1 . One single night every January, volunteers all over America search parks, woodlands and pavements to count those without shelter. After seeing their own figures for homelessness increase by 20%between 2022 and early 2023. Jersey officials were shocked into action. Officials spent more on rental assistance for those at risk of becoming homeless. More services for people living rough have led to a rise in sheltered homelessness. The state also gathers real time data. In November New Jersey’s Office of Homelessness Prevention released its own figures , showing unsheltered homelessness falling across the state by 23% year on year.

Newark, New Jersey’s largest city and home to the state’s largest homeless population, recorded a 58% reduction in unsheltered homelessness since the start of the year due to the government’s financial support to reduce street homelessness, improve the shelter system and expand housing and prevention services.

Luis Ulerio, the director of Newark’s Office of Homeless Services, says “there’s just been a lot of hard work behind that number.” Mr. Baraka, the mayor (市长)，converted a local primary school into a 166-bed facility. He built temporary housing out of shipping containers. A second cluster (群) of containers with supportive services, called Hope Village II, will open soon. The containers have been altered to look like little cottages. A third cluster is in the works Mr.Baraka wants to create a pipeline from shelters to transitional housing and then to getting long-term homeless people into permanent housing.

More services for people living rough have led to a rise in sheltered homelessness. The city also provides money for overdue rent to prevent homelessness. Beth Shinn of Vanderbilt University points out that it’s cheaper to give $ 200 to help make due rent for the poor than to pay thousands later. The city also relies on data , updated daily by those working with Newark’s homeless people. Real-time data is crucial , he says , in order to carry out interventions in state policy all on the frontline.

1. What can we learn about homelessness in New Jersey from paragraph 1?

A．It has greatly affected people’s lives.	B．Official efforts are lacking to address it.
C．Great progress has been made to ease it.	D．It is the most serious all over America.

2. How did Mr. Baraka help the homeless in Newark??

A．He designed and built the Hope Village series for them.

B．He turned a school and shipping containers into o homes.

C．He joined a permanent pipeline to the homeless houses.

D．He led the volunteers to count people without shelter.

3. What does the underlined word “altered” mean in paragraph 3?

A．Extended.

B．Donated.

C．Distributed.

D．Changed.

4. What does Beth Shinn suggest about overdue rent?

A．Rent should be provided for the poor when it’s due.

B．No rent should be charged to stop overdue rent.

C．Real-time data should be in place to spot overdue rent.

D．A limit should be set to avoid large sum of overdue rent.

2 . Would you take a trip if you couldn’t use your cellphone? A new tour company called Off the Grid is asking travellers to put their cellphones away and not even use them for photos. The company founder, Zach Beattie, is developing his business, using money he saved from a tech job at a mapping company. He’s hired guides for every trip but will help lead the first few himself.

The first trip is to Lisbon, Portugal, in July. It takes 7 to 10 days, with small groups of up to 16 people. Prices range from $1,500 to $1,650, including accommodations, meals and ground transportation. The plan includes at least three excursions (远足) and two social events, with an emphasis on unique experiences over bucket-list sightseeing. The tour also includes surfing lessons, yoga on the beach, a day of sailing and dinner with a local family.

“When you’re somewhere new, there’s a lot to see and a lot of cool and interesting people to meet,” Beattie said. “Your phone can distract (使分心) you.” The phone ban won’t be enforced quite as strictly as it seems at first glance. “We want it to be voluntary,” he said. “We’re not collecting phones and throwing them in a locked trunk. It’s held by you, but put in your pocket, and you state your intentions for the week, whether that’s checking your social media once or twice a day or a total blackout.”

Tour-goers also get a “dumbphone” without Internet access that’s loaded with numbers for group leaders and other participants, both for emergencies and to promote socializing. Participants may bring regular cameras, but Beattie is hiring a photographer for each tour so there will be plenty of photos to remember the trip. Once the trip is over, participants will have access to those photos for use in social media posts.

1. What can be learned about Zach Beattie?

A．He set up his business at his own expense.

B．He is always guiding every trip personally.

C．He forbids tourists to take along cellphones.

D．He used to earn his living in a tour company.

2. What do we know about the Lisbon trip?

A．The trip features sightseeing.

B．Participants live in homestays.

C．Air ticket is covered in the cost.

D．Tourists experience water sports.

3. What does Zach Beattie expect the participants to do?

A．Lock their phones in a trunk.

B．Post their photos on social media.

C．Free themselves from their phones.

D．Shift their focus onto dumbphones.

4. What can tour-goers do with the dumbphone?

A．Take photos.	B．Access the Internet.
C．Record the trip.	D．Contact group members.

3 . This question has fascinated behavioural scientists for decades: why do we give money to charity?

The explanations for charitable giving fall into three broad categories, from the purely altruisic (利他的)— I donate because I value the social good done by the charity. The “impurely” altruistic— I donate because I extract value from knowing I contribute to the social good for the charity. And the not-at-all altruistic— I donate because I want to show off to potential mates how rich I am.

But are these motives strong enough to enable people to donate as much as they would want to? Most people support charities in one way or another, but often we struggle to make donations as often as we think we should. Although many people would like to leave a gift to charity in their will, they forget about it when the time comes.

Many people are also aware that they should donate to the causes that have the highest impact, but facts and figures are less attractive than narratives. In a series of experiments, it was found that people are much more responsive to charitable pleas that feature a single, identifiable beneficiary(受益者), than they are to statistical information about the scale of the problem being faced. When it comes to charitable giving, we are often ruled by our hearts and not our heads.

The good news is that charitable giving is contagious—seeing others give makes an individual more likely to give and gentle encouragement from an important person in your life can also make a big difference to your donation decisions— more than quadrupling them in our recent study. Habit also plays a part— in three recent experiments those who volunteered before were more likely to do donate their time than those who had not volunteered before.

In summary, behavioural science identifies a range of factors that influence our donations, and can help us to keep giving in the longer term. This is great news not just for charities, but also for donors.

1. What can we learn about people who do charitable giving?

A．Most people support charity as often as they think they should.

B．Some people don’t want to leave a gift to charity until the time comes.

C．Those who donate because they can gain an advantage are purely altruistic.

D．Some people send money to charity simply to tell others they are wealthy.

2. In which way will people donate more willingly?

A．Not revealing the names of the donors.

B．Showing figures about the seriousness of the problem.

C．Telling stories that feature a single, recognizable beneficiary.

D．Reminding people to write down what to donate in the will in advance.

3. What does the underlined sentence in paragraph 5 mean?

A．People will learn from others and follow the suit.

B．Many people are familiar with charitable giving.

C．Charitable giving helps the beneficiary in all aspects.

D．Charitable giving can bring a lot of benefits to donors.

4. What is the writing purpose of the passage?

A．To persuade more people to donate.

B．To explain the science behind why people donate.

C．To criticize some false charitable giving behaviours.

D．To explore approaches to making people donate more.

4 . 听下面一段独白，回答以下小题。
1. What is the percentage of older people in the world today?

A．10 percent.

B．20 percent.

C．12 percent.

2. What will be the number of older people by the middle of next century?

A．1,000 million.

B．2,000 million.

C．3,000 million.

3. How many years is the current life expectancy?

A．66 years.

B．75 years.

C．80 years.

4. What is the percentage of people over eighty?

A．8 percent.

B．10 percent.

C．12 percent.

5 . “In the United States, 40 million Americans are food insecure. They don’t know where their next meal is going to come from,” said Aidan Reilly, who co-founded Farmlink. “Meanwhile, in the United States we’re throwing out over 100 billion pounds of food every year.”

Started during the hard period in spring 2020, Farmlink was initially supposed to help struggling families and food banks. Reilly and his childhood friend James Kanoff were reading and watching news about food shortages, and they learned that local farms were forced to destroy spare produce that they couldn’t sell, especially with restaurants, schools and hotels closed. Reilly, Kanoff and a group of friends worked together over Zoom, text and e-mail to contact farms. They didn’t really set out to start a nonprofit then but just thought it would be great to figure out one way to help starving (饥饿的) people.

With “we’ll come to you” as their catchphrase, the group rented trucks and attempted to do all the food pickup and deliveries themselves. They had a lot of difficulties in the beginning, but they made it work, moving more than one million pounds of produce from farms to food banks within just two months and transforming their project into a massive logistics operation in the process. Word spread, and more and more young people at home during the pandemic reached out to help.

Farmlink has worked with more than 100 farms and 300 communities in the United States, rescuing and moving enough food to distribute (配送) more than 64 million meals. “The bigger Farmlink gets, the bigger our worldview gets. There are everyday Americans who live next to us and don’t know how they’re going to feed their kids. And that’s exactly who we’re doing this for,” Reilly said.

1. What does Aidan Reilly think is the reason for food shortages in the US?

A．The lack of food suppliers.

B．High food prices for most Americans.

C．Underproduction of food in the world.

D．The mismatch between food supply and demand.

2. What did Farmlink do to help people in need?

A．It produced food specifically for them.

B．It collected money by selling produce.

C．It set up food distribution channels.

D．It persuaded the rich to donate food to them.

3. Who will Farmlink mainly help according to Reilly’s words?

A．All Americans.	B．People in poor countries.
C．People living nearby.	D．Parents with starving kids.

4. What is the best title for the text?

A．A Project Widening Our Worldview

B．A Bridge Between Spare Food and Starvation

C．A Nonprofit Organization for Food Production

D．A Group of People Fighting Against Food Waste

6 . 听下面一段独白，回答以下小题。
1. What happened earlier today?

A．A woman was killed by a car.

B．Three windows dropped onto Mary Street.

C．Two cars knocked into each other.

2. Why was the elderly woman hit by a falling window slightly hurt?

A．Because a young man pulled her from behind.

B．Because she ran fast.

C．Because she was strong.

3. Who was killed by a window in Baker Street?

A．A girl.

B．A young man.

C．An 82-year-old man.

4. How much money were robbed from the woman?

A．$1,000.

B．$1,500.

C．$2,000.

7 . 听下面一段独白，回答以下小题。
1. Who is children’s favorite storyteller according to the study?

A．Dad.

B．Celebrities.

C．Mom.

2. What happens when children grow older?

A．They are less thirsty for bedtime stories.

B．They depend more on stories from parents.

C．They become storytellers to other children.

3. How can parents become good storytellers?

A．By making faces.

B．By using funny voices.

C．By telling their own stories.

4. What’s Woolfson’s opinion about parents’ reading with children?

A．It’s quite common.

B．It’s beneficial.

C．It’s not difficult.

8 . 听下面一段较长对话，回答以下小题。
1. How many languages has Dr. Green’s new book been translated into?

A．5.

B．13.

C．30.

2. Where did the Slow Food Movement begin?

A．In Italy.

B．In France.

C．In Germany.

3. What did the study in Britain find out?

A．More children make friends on the Internet.

B．More children think friendship is important.

C．More children say they have no best friend.

4. What is the main idea Dr. Green tries to express in the talk?

A．To be slow means to focus on quality.

B．Friendship should be developed slowly.

C．The British support the Slow Movement.

9 . If sales generally feel hard to resist, the sale in front of Arron Schurevich was the ultimate test: a new car just like the one he’d loved. And it was more than a 20% discount. “I figured that I would be a fool not to take advantage of that,” says Schurevich. After he drove the car off the lot, the deal turned sour. The brand-new car quickly needed repairs. Schurevich now jokes that he paid a tax for being a fool.

Why is it so hard for the human brain to resist a discount? Spotting something you’d like to buy activates your brain’s reward circuitry (奖赏回路). It gets especially heightened if it’s something you’ve been fascinated by — say, the same car you’ve enjoyed for years. Additionally, the discount itself often registers as a win, delivering its own kind of joy, says Jorge Barraza, a consumer psychologist at the University of Southern California.

“Not only are we getting the product,” Barraza says, “but we’re also getting that reward that we discovered something; we’ve earned this extra thing.”

Stores, of course, know all this and try to push our buttons. “Limited-quantity, limited-time, scarcity-marketing promotions—they get people’s blood pumping,” says Kelly Goldsmith, who studies this as a marketing professor at Vanderbilt University.

It’s really hard to always approach sales rationally. One buying strategy experts recommend is to make a shopping list in advance and then, stick to it. Another is to research items — beforehand or on the spot, checking online — to weigh whether the sale is really a good deal.

“The human brain has essentially evolved to feel first and think next, which is why you need to give yourself time to cool off from your instant reaction when in front of a sale,” says Goldsmith.

1. What is the purpose of telling Arron Schurevich’s story?

A．To explain the way to promote sale.	B．To inform readers of an important test.
C．To introduce the topic of the passage.	D．To show the advantage of products on sale.

2. What is mainly talked about in Paragraph 2?

A．Brain’s reward circuitry needs activating.	B．It’s hard to resist a discount for some reasons.
C．Buying discounted products has consequences.	D．It’s worthwhile to approach sales rationally.

3. What does the underlined sentence probably mean in Paragraph 4?

A．Stores are good at pushing buttons.	B．Stores tend to affect people’s health.
C．Stores help consumers earn extra things.	D．Stores know how to attract consumers with sales.

4. According to Goldsmith, what can you do when facing a sale?

A．Calm down in front of a sale.	B．Make a shopping list ahead of time.
C．Research items on the spot or online.	D．Avoid buying any discounted items.

10 . 听下面一段独白，回答以下小题。
1. What does the speaker talking about?

A．Noise pollution.

B．Human voice.

C．Good old days.

2. What does “you can’t hear yourself think” mean?

A．You have trouble with your head.

B．You are too stressed out.

C．It’s very noisy.

3. How many ways of reducing harm caused by noise are mentioned?

A．Four.

B．Three.

C．Two.

4. What is the main purpose of the speech?

A．To introduce a saying.

B．To call on people to act.

C．To explain scientific knowledge.