1 . The summer holidays have just begun, but it is a busy morning at Cadoxton Primary School, in Barry, an industrial town in Wales. It runs a summer programme for hard-up (拮据的) children, providing meals and activities over the holidays with the aim of helping kids to spend the time more meaningfully. As young people run laughing and screaming into the school cafeteria for breakfast, their parents hung out, some visibly relieved. Just three days into the six-week school holidays one mother says her nine-year-old daughter has already asked five times to go bowling. “Without the school’s help,” she says, “it would be a long and expensive six weeks.”

In the popular imagination, school summer holidays conjure up (使……呈现于脑际) a picture of carefree youthful exploration. But many parents rely on the term-time services that schools give their kids, such as tutors and meals. If the holidays approach, they can suddenly find their schedules and budgets stretched. Researchers also say that the long break often sets back children’s learning, and that children from poorer backgrounds are desperately affected due to their shortage of money.

Many poor children fall behind their wealthier peers over the holidays. “Summer is the most unequal time of the year,” says Matthew Boulay of the National Summer Learning Association. “Well-off parents can fill the gap left by school and consolidate (使巩固) their children’s unfamiliar knowledge well, keeping their children stimulated with summer camps, trips abroad or private tutors. Poorer families, apparently, find this harder, since their income is relatively low and demand for sponsored activities offered by governments,” he adds.

Holidays can be a financial stress, which is absolutely true. In countries where some children receive free school meals, summer means bigger grocery bills for hard-up families. Households where both parents work have to pay for extra childcare, too. The Family and Childcare Trust, a charity, says that in Britain, where childcare costs are the highest in the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries. Parents will spend an average of 33 per child per week on childcare this summer, mainly because of the sharp shortage of governmental funding sponsor.

1. What is the purpose of the summer programme?

A．To lengthen students’ school life.	B．To keep students busy all the time.
C．To provide students with free meals.	D．To enrich students’ summer holidays.

2. What does the underlined word “stretched” in Paragraph 2 probably mean?

A．Rich.

B．Tight.

C．Reasonable.

D．Affordable.

3. Which statement does Matthew Boulay probably agree with?

A．Badly-off parents are likely to give up sponsoring their kids.

B．Well-off parents are unwilling to offer their kids extra tutors.

C．Students from poor family can well deal with the peer pressure.

D．Students from rich family can strengthen their learned knowledge.

4. Why must British parents pay for the childcare in summer holiday?

A．Because of insufficiency of free tutors.	B．Because of shortage of social sponsor.
C．Because of shortage of free school meals.	D．Because of lack of governmental support.

2 . Asia’s centuries-long fascination with fair skin has deep roots and, even today, is influenced by Eurocentric (以欧洲为中心的) beauty standards linking paleness with charm. The questioned concept dating from colonial history is continued through media channels.

This fascination is vividly reflected in the make-up industry, leading to a multi-billion-dollar market for skin-whitening products across Asia. A striking survey conducted by WHO revealed 40% of women in countries such as China, Malaysia, the Philippines, and South Korea routinely use skin-whitening products. It was also found that 75% of men believed their partners would be beautiful with lighter skin. Such a deep-rooted relation between fairness and beauty continues to fuel the thriving skin-whitening industry. The industry’s value is estimated to reach a breathtaking $8.9 billion by 2027.

The historical preference for lighter skin in Asian culture is also closely tied to socio-economic status. Historically, having fair skin indicated higher social status, as individuals engaging in physical labor often had darker skin from being in the sun. The upper class, meanwhile, enjoyed a sheltered indoor life due to their wealth, translating into fairer skin. Consequently, those with darker skin remained in a lower status, fueling the favor for fairer faces.

Colonialism (殖民主义) has also affected the beauty standards in Asian countries. Many nations across the continent were once colonized by white powers from the US and Europe. Eventually, their fair skin symbolized the power and wealth of the colonizers. Even in Japan, never colonized, noblewomen during the Edo period adopted white makeup to copy the luxurious image related to lighter skin. These historical factors continue to shape modern beauty standards in Asia.

In recent years, such Eurocentric beauty standards have been receiving widespread criticism. A growing movement has come up, promoting the beauty of darker skin tones and advocating accepting all skin colors. While the preference for pale skin remains universal in many Asian countries, the tendency is slowly turning as new standards of beauty pop up. Hopefully, we will see a society that celebrates inclusivity and the beauty of all skin tones.

1. What’s the common beauty standards in Asian countries?

A．They include a person’s charm.

B．They relate to a person’s makeup.

C．They are measured by a person’s fair skin.

D．They refer to the color of a person’s skin.

2. According to the article, what historical factors contributed to the preference for lighter skin in Asian cultures?

A．European colonizers in Japan.

B．Exposure to the sun and physical labor.

C．Socio-economic status and colonialism.

D．The use of white makeup by noblewomen.

3. What is the current tendency in Asia regarding beauty standards, according to the article?

A．A growing preference for pale skin.

B．A rejection of Eurocentric beauty ideals.

C．No change in traditional beauty standards.

D．Increasing acceptance of diverse skin tones.

4. What is the article’s general message regarding beauty standards in Asia?

A．They are unique to Asian culture.

B．They are set to remain unchanged.

C．They are rooted in biological differences.

D．They are being questioned and changing gradually.

3 . A certain item is being stolen more than ever in Japan. Rather than the usual luxury watches, cars, or jewelry, thieves in Japan are picking fruits as their target. There is a thriving market for quality fruits which are grown by hand to ensure they reach high standards for appearance and taste. Japanese individuals and companies often buy them as gifts for special occasions.

One softball-sized strawberry, for instance, can cost as much as ¥500,000 JPY ($3,346 USD). Several districts have recently witnessed an alarming rise in fruit theft. Yamanashi Prefecture, for instance, lost an shocking ¥8,500,000 JPY ($56,890 USD) from 40 cases of missing fruit in the last four months. It is so bad, in fact, that local firefighters and private security guards are going around and checking the area at night to ensure the safety of the fruits.

The same thing happened to another peach farm located in Fuefuki City when farmers were aware that 1,400 peaches went missing out of the blue. Another top farming company in Yamanashi City lost 1,500 peaches just two days later. Peaches were not the only luxury fruit being targeted in the past few months. Just last September 28,400 bunches of grapes went missing in the Yamanashi Prefecture. The total loss amounted to ¥350,000 ($2,343 USD).

Farm owners are now increasing their security measures to prevent this rise in theft. They are paying a fortune to employ local private security guards to patrol around the clock when fruits are ripe. Even they are about to install a monitoring system to watch over the farm at all times, which serves as a threat to thieves. If thefts do happen, they can call the police.

1. What unusual item is currently being stolen more frequently in Japan?

A．Quality fruits.

B．Watches.

C．Luxury cars.

D．Jewelry.

2. Why are these quality fruits in Japan so valuable?

A．They have unique flavors.

B．They are always given as gifts.

C．They are less expensive than other luxury items.

D．They are grown by hand to meet high quality standards.

3. Why did the article mention the price of a softball-sized strawberry?

A．To highlight the size of the stolen fruits.

B．To provide an example of a stolen fruit.

C．To emphasize the high cost of luxury fruits.

D．To explain the popularity of strawberries in Japan.

4. What is the primary purpose of the article?

A．To stress the value of luxury fruits in Japan.

B．To show the rise in theft of luxury items in Japan.

C．To describe the efforts to fight fruit thefts in Japan.

D．To promote the growth of the quality fruit market in Japan.

5 . After working an extra shift, Dr. Jessica Gold returned home feeling burned out and submitted herself to the urge to watch TV and sleep most of the day. As Generation Z would say, she was “bed rotting”. The phrase describes staying in bed all day, just like “rotting” (腐烂) there, according to Gold, a professor at Washington University. It is similar to having a lazy day, but it is more of an immobile term with less activity. She said, “It is OK as long as you understand why you are doing it and turn to other activities as well.

“Lying in bed for more than a day is concerning and could lead to different mental health issues, ”Gold added, “The urge to rot in bed all day, especially if it happens more seriously, is likely about something more than just catching up on sleep or needing a day to do nothing, but avoiding the feelings, stress or pain of being awake. This sort of behavior has been linked to symptoms (症状) of depression and anxiety.”

Bed rotting could be affecting more than just your mental health — it could also have a negative impact on your sleep. “Bed rotting is exactly the opposite of what we want people to do,” said Baron, associate professor of family and preventive medicine. “As a general guideline, if you are not asleep within 30 minutes during the night, you should get out of bed, ” said she.

Bed rotting after a long day is normal, but if it is affecting your work, social life or other important activities, then you should turn to professionals, Gold suggested, because they can help you get to the root cause and get you to learn to do something that you may think of as hobbies.

Recharging activities can energize us and better prepare us for the unavoidable stress we face daily. “Some options include hanging out with a friend, seeing a film or exercising, said Rego, a psychologist from New York, “If you don’t want to leave the house, try activities like reading a book or journaling instead of just lying down.

1. What can we learn about ”bed rotting“?

A．It is favoured by Generation Z.	B．It is an active attitude toward life.
C．It is acceptable if it is controllable.	D．It is the same with having a lazy day.

2. What did Gold want to tell us in paragraph 2?

A．The impact of bed rotting.	B．The trend of bed rotting.
C．The cure for bed rotting.	D．The prevention of bed rotting.

3. What can we infer from Baron’s words?

A．Bed rotting makes for stress relief.	B．Bed rotting results from lack of sleep.
C．Bed rotting contradicts good sleep habits.	D．Bed rotting refers to part of the sleep cycle.

4. What is Rego’s suggested alternative to “bed rotting”?

A．Adopting a regular exercise routine.

B．Engaging in some relaxing activities.

C．Seeking professional mental health services.

D．Watching other digital devices rather than TV.

6 . Want to know what is coming soon to a cinema near you? Probably not a 1.5-hour-long movie, as in the old days. On October 20th comes Killers of the Flower Moon. At nearly three and a half hours, its length is nearly double that of the average film last year. Even movie fans struggle to concentrate for that long and some viewers even nod off. Afterwards there is a mad dash for the toilets. When does watching a film become such a slog?

The Economist analyzed over 100,000 feature films released internationally since the 1930s, the start of Hollywood’s golden age, using data from IMDb, a movie database. The average length of productions rose by around 24%, from one hour and 21 minutes in the 1930s to one hour and 47 minutes in 2022. For the ten most-popular titles, the average length grew to around two and a half hours in 2022, nearly 50% higher than in the 1930s.

One driver of this trend is that studios want to squeeze the most out of their costly intellectual property (知识产权), but they are competing with streaming platforms for eyeballs. The hope is that a spectacular, drawn-out “event” movie will draw audiences away from the small screen and into cinemas. This approach has often paid off: Avengers: Endgame Marvel’s three-hour superhero masterpieces, was the highest-grossing (票房最高的) film in 2019. Last year long movies series made up most of the highest-grossing films in America.

Another explanation for longer films has to do with directors’ growing influence. Who would dare tell the likes of Mr. Nolan to cut out his masterpieces? Moreover, streaming platforms, which do not have to worry as much about the length because viewers can pause whenever they like, may attract big names by promising them sufficient fund and creative freedom. Netflix funded and released three-hour The Irishman in 2019, a film that would have benefited from a decisive editor, Irish or otherwise.

1. The underlined part “a slog” in paragraph 1 refers to a(n)___.

A．pleasure

B．effort

C．conflict

D．feast

2. What can be inferred from paragraph 2?

A．The average length affects the popularity of films.

B．Great advances have been made in film industry.

C．Hollywood starts a golden age of feature films.

D．The average duration of movies has stretched.

3. What sets the trend of longer movies?

A．Competition for the target audience.	B．Thirst for more classic productions.
C．Influence of streaming platforms.	D．Preference for decisive editors.

4. What is probably the best title for the passage?

A．Movie Enthusiasts	B．Movie Marathons
C．Movie Production	D．Movie Influence

8 . Farming is destroying the planet, but there could be a much more environmentally friendly way to feed ourselves: using renewable energy to turn carbon dioxide into food. “This is becoming a reality,” says Pasi Vainikka at Solar Foods, a company that is building the first commercial-scale factory that will be able to make food directly from CO2.

There can be no doubt that immediate attention to find greener ways to grow food is required. Conventional agriculture, including organic farming, causes damage to the environment in many ways. It requires a lot of land, leading to habitat loss and deforestation. It is also the source of a third of all greenhouse gas emissions and releases other pollutants. It isn’t very efficient, either. Crops typically transform less than 1 percent of light energy into usable biomass (生物量).

Instead, Solar Foods plans to avoid photosynthesis (光合作用) altogether, and grow bacteria that use hydrogen as their source of energy. At the factory, renewable electricity will be used to split water to produce hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen will be added to large containers, where the bacteria grow, along with CO2 and ammonia (氨气). The end result will be a yellow powder called Solein.

Solein is made of bacterial cells and is up to 70 percent protein. It can be used as an ingredient in all kinds of foods. “We are aiming at replacing animal-sourced proteins, which we think have the highest environmental impact,” says Vainikka.

Compared with plant crops, Solein will use 100 times less water per kilogram of protein produced, 20 times less land and emit a fifth as much CO2, according to Solar Foods. There are other benefits, too: factories could be situated anywhere in the world and production won’t be affected by weather conditions.

“With Solar Foods and other companies scaling up their systems, this is truly beginning a new era of agriculture,” says Dorian Leger at Connectomix Bio in Germany. “I think these trends are exciting and will help bend the carbon curve as well as lead to improved global food supply security.”

1. What is the author’s purpose in mentioning conventional agriculture in paragraph 2?

A．To demonstrate its influence on crops.

B．To compare different farming methods.

C．To provide an example of agricultural types.

D．To highlight the urgent need for alternatives.

2. What is mainly presented in paragraph 3 concerning Solein?

A．Its storage condition.	B．Its production process.
C．Its ingredient materials.	D．Its investment potential.

3. All of the following are the features of Solein except         .

A．it is protein-rich

B．it is resource-efficient

C．its production is weather sensitive

D．its production is location-independent

4. Which statement would Dorian Leger probably agree with?

A．The prospect of Solein remains to be seen,

B．Solein can help achieve global food safely.

C．Solein will dominate the agricultural development.

D．The use of Solein may help reduce carbon emissions.

9 . Going to the Basque Country of Spain, linguistically (就语言角度来看), a Briton may feel he is entering not just another country but perhaps another continent. Familiar world languages — Spanish and French — suddenly give way to Basque, with its strange-looking words of tongue-twisting (绕口的) length. Basque is unrelated to the Indo-European family that includes almost all European languages.

Its survival has not been assured. The rule of Francisco Franco from 1939 to 1975 centralised the state and he insisted that citizens speak Spanish. Public use of Basque was forbidden. When Franco died, the Basque-speaking population was mostly old and rural. For a language, this usually means extinction.

Since the 1980s the number of speakers has grown by almost 350,000, out of a regional population of 2. 1 million. In 2017 two-thirds of pupils were studying in schools where Basque was the language of instruction, up from around 14% in 1984; 87% of 10 to 14-year-olds are estimated to know the language. This is why, in the most recent big survey, the Basque-speaking population (41%) almost matched the non-Basque-speakers (44%). The other 15% are said to understand Basque but struggle to speak it.

But there is another side to the story. In the Basque Country, just 376,000 people have the language as their first, passed down to them in the home. Basque is weakest in the three provincial capitals, where the population is dominated by people from Spanish-speaking homes. Even as the knowledge and influence of the language are growing, actual usage outside schools still seems to be reducing. A similar story could be told of Irish, Welsh, and Maori.

What would it take to get people to live with these languages, as opposed to merely acquiring them? Some Basques say sadly that in a mixed group in which just one person is uncomfortable in Basque, the rest quickly switch to Spanish. They say that in Catalonia, a similar group is more likely to insist on continuing in Catalan, which, for this and unrelated historical reasons, is far more widely spoken in its territory than Basque.

1. What confused a Briton when entering the Basque Country of Spain?

A．Basques tend to have a large vocabulary.

B．Spanish is much more widely used than French.

C．Basques speak much faster than other Europeans.

D．Basque differs significantly from other European languages.

2. What does paragraph 2 mainly talk about?

A．The factor behind Basque’s decline.

B．The achievements of Francisco Franco.

C．The links between Basque and Spanish.

D．The history and development of Basque.

3. What has helped increase Basque speakers since the 1980s?

A．Population growth.	B．School education
C．Economic development.	D．Cultural awareness.

4. What challenge is Basque facing now?

A．It leads to discomfort in Basque.	B．It will soon be replaced by Catalan.
C．It is decreasingly used in daily life.	D．It confuses many Spanish speakers.

10 . Today, there are more humans on Earth than ever and nature is in freefall. In just 50 years, wildlife populations have dropped on average by 69 percent. In the same period, our population has doubled, and demand for non-living and living material from Earth has grown six times. The biggest contributors to biodiversity (生物多样性) loss are habitat destruction and over-development of species, both driven by completely unsustainable consumption (不可持续的消耗) and caused by increasing human numbers. It is important that we address this over-consumption, and that means thinking seriously the influence our species’ population growth is having on the breakdown of the natural world.

December’s biodiversity summit (峰会) in Canada didn’t meet the challenges we face. Only two of the 23 topics are intended to address consumption and speak of “greatly reducing overconsumption”. But the message is unclearly defined and unquantified (未被量化的), short of necessary facts for any real application. Given all the goals of the former biodiversity protection plan were missed, it is truly impossible to imagine that governments will gather the bravery to catch the chance.

In November last year, our population reached 8 billion and there are predictions that it will reach 10.4 billion in the 2080s. The goal of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity is for us to live “in harmony (和谐) with nature” by 2050. Let me make it clear: there is no doubt that the 1.7 billion more people predicted will make this greatly harder to achieve. However much we try to reduce our consumption and our influence, every plan and rule that moves us forward will have a gradually lower influence.

And let me say it again: it isn’t about any particular humans among those billions, this is about us as a species of resource-consuming organism.

We must now ensure governments deal with their tasks with great efforts instead of any short-sighted, short-term solutions. Tolerating (忍受) the cruel idea that economic growth is the answer to our problems, and totally ignoring unsustainable population growth, must end. Or we all die.

1. What’s the function for the first paragraph?

A．To conduct a survey.	B．To explore the reason.
C．To introduce the topic.	D．To discuss a problem.

2. What can we learn from the summit in Canada?

A．It is far from contenting the author.	B．It has pointed the way to our future.
C．It clears up many people’s confusion.	D．It helps deal with the consumption issues.

3. How does the author present his idea in paragraph 3?

A．By giving examples.	B．By showing data.
C．By making comparisons.	D．By defining a concept.

4. The author advises us to ________.

A．Tolerate existing issues and wait.

B．Put population growth in second place.

C．Expect economic growth to solve the problem.

D．Let governments adopt effective solutions wisely.