For thousands of years, the most important two buildings in any British village have been the church and the pub. In fact, until a place has a church and a pub, it is not really considered a community worthy of a name. Traditionally, the church and the pub are at the heart of any village or town, where the people gather together to socialize and exchange news. They are institutions at the heart of British society. After all, the word ‘pub’ is actually short for ‘public house’.
As a result, British pubs are often old and well preserved. Many of them have become historic sites. that tourists visit. One of the most famous examples is the city of Nottingham called “The Old Trip to Jerusalem”, which dates back to the year AD 1189 and is probably the oldest pub in England. It was the same year in which kings Richard the first came into power, who led the First Crusade into the Holy Land, towards Jerusalem.
Many British pubs have old names referring to governors, such as The King's Head or The Queen Victoria, but of course this doesn’t mean they are only for kings and queens. Pubs have always welcome people from all classes and parts of society. On a cold night, the pub's landlord or landlady can always find a warm place for you by the fire. There is always honest and hearty food and plenty of drink available at an affordable price.
That’s how things used to be. but there are worrying signs that things are beginning to change. Economic downturns, governmental financial measures, and cultural changes are causing many pubs to go out of business. People do not have a lot of spare money to spend on beer. On top of that, in 2007 smoking was banned in all public indoor spaces, including pubs, which may also have affected the numbers of customers going to pubs since then.
This decline is happening despite the fact that pubs are now allow by law to stay open after 11 pm. Previously, with 11 pm as closing time, customers would have to drink quite quickly, meaning they sometimes got more drunk than they would if allowed to drink slowly. The British habit of drinking is known as “binge drinking”, and it causes long-term health problems individuals and problems with violent crime for communities. The UK government is trying to find ways of discouraging binge drinking, and regularly spends money on television commercials to warn people of the problems of king too much.
1. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?A.British pubs are preserved well mainly to attract tourists from all of the world. |
B.British pubs are quite popular and accessible to people from all walks of life. |
C.Most British pubs are going out of business because of economic and cultural bans. |
D.Most British pubs have to shut down to adjust themselves to meet the smoking ban. |
A.To stimulate customers to spend more on drinks. |
B.To help British pubs survive economic downturns. |
C.To encourage more sensible ways of drinking in pubs. |
D.To get rid of violent crime in most part of Britain. |
A.drinking too much and too quickly | B.social problems related to British pubs |
C.a new long-term drinking approach | D.problems caused by drinking too much |
A.Different methods to welcome new customers to pubs. |
B.Various advertisements encouraging people to quit drinking. |
C.The campaigns and strategies to support the traditional pubs. |
D.Trends of migrating back from the modern wine bars to old ones. |
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【推荐1】Young people are being criticized for working from home again, with one professor saying it adversely affects their professional and romantic success.
Scott Galloway, a marketing professor at the New York University, spoke about the harms of being at home at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit, on Wednesday.
A clip posted on TikTok shows Galloway saying, “You should never be at home. That’s what I tell young people. Home is for seven hours of sleep and that’s it. The amount of time you spend at home is oppositely correlated to your success professionally and romantically. You need to be out of the house.”
In another clip at the same event, the professor insisted that success and work-life balance do not go hand in hand. He said, “If you expect to be in the top 10% economically, much less the top 1%, buck up. Two decades plus, of nothing but work. That’s my experience.”
Galloway has long been an advocate of office working and shunned remote working habits because it weakens young people’s ability to build relationships and network. He previously advised young workers, “Before you collect dogs and spouses, get into the office, establish mentors, establish friends,” in an interview with CNN. He added that workers who get promoted are the ones with the best relationships at work.
Billionaire CEO Elon Musk is also on a campaign against remote workers and called the practice “morally wrong” in a recent interview with CNBC.
Musk has incorporated this value across his various companies including giving Tesla employees a final warning to either quit or return to the office last year. He also called Twitter employees back to the office 40 hours a week shortly after his $44 billion takeover.
However, remote working may be here to stay. Around 55% of remote workers in the US said they are willing to take a pay cut to continue working from home, a recent poll by The Washington Post found.
1. What can be the harm of working from home according to Galloway?A.Less successful careers. | B.Imbalance between work and life. |
C.Worse relationship at home. | D.Loss of sleep time. |
A.Develop remote working habits. | B.Keep a pet at home. |
C.Establish relationships in the office. | D.Get promotion at work. |
A.To present n solution to remote working. |
B.To explain the harm of working remotely. |
C.To illustrate Musk’s attitude to working from home. |
D.To warn the remote worker of the possible job loss. |
A.Remote workers will be less paid. |
B.Remote working will disappear sooner or later. |
C.The majority of people prefer remote working. |
D.Remote working is controversial among people. |
【推荐2】Last week Meituan co-published a proposal with a number of business organizations including the China General Chamber of Commerce and China Cuisine Association, calling on restaurants to stop food waste and help form new eating habits for customers. “Restaurants should use means of publicity using official accounts on social media and live-streaming to promote and advocate food-saving actions,” the proposal said.
Catering associations in more than 18 provinces have also joined the campaign to eliminate food waste. On Friday the China Cuisine Association announced that it had teamed up with Ele. me, the Alibaba Group Holding-owned food delivery platform, to launch a “half-dish plan”, encouraging restaurants to provide customers with the option to order smaller portions.
To control food waste on social media platforms, popular Chinese video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou have stepped up content reviews of food-related live streams and carry out regulation of online eating shows. Now if users search certain keywords, such as “eating show” or “competitive eaters”, a cautionary message pops up to remind them to cherish food and keep a reasonable diet.
Across the country about 20% of all the food ends up in the trash. That food waste costs the average family of four about ¥1,500 a year. It also takes up valuable space in landfills. Now it is time to get customers to rethink their relationship with food and waste.
1. What is the purpose of the proposal?A.To stop food waste. | B.To improve Meituan's profits. |
C.To attract more customers. | D.To promote the popularity of Meituan. |
A.Restart. | B.Recall. | C.Research. | D.Remove. |
A.Negatively. | B.Positively. | C.Doubtfully. | D.Angrily. |
A.Food costs families much money. |
B.Most of the food people bought is wasted. |
C.Food waste causes damage to the environment. |
D.Customers should have a good relationship with others. |
【推荐3】For decades, the homework standard has been a “10-minute” rule, which suggests a daily maximum of 10 minutes of homework per grade level.
But some schools have begun to give their youngest students a break. An American elementary school has announced a no-homework pilot program(试点项目) for the coming school year, extending the school day by two hours to provide more in-class instruction. “We really want kids to go home at 4 o’clock, tired,” Kelly Elementary School Principal Jackie Glasheen said. “We want them to enjoy their families. We want them to go to soccer practice or football practice.”
New solutions to homework differ by community. These local debates aren’t easily understood by the fact that even education experts disagree about what’s best for kids.
The most all-round research on homework so far comes from an analysis(分析) by Duke University professor Harris Cooper, who found evidence(证据) of a positive relationship between homework and student achievement, meaning students who did homework performed better in school. Cooper’s analysis focused on how homework influences test scores. The relationship was stronger for older students from the 7th to the 12th grade than for those in younger grades, for whom there was a weak relationship between homework and performance.
However, Cathy Vatterott, an education professor at the University Missouri-St. Louis, thinks there is not enough evidence that homework is helpful for students in elementary school, “Relationship is not a cause,” she said “Does homework cause achievement, or do high achievers do more homework?” Vatterott thinks there should be more stress on improving the quality of homework tasks, and she supports efforts to ban homework for younger kids.
1. What will Kelly Elementary School have in the new term?A.No homework. | B.Some football practice. |
C.“10-minute” homework. | D.More physical education classes. |
A.Younger students in all grades with no homework. |
B.Younger students in lower grades with no homework. |
C.Older students in lower grades with more homework. |
D.Older students in higher grades with more homework. |
A.Positive. | B.Negative. | C.Unknown. | D.Angry. |
A.Is homework good for students? |
B.Which subject’s homework matters the most? |
C.Shall younger students do the same homework as the older students? |
D.Do students really hate homework? |
【推荐1】The word “Kuitou” in Peking Opera is the technical term for various kinds of hats and headpieces worn by various characters in traditional Chinese opera. More than just meeting the requirements of acting, it also reveals an aspect of traditional Chinese culture.
In traditional Han Chinese culture, people believed that since, one’s whole body was a gift from one’s parents, it was important to avoid anything that might injure it, a principle that showed filial piety (孝道). Based on this ideology, males were required to let their hair grow long, and wearing hats became a rule of social etiquette in ancient times.
Since ancient Chinese society was divided into various social classes, people in each class wore different styles of clothes, but only the nobility were permitted to wear formal hats for adornment (装饰). People of lower classes could only wrap their head with a piece of cloth. Anyone under the age of 20 was also not allowed to wear formal hats and could only wear one after the performance of an official capping ceremony to mark their reaching of adulthood. As a result, various types of formal hats in ancient times, in addition to having value as a piece of personal adornment and social etiquette, also revealed the social classes of people and strict social divisions that existed between the nobility and common people.
In ancient times, people attached much importance to the kind of hat they wore. An old saying says, “A man of noble character would rather die than take off his hat.” The saying was based on the story of one of Confucius’s favorite students, Zi Lu, a man who was a brave warrior. Once while fighting in close hand-to-hand combat, his enemy opponent knocked off his hat. When he realized that his hat had been knocked off, Zi Lu placed down his weapon and said to the enemy soldier,” A nobleman can die, but my attire (服装) must be kept orderly.” But the moment he bent down to pick up his hat, the enemy soldier seized the opportunity and killed him. According to Zi Lu, his proper appearance, which included his hat, represented his dignity, and he would rather die than abandon his dignity. The formal hat culture of the Han Chinese continued up until the Ming Dynasty. Later after the Manchurians entered the Central Plains (满人入关), common people in society began to wear hats.
1. For Chinese males in the Han Dynasty, wearing headpieces or hats was .A.a requirement of acting | B.a rule of social etiquette |
C.a way to show filial piety | D.a representation of culture |
A.the formal hat was a symbol of adulthood |
B.headwear was nothing but a decoration |
C.only noble people could afford to wear formal hats |
D.there existed little distinction between social classes |
A.how brave a person he was | B.how people valued their hats |
C.how fierce an ancient war was | D.how people dealt with etiquette |
【推荐2】Fashion designers are always looking for new materials to work with. Lately, it’s all about environment-friendly materials -- recycled tires, mushrooms, even pineapple fibers! What if you want such a pair of shoes? Thaely is here to help.
This sneaker brand out of Dubai wants to fight the growing problem of plastic pollution. Led by 23-year-old Indian businessman Ashay Bhave, they may have found a winning approach: making shoes out of plastic grocery bags. “Thaely” means “plastic bag” in the Hindi language.
“I was looking to create footwear that is cost-effective and safe for the environment,” Bhave said in an interview with a newspaper. “I needed to come up with something that uses recycled plastic without creating any more plastic waste. ”Plastic bags were the perfect solution. He said five trillion plastic bags are used around the world each year. “I was motivated to find a solution to this problem,” Bhave said.
That solution was the fiber called ThaelyTex. Made entirely from plastic bags, the material looks and feels like leather. That sounds promising. Better yet, the production process requires no additional chemicals and produces no poisonous by-products. The result is a smart-looking pair of white low-top sneakers.
Bhave wouldn’t expose the full process for making ThaelyTex, but he said that each pair of shoes was made from up to 15 plastic bags and 22 plastic bottles. Where do they get the materials? Bhave told Elle that was the hardest part. “The biggest challenge we faced was right at the first step of acquiring the plastic bags. ”
Finally, they got help from TrioTap Technologies, a waste management plant. Bhave said they offered to collect the bags and also process them into ThaelyTex.
So far, it seems like things are falling into place. There are already hundreds of pre-orders in place. It sounds like they have some plans for the future. “We have a few more colors coming up,” said Bhave. They also plan to put out a high-top model and bring in a line of clothing. Let’s hope their growth is also friendly to the environment.
1. Why did Bhave choose to make shoes out of plastic bags?A.To set a new footwear trend. |
B.To test new materials for footwear. |
C.To reduce the use of plastic bags in his home country. |
D.To use recycled plastic in an environment-friendly way. |
A.Having a few more colors for Thaely. | B.Processing plastic bags into ThaelyTex. |
C.Collecting enough production materials | D.Dealing with many poisonous by-products |
A.produce | B.conserve |
C.provide | D.broadcast |
A.Bhave: a promising young man |
B.Thaely: killer of waste plastic bags |
C.ThaelyTex: material out of plastic bags |
D.TrioTap Technologies: a waste management plant |
【推荐3】Many people heard about the “Little Free Library”, which was a movement that let people swap a book for another or take it and bring it back. Now, people are joining in the “Little Free Pantry” idea, which shares a similar value of spreading kindness with mini pantries.
One family who live in Boise, Idaho, have a three-year-old son who wanted to build something for his third birthday, so they decided that they would build a community pantry box that they would share with their neighbors. They felt that they had everything they wanted, so they wanted to give a little something back to the community and help the people in need.
The idea is that the family fill this box up with non-perishable (不易腐的) items, which include tins, toiletries, and other goods. However, it’s meant to be a community give and take, so other people would also contribute to adding to this mini-pantry.
It seems that the idea has taken off in other communities who also want to give a little something back and help those in need. It’s the kind of movement that helps the struggling members of the community, allowing them to live knowing that they can have a can of soup for dinner if they have nothing else. Or that sanitary products are available.
The Millers keep their little pantry going, realizing that it’s emptiest toward the end of the month, so they know that it’s really helping people. They don’t believe that anyone has taken advantage of it and that it’s only helped people.
Various other communities have taken on the mini pantries project in order to spread a little kindness within their community.
1. Why is “Little Free Library” mentioned in the first paragraph?A.To show the striking difference between it and “Little Free Pantry”. |
B.To help readers have a better understanding of “Little Free Pantry”. |
C.To encourage people to take “Little Free Library” as an example. |
D.To prove that most people are just so kind as to help those in need. |
A.To let others know about their son’s birthday. |
B.To show that they lived in great abundance, |
C.To egress gratitude and offer help to others. |
D.To test if people in the community are honest. |
A.Those who can’t go shopping often. | B.Those who want to show kindness. |
C.Those who want to celebrate birthdays. | D.Those who live in great poverty. |
A.The community pantry box is always empty. |
B.People take advantage of others’ kindness. |
C.More items are badly needed to refill the box. |
D.It is gaining more and more popularity. |