay and placed a vase with seeds inside a plastic balloon. After 48 hours, the seeds were coming up and Gamberini decided to scale up the experiment.
Nemo’s Garden’s key innovation, a sub-water biosphere, is a unique type of underwater greenhouse. It can use the ocean’s positive environmental factors, temperature stability, evaporative water generation, CO2 absorption, the abundance of oxygen, and inherent protection from pests, to create an environment ideal for crop cultivation. The plants are fed by a hydroponic (水耕法) system. Water is generated from salt-water evaporating and then condensing (冷凝), so no additional fresh water source is required. Additional power for lighting, pumps and sensors is provided by wind generators and solar panels situated on the surface. This makes the entire set-up completely eco-friendly and self-sustaining.
Inside the biosphere, it is even more impressive. Each dome has a shelf running the entire circumference on which plants, equipment and tools can be placed. There is oxygen, carbon dioxide and humidity sensors, radio communication, lights, a fresh-water hose and to top it all off, Wi-Fi. You can control everything in the dome via an app on your phone from the surface. You can turn the lights on, check the conditions and even watch a live video stream of the plants growing.
Gianni Fontanesi, Nemo’s Garden project manager, has logged nearly a thousand dives to perform underwater farming. He says that being inside the greenhouse is like being in an aquarium turned inside out: “You are the fish looking out into the outside world.”
1. What does the Nemo’s Garden refer to according to the passage?| A．A scuba diving business. | B．A vase with basil seeds. |
| C．A farm project underwater. | D．A garden in the bottom of Noli’s bay. |
| A．How Nemo’s Garden works. | B．Why Nemo’s Garden was built. |
| C．What Nemo’s Garden includes. | D．Where Nemo’s Garden was set up. |
| A．A hydroponic system. | B．Diving under the sea. |
| C．An app on our phones. | D．Wind generators and solar panels. |
| A．Special and eye-catching. | B．Impressive and traditional. |
| C．Convenient and economical. | D．Innovative and eco-friendly. |
5 . Norwood was driving last February. The laughter and chatter from the four teenage girls inside her car quickly gave way to screams — another car T-boned (T形撞击) them, sending their car
Shaken, but otherwise OK, she crawled out through the window. With two of her friends, who’d also managed to
But halfway, she realized that Simmons wasn’t with them.
Had the accident happened earlier, she might not have known what to do. But Norwood, who wants to pursue a
| A．taking | B．sailing | C．putting | D．looking |
| A．crashed | B．broke | C．turned | D．changed |
| A．enjoy | B．energize | C．employ | D．free |
| A．fortune | B．car | C．life | D．fellow |
| A．Desperately | B．Innocently | C．Carefully | D．Luckily |
| A．silent | B．frozen | C．unconscious | D．clumsy |
| A．land | B．hospital | C．comfort | D．safety |
| A．controlled | B．checked | C．adjusted | D．observed |
| A．option | B．significance | C．way | D．sign |
| A．potential | B．career | C．trend | D．belief |
| A．trained | B．devoted | C．entered | D．competed |
| A．staring | B．feeding | C．breathing | D．whispering |
| A．wonder | B．problem | C．doubt | D．response |
| A．rescued | B．rushed | C．examined | D．guaranteed |
| A．astonished | B．embarrassed | C．confused | D．injured |
6 . Do you speak a dialect (方言) in daily life? While many Chinese people speak Mandarin, some local dialects are in danger of disappearing. To save them, the Chinese government started the Chinese Language Resources Protection Project a few years ago.
This project looks at how people talk in 1,712 places. Their languages include 103 dialects that are almost gone. It has helped China to build the largest language resource library in the world. There’s an online library where people can learn dialects from over 5.6 million audio clips (音频) and over 5 million videos.
Why is it important to protect the dialect culture? According to British linguist Harold Palmer, dialects are a key to store local cultures. Language faithfully shows the history, the beliefs and the biases (偏见) of an area, he said.
Scholar Zhang Hongming talked about his concerns of the disappearing of dialeets, “For about over 10 years, in the Wu dialect areas such as Shanghai and Suzhou, children aged 6 to 15 can understand but hardly speak the dialect. Meanwhile, young people above 15 years old sometimes speak it, but not very well. If this keeps happening, the dialect might disappear,” he said.
So how did China make this big library? “A big national effort has been put into the project to make it happen,” said Cao Zhiyun, chief expert on the project. Over five years, more than 350 universities and research groups joined in, along with over 4,500 experts and more than 6,000 dialect speakers.
The project is now entering into its second part. This includes creating digital tools like apps and mobile dictionaries to help people lean dialects.
1. How does the author start the text?| A．By quoting sayings. | B．By sharing a story. |
| C．By stating his own experiences. | D．By asking a question. |
| A．The development of Mandarin. | B．Why to protect dialects. |
| C．How to develop speaking skills. | D．The disappearing of dialects. |
| A．Worried. | B．Positive. | C．Indifferent. | D．Unelear. |
| A．It has entered into the third part. |
| B．Over 5.6 millions videos are collected in the project. |
| C．It looks at how people talk in 1,712 places. |
| D．Harold Palme is the chief expert on the project. |
7 . ByteDance’s Douyin has been trialing a food delivery service since December as it looks to expand its business beyond advertising. It potentially competes itself against major e-commerce companies like Alibaba and Meituan. And the company is now considering extending the service beyond the trial.
A Douyin spokesperson says that the company has been “testing a feature in Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu that enables merchants (商人) to promote and sell ‘group-buying’ packages to Douyin users in these select cities and have them delivered”. Restaurant owners often livestream on Douyin to market their business. While doing this, they can offer discounts and coupons (优惠券) for their food to users watching the videos. Multiple users can then purchase that offer mainly and choose a time within two days for the food to arrive. The model is very different from Meituan and Alibaba’s Ele.me which are both on-demand food delivery services.
The digital giant has approached restaurant owners and food enterprises in the three cities to promote their dishes on the app. Douyin states that the success of the trial run will determine whether the in-app meal delivery service will be expanded to other cities. “We would consider expanding the feature to more cities in the future depending on the testing results. There is no detailed timeline yet,” a Douyin spokesperson says.
China’s food delivery industry is dominated by Meituan and Ele.me. Douyin has fewer food buying options than Meituan and Ele.me. But ByteDance’s tentative (暂定的) steps into the market suggest it wants a slice of the market. Major e-commerce platforms are getting into the food delivery business.
One Weibo post reads, “More platforms could be advantageous for both food business owners and regular consumers.” Users think the competition will help registered vendors (销售商) and users because customers will have more options and food business owners can use the platform that charges the lowest service fee.
1. What does Douyin want to do?| A．Expand its market in tested cities. | B．Get into the food delivery industry. |
| C．Gain control over Meituan and Ele.me. | D．Livestream to sell group-buying packages. |
| A．Fast and on-demand delivery time. | B．Excellent after-sales service |
| C．Wonderful and effective live stream. | D．Shop owners’ discounts and coupons. |
| A．Ele.me has less food choices than Douyin. |
| B．Douyin is expecting to occupy its share in the market. |
| C．Detailed timeline has been made by the digital company. |
| D．Ordered food can be delivered by Meituan within a week. |
| A．Supportive. | B．Demanding. | C．Intolerant. | D．Concerned. |
8 . A new study from the Netherlands has found that an important factor in a child’s ultimate level of education, even more important than their own family’s economic situation, is whether they grow up with rich neighbors nearby.
Researcher Agata Troost and her colleagues at Delft University of Technology used a national database to track the address of every Dutch baby born in 1995, a total of 140,338 people, from birth to age 23. Using geolocating software, they drew up a socioeconomic profile (概况) for each child's immediate neighborhood, figuring the percentage of neighbors who were rich, middle class or disadvantaged.
After controlling a number of other factors, including parents’ earnings and levels of education, the researchers found that a child's own experience of wealth or poverty mattered less to their ultimate level of schooling than exposure to well-off neighbors. The data suggest that growing up in a rich area, with well-maintained parks, libraries and soccer fields, as well as interactions with educated neighbors, could boost a poor child's ability to see beyond their immediate horizons (眼界).
“Rich families create neighborhoods and activities that create opportunities,” said Ms. Troost, and these advantages are shared with other children who happen to live nearby. The finding echoes an earlier study by Mr. Chetty and his colleagues, which showed that having even one inspiring teacher in middle school can improve a student’s career prospects. Whether in the classroom or on the street, it seems that social interactions outside the family can start a young person's motivation and ambition.
At the same time, the study also stressed the importance of the home environment. When parents are well educated, children are likely to be, too. And that's the moral of the story: Neighborhoods can have different effects on different children, depending on how educated their parents are, whether they are male or female, and how much casual contact they have with people who are different from their own families. “Location, location, location” may be a old saying for buying a house, but we're learning that it also holds true for children's development.
1. What aspect of the research is paragraph 2 mainly about?| A．Its purpose. | B．Its principle. | C．Its method. | D．Its result. |
| A．Goes against. | B．Agrees with. | C．Works for. | D．Relates to. |
| A．An advertisement. | B．A novel. | C．A magazine. | D．A guidebook. |
| A．The Benefits of Educated Parents | B．The Power of a Good Neighborhood |
| C．The Decisive Factor in a Child's Growth | D．The Location Your New House Should Have |
9 . The big French pet care company AgroBiothers Laboratoire will no longer sell very small containers for raising fish.
The company has a 27 percent share of the French market for products used by people who raise animals at home. But it said it would no longer sell any fishbowls that hold less than 15 liters of water. They will only offer four-sided ones.
The company said it was animal abuse (虐待) to put fish in small bowls without added oxygen and filtration. Filtration is the process of removing small waste from the water with a device.
AgroBiothers chief Matthieu Lambeaux recently used the term “impulse”—meaning a sudden strong desire to do something—to describe why many adults buy goldfish. “People buy a goldfish for their kids on impulse, but if they knew what torture it is, they would not do it. Turning round and round in a small bowl drives fish crazy and kills them quickly,” Lambeaux added.
Goldfish can live up to 30 years and grow to about 25 cm in large aquariums (养鱼缸) or outdoor ponds. But in very small bowls they often die within weeks or months. Lambeaux said goldfish are social animals that need other fish, lots of space and clean water. He added that having an aquarium requires some special equipment and knowledge.
Germany and several other European countries have long banned (禁止) fishbowls, but France has no laws on the problem.
Lambeaux explained the company’s decision further by saying, “We cannot educate all our customers by explaining that keeping fish in a bowl is terrible. We consider that it is our responsibility to no longer give customers that choice.”
“There is demand for fishbowls,” he said, “but the reality is that what we offer children is the possibility of seeing goldfish die slowly.”
1. What makes the French company stop selling certain fishbowls?| A．Their size. | B．Their price. |
| C．Their weight. | D．Their popularity. |
| A．Progress. | B．Pleasure. |
| C．Difficulty. | D．Suffering. |
| A．The age goldfish can reach. | B．Costs of keeping goldfish. |
| C．Proper living conditions for goldfish. | D．The advice on how to choose fishbowls. |
| A．Raise the price of the fishbowls. | B．Remove the chances of harming goldfish. |
| C．Keep goldfish outside in the wild. | D．Educate parents to care for goldfish. |
10 . Going against the trend of going to well-known yet crowded tourist destinations on vacation, a growing number of holidaymakers in China are spending their holidays at less-known places to look for unique and relaxed holiday experiences. “Reverse tourism” (反向旅游) has appeared as a new trend among young holidaymakers in China.
During the weeklong public holiday, which ended on Oct 7, large numbers of vacationers, especially youth who long to escape their busy city lives, avoid popular holiday destinations in order to get off the beaten track and enjoy some peace and quietness.
According to data from online travel agency Qunar, the number of rooms booked at hotels in less-traveled cities during the holiday was up 30 percent year-on-year. Bookings for four and five-star hotels in less-traveled places, including Linxia in Gansu province and Shizuishan in Ningxia, all increased at least 10 times from the same period of 2021. Even 12.5 percent of youth who normally have little time for themselves simply had a time in a hotel to make the much-awaited holiday more relaxing.
Besides crowds, some vacationers chose less-traveled places to save on the cost of trips to popular destinations, which often involve expensive tickets, meals and hotel stays. What’s more, less-known attractions are able to offer more natural experiences, according to social media posts. And unlike popular destinations, some undeveloped places with little online attention can offer more surprises.
Jiang Han, a senior researcher at the Beijing-based public policy think tank Pangoal (盘古智库), said that reverse tourism will become one of the future directions for the market and is an opportunity for growth which can match the camping economy.
1. If you support “reverse tourism”, you will probably choose ________.| A．a famous tourist destination on holidays |
| B．a cheap and popular vacation |
| C．a developed destination to enjoy yourself |
| D．a less-known place for relaxed experiences |
| A．By giving numbers. | B．By listing reasons. |
| C．By comparing opinions. | D．By giving definitions. |
| A．Negative. | B．Doubtful. |
| C．Positive. | D．Unconcerned. |
| A．Vacationers can save money while travelling. |
| B．More and more people accept less-travelled destinations. |
| C．People prefer to spend their holidays by travelling. |
| D．Young people often have little time to travel around. |
