Columbus Day has been on American calendars since 1937, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared October 12 a federal holiday to honor the Italian explorer who “discovered” the Americas in 1492. However, the holiday has always been controversial. Many people believe that Christopher Columbus should not be given credit for “discovering” the continent, since native Americans had already been living there for generations.
Besides, the explorer’s mission was not a scientific “voyage of discovery”, but one intended to conquer the new land. Critics maintain that the Spanish army Columbus brought on his second voyage, caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of indigenous(土著的) people. Those that survived the massacre became slaves, working in mines. Many, therefore, believe that the explorer’s arrival should not be celebrated.
In 1977, a delegation of Native nations at the International Conference on Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations in the Americas, proposed renaming the holiday to “Indigenous People’s Day”. The proposal passed with a majority.
However, convincing the rest of the country to do the same was not that easy. It took 15 years before the city of Berkeley in California adopted the name in 1992 and then 22 more years before Minneapolis, MN and Seattle, WA did the same in 2014. The following year, eight more cities including Albuquerque, NM and Portland, OR, began celebrating the second Monday of October as “Indigenous People’s Day”. The movement really started to gain momentum in 2016 when 19 cities, including Boulder, CO and Phoenix, AZ, as well as the states of Minnesota and Vermont, all decided to rename the day to honor Native Americans. In 2017, 21 more cities, including Austin, TX and Los Angeles, CA have made the shift.
With the increasingly larger number of cities moving away from Columbus Day each year, it will be interesting to see if “Indigenous People’s Day” gets federal recognition. Meanwhile, it will continue to be the focal point of debates throughout the Americas.
1. Which of the following is the best title of the passage?| A．Indigenous People’s Day Has Got Federal Recognition after Years’ Work |
| B．Columbus Day Honoring the Italian Explorer Has Always Been Controversial |
| C．Christopher Columbus Should Not Be Given Credit for Discovering Americas |
| D．More Cities Have Replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day |
| A．Columbus discovered the continent |
| B．Columbus was a remarkable explorer |
| C．Native Americans were abused |
| D．Columbus Day is a public holiday |
| A．Columbus was well received by indigenous people |
| B．The indigenous people hated the Columbus’ arrival |
| C．The Spanish army rebelled against Columbus’ rule |
| D．Few soldiers survived the attack by native Americans |
| A．Portland | B．Phoenix |
| C．Seattle | D．Los Angeles |
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【推荐1】Stay-at-home kids are named “generation nini” in Spain. They are those adults who still live at home and are neither working nor studying. But the problem is not limited to Spain. It is a worldwide problem.
In Italy, they are known as “bamboccioni” or big babies. There are nearly 60 percent of 18-34-year-old adults still living in their parents’ home, up from almost 50 percent since 1983. Once kept there by the love for their mama’s home-cooked food, the economic crisis(经济危机) has seen a rise in adults left unable to hold down a steady job or afford a home of their own. Last year, an Italian government minister admitted that his mother washed his clothes and made the bed for him until he was 30. He demanded a law forcing young Italians to leave their parents’ home at 18 to stop them becoming hopelessly dependent on their parents.
In the UK, the government has made the term NEETS—not in employment, education or training for these children. In England alone the percent of NEETS aged 19-24 surged to 18.8 percent of the age group-in the last quarter of 2010, up 1.4 percent on the same period a year before. The number of British men in their 20s living with their parents has risen from 59 percent to 80 percent in the past 15 years, while the number of women has risen from 41 percent to 50 percent. The average age of the first-time house buyers is now 38.
In the US, the problem is known as the “full nest syndrome(综合症)”. Adults there are left struggling to support adult children who have stayed at home with student debts and facing few job opportunities in a weak economy. A recent study showed almost a third of American adults aged 34 and under are living with their parents.
1. “Big babies” mentioned in Paragraph 2 refers to those adults who ________.| A．depend on their parents for a living | B．are not as smart as others |
| C．lose their job in the bad economy | D．are poorly educated |
| A．parents should make their children feel hopeless |
| B．parents should never make the bed for their children |
| C．young people should live on their own after 18 |
| D．it is OK for adult children to live with their parents |
| A．moved | B．reduced | C．recovered | D．jumped |
| A．America has the most adult children compared with other countries. |
| B．American parents are happy to live with their children. |
| C．Some American adult children are causing trouble for their parents. |
| D．It is a tradition for adult children to live with their parents in America. |
【推荐2】As students head to their Thanksgiving break, here comes a big homework assignment: StoryCorps wants tens of thousands of teenagers across America to interview their grandparents this Thanksgiving and upload their recordings to the Library of Congress.
The nonprofit oral history organization is asking high school history teachers to have their students record the interviews with StoryCorps free smartphone application. Recordings sent to the library will be shared with the public.
"The Great Thanksgiving Listen is an assignment that will last for generations," StoryCorps founder Dave Isay says. "When young people do these interviews and they hit 'send' at end of the interview to the library they know that their great-great-great-great-great-grand kids are going to listen to these conversations someday and get to understand where they come from and who their ancestors are."
He hopes it becomes an annual tradition that brings families closer together by using modern technology to preserve the wisdom of elders. The students could tap into memories of events dating back to the 1920s, but Isay says the stories are less important than the fact that two people are talking." The purpose of StoryCorps is to have the two people who have this conversation feel more connected with each other and give the person who is being interviewed the chance to be heard," he says.
Brandon Clarke, an administrator at the private Berkeley Carroll School, in Brooklyn, New York, is enthusiastic about tbc project. He says StoryCorps, which is headquartered near the school, has interviewed some of his teachers while developing an instructional guide for the Thanksgiving project. A couple weeks before the holiday, Berkeley Carroll students may get some classroom exercises aimed at sharpening their interview skills.
"How do you develop good questions? How do you go about conducting an interview? How do you build off of a really interesting response?"
But Isay says interviewing isn't hard. He says he has learned from listening to some of the 60,000 conversations StoryCorps has collected since 2003 that people are naturally good at it. "It's just a matter of concentrating, being present and making sure you're in a quiet place," he says. "I think people understand the importance of the moment and that they treat it very seriously."
About 13 million radio listeners hear edited versions of StoryCorps interviews every Friday on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition". StoryCorps also shares excerpts（节录）of recordings through animated videos, podcasts and its website.
Isay says the Thanksgiving project will help spread the idea that history comes from the bottom up. Clarice agrees. "This is a really great example of how oral history is really history, "he says. "For it to be legitimate（正统的）history, it doesn't have to appear in print in a carefully-edited book. Individual stories and individual perspectives are also part of history."
1. How does StoryCorps collect the stories for its project?| A．It asks grandparents to tell their children stories. |
| B．It asks teenagers to record their grandparents' stories. |
| C．It asks students to interview their grandparents in a library |
| D．It asks teachers to teach their students how to make recordings |
| A．create a new family tradition. |
| B．pay attention to taking care of the elders. |
| C．make family members have a close relationship. |
| D．help a family's history be remembered by its later generations. |
| A．sharing oral stories is a fresh idea for most Americans, |
| B．oral history plays a more important role in people's daily life. |
| C．there are many mediums and tools available for recording history. |
| D．oral history is currently not considered to be as credible printed history. |
| A．Interview between teenagers and their grandparents. |
| B．Descriptions of the story collection process. |
| C．Opinions of the elders who have shared their stories. |
| D．Information on how the recordings are shared and used. |
Germany Parents are banned by law from using last names and the names of objects and products as first names. A child’s first name must clearly indicate his or her sex, and all names must be approved by the office of vital statistics in the area in which the child was born.
Iceland The country’s naming committee consults the National Register of Persons to determine if a name is acceptable. If parents want to go off-list, they must apply for approval and pay a fee, and the name must contain only letters in the Icelandic alphabet.
New Zealand The country’s Births, Deaths, and Marriages Registration Act of 1995 prohibits parents from choosing a name that “ might cause offense to a reasonable person; is unreasonably long; or is, includes, or resembles an official title or rank,” including, apparently, Adolf Hitler and Yeah Detroit—both names recently rejected.
Denmark If Danish parents prefer a moniker not on the list of 7,000 preapproved baby names, they must get permission from local church and government officials. Fifteen to 20 percent of the 1,100 reviewed names—including creative spellings of common names, last names as first names, and unusual names—are rejected each year.
1. You can tell whether a baby is a girl or a boy according to the first name in _____.
| A．Germany | B．New Zealand |
| C．Iceland | D．Denmark |
| A．be approved by the office of vital statistics. |
| B．be accepted by the National Register of Persons. |
| C．contain only letters in the Roman alphabet. |
| D．be paid for some money. |
| A．Bin Laden | B．Talula Does The Hula |
| C．John Smith | D．Keenan Got Lucky |
| A．Parents should pay a fee for babies’ names if the names are rejected. |
| B．Each year about 150-200 reviewed names are rejected in Denmark. |
| C．Adolf Hitler is banned in Iceland. |
| D．Danish babies’ names should be on the list if parents can’t get the permission. |
【推荐1】Generation Z-people born in the mid-1990s and the early 2010s-are set to lead the next wave of China’s digital development, said a recent report.
The report said Gen Z are consumers who are willing to spend big on digital products to explore the virtual world. According to the report by internet firm Sina, more than 63 percent of the Gen Z surveyed have a strong interest in metaverse, a term that has become a hot topic in recent months and shows a shared virtual environment in which technologies are combined to create a sense of virtual presence.
They are eager to experience the most advanced technologies like virtual reality and digital human in the metaverse. Up to 26 percent of them even want to keep a pet in the virtual world, the report stated.
“Generation Z is expected to become the new consumption power for the coming digital market. Their way of information acquisition, consumption and living methods have been fixed with great internet characteristics,” said Qiao Yu, deputy head of the Artificial Intelligence Media Research Institute of Sina.
“People enjoy the convenience of fast technology development; they are also advocates of smart life. Generation Z has a richer experience with technology products and is more willing to buy and apply smart devices in daily life. ”
The report found that more than 55 percent of the Gen Z surveyed tend to use intelligent products in their homes while 44 percent would use smart wearable devices in their daily lives.
“For companies that want to find the next sweet spot in the digital world, Generation Z will be an important target group. Their growing desire to display their virtual avatars or assets will contribute to a huge market in the coming years,” said Wu Shichun, founding partner of Plum Ventures.
1. What might the underlined word “metaverse” be according to the text?| A．A new life style | B．A virtual world |
| C．A digital product | D．An advanced technology |
| A．To target young people. | B．To provide new experience. |
| C．To produce cheaper products. | D．To display their virtual avatars. |
| A．They are powerful. | B．They enjoy smart life. |
| C．They love to keep pets. | D．They like to spend money. |
| A．Generation Z | B．Welcome to the virtual world |
| C．The convenience of latest technology | D．Report shows Gen Z to ride digital wave |
【推荐2】In 1992,Teen Talk Barbie was put on the market with the controversial voice fragment(碎片），＂Math class is hard."While the toy's sale met with strong public reaction,this hidden assumption continues,spreading the belief that women do not boom in science,technology,engineering and mathematic(STEM)fields due to biological inadequacies in math talent.
However,in 2019 Jessica Cantlon at Carnegie Mellon University led a research team that thoroughly examined the brain development of young boys and girls and found no sex difference in brain function or math ability.
Cantlon and her team studied the biological sex differences in math ability of young children.Her team used functional MRI(核磁共振）to measure the brain activity in 104 young children（3-to-10-year-old;55 girls)while watching an educational video covering early math topics,like counting and addition.The researchers compared scans from the boys and girls to evaluate brain similarity.In addition,the team examined brain maturity by comparing the children's scans to those taken from a group of adults(63 adults;25 women)who watched the same math videos.
After many statistical comparisons,Cantlon and her team found no difference in the brain development of girls and boys.In addition,the researchers found no difference in how boys and girls processed math skills while watching the educational videos.Finally,boys' and girls' brain maturity were statistically alike when compared to either men or women in the adult group.
Cantlon said she thinks society and culture are likely directing girls and young women away from math and STEM fields."Typical socialization can make worse small differences between boys and girls that can snowball into how we treat them in science and math,"Cantlon said."We need to be aware of these origins to ensure we aren't the ones causing the sex unfairness."
However,this project is focused on early childhood development using a limited set of math tasks.Cantlon wants to continue this work using a broader scope(范围）of math skills,such as spatial processing and memory,and follow the children over many years.
1. What can we infer after Teen Talk Barbie was on sale?| A．Girls are born with poor math abilities. |
| B．Math is difficult for both boys and girls. |
| C．Boys perform no better than girls in math. |
| D．Math is harder than science and technology. |
| A．The result of Cantlon's study. |
| B．The purpose of Cantlon's job. |
| C．The method of Cantion's research. |
| D．The difficulty of Cantlon's work. |
| A．By using a larger variety of subjects. |
| B．By employing a wider range of math skills. |
| C．By raising the difficulty of the math tasks. |
| D．By expanding the number of the children. |
| A．Business. | B．Sports&Health. |
| C．Entertainment. | D．Popular science. |
【推荐3】When it came to design, Steve Jobs lived Apple’s “Think Different” mantra (信条). Many major corporations use design to benefit their bottom lines, but Apple’s entire ethos was design. And it was hardwired in Jobs. Even when he was heading NeXT, the educational-computer company he founded, product and graphic design drove his strategy. He went so far as to get special dispensation (授权) from IBM to commission the NeXT logo from Paul Rand, designer of the IBM, ABC, and Westinghouse logos. When Jobs returned to Apple, he took its design to new levels, profoundly influencing the look of 21st-century computer technology.
Apple products became designers’ best friends, forever altering the practice of everything from graphic design to architecture by placing production power in the hands of creators. Jobs realized that creative people were not simply his primary customers, they were the willing propagandists of the brand. He so keenly understood his end users, and treated them with respect, that they went forth and exponentially multiplied.
Jobs integrated a range of designers into all aspects of the company — from hardware to software, from product to package, from corporate identity to advertising. He found roles for graphic, industrial, interior, and user-experience designers. Jobs never slavishly (盲目地) reacted to the market’s fickle whims (率性) or wants; he accepted that his role was to educate people to the potential of personal technology and enhance their appreciation of design. He used design to alter behavior and consequently altered his users’ behavior through innovative design. Unlike many other tech companies, design was the engine in Jobs’s world. Designers were not injected as foreign organisms into the middle or end of the conceptual and engineering process, after the engineers and marketers did the meaningful work.
Jobs was an equal-opportunity design patron. He never distinguished, as many brand companies do, between high and low design for high-end and low-end markets. One brand fit all. Apple did not hide a discount sub-brand behind tasteless graphics — although fair discounts offered to educators and some professions were routinely available. Every customer got the same logo, package, and product.
Design was not used to mask shoddy goods or inflate prices. Jobs’s sense of quality was legend. He instilled his designers with extra pride.
Likewise it was expected that every Apple customer would experience pride of ownership. From the boxes in which adapters and earbuds were sold to the look of the apps that are now so ubiquitous, the end user expected the best, the clearest, the cleanest.
And what about those Apple stores? Part museum, part retail mall — with great shopping bags, too. Rarely has design been so valued by a corporate CEO, and rarely is design’s value so inextricably tied to the reputation of a corporation. Jobs was a holistic designer — everything, everywhere, was designed well. And that is the essence of thinking different.
1. We can learn from Paragraph 1 that Steve Jobs ________.| A．used design to make profits |
| B．infused NeXT with the concept of design |
| C．convinced Paul Rand to join his company |
| D．designed Apple’s products in person |
| A．apprehensive | B．indifferent | C．respectful | D．grateful |
| A．was always catering for the favors of the public |
| B．aimed to cultivate customers’ potential of graphic design |
| C．was embodied in every aspect of his company |
| D．had largely affected users’ buying intentions |
| A．Every Apple user can own the products of the same level. |
| B．Apple designed sub-brand products for some users. |
| C．Its aim is to lift the overall prices of Apple products. |
| D．Apple provides every customer with the best product. |
| A．Steve Jobs treated every customer as equal. |
| B．The creative design concept of Jobs has changed our world. |
| C．Apple product is one of the best commodities nowadays. |
| D．How Jobs developed his concept of design. |
