When you set a foot outside of your door to drop trash, go to a social event or go for a walk, thoughts like “I hope I don’t see anyone I know” or “please don’t talk to me” may run through your mind. I’ve also said such things to myself. Sometimes the last thing you want to do is to talk with someone, especially someone new.
Why do we go out of our ways to avoid people? Do we think meeting new people is a waste of time? Or are we just lazy, thinking that meeting someone new really is a trouble?
Communication is the key to life. We have been told that many times. Take the past generations, like our parents, for example. They seem to take full advantage of that whole “communication” idea because they grew up talking face to face while Generation-Y grew up staring at screens. We spend hours of our days sitting on Facebook. We send messages to our friends and think about all of the things we want to say to certain people and that we don’t have the courage to do in reality.
Nowadays, we are so caught up in our little circle of friends — our comfort zone. We love it that they laugh at our jokes, understand our feelings and can read our minds. Most importantly, they know when we want to be alone. They just get us.
Holding a conversation with someone new means agreeing with things that you don’t really believe and being someone you think they want you to be — it is, as I said before, a trouble. It takes up so much energy, and at some point or another, it is too tiring.
But meeting new people is important. Life is too short, so meet all the people you can meet, make the effort to go out and laugh. Remember, every “hello” leads to a smile — and a smile is worth a lot.
1. What do we learn about the author?| A．He likes to meet someone new. |
| B．He feels stressed out lately. |
| C．He’s active in attending social events. |
| D．He used to be afraid of talking to others. |
| A．They are less confident in themselves. |
| B．They rely on the Internet to socialize. |
| C．They have difficulty in communicating. |
| D．They are unwilling to make new friends. |
| A．To stress the importance of friends. |
| B．To encourage people to meet new people. |
| C．To give tips on how to meet new people. |
| D．To display the disadvantages of Generation-Y. |
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【推荐1】I think that a great friend is like a great artist who can change my feeling about life greatly. When I talk about the person who influenced(影响) me most. I must think of my best friend quickly.
When I was in my university, one of my classmates sat beside me. His name is Wang Tao. He is my unforgettable friend in my life. He is good at study and handsome. Everyone knows that he is a genius(天才) of my university. Besides, he is kind-hearted and is always ready to help others.
I remembered that my maths was poor at that time, but he was excellent in solving(解决) maths questions. He often got high scores. Since we talked all day long, he was patient and polite to answer my maths questions. Slowly, I made great progress. I passed the examination finally. Then we became friends naturally.
We know that we live in a society, so we need a lot of friends. There are two kinds of friends, good and bad, bad friend may make our life failed, while good ones make our life successful. To me, Wang Tao is a very good friend. I learned so many lessons from him, and I became more and more excellent.
We separated three months ago. Now I miss him very much, and I hope that our friendship will continue to be just as strong after we graduate.
1. Which of the following about Wang Tao is NOT true according to the passage?| A．He is handsome. | B．He is kind-hearted. |
| C．He is an artist. | D．He is good at study. |
| A．make good friends and learn from them |
| B．make bad friends and learn from them |
| C．make fewer good friends |
| D．make more bad friends |
| A．聚集 | B．分离 |
| C．寻找 | D．选择 |
| A．My university life | B．How to make friends |
| C．How to Learn Maths Well | D．An unforgettable Friend |
【推荐2】I first met Paul Newman in 1968, when George Roy Hill, the director of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, introduced us in New York City. When the studio didn’t want me for the film— it wanted somebody as well known as Paul— he stood up for me. I don’t know how many people would have done that; they would have listened to their agents or the studio powers.
The friendship that grew out of the experience of making that film and The Sting four years later had its root in the fact that although there was an age difference, we both came from a tradition of theater and live TV. We were respectful of craft（技艺）and focused on digging into the characters we were going to play. Both of us had the qualities and virtues that are typical of American actors: humorous, aggressive, and making fun of each other— but always with an underlying affection. Those were also at the core （核心）of our relationship off the screen.
We shared the belief that if you’re fortunate enough to have success, you should put something back— he with his Newman’s Own food and his Hole in the Wall camps for kids who are seriously ill, and me with Sundance and the institute and the festival. Paul and I didn’t see each other all that regularly, but sharing that brought us together. We supported each other financially and by showing up at events.
I last saw him a few months ago. He’d been in and out of the hospital.He and I both knew what the deal was,and we didn’t talk about it.Ours was a relationship that didn’t need a lot of words.
1. Why was the studio unwilling to give the role to author at first?| A．Paul Newman wanted it. |
| B．The studio powers didn’t like his agent. |
| C．He wasn’t famous enough. |
| D．The director recommended someone else. |
| A．They were of the same age. |
| B．They worked in the same theater. |
| C．They were both good actors. |
| D．They have similar characteristics. |
| A．Their belief. | B．Their care for children. |
| C．Their success. | D．Their support for each other. |
【推荐3】How to Keep Long-Distance Friendships
Don’t let distance keep you away from your friends. Use these tips to stay close with your friends.
Share small things.
Use social media. Using social media is a good way to keep your long-distance friendships going. It allows you to keep up with your friends’ lives. It can also help you learn more about their other friends.
Vacation together.
Not every friendship is a friendship that can survive long distance.
| A．Schedule time to chat. |
| B．Schedule time to eat together. |
| C．Why not plan a trip with your friends? |
| D．Texting your friends can be a good way. |
| E．The thing we can do is do what we can to keep it. |
| F．That makes you feel more deeply connected to them. |
| G．I drove three hours from Kentucky to spend time with her. |
【推荐1】For months now, our routines have been interrupted and we’ve been forced to adapt. Reportedly, one major consequence is a state of mental tiredness. It feels as if we’re all in a state of constant distraction.
“It felt like I had a mental block preventing me from focusing on the page,” says Sophie Vershbow, who recognized the mood early in the pandemic (流行病) when her tweet about “not being able to concentrate enough to read a book” was liked more than 2,000 times.
For many people, especially working parents, the sudden switch to home working has meant a conflict between work and life. It’s tricky to focus on a document as your kids wrestle for the TV remote control. But even when work is finished for the day and the kids are in bed, it’s hard to find any focus to escape into a novel or box-set.
A psychological theory called Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) might help explain why living in the age of COVID-19 may have turned our minds to soup. Put simply, CLT characterizes our minds as information processing systems. When we’re working on a problem, especially an unfamiliar one, we depend on our “working memory”, which is very limited both in its capacity and the length of time it holds information. The less familiar you are with a task, the more you depend on your working memory to help deal with the relevant information; in contrast, when you’re an expert, most of what you need to know is stored in long-term memory and you can complete the task automatically.
So COVID-19 has robbed you of the ability to do things on auto. Take a work meeting for example, before, you would just have turned up and joined in the discussion, but now if you’re working remotely you have to fire up your video-conferencing software, worry about your Wi-Fi and so on. The same applies to domestic challenges too, like ordering your groceries online instead of shopping in person. These adaptations force you out of auto-pilot and draw on your limited working memory capacity.
1. What is the result of COVID-19 mentioned in the text?| A．Being worn out mentally. | B．Drawing online attention. |
| C．Lack of interest in reading | D．Sticking to the old routines. |
| A．They wrestle with children for the TV remote control. |
| B．They can strike a balance between work and life. |
| C．They enjoy no form of entertainment. |
| D．They find it hard to concentrate. |
| A．Being interrupted by our kids. |
| B．The decline of our memory capacity. |
| C．Being occupied with new daily routines. |
| D．The independence of our working memory. |
| A．New situation, new solution | B．CLT accounts for new challenges |
| C．New life in the age of COVID-19 | D．Adjust yourself to working online |
【推荐2】China Youth says that more and more girl students have entered colleges to study in the recent few years. As we know, once the number of boys was larger than that of girls and boys did much better than girls in our country for a long time. Now, things have changed a lot.
In recent years, the proportion (比例) of girl students is growing fast. In 1998, about 39.7% of college students were girls. In 2000, it was 41.07% and in 2001, the number was 42.14%.
There are several reasons for this.
Firstly, there is little difference between boys and girls in their intelligence (智力). That’s to say, girls are as clever as boys. And boys have more interests than girls, so they may not always do well in their study.
Secondly, girls are more careful than boys. They work harder at school and they do better in all exams.
Another reason is that with the development of society, people pay more and more attention to girls’ education.
1. China Youth says that more and more ______.| A．boys are clever than girls |
| B．girls have entered colleges |
| C．boys can’t go to school |
| D．girls begin to study at school |
| A．girls at schools in 1998 |
| B．boys at schools in 2001 |
| C．girls in colleges in 2001 |
| D．boys in colleges in 1998 |
| A．three | B．two | C．four | D．five |
| A．Boys may not do well in their study as girls because they don’t like studying. |
| B．Boys are much cleverer than girls because they’re interested in many things. |
| C．Girls study harder, but they couldn’t get higher marks than boys. |
| D．Girls’ intelligence is the same as boys’. |
【推荐3】There is something to be said for being a generalist, even if you are a specialist. Knowing a little about a lot of things that interest you can add to the richness of a whole, well-lived life.
Society pushes us to specialize, to become experts. This requires commitment to a particular occupation, branch of study or research. The drawback to being specialists is we often come to know more and more about less and less. There is a great deal of pressure to master one’s field. You may pursue training, degrees, or increasing levels of responsibility at work. Then you discover the pressure of having to keep up.
Some people seem willing to work around the clock in their narrow specialty. But such commitment can also weaken a sense of freedom. These specialists could work at the office until ten each night, then look back and realize they would have loved to have gone home and enjoyed the sweetness of their family and friends, or traveled to exciting places, meeting interesting people. Mastering one thing to the exclusion of others can hold back your true spirit.
Generalists on the other hand, know a lot about a wide range of subjects and view the whole with all its connections. They are people of ability, talent, and enthusiasm who can bring their broad perspective into specific fields of expertise. The doctor who is also a poet and philosopher is a superior doctor, one who can give so much more to his patients than just good medical skills.
Things are connected. Let your expertise in one field fuel your passions in all related areas. Some of your interests may not appear to be connected but, once you explore their depths, you discover that they are. My editor Toni, who is also a writer, has edited several history books. She has decided to study Chinese history. Fascinated by the structural beauty of the Forbidden City as a painter, she is equally interested to learn more about Chinese philosophy. “I don’t know where it will lead, but I’m excited I’m on this pursuit.”
These expansions into new worlds help us by giving us new perspectives. We begin to see the interconnectedness of one thing to another in all aspects of our life, of ourselves and the universe. Develop broad, general knowledge and experience. The universe is all yours to explore and enjoy.
1. To become a specialist, one may have to ______ .| A．narrow his range of knowledge | B．avoid responsibilities at work |
| C．know more about the society | D．broaden his perspective on life |
| A．treasure their freedom | B．travel around the world |
| C．spend most time working | D．enjoy meeting funny people |
| A．is fully aware of his talent and ability | B．is a pure specialist in medicine |
| C．should love poetry and philosophy | D．brings knowledge of other fields to work |
| A．Passion alone does not ensure a person’s success. |
| B．In-depth exploration makes discoveries possible. |
| C．Everyone has a chance to succeed in their pursuit. |
| D．Seemingly unrelated interests are in a way connected. |
【推荐1】Journalists are the major group of people who make their living from writing. Many young people who see themselves as future novelists choose journalism as a way of earning a living while developing their writing skills. Although writing for newspapers and writing for books require different qualities, the aspiration(志向)to be a great writer is not one to be discouraged in a would-be journalist.
Most people want their work to be recognized by others. This helps to give it value. Some people also want themselves to be recognized, so that they have status (地位) in the eyes of society. It is not a bad motive to wish to be famous, but this must never become your main reason for being a journalist. You will not be a good journalist if you care more for impressing your audience than for serving their needs.
Knowing the power of the printed or spoken word or image, some people enter journalism for the power it will give them to influence people. There is a strong belief that journalists control the mass media but the best journalists recognize their role as servants of the people. There is a difference between the desire to influence events for your own sake (为了你自己), and the desire to do it for other people. You should never use journalism for selfish ends, but you can use it to improve the lives of other people.
Curiosity is a natural part of most people’s characters and an important ingredient for any journalist. Lots of young men and women enter the profession with the desire to know more about the world without needing to specialize in limited fields of study. Most journalists tend to know a little bit about a lot of things, rather than a lot about one subject. Knowledge has many uses. It can simply help to make you a fuller and more interesting person. It can also give you power over people, especially people who do not have that particular knowledge. Always bear in mind that power can be used in a positive way to improve people’s lives.
1. What can we know from the first paragraph?| A．Journalists are most likely to become great writers. |
| B．Writing for newspapers is similar to writing for novels. |
| C．Most of the journalists make a living by writing books. |
| D．Journalism can be used as a means to improve writing. |
| A．To gain high position. | B．To get great power. |
| C．To earn much wealth. | D．To learn rich knowledge. |
| A．Being specialized in a certain field. |
| B．Having a wide range of knowledge. |
| C．Being good at making friends with others. |
| D．Being able to speak a foreign language well. |
| A．The development of journalism. |
| B．The challenges journalists face now. |
| C．How to become a qualified journalist. |
| D．Why people choose a career in journalism. |
【推荐2】How should you spend your time? Whom should you marry? Where should you live? For centuries, people have relied on their instincts (本能) to figure out the answers to these questions. Now, we can use the big data to help determine the best course to chart.
Researchers have collected data on various kinds of choices people make, the information they base those choices on, and how things turn out. They have found that a simple data-driven algorithm (算法) would have been better than judges at deciding whether a defendant should stay in jail or be released and better than school principals at deciding which teachers should be promoted. Baseball teams found that algorithms were better than coaches at picking players and strategies. Tech firms in Silicon Valley have found that data from experiments provides better insights into how to design their websites than designers could.
But do statistics have similar impact on our making decisions in personal lives? Yes. The largest of experience sampling projects, Mappiness, has collected more than 3 million data points. It has revealed the activities that provide far more joy than most of us would have guessed, such as exercising, going to a museum and gardening, and the things that give us less pleasure such as playing video games, watching TV program and surfing the internet.
One study by 86 researchers collected information on more than 11,000 romantic couples. They used machine learning models to understand what predicts romantic satisfaction. They found many highly desired traits, such as a partner’s attractiveness and height, have just no connection with long-term happiness. Instead the qualities such as having a “growth mindset”, or a secure attachment style are most predictive of romantic satisfaction.
I am not claiming that we can completely outsource (外包) our lifestyle choices to algorithms, though we might get to that point in the future. I am claiming instead that we can all dramatically improve our decision- making by consulting evidence obtained from thousands or millions of people who faced dilemmas similar to ours.
1. How does the author develop paragraph 2?| A．By giving examples. | B．By analyzing reasons. |
| C．By presenting solutions. | D．By listing figures. |
| A．Choose the best TV program. | B．Pick better players for the coach. |
| C．Decide whether a person is guilty. | D．Tell which activity brings more joy. |
| A．A woman with a pretty face. | B．A man of growing wealth. |
| C．A woman with reliable personality. | D．A man of average height. |
| A．Big data will cause disasters. | B．Big data may help us make decisions. |
| C．Big data should be fully trusted. | D．Big data often puts people in dilemmas. |
【推荐3】In the United States, teaching is very important. If teachers do not teach well, students complain. If many students do not understand, people think that the teacher does not do a good job. The teacher has big responsibility to make sure students understand. In a sense, students are consumers and the teacher is offering services.
Students have the right to evaluate their teachers, and they usually do so at the end of each course. That evaluation includes lots of aspects of teaching, such as explanation, preparation, using good examples, answering questions, and organization of classes.
Students are supposed to read required textbooks and recommended books before classes. Without reading them, they will find it very difficult to understand the class. Basic courses on doing research and writing papers are taught at the beginning of the program. They teach things very concretely(具体地) and clearly. Students are expected to apply what they have learned to their studies.
Classes are usually divided into lectures and seminars. There are some lecture classes, where the teacher just gives a lecture, and students ask questions at the end. Most graduate level classes are lectures and discussions. Participating in discussions is very important. Higher level classes involve very little lecturing. They emphasize discussion and presentation by the students.
1. According to the passage, good teachers should ___________.| A．try to please their students |
| B．treat their students as consumers |
| C．understand their students well |
| D．made sure their students understand |
| A．Go over the lessons thoroughly. |
| B．Understand the textbooks well. |
| C．Do the reading assignments. |
| D．Prepare on outline for discussion. |
| A．learn how to do research and write papers. |
| B．have some learning experience |
| C．learn about the course concretely and clearly |
| D．know how to participate in discussions. |
| A．giving a lot of lectures to students |
| B．involving students in discussions |
| C．asking students questions in class |
| D．answering students’ questions in class |
