1 . I am a big laugher. I’ve been told that even in a room of a thousand people, you can always hear me laughing over the crowd. For me, laughter is the ultimate form of embodied joy. And by “embodied”, I mean that my whole body is involved when I laugh. On the inside, it’s like a bubbling fountain of joy spilling out all over the place.
But what is joy, anyway?
Life can be terrible, but if you decide to follow the sound of the joy-fountain, you will find joy showing up in all kinds of places: pets playfully bouncing around, kindness, or even in nothingness.
How can joy be found? A friend moved into a new apartment and needed some help, so I helped him. Afterwards, he was obviously so much happier and at ease. I noticed that playing even a small part in his happiness brought me great joy, and I took a moment to let this feeling of embodied joy in. We can practice letting joy in by noticing how it feels to smile. Where does your body light up when you smile? When I smile, it makes me want to take a deep breath, and I notice my shoulders and belly relaxing. When I embody caring and loving, it feels great!
Sadly, many of us are unaware of joy, or suspicious of it. Maybe you are afraid to open up to joy, or maybe you are so unfamiliar with what joy feels like that you ignore or resist it when it comes knocking. No one, other than you, owns your happiness, but you might unknowingly block feelings or experiences that help you embody joy. The fact is that when you can’t embody joy, you miss out on one of life’s essential vitamins.
Want more joy? Don’t be afraid to look silly. Silliness helps us take things less personally. It helps us see the world the way a kiddoes. When we can find more joy in the smalls of everyday life, we can embody happiness, rather than just pursuing it.
1. How is the topic of joy introduced at the beginning of the passage?| A．By highlighting a joyful experience. |
| B．By stressing the importance of laughing. |
| C．By presenting an ultimate form of satisfaction. |
| D．By sharing the author’s understanding of joy. |
| A．Taking a deep breath. | B．Smiling to your friends. |
| C．Doing small acts of kindness. | D．Reflecting on nothingness. |
| A．Life is the creation of joy | B．A happy man always laughs last |
| C．People are always unaware of joy | D．Happy people are happy in childhood |
2 . Black taxis have been a common sight in London for many years. Now these taxis and their drivers have become the focus of a new study into Alzheimer’s (阿尔兹海默症). For those on the outside, it may seem that behind the wheel of these black taxis are just common people who help move us to our places. But hidden within their brains is a map of London’s streets that has put GPS technology to shame for many years.
“The knowledge”, the test for London’s taxi drivers, stands among the hardest tests one could ever experience. It includes remembering information repeatedly from the memory of minute details about between 25, 000 and 56, 000 streets in London, depending on who’s taking the test, from the Trafalgar Square to the tiniest residential lanes (居民巷).
Usually, the hippocampus (马体) feels the influences of Alzheimer’s most. The hippocampus controls the brain’s short-term memory and spatial memory (空间记忆) systems. University College London and Alzheimer’s Research UK are coming together to study these taxi drivers’ brains. And the taxi drivers’ hippocampi continue to grow as they go on doing the job for more years. This suggests that perhaps there’s something we can do to reproduce the influence on the general population.
Lead researcher Hugo Spiers was part of the team which 20 years ago found that, like birds’, the taxi drivers’ hippocampi slowly got bigger. In fact, research has found for years that any animal that requires detailed spatial knowledge of their land experiences growth in the hippocampus.
Spiers’ team hopes to deal with Alzheimer’s by studying the taxi drivers “brains, since the hippocampus becomes smaller with the development of Alzheimer’s. To collect more information, Spiers has asked thirty London’s taxi drivers connected to an MRI machine to drive around. The machine will allow the researchers to keep a real-time watch on the workings of the hippocampus. “It’s been a joy to help scientists fight the disease,” said taxi driver Robert Lordan.
1. What can we learn about “The knowledge’?| A．It lasts for a few minutes only. | B．It invites some residents to be testers. |
| C．It is a great challenge to people’s memory. | D．It is usually held in London's busy streets. |
| A．Animals’ hippocampi are quite different from humans’. |
| B．The new study can do good to animals as well. |
| C．More detailed studies on animals’ brains are needed. |
| D．Animals’ hippocampi are similar to humans’ |
| A．To decide who has the largest hippocampus. |
| B．To find out what their hippocampi are doing at work. |
| C．To know how Alzheimer’s develops in their brains. |
| D．To test whether the machine influences the hippocampus. |
3 . “Why do I live? Why do I wish for anything, or do anything? Is there anything in my life that will not be destroyed by my death?”
These are the words of the famous Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. Like Tolstoy, many people ask these difficult questions. And they struggle to find meaning in their life. Tolstoy spent his whole life trying to answer difficult questions like these. His search for answers influenced his writing.
On August 28th, 1828, Leo Tolstoy was born in the country of Russia.
As a child, Tolstoy was a member of the Russian Catholic Church. But as a young man, he began to question that faith. Tolstoy wanted to make his own moral decisions; he was tired of being told what to believe. He thought people could achieve a degree of perfection if they tried hard enough. So he worked very hard at being the best in everything he did. He thought that he would find meaning and truth in success.
In the 1850s, Leo Tolstoy wrote his first stories. He wrote about his experiences in the army. He also told stories about when he was a child. These works were published and Tolstoy became a well-known writer.
Tolstoy was finally successful. He earned the respect he always wanted. Many wealthy and intelligent men met and talked with Tolstoy. Some of the men were writers like him. They talked a lot about faith and the meaning of life. But soon Tolstoy recognized that these men were not perfect. Now he knew they could not answer his questions about faith.
So in the 1860s, Tolstoy tried a different way to find meaning. He opened a school for the children of his serfs—the people who worked on his land. These workers were very poor. He wanted to help them because he thought they were more honest than the wealthy people he knew.
Tolstoy learned many things from his workers. He respected how they worked hard to provide for their families.
He began to believe that marriage and family would give his life meaning. So in 1862, Leo Tolstoy married a young woman named Sonya Behrs.
The next 15 years were the best years of Tolstoy's life. It was during this time that he wrote his most famous books-War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Many literature experts say that War and Peace is one of the greatest books ever written.
Both War and Peace and Anna Karenina communicate Tolstoy's beliefs about the Russian nation, church and people. They also communicate what he thought was the answer to all his questions. Tolstoy believed humans were supposed to live a simple life and take care of their families. Tolstoy thought this would satisfy him and bring him happiness.
Leo Tolstoy is still a very respected writer today. His faith and writings have influenced many people.
Tolstoy's search for the meaning of life is something everyone can understand. His teachings still interest people all over the world.
1. Which shows the correct order of the following events?①Tolstoy served in the army ②Tolstoy got married ③Tolstoy wrote War and Peace
④ Tolstoy started a school. ⑤Tolstoy became a well-known writer.
| A．①②③④⑤ | B．⑤①③②④ | C．①⑤④②③ | D．⑤④①③② |
| A．Respect | B．Defend. | C．Support. | D．Comfort. |
| A．Leo Tolstoy: Living for writing | B．Leo Tolstoy: Influencing the world |
| C．Leo Tolstoy: Being the best in everything | D．Leo Tolstoy: Searching for the meaning of life |
4 . The term “Hudson River school” was applied to the foremost representatives of nineteenth-century North American landscape painting. Apparently unknown during the golden days of the American landscape movement, which began around 1850s and lasted until the late 1860s, the Hudson River school seems to have emerged in the 1870s as a direct result of the struggle between the old and the new generations of artists each to assert its own style as the representative American art. The older painters, most of whom were born before 1835, practiced in a mode often self-taught and monopolized by landscape subject matter and were securely established in and fostered by the reigning American art organization, the National Academy of Design.
The younger painters returning home from training in Europe worked more with figural subject matter and in a bold and impressionistic technique; their prospects for patronage in their own country were uncertain, and they sought to attract it by attaining academic recognition in New York. One of the results of the conflict between the two factions was that what in previous years had been referred to as the American, native, or, occasionally New York school — the most representative school of American art in any genre — had by 1890s become firmly established in the minds of critics and public alike as the Hudson River school.
The sobriquet was first applied around 1879. While it was not intended as flattering, it was hardly inappropriate. The Academicians at whom it was aimed had worked and socialized in New York, the Hudson’s port city, and had painted the river and its shores with varying frequency. Most important, perhaps, was that they had all maintained with a certain fidelity a manner of technique and composition consistent with those of America’s first popular landscape artist, Thomas Cole, who built a career painting the Catskill Mountain scenery bordering the Hudson River.
A possible implication in the term applied to the group of landscapists was that many of them had, like Cole, lived on or near the banks of the Hudson. Further, the river had long served as the principal route to other sketching grounds favored by the Academicians, particularly the Adirondacks and the mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire different ways.
1. According to the passage what was the function of the National Academy of Design for the painters born before 1835?| A．It mediated conflicts between artists. | B．It supervised the incorporation of new artistic techniques. |
| C．It supported their growth and development. | D．It determined which subjects were appropriate. |
| A．In New Hampshire. | B．In the Adirondacks. |
| C．In Vermon. | D．In Europe. |
| A．people | B．sides | C．cities | D．images |
| A．Hudson River School | B．The Nature’s Nation |
| C．Early Painters and Their Drawings | D．North American Landscape Painting |
5 . Our neighbors had a loud party last night. We weren’t
What
And it really worked in their favor. My husband and I were so friendly that even when the event went past the
It takes such little effort to make people feel that they
| A．located | B．explored | C．challenged | D．invited |
| A．trapped | B．impressed | C．annoyed | D．embarrassed |
| A．later | B．closer | C．earlier | D．further |
| A．shocking | B．frightening | C．puzzling | D．amazing |
| A．call number | B．room number | C．account number | D．car number |
| A．anxiously | B．politely | C．regularly | D．obviously |
| A．imagination | B．consideration | C．recognition | D．organization |
| A．promised | B．supplied | C．designed | D．compared |
| A．stress | B．anxiety | C．worry | D．anger |
| A．respond | B．adapt | C．contribute | D．stick |
| A．figure | B．succeed | C．matter | D．access |
| A．sleep | B．maintain | C．travel | D．relax |
| A．noticed | B．delivered | C．explored | D．proved |
| A．surrounding | B．respect | C．curiosity | D．distance |
| A．strategy | B．apology | C．communication | D．inspiration |
6 . People from East Asia tend to have more difficulty than those from Europe in distinguishing facial expressions — and a new report published online in Current Biology explains why.
Rachael Jack, University of Glasgow researcher, said that rather than scanning evenly (均匀的) across a face as Westerners do, Easterners fix their attention on the eyes.
“We show that Easterners and Westerners look at different face features to read facial expressions,” Jack said. “Westerners look at the eyes and the mouth in equal measure, whereas Easterners favor the eyes and neglect the mouth.”
According to Jack and her colleagues, the discovery shows that human communication of emotion is more complex than previously believed. As a result, facial expressions that had been considered universally recognizable cannot be used to reliably convey emotion in cross-cultural situations.
The researchers studied cultural differences in the recognition of facial expressions by recording the eye movements of 13 Western Caucasian and 13 East Asian people while they observed pictures of expressive faces and put them into categories: happy, sad, surprised, fearful, disgusted, angry, or neutral. They compared how accurately participants read those facial expressions using their particular eye movement strategies.
It turned out that Easterners focused much greater attention on the eyes and made significantly more errors than Westerners did. “The cultural difference in eye movements that they show is probably a reflection of cultural difference in facial expressions,” Jack said. “Our data suggest that whereas Westerners use the whole face to convey emotion, Easterners use the eyes more and mouth less.”
In short, the data show that facial expressions are not universal signals of human emotion. From here on, examining how cultural factors have diversified these basic social skills will help our understanding of human emotion. Otherwise, when it comes to communicating emotions across cultures, Easterners and Westerners will find themselves lost in translation.
1. The discovery shows that Westerners ________.| A．pay equal attention to the eyes and the mouth |
| B．consider facial expressions universally reliable |
| C．observe the eyes and the mouth in different ways |
| D．have more difficulty in recognizing facial expressions |
| A．The participants in the study. |
| B．The researchers of the study. |
| C．The errors made during the study. |
| D．The data collected from the study. |
| A．do translation more successfully |
| B．study the mouth more frequently |
| C．examine the eyes more attentively |
| D．read facial expressions more correctly |
| A．The Eye as the Window to the Soul |
| B．Cultural Differences in Reading Emotions |
| C．Effective Methods to Develop Social Skills |
| D．How to Increase Cross-cultural Understanding |
7 . The impact of technology on language is a topic that often causes concern, with many assuming that it is simply ruining it. However, language experts resist such pessimism, noting that there is little evidence to support the view that speech is getting worse. Gretchen McCulloch, in her book Because Internet, focuses on what can be learned about language from the internet rather than talking about its supposed negative effects.
McCulloch compares studying language online to growing bacteria (细菌) in a Petri dish,where trends emerge and disappear quickly, allowing language experts to observe changes that would otherwise take a considerable amount of time. The influence of strong ties like friends or family vs weaker ties on language change is analyzed, with computer simulations (模拟) revealing that having both strong and weaker ties helps spread updates in a community.
The role of social media platforms in language change is also discussed. Twitter, with its mix of strong and weak ties, is shown to drive more language change than Facebook, which is controlled by stronger ties. Emoji is highlighted as a universal digital expression of gestures, not a language. Additionally, there is ev idence that the use of internet“innovations”such as“omg”dates back to pre-computer eras.
McCulloch’s book focuses on the birth of a new medium rather than a new language. The rise of mass writing on the internet, characterized by frequent, error-filled, and short-lived communication, challenges traditional ideas about writing’s importance. McCulloch suggests future historians should see this as a return to more casual (随意的) language, paying more attention to the value of tools that improve social interaction online. The book argues against the idea that these changes might lead to the end of “real” writing, advocating for an appreciation of anything that enhances human connection and the enjoyment of each other’s company.
1. How might McCulloch sound in her book Because Internet?| A．Sensitive. | B．Scientific. | C．Pessimistic. | D．Dismissive. |
| A．The development of digital language. |
| B．The difference between social media platforms. |
| C．The influence of the internet on language change. |
| D．The connection between humans and the internet. |
| A．Interpersonal bonds play a role in online communication. |
| B．Formal language is unlikely to improve social interaction. |
| C．The birth of new media has removed writing’s importance. |
| D．Mass writing can make web-based conversations effective. |
| A．How to Achieve Network Effect? | B．Technology, Fear or Convenience? |
| C．What If Faced with Media Terms? | D．Internet Degrades or Helps Speech? |
8 . It was meant to connect us, make us smarter and our lives easier. And it has. But there’s at least one comer of life where the Internet has made things so much more difficult: gift giving.
Once upon a time, if you were struggling to find a present for a loved one, there were easy options to fall back on-DVDs, CDs, video games and other physical media. This wasn’t even that long ago, but now it’s been snatched from our grasp by the Internet offering us the chance, at a relatively low cost, to watch, listen to or read whatever we want, whenever we want. With everything already watched, listened to, or read, buying a present has become near impossible.
Therefore, we all have to work at becoming perfect gift givers, taking all factors into consideration and searching high and low to seek out the ideal present. If we go the extra mile, there’s less chance that the person we have in mind has already bought what we’re considering online.
But as I now consider this exact plan of action, I’m thinking perhaps it’s not all that bad. Maybe the Internet is delivering us a lesson, firm but fair: the era of half-baked present purchasing is over and it’s time to go hard or go home.
In this era of immediate satisfaction, if you want to give someone a useful present, you do have to actually go to the effort of sourcing something nice for them. Perhaps that’s making for a more rewarding gift experience for all involved. And perhaps it also means fewer gifts that are given as an excuse and end up being unused.
1. How is the topic of gift giving introduced in Paragraph 1?| A．By demonstrating the prospect of the Internet. |
| B．By showing the difficulty in using the Internet. |
| C．By pointing out the shortcoming of the Internet. |
| D．By arguing about the possible benefits of the Internet. |
| A．Numerous gift options. | B．Relative high cost for presents. |
| C．Limited offer from digital giants. | D．Easy access to the Internet versions. |
| A．Purchase satisfactory gifts. | B．Try to select a present. |
| C．Buy fewer gifts as an excuse. | D．Make more valuable presents. |
| A．Confused. | B．Critical. | C．Neutral. | D．Acceptable. |
9 . Macquarie Island is a tiny island that’s part of Australia. It’s about halfway between New Zealand and Antarctica. The island’s been made a world heritage area because it’s so untouched, but this unique environment is under threat from some unwanted visitors.
It all started when seal hunters came to the island in the early 1800s. They brought rabbits with them as a source of food for the journey, and also on board the ships were rats and mice, which made their way onto the island too. They’re being blamed for destroying the homes of marine birds, causing soil loss and ripping up plant cover, as these before-and-after photos show.
So what’s being done about the problem? It starts with a team of helicopters that fly across the island carrying these giant containers. Inside them are poisoned pellets (有毒饲料) which are dropped and spread across the island. For any rabbits that survived the baiting (诱饵) , there’s a plan B. This special team of dogs is being put through a final training. It’ll be their job to track down any remaining rabbits. They have to also learn to behave around the island’s native wildlife. The dogs could be here for years or until the task is complete. The dogs don’t actually kill the rabbits. They find them, then the hunters decide to either catch the rabbits or shoot them.
But the program has received a bit of criticism. Some people argue 25 million dollars is a lot of money to be spending on wiping out rabbits and rodents (啮齿目动物), and in the process, some native birds will be killed because of the baiting.
The reality is the problem isn’t going to be solved overnight. The people running the program say that even if one pair of rabbits is left alive, the whole task will be seen as a failure, which means these guys could be here for a long time, trying to ensure that this precious island remains protected from pests.
1. Who are these unwanted visitors?| A．Seal hunters. | B．Marine wildlife. | C．Native birds. | D．Foreign species. |
| A．Advancing. | B．Destroying. | C．Dividing | D．Balancing |
| A．Poisoned pellets are being dropped on the island from helicopters. |
| B．A team of hunters is being trained to catch or shoot rabbits. |
| C．Native birds are being protected from the unwanted visitors. |
| D．A special team of dogs is being sent to kill the rabbits. |
| A．To spend as little money as possible. |
| B．To protect native birds from the unwanted visitors. |
| C．To ensure that no pair of rabbits survive on the island. |
| D．To train dogs to track down the rabbits on the island. |
10 . Why do we talk the way we do? It might date back to when our ancestors left the jungle for the open plain. Between 5.3 million and 16 million years ago, Africa’s landscapes changed from thick, leafy forests to wide-open grasslands. This environmental change pushed our ancestors out of the trees and onto the ground. Along with all of the physical and behavioral changes this may have caused, researchers also believe it may have changed the way we speak.
“Open landscapes provide us with fewer objects to affect signal communication, meaning our voices can travel further compared with that in thick forests,” Charlotte Gannon, a researcher who studies language development, told Newsweek. “The move to these open spaces may have increased the effectiveness of our communication.”
By comparing the vocal calls of the orangutan (大猩猩) , Gannon and her team were able to establish how different calls could travel across different landscapes. In their study, the team played 487 calls from orangutans and measured their audibility (可听度) at set length over an overall distance of over 1,300 feet in the South African plain.
“Our results were surprising,” Gannon said, “The rule of sound spread suggests that lower-frequency (低频率) sounds (the grumphs) would have traveled further than higher-frequency sounds (the kiss squeaks). Our results actually found the opposite to this.” In these environmental settings, consonant (辅音)-like calls traveled a lot further than vowel (元音) -like calls. Actually, around 80 percent of consonant-based calls were audible at 1,300 feet, compared to only 20 percent of vowel-based calls.
Gannon said these results highlight the importance of studying living orangutan to learn about our species’ history. “We can view them as time machines that allow us to recreate key moments of our history so we can learn more about the development of our language,” Gannon said. “Despite their popularity in modern languages, consonants have often been forgotten when discussing speech development. Our research highlights not only their presence in ancient times but their importance to the development of language.”
1. What led to the speech development?| A．Behavioral change. | B．Time development. |
| C．Physical development. | D．Environmental change. |
| A．Less block. | B．Better tools. | C．Louder voice. | D．Larger vocabulary. |
| A．The results of the study. |
| B．The process of the research. |
| C．The purpose of the program. |
| D．The participants of the project. |
| A．The living orangutan can recreate our language. |
| B．Consonants are significant in language development. |
| C．The sound of grumphs travels further than that of kiss squeaks. |
| D．Consonant-like calls travel four times further than vowel-like calls. |
