4 . Marilu Arce loves her job, but for a time she considered leaving. The traffic-plagued commute from her home to her office, nearly two hours each way, meant her daughters couldn’t enroll in after school activities because she couldn’t get home in time to take them.

Then her employer adopted a policy permitting her to work from home two days a week, and “I feel like it changed my life,” she said. Her stress level has dropped. Her daughters are thrilled. She likes her job more. That’s the type of reaction Arce’s boss likes to hear as the company measures the success of the work-from-home policy which was instituted three years ago in hopes of improving employee retention. So far, it seems to be working: turnover was less than five percent last year—its lowest ever.

Flexible work policies top employee wish lists when they look for a job, and employers increasingly have been offering them. Studies have shown working remotely increases employee engagement, but in moderation because there is still value in the relationships nurtured when colleagues are face to face. The key, advocates of flexible work policies say, is to match the environment with the type of work that needs to be done.

The flexibility hasn’t hurt productivity, which is up 50 percent. There is “something lost” when colleagues don’t gather at the water cooler, but it’s outweighed by the retention and happiness gains, he said. As jobs that require physical work decline, thanks to technological advances, life superficially appears to get better. Consumers benefit in the form of cheaper prices. Labor-saving appliances all make things easier and suggest that even more and better benefits are on the horizon. But is something lost?

Talk long enough to the most accomplished academics, they will brag about a long-ago college summer job waiting tables or repairing hiking trails. They might praise the installer who redid their kitchen. There seems to be a human instinct to want to do physical work. The proliferation of hard-work reality-television programming reflects this apparent need. Indeed, the more we have become immobile and urbanized, the more we tune in to watch reality television’s truckers, loggers, farmers, drillers and rail engineers. In a society that supposedly despises menial jobs, the television ratings for such programmes suggest that lots of Americans enjoy watching people of action, who work with their hands.

Physical work, in its eleventh hour within a rapidly changing Western culture, still intrigues us in part because it remains the foundation for 21st century complexity. Before any of us can teach, write or speculate, we must first have food, shelter and safety. And for a bit longer, that will require some people to cut grapes and nail two-by-sixes. No apps or 3D printers exist to produce brown rice. Physical labour also promotes human versatility: Those who do not do it, or who do not know how to do it, become divorced from—and, at the same time, dependent on—labourers. Lawyers, accountants and journalists living in houses with yards and driving cars to work thus count on a supporting infrastructure of electricians, landscapers and mechanics. In that context, physical labour can provide independence, at least in a limited sense of not being entirely reliant on a host of hired workers.

1. The author mentions the example of Arce to show that________.

A．she dislikes the present job for the long commuting time

B．she is having trouble balancing work and school life

C．people usually don’t work hard outside office

D．employers are facing the problem of staff drain

2. The practice of flexible working time is based on the belief that________.

A．it helps to increase job satisfaction for the employees

B．it improves harmonious relationship among colleagues

C．the decline in physical work gives employees more mobility

D．employees are entitled to request it according to their work

3. What is the possible reason for the popularity of hard-work reality-television programmes?

A．They entertain those employees burned out with overwork.

B．People can learn some basic labour skills from these programmes.

C．There’s an ongoing need for physical labour skills that technology doesn’t possess.

D．They offer instructive information for both employers and employees.

4. Which of the following can be the best title for the passage?

A．The Emergence of Alternative Work Arrangements

B．The Rise of Automation, the Decline in Need for Labour

C．Time to Rethink in the Face of the Evolution of Work

D．New Challenges for Today’s Employers and Academics

6 . If you visited a big aquarium such as SeaWorld or the Miami Seaquarium a decade ago, performances by tiger whales were probably a centerpiece of the visiting experience. However, animal advocates have pushed to end the harmful practice of keeping these enormous whales locked up in small pools and forcing them to perform for audiences. Now the good news is emerging from this continuing movement Lolita, one tiger whale living in the Miami Seaquarium, may soon be released to the Salish Sea where her mother lives.

Lolita’s possible homecoming is a longtime coming. The enormous animal was caught in 1970 in the Salish Sea, a body of water off the coast of Washington, which is home to tiger whales. Until now she has spent the past 52 years in captivity in Miami. Her tank is considered the smallest among those of captive whales in America. She has been forced to perform for crowds for decades. This has resulted in injuries. She has hit her head while performing “fast swims”, and her blood work has been abnormal.

Whales in captivity can suffer severe health issues. Lolita outlived her tank-mate Hugo, who died of aneurism (动脉瘤) caused by hitting his head on the aquarium walls. “Lolita’s lucky,” said Howard Garrett, a whale researcher and activist. “It’s against all odds that she is still alive. I think is her mental health that keeps her physical health in good shape. She is a complete miracle in her ability to stay healthy.”

According to the United States, Department of Agriculture, Lolita may not be getting enough food and water. This only adds to the list of health concerns which can appear in captivity. Activists who have been pushing for decades may at last see Lolita return to the Salish Sea, where her mother, a 93-year old tiger whale known as “Ocean Sun”, leads a pod. Returning these magnificent creatures to their natural habitat is a humane solution advocated for by the likes of the International Marine Mammal Project.

1. Which of the following best describes Lolita?

A．She got many injuries while performing for audiences over 50 years.

B．Her blood works well though she suffers severe health problems.

C．She was caught on the beach in Miami as a result of her injuries.

D．She was switched to a bigger tank because of her mate’s attack.

2. Why is Lolita in good physical health according to Howard Garrett?

A．Her mental state is sound.

B．Hugo influenced her positively.

C．She gets timely medical treatment.

D．Whale researchers offer necessary aids.

3. What can we know from the last paragraph?

A．Activists have succeeded in accomplishing the project.

B．Lolita will definitely fit in with the pod led by her mother.

C．Joint efforts are being made to release creatures like Lolita.

D．There’s little hope for Lolita to return to her natural habitat.

4. What is the best title of the passage?

A．Lolita, the Last Tiger Whale in the World

B．Lolita, Released to the Salish Sea

C．Animals in Capacity Are Suffering a Lot

D．Lolita May Soon Go Free from Captivity

7 . Though researchers have long known that adults build unconscious (无意识的) preferences over a lifetime of making choices between things that are essentially the same, the new finding that even babies engage in this phenomenon demonstrates that this way of justifying choice is intuitive (凭直觉的) and somehow fundamental to the human experience.

“The act of making a choice changes how we feel about our options,” said Alex Silver, a Johns Hopkins researcher. “Even infants who are really just at the start of making choices for themselves have this preference.”

The findings are published today in the journal Psychological Science. People assume they choose things that they like. But research suggests that’s sometimes backwards: we like things because we choose them. And, we dislike things that we don’t choose. “Adults make these inferences unconsciously,” said co-author Lisa Feigenson, a Johns Hopkins scientist in child development. “We justify our choice after the fact.”

This makes sense for adults in a consumer culture who must make random choices every day, between everything from toothpaste brands to styles of jeans. The question was when exactly people start doing this. So they turned to babies, who don’t get many choices so, as Feigenson puts it, are “a perfect window into the origin of this tendency.”

The team brought 10-to 20-month-old babies into the lab and gave them a choice of objects to play with; two equally bright and colorful soft blocks. They set them far apart, so the babies had to crawl to one or the other — a random choice. After the baby chose one of the toys, the researchers took it away and came back with a new option. The babies could then pick from the toy they didn’t play with the first time, or a brand new toy. Their choices showed they “dis-prefer the unchosen object.”

To continue studying the evolution of choice in babies, the lab will next look at the idea of “choice overload.” For adults, choice is good, but too many choices can be a problem, so the lab will try to determine if that is also true for babies.

1. What is people’s assumption about the act of making choices?

A．They like what they choose.

B．They choose what they like.

C．They base choices on the fact.

D．They make choices thoughtfully.

2. Why were babies selected as subjects for the study?

A．To help them make better choices.

B．To guide them to perceive the world.

C．To track the root of making random choices.

D．To deepen the understanding of a consumer culture.

3. What does the study on the babies show?

A．They like novel objects.

B．Their choices are mostly based on colors.

C．Their random choices become preferences.

D．They are unable to make choices for themselves.

4. What will the following study focus on?

A．The law of “choice overload”.

B．The problem of adults’ many choices.

C．Why too many choices can influence adults.

D．Whether babies are troubled with many choices.

9 . When people talk about the future, we like to think that we will be able to drive out of our garages and take to the ________ in our own personal flying car. The advantages are obvious. Some people ________ this technology will allow complete three-dimensional freedom of movement. We could fly at 489 kilometres per hour, ________ traffic lights, busy roads and speeding tickets. However, some people point to the disadvantages of flying cars. They claim that there are certain to be problems with traffic ________. Another big problem is mechanical ________. What will happen if they break down? ________, if they become popular, there is likely to be another big problem: air traffic congestion. So it looks like flying cars face more than a few problems if they are to get off the ground!

Most of us have printed out an electronic document on paper, but think about the ________ of printing out a three-dimensional object in plastic. 3D printers build an object using layers line-by-line like a(n) ________ printer until the object is complete. Vehicle companies like BMW and Volkswagen already use 3D printers to make life-size models of car parts. At the moment the process is slow and quality is ________, but before long it might be possible to see a product on a website and then ________ it to your printer at home. In the future we could make our own furniture, jewellery, cups, plates, shoes and toys from designs on our computers, and reduce the amount of ________ we have to do.

Imagine having your own Ironman suit. There are several companies trying to build a practical robot ‘exoskeleton’. This is a suit of robot arms and legs which follows your ________. It will allow the wearer to lift heavy objects, walk long distances and even punch through walls! There are ________ military advantages for this technology and might help people to walk again after disease or injury. However, besides cost and battery life, another problem is that a badly ________ robot suit could injure the wearer because you wouldn’t want your robot leg or arm bending the ________ way.

1.

A．parking lot

B．valleys

C．skies

D．dimension

2.

A．confirm

B．predict

C．prove

D．approve

3.

A．neglecting

B．avoiding

C．changing

D．controlling

4.

A．flows

B．crashes

C．organization

D．control

5.

A．accidents

B．industry

C．failure

D．analysis

6.

A．Also

B．Hence

C．However

D．Therefore

7.

A．access

B．improvement

C．possibility

D．compliment

8.

A．normal

B．home-made

C．special

D．imported

9.

A．high

B．advanced

C．various

D．low

10.

A．click

B．check

C．remove

D．download

11.

A．shopping

B．bargaining

C．shipping

D．delivery

12.

A．intentions

B．movements

C．instructions

D．advice

13.

A．forceful

B．possible

C．obvious

D．doubtful

14.

A．criticized

B．programmed

C．developed

D．commented

15.

A．wavy

B．direct

C．wrong

D．straight

10 . Natural silence — the kind when you hear nothing but the sound of nature around you — is becoming increasingly scarce. The noise of man-made can be heard even in the remote corners of national parks and deep in the Arctic Ocean.

This is having some troubling effects. In humans, noise pollution has been linked to physical, mental health problems and cognitive impairment (认知功能障碍) in children. In wildlife,it’s disturbing navigation, pairing, communication and can cause hearing loss. “We’re losing the ability to listen to nature without noise pollution,” says sound recordist Matt Mikkelsen. He’s part of the non-profit organization Quiet Parks International, which aims to identify and preserve the planet’s last quiet places.

Recently, this took him to Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northeastern Minnesota. No cars, motor boats, electricity or telephone lines are allowed in the one-million-acre area,making it a strong candidate for Quiet Park status. But listening back to the recording, Mikkelsen can hear the low hum (嗡鸣声) of a commercial plane flying far away.

Quiet Parks hasn’t yet decided if Boundary Waters meets its criteria — it’s one of 260 potential sites around the world that the organization is currently exploring. The team will analyze the sound recordings from each location and consider them alongside other data.

In recent years, the world has been getting louder, with cities and towns expanding and an increasing number of noises from cars, airplanes or ships. But during the COVID-19 pandemic (流行病), there has been momentary delay.In2020,global air travel was down by 60% and road transport decreased by almost half. Scientists in Europe found that noise caused by humans fell by up to 50% after lock downs were carried out.

“People enjoyed the silence,” says Mikkelsen. “There were no airplanes in the sky and cars weren’t on the street. It was an incredible thing to be able to hear the world, all of a sudden, free from noise pollution,” he says. Since the start of the pandemic, Quiet Parks says it has experienced a huge increase in interest for quiet places. “I hope that we can take that desire for a world with less noise forward,” says Mikkelsen, “and appreciate the spots we have, where we can go and not experience noise pollution.”

1. What does the underlined word “scarce” probably mean in paragraph 1?

A．Special.

B．Rare.

C．Common.

D．Typical.

2. What is paragraph 2 mainly about?

A．Causes of hearing loss.

B．Tips on protecting the nature.

C．Harmful effects of noise pollution.

D．Unidentified problems from human beings.

3. What will Matt Mikkelsen’s team analyse according to the text?

A．The sound recordings.	B．Global air travels.
C．Quiet Parks’ criteria.	D．Data of the pandemic.

4. Where is the text probably taken from?

A．A book review.	B．A travel guide.
C．A business plan.	D．A science report.