1 . Passing the Cities through the Lens (镜头) of Women, a solo exhibition by Swiss artist Catherine Gfeller, is being held at the Swiss embassy in Beijing.

Between 2016 and 2019, Swiss artist Catherine Gfeller embarked on a journey to a number of Chinese cities, weaving a narrative as she engaged with the stories of women from different backgrounds. Her vision of the women, the challenges they confront, and their distinctive spirit are the focuses of the artist’s subsequent explorations.

In the bustling streets of Guangzhou, Guangdong province, Hong Kong, Beijing and Kunming in Yunnan province, Gfeller found a means of exploring the essence of these urban landscapes by focusing her lens on women. On Saturday, the Swiss embassy in Beijing launched a solo exhibition, Passing the Cities through the Lens of Women, which spotlights the perspectives and voices of women with photographs, texts, and videos. Through her lens, Gfeller skillfully establishes a dialogue and builds a bridge between the narratives of the women and the liveliness of the cities they inhabit.

For Gfeller, women’s voices are very important in modern Chinese society. During shooting, she learned how the women perceive the new ways of life and how they find an anchor in their cities. “The moment I pressed the shutter, I felt like I became part of the city,” Gfeller says.

Ambassador of Switzerland to China Jurg Burri said at the opening ceremony, “Ms Gfeller cares very much about people, especially women in cities. Women’s issues are a global topic and I hope that more women’s voices will be heard.”

The exhibition is open to the public until the end of March. The 58-year-old artist is known for her focus on landscape photography. Using techniques like montage, collage, and superimposition, she creates unique photographic artworks.

1. Where is the passage probably taken from?

A．A leaflet.

B．A newspaper.

C．A brochure.

D．A research paper.

2. What does Catherine Gfeller’s exhibition focus on?

A．Chinese women’s viewpoints.	B．Chinese urban landscapes.
C．Chinese traditional roles of women.	D．Chinese women’s status in society.

3. Why does the author cite Jurg Burri’s words?

A．Jurg Burri is the Ambassador of Switzerland to China.

B．The theme of Catherine Gfeller exhibition is a global topic.

C．Jurg Burri is in favor of Catherine Gfeller’s means of exploring cities.

D．Catherine Gfeller attaches great importance to women’s perspectives.

4. What is the purpose of the passage?

A．To introduce an exhibition.	B．To educate readers.
C．To persuade readers.	D．To advertise an exhibition.

2 . After moving to the United States in 1901, 19-year-old Bob Douglas found a job as a doorman in New York. Later, a co-worker took him to visit a basketball court, and he was amazed by the athletic prowess on display. At that moment, Douglas, who had enjoyed playing sports as a child, was determined to create a basketball team and provide greater opportunities for New York City’s Black athletes.

He needed to find a place for his team to play. When asking a ballroom owner, William Roach, for permission to use one of the dance floors, Douglas was replied with “you guys will break up my place”. After promising to take on all the financial risk, he finally persuaded Roach to change his mind and called the team “Rens”.

However, their ballroom had fewer seats and attracted fewer people than others, so Douglas had to pack the house to generate profits and keep his team alive. They traveled the country playing any opponent that would agree to schedule them, during which they repeatedly faced discrimination and unfair treatment and the players were often banned from hotels and restaurants.

No matter the obstacle, the Rens just kept strict practicing. They helped change the game of basketball by focusing on quick passing, which let the players move faster, play a more fluid (流畅) game and keep winning. In 1925, the Rens shocked the world by defeating the Original Celtics, the most dominant team of their day. During the 1932-33 season, the team won 88 straight games, a professional basketball record that remains unbroken.

Unfortunately, the Rens disbanded (解散) in 1949. But in time, they were recognized for the important role they played in advancing Black athletes in basketball, ensuring that although the Rens aren’t a household name, their story will never be forgotten.

1. What inspired Douglas to establish a basketball team?

A．His desire to show his athletic strength.	B．A motivation to learn Black culture.
C．His intention to earn a good income.	D．An experience to a basketball court.

2. Why did the Rens tour the country playing basketball?

A．To solve financial problems.	B．To improve basketball skills.
C．To fight for accommodation.	D．To play with excellent players.

3. How did the Rens help change the game of basketball?

A．Making competition rules.	B．Speeding up the game.
C．Defeating the professional team.	D．Creating an unbroken record.

4. What can we learn from the story?

A．A winner is one with a willing heart.	B．A high reputation will work wonders.
C．Success makes personal desires satisfied.	D．A man owes success to the team support.

3 . In the ever-changing world of women’s artistic gymnastics, there has been a gymnast for more than three decades: Oksana Chusovitina.

The 48-year-old had said with certainty that her final competition would be the Tokyo 2020 Games. With no fans in the stands to honor her legendary career (职业生涯) , judges, coaches and other athletes did their best to give her a party worthy of all she’d given the sport. After she thanked them through tears in her eyes, she told media that was her swansong.

However, just a few months after the Tokyo Olympics, Chusovitina said that she would return to training, dreaming of one final medal at a major competition —the Asian Games—for Uzbekistan. “I just can’t finish my career without a medal for my motherland,” she said on her Instagram story.

Chusovitina first competed in the 1992 Olympics as part of the Unified Team and won a team gold medal there. Though she represented (代表) Uzbekistan in the 1996, 2000 and 2004 Olympics, her second Olympic medal came some 16 years later in the 2008 Olympics. Chusovitina, then representing her third nation, Germany, where better medical treatment was provided for her sick son, got the silver medal.

And now, her story continues. The historic eight-time Olympian has started her ninth trip to the 2024 Paris Olympics. At the first two World Cup stops of the season she won bronze medals. “Thank you all so much for the support,” she wrote on Instagram. “First start, first medal.”

“More to come,” added the gymnast, whose motto is “I’d rather try today than regret tomorrow”.

1. What does the underlined word “swansong” mean in paragraph 2?

A．A popular song.	B．A great honor.
C．The last performance.	D．The wonderful career.

2. What made Chusovitina return to training after the Tokyo Olympics?

A．Personal glory.	B．National pride.
C．Economic situation.	D．International pressure.

3. Why did Chusovitina represent Germany in the 2008 Olympics?

A．To win more medals.	B．To receive better education.
C．To get medical treatment for her son.	D．To learn skills from the national team.

4. Which word best describes Chusovitina?

A．Determined.

B．Generous.

C．Creative.

D．Curious.

4 . Top Piano Players in the World

Martha Argerich

Martha Argerich could be considered the next Beethoven, as she is one of the most outstanding pianists ever to play. Argerich preferred being on stage with others instead of performing solo; therefore, she has been performing in a concerto format since the 1980s. Argerich was not one for the spotlight, as she often avoided public appearances such as interviews; however, her great talent was all the publicity she needed, standing out during concertos and sonatas.

Leif Ove Andsnes

Known for his appealing performances of Edvard Grieg’s works, Andsnes has won praise for his performances at some of the world’s most famous concert halls. Andsnes has certainly made his mark in Norway, as he is the founding director of Norway’s Rosendal Chamber Music Festival. Because of his unique voice and interesting approach, he was praised by The New York Times as a “pianist of authoritative elegance, power, and insight.”

Alfred Brendel

Known for his beautiful interpretations of Beethoven, Haydn, Schubert and Mozart, Alfred Brendel was considered one of the greats. He played in various concertos throughout his career and became known for his interpretive coldness in recreating these works. Brendel was considered one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century, as he made his mark in the classical music industry. Brendel was self-taught and learned his love of piano at an early age.

Arthur Rubinstein

Arthur Rubinstein was certainly one of the greats. His career began in the early 20th century when he began to come into contact with some of the world’s most important composers, such as Maurice Ravel, Paul Dukas, and Jacques Thibaud. He made various trips worldwide and visited nearly every continent, where crowds met him with great praise and encouragement.

1. What does the female pianist focus on in her career?

A．Skills in hosting concertos and sonatas.	B．Cooperation with other musicians.
C．Close relationships with the media.	D．Unique ways to interpret music.

2. Who learned music by himself or herself?

A．Martha Argerich.	B．Leif Ove Andsnes.
C．Alfred Brendel.	D．Arthur Rubinstein.

3. How is Arthur Rubinstein different from the other pianists?

A．He was the director of a Norwegian festival.

B．He made a difference in classical music.

C．He was the best musician of the 20th century.

D．He got in touch with some famous composers.

5 . A brilliant theoretical physicist, J. Robert Oppenheimer was tapped to head up a laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, as part of U.S. efforts to develop nuclear weapons. He succeeded — but would go on to advocate against developing even more powerful bombs.

Born in New York City in 1904, Oppenheimer studied theoretical physics at both Cambridge University and the University of Göttingen in Germany, where he gained his doctorate at age 23. Soon the young physicist “Oppie” rubbed shoulders with the greatest scientific figures of his age, and his academic work advanced quantum theory and predicted everything from the neutron to the black hole.

After the United States joined the Allies in 1941, Oppenheimer was asked to participate in the top-secret Manhattan Project, whose aim was to develop an atomic weapon.

On July 16, 1945, Oppenheimer and others gathered at the Trinity test site south of Los Alamos for the world’s first attempted nuclear blast. Conducted in secret, the test worked. On August 6 and August 9, 1945, the U.S. dropped two of the bombs Oppenheimer had helped develop over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On the night of the Hiroshima bombing, Oppenheimer was cheered by a crowd of fellow scientists at Los Alamos, and declared that his only regret was that the bomb hadn’t been finished in time to use against Germany.

Twenty years after the attacks on both cities in Japan, Oppenheimer appeared in a 1965 NBC News documentary called The Decision to Drop the Bomb. “We knew the world would not be the same,” he said onscreen. “A few people laughed; a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture (印度梵经), ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’ I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.”

However, Oppenheimer opposed America’s attempts to develop a more powerful hydrogen bomb. Did he really live to regret helping develop the atomic bomb? No one knows. He doesn’t come into easy categories of pro-nuclear, anti-nuclear or anything like that. He’s a complicated figure.

1. What does the underlined phrase “rubbed shoulders with” in Paragraph 2 mean?

A．Thought highly of.	B．Spent time with.
C．Taken the place of.	D．Made trouble with.

2. What do we know about Oppenheimer according to the passage?

A．He got his doctor’s degree in the year 1930.

B．The atomic bomb he developed first struck Nagasaki.

C．He felt guilty when the bomb caused numerous deaths.

D．He was firmly against developing the hydrogen bomb.

3. What’s the writing pattern of the passage?

A．News.	B．Fiction.
C．Biography.	D．Journal.

4. What is the best title for the passage?

A．The Controversial Man behind the Atomic Bomb

B．The Most Brilliant Physicist in the 20th Century

C．How Oppenheimer Rewrote the History of WWII

D．How Oppenheimer Developed the Atomic Bomb

6 . The Nobel economics prize was awarded on Monday to Harvard University professor Claudia Goldin for research that has advanced the understanding of the gender (性别) gap in the labor market.

The announcement went a tiny step to closing the Nobel committee’s own gender gap: Goldin is just the third woman to win the prize out of 93 economics laureates (获奖者). She has studied 200 years of women’s participation in the workplace, showing that despite continued economic growth, women’s pay did not continuously catch up to men’s and a divide still exists despite women gaining higher levels of education than men. “I’ve always been an optimist. But when I looked at the numbers, I found in the 1990s, our labor force participation rate for women was the highest in the world, and now it isn’t the highest in the world,” Goldin told The Associated Press.

“Although Goldin’s research does not offer solutions, it allows policymakers to deal with the problem,” said Randi Hjalmarsson, a member of the Nobel committee. “She explains the source of the gap, and how it’s changed over time and how it changes with the stage of development. By finally understanding the problem and calling it by the right name, we will find a solution.”

Goldin, 77, told AP that what happens in people’s homes reflects what happens in the workplace. Women often have to take jobs that allow them to be on call at home—work that often pays less.

“Goldin tried to fill in missing data for her research,” Hjalmarsson said. For parts of history, systematic labor market records did not exist, and, if they did, information about women was missing. “So Goldin had to be a detective to find novel data sources and creative ways to use them to measure these unknowns.”

1. What can we infer from the second paragraph?

A．Men gained higher levels of education than women.

B．The women’s pay caught up to men’s 200 hundreds years ago.

C．Many women scientists have won the Nobel economics prize these years.

D．At the late 20th century, American women labor force participation rate was the top.

2. Which of the following is right?

A．Randi Hjalmarsson didn’t agree with Goldin.

B．Most of the women usually prefer to be housewives.

C．What happens in family life often mirrors that in the workplace.

D．Goldin’s research offered the policymakers solutions to the problem.

3. Which is a challenge that Claudia Goldin faced in her research?

A．Lack of experience.	B．Lack of support.
C．Lack of money.	D．Lack of data.

4. What’s the best title of the passage?

A．A Solution to the Gender Gap in the Labor Market

B．Claudia Goldin—a Great Economics Data Detective

C．The Third Woman Who Wins the Nobel Prize in the World

D．Nobel Economics Prize Goes to Harvard University Woman Professor

7 . It was October 2005, and the catastrophic earthquake killing some 79,000 people in Pakistan had reduced the valley to mud and ruins.

Yasmeen Lari, a 65-year-old architect, was there to help lead the reconstruction of settlements, but she had never done disaster work before. Lari was known for designing smooth towers of glass and concrete. But here, she’d be drawing plans for earthquake-resistant homes using stone and timber debris(木材碎片). With each passing day, she felt deeply right to do disaster-relief work. So she made it her new mission, spending the next four months working with volunteer architects and engineers from Pakistan and abroad.

Inspired by local buildings made with sustainable materials such as timber debris, bamboo and mud, Lari’s shelters can better withstand disasters. Lari says this local, cost-effective and zero-carbon approach is creating an ecosystem. Anyone can learn by watching DIY videos on Lari’s Zero Carbon Channel on YouTube.

The design won a UN World Habitat Prize in 2018.“We need to believe in people’s capacity to bring about change. I treat displaced people as partners, not victims. They know what to do,” says Lari.

Over the decades, Yasmeen Lari has won many awards as architect and environmentalist. While it may seem like an unlikely path for a girl who was born into a well-to-do family in1941, she had an unconventional upbringing. At home, her father would talk about the desperate need for housing. Listening to her father talk about the housing crisis and need for architects made an impression on Lari. On a family visit to London when she was 15, she applied to architecture school at Oxford Brookes University. She laughs as she recalls her bravery.

At age 83, Yasmeen Lari is still full of ideas about zero-carbon designs, skills building and self-sustaining villages. “Architects can no longer work for just the one percent,” she says. “That doesn’t allow them to serve humanity as much as they could.”

1. What can we learn about Lari from the first two paragraphs?

A．She felt considerably proud to do disaster-relief work.

B．She started a brand-new volunteer working experience.

C．She was good at designing earthquake-resistant houses.

D．She reconstructed the settlements with glass and concrete.

2. How did Lari make her design practical and environmental?

A．By creating an ecosystem.

B．By strengthening local buildings.

C．By using local sustainable materials.

D．By watching DIY videos on YouTube.

3. Why did Lari decide to apply to architecture school?

A．Her interest in architecture drove her.

B．Her father encouraged her to path unusual.

C．Her father talked about the demand for architects.

D．Her rich family allowed her to pursue the most of dream.

4. Which of the following best describes Yasmeen Lari?

A．Sensitive and brave.

B．Determined and cooperative.

C．Honest and generous.

D．Sympathetic and eco-responsible.

8 . 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。

The Space-Time Painter, written by Chinese writer Hai Ya, won the Hugo Award for Best Novelette at the 81st World Science Fiction Convention (World Con)     1     (hold) in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu.

Hai became the third Chinese     2     (win) of the Hugo Award, following sci-fi writers Liu Cixin and Hao Jingfang. The Space-Time Painter was published in 2022. It     3     (inspire) by the life experience of the     4     (talent) Chinese painter Wang Ximeng during the Northern Song period (960-1127), who created the 12-meter-long landscape painting“One Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains.”

In this story, Hai did his best     5     (balance) the relationship between story,characters and history, hoping to bring readers a mature work. He said that     6     not a big category, historical sci-fi has always been there.

Hai, also a financial worker, thinks himself more     7     a sci-fi enthusiast than a writer. “I write while doing my job,so I have very little time to write every day,” he said. “But I think as long as I love it and am willing to put efforts in it, I will see hopes and     8     dawn”.

The Hugo Awards are the most prestigious awards of science fictions. It was first presented in 1953 and presented     9     (annual) since 1955. The Hugo Awards are voted on by members of the World Science Fiction Convention,     10     is also responsible for administering them.

9 . In 1867, Caroline Shawk Brooks and her husband, Samuel, had a farm in Arkansas. Life on the farm was not easy. From sunrise to sunset, Caroline and Samuel milked cows, gardened, and picked cotton. This left Caroline no time for her dream of becoming an artist.

Time was not the only problem. Money was a worry too. The cotton crops were failing. What could Caroline and Samuel do?

Caroline decided to make butter (黄油) from their cows’milk and sell it at market. But other farms also made and sold butter. How would Caroline set her butter apart from the rest? This is where Caroline’s artistic talent came in. To draw attention to her butter, she began making small butter sculptures (雕塑). She used many different tools, such as butter paddles (搅拌器的浆叶), broom straws, and tree sticks. She also put the butter in a shallow tin pan, which sat in a larger tin pan filled with ice to stop the butter sculpture from melting.

Caroline’s butter sculptures were a hit. Before long, she was displaying them at fairs and exhibitions. One of her largest butter sculptures was a life-size statue called A Study in Butter. It was transported all the way to Paris for the 1878 world’s fair.

Caroline also made sculptures using marble (大理石). She eventually opened a studio in New York City where she created many marble sculptures, some of which were shown at the 1893 world’s fair in Chicago.

But Caroline never stopped making butter art. She considered butter a superior material to work with. At the 1893 fair, she also displayed her butter techniques with a sculpture of Christopher Columbus.

Caroline Shawk Brooks died in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1913. She is remembered as the first known American butter sculptor.

1. Why did Caroline make butter sculptures?

A．To realize her dream.	B．To make her butter stand out.
C．To make her farm famous.	D．To display her sculptures at the fair.

2. What do we know about Caroline and her sculptures?

A．Caroline made her art works all by machine.

B．The sculptures were all made from cow's milk.

C．Ice was used to keep the butter sculptures in shape.

D．Caroline stopped making sculptures after being world-famous.

3. Which words best describe Caroline?

A．Talented and successful.	B．Confident and caring.
C．Creative and rich.	D．Brave and famous.

4. What can be the best title for the text?

A．A Farming Pioneer.	B．A Great Sculptor.
C．The Butter Sculptures.	D．The Butter Artist.

10 . 请使用括号内所给的单词、短语和句型翻译下列中文句子，并按照逻辑连成短文。
1. 第十九届亚运会于 9 月在杭州拉开帷幕，对于亚洲运动员们，这是一场互相竞技的盛会。(定语从句;compete)
2. 这一次，你会惊喜地发现大多数年轻的中国运动员外向又自信。(find+宾语+宾补;amaze)
3. 其中，全红婵用她出色的技能给我们留下了深刻的印象。(make/leave an impression on )
4. 与其他领域相比，体育比赛充满了更多的失败和受伤，但是这些运动员们永远不会失去信心。(compare with;lose heart)
5. 正如你所看见的，这场赛事不仅展现了体育精神，还促进了国家之间的文化交流。(not only... but also;exchange)
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