贵州2025-2026学年4月高三年级适应性考试英语笔试试卷

Data from the Endangered Languages Project analyzed by Statista reveals that thousands of languages from around the world are currently in danger of dying out. The role of languages in the DNA of cultures cannot be overstated, nor can the importance they hold as frameworks (框架) upon which our societies develop. Languages evolve to reflect the environment in which they are applied, as well as the people and the cultures that are using and adapting them as time passes by.

The following infograpic shows the languages classified as threatened and endangered in 2022 (by region).

Globalization is a significant killer of languages, as a research paper by Amano et al. states: "The dominating effect of a single socioeconomic factor, GDP per capita (人均), on speaker growth rate suggests that economic growth and globalization are primary drivers of recent language speaker declines. This has been the case mainly since the 1970s onwards, for instance, via associated political and educational developments and globalized socioeconomic dynamics."

Despite the decline of many languages, we can find hope knowing that it's possible for almost extinct languages to bounce back. Awakening languages might not be more than the number of endangered ones, but they provide an encouraging sign that the right efforts and resources have the power to bring dying languages back to life.

When I walked in, the students didn't even notice my presence. I had to knock on the desk and say the greeting for the day. In response they just stared at me. It felt like they were examining every inch of me, and at that moment, I wanted the floor to open up and make me disappear from the face of the earth. Nervously, I began the lesson. I spoke perfect English. I took out the charts and hung them on the board. The class was silent. No one broke away from his or her stare. But when I started to finger one student at random to respond to my questions, the rest of class restarted their own activities, most of which were getting into arguments with their neighbors.

At that point I began to realize how inexperienced I was. All the theories I had learned and memorized in college about wonderful learning behaviorism and class communication seemed inappropriate and useless. I had to think on my feet about how to resolve the conflicts between the students and try to direct their short attention into my well-crafted lesson. The students began to speak with each other in Thai. I tried to speak in Malay. They didn't understand me. They ignored me. Grateful for a handful of students who sat in the front rows and who appeared more academically focused than the rest. They managed to converse with me in Malay.

Teaching is tough, I suppose, because the learning that I experienced as a student was always a sheltered environment. I went to the best schools, and I had wonderful parents and teachers who supported my learning process one way or the other. I now know that reality bites, and I learned that the hard way.

This raises the question: Can sleep extension help when you know you'll need to stay awake for a long time? Sleep banking, the practice of extending sleep hours in the nights before a known period of sleep deprivation (剥夺), has gained increasing attention.

In 2009, an Army study compared people who got their regular hours of sleep for a week to a group that spent 10 hours in bed during those same nights. This was followed by 3 nights of only 3 hours of time in bed allowed for both groups. Surprisingly, the group that had "banked" sleep, performed better on a measure of alertness during the sleep restricted time period and recovered faster from the sleep deprivation.

A more recent study also found that a week of sleep extension improved quick decision-making during a 40-hour total sleep deprivation task involving emotional stimuli and attentional distraction.

Despite supporting evidence, there are also arguments against the theory. One concern is simply that humans are not designed to sleep when they don't need sleep, thus from the perspective of physiological instinct (本能), the notion of banking does not make sense. Another is that the observed improvements may come from resolving sleep debt which itself boosts cognition and wakefulness rather than sleep banking.

Currently, we don't have a definitive answer to "Can you bank sleep?" But there is clear benefit to sleep extension before planned deprivation. While the mechanism remains unproven, either sleep banking or resolving sleep debt through pre-deprivation extension appears to help individuals perform better during deprivation and recover more quickly afterward.

The answer is definitely yes, at least for organisms with short generations. The latest evidence comes from the monkey flower, a wild plant that evolved to survive California's megadrought from 2012 to 2015. Daniel Anstett at Cornell University and his colleagues have studied monkey flowers since 2010, assessing their growth at various sites yearly and taking samples for DNA sequencing.

Monkey flowers are water-loving plants that grow along streams, so the drought hit them extremely hard. "If you were to put one in a pot and not water it for a few days, it would just die," Anstett explains. Three local populations died out during the drought, but many survivors evolved drought tolerance in just three years, with genome mutations (基因突变) linked to climate adaptation — and these populations recovered the fastest after the drought. This is what biologists call evolutionary rescue: a species surviving a deadly threat via rapid evolution. The phenomenon has been demonstrated in several lab experiments before, but Anstett confirms this is the first time it has been proven to happen in the wild.

However, all this said, a three-year drought is weather, not climate. "Demonstrating adaptation to climate change would take a while," says Andrew Storfer at Washington State University. In other words, the fact that monkey flowers were able to evolve to survive one extreme drought doesn't necessarily mean they will cope with a century of rising temperatures and ever more extreme weather. What's more, when populations decline, they lose genetic diversity — the fuel for evolution.

As global warming continues, the threats will grow ever greater, but species' capacity to evolve will get smaller. And long-lived species with long generation times have very little capacity for rapid evolution to begin with. Nevertheless, Anstett sees his findings as good news. "A lot of these current predictions about species decline don't take evolution into account," he says. "This is a story of hope."

Your manager called you and said she would want to discuss your performance in recent projects. On Monday morning, when you walked into her office, she first praised your excellent work, and you immediately got ready — is this a common setting for the frightening "feedback sandwich"? You are very familiar with this pattern: starting with praise, offering genuine criticism, and ending with more praise.

 However, when feedback follows this predictable formula, employees begin to see praise as a filler for criticism, depriving it of its true meaning. Positive feedback is better than being downgraded to a buffer (缓冲) responsibility. It should be used independently as a tool for motivation. Below are three tips to help you make positive feedback count.

● Separate positive from negative feedback

When praise always comes before criticism, it loses its power. Let it be offered without a shadow — no comparison, no subtle correction. Just the simple, honest act of appreciation.

●

Psychologist Carol Dweck emphasized our brain's adaptability and our capacity to develop new abilities. Rather than praising fixed traits like "you have a natural eye for detail," focus on the process — celebrating effort, creative approaches, and problem-solving persistence.

● Create a culture of offering positive feedback

Integrate positive feedback into daily interactions, not just formal reviews. Offer casual appreciation during hallway conversations or coffee breaks. Encourage team members to recognize each other's contributions.

Transforming a workplace skeptical of positive feedback takes patience, but the rewards extend beyond improved performance to a genuinely enriched professional life.

A. Praise a creative mindset

B. Develop a growth mindset

C. She began criticizing without hesitation.

D. Ensure that praise sometimes exists independently.

E. Such habits create an environment where praise flows in all directions.

F. You spend the entire weekend anxious and question what you did wrong.

G. Many managers use this technique, wrapping negative feedback between two positives.

As a foreigner, I was stared at wherever I went in China on the first day. Kids pointed at me and passers-by gazed at me with strange faces. I felt2, old memories of being judged coming back to me so clearly. At the beginning, I3 considered their expressions as4 and even hostility (敌意). Actually deep inside, I just wanted to fit in and be5. On my second day, a big6 to escape rose in my heart.

But then, as I checked flights, I realized every time I encountered discomfort, I7. Here, however, I could not hide or become8. I had to make a decision: let the stares control me or9 their meaning myself.

I then willingly chose to10 and respond with kindness. Soon I learned that people's11 were only out of curiosity, not prejudice. They smiled warmly and offered help. It turned out that I had been the one12 them out of fear.

China acted like a13, forcing me to face my true self. I originally thought I was merely here to visit a country, but China let me know myself better. True freedom comes not from others'14, but from accepting who I am.15 is not about finding answers, but asking better questions for us to get connected to the place visited.

Australian vlogger Amy Lyons seemed surprised that the small city of Tongren in China's (southwest) Guizhou province exports matcha abroad. In her video, shop windows are filled with locally produced matcha products, from the emerald-colored powder (it) to matcha-flavored ice cream — even matcha noodles.

In recent years, Guizhou matcha (become) a hot product on social media platforms like RedNote. Tourists queue for a popular matcha milk tea, hold up cups for photos at scenic spots, and fill social feeds with check-in (post).

China is one of the largest producers of matcha. A report from China Tea Marketing Association shows that national output is expected to surpass (超过) 12,000 metric tons in 2025, (rough) 70 percent of global production, with Tongren at the center.

Taking advantage misty highlands ideal for tea cultivation, the region shifted from traditional tea cultivation to matcha production around 2018. But while the current enthusiasm for matcha may come across as a fairly recent trend, people whisked (搅拌) tea powder into hot water (make) a tasty drink and treated it as an elegant art as early as the Song Dynasty (AD 960-1279).

The technique of using a bamboo whisk, (add) water in seven stages and varying the whipping motion until the foam swelled "like a milky mist", is believed to have been brought abroad by Buddhist monks, is recorded during the Song period. Now, it lives on in the thriving modern matcha culture of China.

1．活动过程；

2．你的感受。

注意：

1．词数80词左右；

2．请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。

Dear Tom,

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Yours,

Li Hua

My mom is 83 years old and I love her deeply, but there are moments when my patience wears thin, especially when I've repeated myself 10 times because she refuses to wear a hearing aid out of vanity (虚荣心).

Not long ago, we had a misunderstanding over her medication (药物治疗). She was still clear-minded, but of course she forgot things at times and when I questioned her, she got defensive. When I saw she hadn't been taking a certain medication, anger replaced patience. She insisted she didn't need it anymore; I accused her of ignoring the doctor's orders and putting her health at risk. We went back and forth, until I realized that she was crying.

My immigrant, hard-working mom had made a million sacrifices for us. Seeing her cry broke something within me. My anger immediately disappeared and I hugged her.

Tears gave way to words. She said, "I am upset because I feel useless, because my body isn't doing what it used to and I even can't make it to the market on my own." Her words hit my heart and reminded me that she was struggling with things I didn't always see. In that moment, I knew my reaction had only added to her pain.

I messaged her doctor, who confirmed the medication had been removed. The shame I felt was so intense that it made my stomach turn. I apologized. "Forgive me, mom. You're right and they removed it. I'm so sorry." And her response was exactly what I knew it would be. She said, "No, it's OK. I know you're always looking out for me." She meant it, too. We talked a while longer, and the more she shared, the better she felt. Half an hour later she was laughing and reminding me I'd promised to take her to the market she liked.

I was relieved she felt better, but I felt deeply unsettled. I felt a deep sense of shame. We had been raised to respect our parents, to never raise our voices at them. However, that was exactly what I did.

注意：

1．续写词数应为150词左右；

2．请按如下格式作答。

The next morning I told my mom I was going to take her to a place.

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After the trip, my mom whispered what would stay in my heart forever.

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