【推荐1】In the days before the internet, critical thinking was the most important skill that informed citizens could have. But in the digital age, according to Anastasia Kozyreva, a German psychologist, an even more important skill is “critical ignoring.” With such an overabundance of information, we need to first decide what’s worth our attention and time, and what’s not.

The first strategy is self-nudging. This involves avoiding low-quality information so that we have more quality time for ourselves. It also involves the removal of distracting things from the environment around you. Of course, we need to stay informed of world events, so we can’t just ignore the internet altogether. When you do go into social media, Kozyreva recommends setting time limits, which prevents you from losing track of time as you click on one attractive link after another.

The next strategy is lateral (横向的) reading. Its purpose is to improve judgments about the reliability of information, and to protect you from false and misleading information. The strategy involves opening a new web page to find out more about the source of the information. Likewise, it’s also good to check the source of the information in an internet post. Headlines are often cheating. They’re designed to attract attention, not provide information. The main idea of the article may be completely contrary to the implication in the headline. A sensational claim may provide a link with a headline that seems to support it, but a careful reading of the original source shows it doesn’t.

We live in a digital age in which we’re overwhelmed with information, much of it of poor quality. Train our critical ignoring skills and we can get the benefits of the internet while we avoid falling victim to those who try to control our attention.

1. Which of the following saying can best describe “critical ignoring”?

A．Rob Peter to pay Paul.	B．Make something out of nothing.
C．Birds of a feather flock together.	D．Separate the sheep from the goats.

2. What does the author suggest for applying self-nudging strategy?

A．Improving study equipment.	B．Managing our own time well.
C．Avoiding access to social media.	D．Staying informed of what happened.

3. How can we get the reliable information of an article?

A．By focusing on headlines.	B．By reading posts at random.
C．By searching for original sources.	D．By consulting authorities for advice.

4. What is the purpose of writing the text?

A．To clarify a concept.

B．To promote an app.

C．To describe a scene.

D．To make a proposal.

【推荐2】How To Support a Child With Test Anxiety

It’s normal for students to feel nervous before or during a test.    1    . If you doubt your child is one of the many strugglings with test anxiety, here are some important things to help manage it.

Focus on time and stress management skills. Many children with test anxiety fear that they won’t be able to complete the test in time, so for these kids, focusing on time management skills may help. Winnett says working with planners and calendars and breaking up large projects into smaller tasks can be a good way.     2    .Talk to your child’s teacher about tools students can use and practice deep breathing with your child, which can be a good way to help ease your child’s nerves the night before.

    3     .Children with test anxiety may express a fear of disappointing their parents. Zeltser says parents may reinforce that fear and advises parents to focus on other values – trying your best, for example. Parents can reframe(再构造)these thoughts by telling the child that it’s more important to try hard than it is to get a perfect score on every exam.

Communicate with educators.Teachers are likely to notice test anxiety earlier than parents are. Things like going to the bathroom frequently or shaky hands during exams could be signs of test anxiety that parents may never see.    4     .

Know when to seek professional help. If you’ve tried all of these techniques and nothing seems to help, it might be worthwhile to visit a therapist. Therapists who are trained in techniques like cognitive behavioral therapy will be able to help children with particularly terrible test anxiety.     5    .

A．Help children manage test anxiety

B．Avoid overemphasizing(过分强调) good grades

C．Often, parents can be pretty in the dark

D．Teachers may see it well before a parent is aware

E．Stress management techniques like using a stress ball can also help

F．Additionally, specialists are better suited to identify the cause of the test anxiety

G．Talking to your child’s teacher could be a good way to ease your child’s anxiety

【推荐1】The dark days of the Depression saw an increased demand for stories that excite children in new ways and support them in processing difficult emotions. The features of personalized books meet this need well. With personalized Loss Books, children read about losing a family member. With personalized Me and My Pet Books, children read about how they first met their dogs or cats. Identified as the main driver of the rapidly growing interactive children’s book market, personalized books are far from a gimmick (噱头).

Personalized books are printed or digital books that have been tailored to the needs of a specific child. They follow a simple principle: the publisher provides the users with a pattern, which parents populate with children’s data. Thanks to the advanced print-on-demand possibilities of small-scale publishers, it’s not difficult to create a personalized version of any story.

Publishers claim that personalized books teach children empathy (同理心) and encourage love for reading. Now, you might think that it is surely what all parents and teachers want, so should we replace all books with personalized stories?

Recent observational studies confirmed publishers’ claim that children are highly engaged and motivated to read personalized books. However, in a recent study, we compared children’s understanding of the moral of a story and its application to their lives after they read a personalized, non-personalized or control story. Although children who read personalized stories had more detailed retellings, there was no other difference between the three groups.

This could be because the differences among the children were higher than the effect of personalization. Studies with personalized books are too few for us to know for sure.

Besides, while personal stories are often used in therapeutic (治疗性的) practice or in children with special educational needs, personalized stories are a new writing style, raising many open questions. The misuse of children’s personal data and the moral questions concerning diversity make one wonder how “personalized” the books actually are. The other key point lies in directing children’s focus towards the other. Meanwhile, experts point out that given the increased focus on personalized learning during the gloomy days and the need to customize children’s reading experiences, the rising trend of personalized books will continue.

1. What can we learn about personalized books?

A．They are mainly in digital form.	B．They are created by young writers.
C．They are popular among children.	D．They are highly praised by teachers.

2. What does the recent study suggest?

A．The varieties of personalized stories need expanding.

B．The effects of personalized stories need further study.

C．Personalized stories build up children’s sense of justice.

D．Personalized stories help children apply what they learn.

3. What’s the author’s attitude to personalized books?

A．Concerned.	B．Critical.
C．Positive.	D．Objective.

4. Which can be a suitable title for the text?

A．Personalized Books: a Trick or a Treat

B．How Personalized Books Benefit Children

C．Personalized Books: a Must or an Option

D．How Personalized Books Meet Special Needs

【推荐3】Reading the Screen

The debate on literacy is one of the most heated in education. On the one hand, there is an army of people convinced that traditional skills of reading and writing are declining. On the other hand, a large number of progressives protest that literacy is much more complicated than a simple technical mastery of reading and writing. This second position is supported by most of the relevant academic work over the past 20 years. These studies argue that literacy can only be understood in its social and technical context. In Renaissance England, for example, many more people could read than could write, and within reading there was a distinction between those who could read print and those who could manage the more difficult task of reading manuscripts (手稿). An understanding of these earlier periods helps us understand today’s “crisis in literacy” debate.

It seems that there has been an overall decline in some aspects of reading and writing—you only need to compare the newspapers of today with those of 50 years ago to see a clear decrease in vocabulary and simplification of sentence patterns.

While reading a certain amount of writing is as crucial as it has ever been in industrial societies, it is doubtful whether a fully extended grasp of either is as necessary as it was 40 years ago. While print holds much of its authority as a source of topical information, television has increasingly taken this role. The ability to write fluent letters has been weakened by the telephone and research suggests that for many people the only use for writing, outside formal education, is making shopping lists.

The decision of some car factories to issue their instructions to mechanics as a video pack rather than as a handbook might end the automatic link between industrialization and literacy. On the other hand, it is also the case that ever-increasing numbers of people make their living out of writing, which is better rewarded than ever before. Schools are generally seen as institutions where books rule—films and recorded sound have almost no place, but it is not clear that this opposition is appropriate. While you may not need to read and write to watch television, you certainly need to be able to read and write in order to make programs. Those who work in new media are anything but literate. The traditional oppositions between old and new media are inadequate for understanding the world which a young child now encounters. There is evidence that children are mastering reading and writing in order to get on to the Internet.

Nevertheless, there is a crisis in literacy and it would be foolish to ignore it. To understand that literacy may be declining because it is less central to some aspects of everyday life is not the same as reluctantly accepting this state of affairs. The production of school work with the new technologies could be a significant stimulus to literacy. How should these new technologies be introduced into the schools? It isn’t enough to call for computers in every classroom. They will stand unused unless they are properly combined with the educational culture.

1. When discussing the debate on literacy in education, the writer notes that________.

A．children can read and write as well as they used to

B．academic work has improved over the last 20 years

C．there is evidence that literacy is related to external factors

D．people’s reading skills are more important than writing skills

2. What is the writer’s main point in the 4th paragraph?

A．The printed word is both gaining and losing power.

B．The car factories’ decision brings benefits to labors.

C．Those who do manual jobs no longer need to read.

D．New media offers the best career for the literate.

3. According to the passage, what is the main problem that schools face today?

A．How to teach students the skills of reading and writing.

B．How to apply new technologies to classroom teaching.

C．Raising money to purchase technological equipment.

D．Managing the widely differing levels of literacy among pupils.

4. What can be inferred from the passage?

A．Modern communication has completely replaced writing letters.

B．New media has the potential to promote students’ literacy.

C．New technologies are inadequate for us to know about children’s world.

D．Current newspapers use more complicated sentence patterns than before.