Passage 1太阳能海水淡化：把盐变固体，不再排浓盐水

体裁：说明文（科技·环保）　词数：约 400　难度：★★★（对标 C 篇·中难偏上）

原文（先做后看解析；仅真超纲词就近标注，其余请语境自猜）

More than two billion people still lack reliable access to safe drinking water, according to the United Nations, and the gap is widening as rainfall fails to keep pace with demand in many regions. To close it, cities from the Middle East to California have turned to desalination（海水淡化） — the process of removing salt from seawater to make it drinkable. Yet this solution carries a hidden cost: the concentrated salty waste it leaves behind, known as brine（浓盐水）, which is difficult and expensive to manage. When discharged into the ocean, brine raises local salinity and lowers oxygen levels, creating stressful conditions for marine life.

In September 2026, researchers at the University of Rochester reported a different approach. Led by Professor Chunlei Guo at the Institute of Optics, the team built solar panels from black metal treated with ultra-fast lasers. The treatment gives the surface two useful traits: it absorbs nearly all incoming sunlight, and it spreads a thin film of seawater rapidly across itself instead of letting it bead up. When the dark metal is struck by sunlight, it heats the water until it evaporates; the vapour is then collected as fresh water, while the salt and other dissolved minerals stay on the panel.

The difficult part in solar desalination has always been what happens to that salt. In real seawater, salts can crystallise into hard, dense crusts that gradually cover the working surface and clog the device — a problem that has sunk many earlier designs. Guo's team solved it with microscopic grooves and a familiar physics trick called the coffee-ring effect, which pushes the solids toward the untreated edges of the panel. The result is a self-cleaning surface that, in tests with seawater drawn from the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans, captured nearly 100 percent of dissolved salts as solids without losing efficiency.

An added bonus appeared when the researchers modified the design. By embedding tiny hydrogen titanate particles in the grooves, they could pick lithium out of the leftover salt — recovering about half of it from samples of the Great Salt Lake. Lithium is a key material for the batteries that power electric vehicles and electronics, so turning desalination waste into a useful resource could ease the environmental cost of traditional mining. The findings were published in Light: Science & Applications and the Journal of Materials Chemistry A.

For now the system remains a proof of concept, demonstrated on small devices rather than full-scale plants, and the team is clear that much work remains before it reaches coastal cities. If it can be scaled up, however, the same sunlight-driven panel might simultaneously ease water scarcity and supply critical minerals — turning one of desalination's oldest problems into a quiet advantage. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the Gates Foundation and the Worldwide Universities Network.

题目（Q1–Q4）

1. What is identified as the main environmental downside of conventional desalination?A. It consumes too little energy to be practical.B. It has been tried in laboratories but not yet with real ocean water.C. It leaves behind concentrated brine that can harm marine life when released.D. It produces no fresh water for people to use.
2. What can be inferred about why earlier solar desalination devices struggled with real seawater?A. Salt built crusts on the working surface and blocked the flow of water.B. The panels failed to absorb enough sunlight to heat the seawater.C. The water evaporated so thoroughly that no salt was left behind.D. The method demanded costly chemicals to prepare the seawater first.
3. What can be reasonably inferred about the current stage of this technology?A. It will take the place of every conventional plant within a single year.B. It has already broken down when tested in real seawater.C. So far it has been shown mainly with simplified saltwater made in a lab.D. It looks promising but is not yet ready for use at full scale.
4. The word "clog" in Paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to ______.A. cool downB. dissolveC. block or obstructD. purify

逐题解析

Q1 答案：C

正确原因：细节理解题（跨段综合 / 隐含因果）。第一段指出传统海水淡化留下高浓度 brine，排回海洋会 "raises local salinity and lowers oxygen levels, creating stressful conditions for marine life"，即浓盐水危害海洋生物，对应 C。

干扰项：说"消耗过少能源"与第一段传统法"can consume large amounts of energy"倾向相反（反向）；说"只在实验室、未用真实海水"文中未提（无中生有）；说"不产生淡水"与全文主旨（淡化正是产淡水）矛盾（无中生有）。

Q2 答案：A

正确原因：推理判断题（推一步）。第三段讲真实海水中盐会 "crystallise into hard, dense crusts that gradually cover the working surface and clog the device"，可推知早期设备失败是因为盐壳覆盖工作面、阻断水流，对应 A（须从"覆盖工作面并 clog 设备"推出 blocked the flow）。

干扰项：说"面板吸光不足"与"absorbs nearly all incoming sunlight"相反（反向）；说"水蒸干、无盐留下"与"盐被留下"事实相反（反向）；说"需昂贵化学预处理"文中未提，新方法是"无需"化学预处理（无中生有）。

Q3 答案：D　★踮脚

正确原因：推理判断题（推一步，强学生亦需思考）。第五段明确 "remains a proof of concept, demonstrated on small devices rather than full-scale plants ... much work remains before it reaches coastal cities"，可推知技术有前景但尚未具备大规模应用条件，对应 D。

干扰项：说"一年内取代所有厂"过度推断；说"在真实海水中已失效"与"在三大洋真实海水中测试成功"相反（反向）；说"主要在实验室简化盐水里展示"与"tested with seawater from the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans"相反（反向）。

Q4 答案：C

正确原因：词义猜测题。目标词 clog 位于第三段 "hard, dense crusts that gradually cover the working surface and clog the device"；由"硬而密的水垢覆盖工作面"且会造成设备失效，可知 clog 意为"堵塞、阻碍"，对应 C。前后句 "cover the working surface" 与 "device ... sunk many earlier designs" 提供语境线索。

干扰项：冷却（A）、溶解（B）、净化（D）均与"盐壳覆盖并致设备失效"的语境无关，无依据。

语篇分析

体裁：说明文（问题—方案—关键机制—附加价值—局限与意义）。
结构：第1段提背景与隐患（缺水 + 浓盐水危害海洋）；第2段介绍新方案（飞秒激光黑金属板，吸光 + 超扩散）；第3段讲关键机制（自清洁，盐以固体回收，三大洋实测）；第4段讲附加价值（提锂，废变宝）；第5段讲局限与意义（概念验证、待放大）。
难度提示：Q2、Q3 为拉分推理题，答案均"推一步"（从盐壳覆盖面推出阻断水流；从概念验证推出未达规模）；长难句如 "By embedding tiny hydrogen titanate particles ... they could pick lithium out of the leftover salt" 含介词短语与定语从句。

核心词汇（含派生词构词法）

词组 / 固定搭配

keep pace with 跟上……的步伐turn to 求助于、转向raise salinity 提高盐度draw from 从……汲取capture ... as solids 以固体形式捕获……ease water scarcity 缓解水资源短缺proof of concept 概念验证

阅读知识点

① 细节理解题——隐含因果 / 跨段归纳法：如 Q1，题干问"传统淡化的环境弊端"，答案不在单句，需把第一段"留下浓盐水 → 排入海洋 → 升盐度、降氧 → 危害海洋生物"串成因果链，再比对选项。凡选项把"消耗大量能源"说成"消耗过少"即为反向陷阱。
② 词义猜测题——并列与后果线索法：Q4 中 "cover the working surface and clog the device" 为并列动作，clog 与"覆盖工作面、使设备失效"同向，结合后文 "sunk many earlier designs" 的后果，即可断定其义为"堵塞"。

练习建议：做 Q4 先圈出 "hard, dense crusts ... cover ... and clog"，答案已藏在并列与后果里，无需背单词。

Passage 2双语者的大脑：语言习惯能否为衰老“兜底”

体裁：议论文（科研解读）　词数：约 455　难度：★★★★（对标 D 篇·外刊高难）

原文（先做后看解析；仅真超纲词就近标注，其余请语境自猜）

For more than two decades, studies have suggested that people who speak two languages develop dementia（痴呆） later in life than those who speak only one. The claim was immediately attractive to the public and to policymakers alike: if simply juggling two languages could protect the ageing brain, here was a cheap, enjoyable form of prevention that asked nothing of hospitals or drug companies. Newspapers ran confident headlines about the "bilingual advantage," and many readers came to treat the result as settled science. The appeal was easy to understand: prevention that cost nothing but a little mental effort, available to anyone who happened to grow up bilingual.

The favoured explanation was cognitive reserve. According to this idea, the brain constantly selects one language and holds the other back, and doing so repeatedly builds a kind of mental muscle. A brain with more reserve, the theory goes, can better absorb the damage of ageing or disease, so symptoms appear later even when the underlying condition is already present. In this view, bilingualism is one way to stock the reserve.

Reality, however, has proved messier. Large reviews that pooled results from dozens of studies found the advantage to be smaller and far less consistent than the early, small-scale reports had implied, and several carefully run laboratories subsequently reported no reliable difference at all. Part of the trouble is that bilingual and monolingual groups rarely begin on equal footing: they often differ in years of education, in immigration history, and in socioeconomic status, each of which is known to shape brain health independently. Disentangling the effect of language from these overlapping backgrounds is therefore genuinely difficult, and easy to get wrong. A further complication is that "bilingualism" itself covers very different lives — a fluent city dweller and a recent immigrant may both count as bilingual, yet their cognitive histories differ sharply.

What researchers do agree on is narrower but more useful. The brain appears to benefit from being challenged and engaged across a lifetime — through languages, music, social contact or simply learning unfamiliar things. Reserve is built by sustained activity, not by any single habit, and no one practice is a magic bullet. The lesson is not that one skill saves you, but that an active mind is a more resilient one.

So the honest takeaway is modest. Learning another language may well help, and it costs little, but it is no guaranteed shield against decline, and the size of its effect should not be exaggerated. Scientists who study ageing stress that modest effects, repeated across millions of lives, can still matter at the level of populations, even if no individual can count on them. The broader, better-supported message is that a life that stays mentally and socially active confers a real, if modest, protection — and that how we talk about such findings matters as much as the findings themselves.

题目（Q5–Q8）

1. What is the proposed mechanism by which bilingualism might delay symptoms of ageing?A. It stops the underlying disease from developing in the first place.B. It builds cognitive reserve by constantly managing two languages.C. It replaces damaged brain cells with healthy new ones.D. Its protective effect is limited to those who learned both languages in early childhood.
2. What did later large reviews find about the early "bilingual advantage"?A. Follow-up research concluded that the claim does not hold up.B. The advantage is found mainly among people with musical training.C. The effect is smaller and less consistent than first reported.D. The effect grows stronger automatically as a person gains more education.
3. What can be inferred about why study results differ across research groups?A. Factors like education and immigration, not language alone, shape brain health.B. Bilingual and monolingual groups are biologically the same in all ways.C. Every study used precisely the same group of participants.D. A person's age plays no part in how the brain ages.
4. What is the author's main point?A. Bilingualism is a proven cure that prevents dementia.B. Lifelong mental and social engagement gives real but modest protection; no single habit is a guaranteed shield.C. The whole research effort on bilingualism has been a waste of time.D. Learning languages is the single most effective way to protect the brain.

逐题解析

Q5 答案：B

正确原因：细节理解题。第二段解释机制："the brain constantly selects one language and holds the other back ... builds a kind of mental muscle ... can better absorb the damage of ageing"，即持续管理两种语言积累认知储备，对应 B。

干扰项：说"阻止疾病出现"与"symptoms appear later even when the underlying condition is already present"矛盾（程度/范围错位·反向）；说"替换受损脑细胞"无中生有；说"仅限童年习得者"文中未提（无中生有）。

Q6 答案：C

正确原因：细节理解题（跨研究对比）。第三段 "Large reviews ... found the advantage to be smaller and far less consistent than the early, small-scale reports had implied"，即效应比早期报告更弱、更不稳定，对应 C。

干扰项：说"完全不成立"夸大（文中是"更小更不稳定"而非全错，程度范围错位）；说"仅见于音乐家"无中生有（偷换概念）；说"随教育自动增强"文中未提（无中生有）。

Q7 答案：A　★踮脚

正确原因：推理判断题（推一步，强学生亦需思考）。第三段指出双语与单语群体 "often differ in education, immigration history and socioeconomic status, each of which shapes brain health on its own"，且 "Separating the effect of language from these overlapping factors is genuinely hard"，可推知教育、移民等混杂因素（而非语言本身）也影响脑健康，导致结果参差，对应 A。

干扰项：说"生物学上完全相同"与"群体本就不平等起点（rarely begin on equal footing）"相反（反向）；说"所有研究用同一批被试"无中生有；说"年龄毫无作用"无中生有。

Q8 答案：B

正确原因：主旨大意题。第四、五段收束：大脑受益于终身被挑战与投入（语言、音乐、社交皆可），储备靠持续活动而非单一习惯；结论 "no guaranteed shield" "modest but real protection"，B 全面概括且不极端。

干扰项：说"证明可治愈 / 预防痴呆"过度推断（与 no guaranteed shield 矛盾）；说"整个研究是浪费"程度错位（文称有"更可信的温和结论"）；说"只有学语言才能护脑"以偏概全（文中列举多种活动）。

语篇分析

体裁：议论文（现象主张—机制解释—争议与混杂因素—共识—审慎结论）。
结构：第1段提主张与公众反应（双语优势）；第2段解释机制（认知储备）；第3段转折讲争议（大型综述更弱更不稳定 + 混杂因素难剥离）；第4段讲共识（终身被挑战有益，非单一习惯）；第5段审慎结论（温和真实的保护，表述方式同样重要）。
难度提示：Q7 为拉分推理题，须从"群体起点不平等、多因素独立影响脑健康"推出"结果参差源于混杂因素"；长难句如 "Disentangling the effect of language from these overlapping backgrounds is therefore genuinely difficult" 含动名词主语与介词短语。

核心词汇（含派生词构词法）

词组 / 固定搭配

develop dementia 患痴呆juggle two languages 兼顾两种语言hold back 抑制、阻挡on equal footing 站在平等的起点shape brain health 影响大脑健康a magic bullet 灵丹妙药exaggerate the effect 夸大效应

阅读知识点

① 推理判断题——研究结论的"推一步"法：高考拉分主力。Q7 不能选原文原词，而要从 "groups rarely begin on equal footing / each ... shapes brain health independently" 推出"结果差异源于语言之外的混杂因素"，答案 A 是对证据的逻辑延伸。
② 主旨大意题——首尾段定位 + 避开极端词：Q8 抓末段"no guaranteed shield / modest but real protection"与第四段"no one practice is a magic bullet"，可知全文主张"温和真实、非单一习惯"，B 为最佳概括；凡含 always / only / completely 等极端词的选项（A、D）一律优先回文复核。

练习建议：做科研类议论文主旨题，先读首段找主张、末段找结论，再比对选项是否"全面且不极端"。

七选五与不确定性共处：在未知中保持从容

体裁：建议说明文（自我成长）　词数：约 315　难度：★★★（逻辑衔接为主）

原文（从 A–G 中选出 5 项填入 36–40；选项为完整句子，考逻辑衔接 / 指代 / 段落主旨）

We live in a world that rarely offers guarantees. Choices about school, work and relationships often open into paths we cannot fully see. ______（36）______ Yet most of us were never taught how to sit with not knowing, and so we rush to fill the silence with worry.

The first step is to draw a line between what you can influence and what you cannot. Some things — a coming exam, the words you choose today — are genuinely yours to act on. Others — the decisions of other people, the turn of the economy — are not. Worrying about them is natural, but it changes nothing except your peace of mind. ______（37）______ Spending energy on the second group only multiplies worry without changing the outcome.

A second habit is to let discomfort exist without rushing to erase it. The moment we feel uncertain, the body asks for relief, and we obey by checking, asking or guessing. ______（38）______ Learning to stay present while anxious is a skill, not a weakness, and it grows with practice rather than with escape.

Information can also feed anxiety. In an age of nonstop news, it is tempting to gather more and more, hoping that one more update will make the future feel safe. This search rarely brings comfort, because each answer tends to raise two new questions, and the scroll never ends. ______（39）______ Constantly refreshing feeds, or asking everyone's opinion, trades calm for an illusion of control that never quite delivers.

Finally, break large unknowns into small, reversible steps. A vague fear — "What if this goes wrong?" — is paralysing precisely because it has no edge to hold. ______（40）______ Movement, even uncertain movement, beats freezing in place, because action tells the mind that the situation is manageable after all.

None of this means pretending to be calm when you are not. It means building, bit by bit, a steadier relationship with the unknown — one that lets you act wisely instead of spinning in place.

选项（A–G，其中 5 项为正确答案，2 项为干扰项）

A. Your attention is better spent on the choices that are actually yours to make.

B. Uncertainty tends to set off a wave of discomfort, even when nothing is actually wrong.

C. Setting a boundary on how much information you take in can lower the volume of fear.

D. A hopeful attitude by itself is enough to clear away the difficulties we meet.

E. The urge to resolve every doubt at once is strong, but acting on it rarely helps.

F. Each small action turns a vague fear into something you can actually respond to.

G. Some people are simply born unable to feel any stress at all.

题目（36–40）

1. 36. ______
2. 37. ______
3. 38. ______
4. 39. ______
5. 40. ______

逐题解析

36 答案：B

正确依据：空格前讲"世界少有保证、选择通往看不清的路"，B"不确定性即便无事也会引发一阵不适"自然承接，解释为何需要学习与之共处；其后 "Yet most of us were never taught..." 形成转折，逻辑顺畅。

干扰项：D"乐观态度足以扫除困难"与全文审慎基调相悖且过于绝对；G"有人天生不觉压力"偏离主题、无据。A/C/E/F 用于他空。

37 答案：A

正确依据：空格前讲"在可控与不可控之间划界"，A"把注意力放在真正属于自己的选择上"具体说明可控部分；其后 "Spending energy on the second group（不可控者）only multiplies worry" 中 second group 与 A 形成指代衔接。

干扰项：C 讲信息边界，属后文策略三，放此不顺；E 讲急于消除疑虑，属策略二。

38 答案：E

正确依据：空格前"让不适存在而不急于消除"，E"想立刻化解每个疑虑的冲动很强，但照做很少有用"正好支撑该策略；其后 "Learning to stay present while anxious is a skill" 承接。

干扰项：F 讲小步行动，属策略四；B 已在 36 使用。

39 答案：C

正确依据：空格前"信息也会助长焦虑"，C"给信息摄入设边界能降低恐惧的音量"提出对策；其后 "Constantly refreshing feeds ... trades calm for an illusion of control" 举例说明，与 C 衔接。

干扰项：A 讲可控 / 不可控，属策略一；D 绝对化且不符文意。

40 答案：F

正确依据：空格前"把大未知拆成小的、可逆的步骤"，F"每个小行动把模糊的恐惧变成可应对的东西"承接；其后 "Movement, even uncertain movement, beats freezing" 与 F 的 action 呼应。

干扰项：E 已在 38 使用；G 偏离主题。

语篇分析

体裁：建议说明文（问题引入—四项策略—收束）。
结构骨架：引入（不确定引发不适，却未被教会共处）→ 策略一（可控 / 不可控分界）→ 策略二（接纳不适，不急于消除）→ 策略三（给信息设边界）→ 策略四（拆成小步行动）→ 收束（与未知建立更稳的关系）。
难度提示：七选五考"逻辑衔接 + 指代 + 段落主旨"，非字面匹配；如 37 的 second group 回指前句"不可控之事"，39 后句 refreshing feeds 举例呼应 C 的"信息边界"。

核心词汇（含派生词构词法）

词组 / 固定搭配

set off a wave of 引发一阵……draw a line between 在……之间划清界限spend energy on 把精力花在……feed anxiety 加剧焦虑trade ... for 以……换取……break ... into 把……拆分成freeze in place 原地僵住

阅读知识点

① 七选五——逻辑衔接与代词指代法：如 37，空格后 "the second group" 回指前句"不可控之事"，因此空格须落在"可控之事"上，A 正好补全这一对二分结构。
② 七选五——段落主旨句复位法：每段首句往往是主旨句，空格多在段中或段尾起支撑 / 过渡作用。解题时先读每段首尾，判断该空是"承上（解释）"还是"启下（引出后文举例）"，再比对选项动作指向。

练习建议：七选五先标出每段主题词（可控/不适/信息/小步），再把选项按"动作指向"归类，可快速排除错位项。