1 . Pullman is a superb writer and Seagull is a brilliant communicator. They had a debate after Seagull posted a question on his social media platform: “When you were trying to create an environment for learning, what were your best pieces of classical music to listen to?” He received hundreds of suggestions — and one negative reply, from Pullman: “That’s not what classical music is for. Treat it with respect.”
That did it! Everyone — professional musicians, students, teachers — weighed into the argument, and the majority supported Seagull and were criticizing Pullman.
It’s easy to see why people are annoyed. We all want classical music to be as accessible as possible, especially to the young. If some of them are using Bach or Schubert as a tool to help them study, what’s the problem? They may also develop an attachment to classical music.
So is Pullman ridiculous and supercilious by objecting to classical music being used as background music? At first sight, his idea seems stuffy and extreme. By suggesting that classical music should be “treated with respect” and not used as background music, Pullman seems to be closing classical music of to millions of people.
It’s worth pointing out, however, that he isn’t the first to express concerns about classical music being devalued by becoming too commonplace in today’s technologically shaped world. In Benjamin Britten’s 1964 speech, the composer expressed exactly the same worries as Pullman. Britten suggested, “The true musical experience demands some preparation, some effort, a journey to a special place, saving up for a ticket, some homework perhaps”. In short, it demands as much effort from listeners as from composers and performers.
I don’t agree with such an extreme viewpoint, but I do think it touches on a reality. You will never fully grasp the beauty of classical music if you half-hear it only in the background. That doesn’t necessarily matter. Music can be enjoyed on many levels. What Pullman and Britten are really saying is that, in a drive for “accessibility”, we shouldn’t deny the emotional and intellectual complexity underpinning (构成) much classical music.
1. What did Seagull’s posting result in?| A．Great admiration for Seagull. |
| B．Public criticism of classical music. |
| C．A discussion about learning environments. |
| D．An argument over the role of classical music. |
| A．Self-important. | B．Open-minded. | C．Impatient. | D．Considerate. |
| A．To show his affection for classical music. |
| B．To introduce young people to classical music. |
| C．To demonstrate classical music is demanding. |
| D．To support Pullman’s idea over classical music. |
| A．Favorable. | B．Doubtful. | C．Objective. | D．Uninterested. |
2 . Socially, few things are more annoying than someone repeatedly checking their phone in the middle of your conversation with them. Soon enough, you’re having unhappy thoughts, thinking of their way like, I’m boring you; you’re more concerned with whoever’s on that phone than me; you don’t care about me. None of that is necessarily true, but this is: “If someone is engaged in a great conversation, they wouldn’t care about their phones,” says Leslie, a psychologist and researcher at NYU.
Do you sometimes wonder: What should I have said to a rude person like this? What if we have to talk to such maddening persons? Experts have advice about how to deal with this.
Whether you say something or not, remember that the cell-addict’s annoying habits aren’t about you. “It’s rude, for sure, but sometimes we mistake the behavior for more than what it is,” says Leslie. “It’s possible that they are facing something tough and merely experiencing nervousness or anxiety,” he adds. It’s also possible that their partner is stuck with a flat tyre (轮胎) or their kid is sick in hospital. The point is that you don’t know.
So before you become angry at the cell-addict’s open rudeness, focus instead on building a better conversation than whatever’s going down on Instagram. You might never be able to achieve this, given the power of today’s social media, so if you’re close enough to a person, Leslie advises you to directly ask them: “What’s on that thing that’s so interesting?” Chances are that they will apologise at once and quickly put the phone away. But if the answer is something real, talk about it. Better yet, you can avoid the situation in advance by saying something like, “I’m really interested in catching up properly, so how about we leave our phones in the car?” If they indeed have that flat tyre or sick kid, at least you won’t have to assume that it’s because your stories are boring.
1. Why do people often check their phones according to Leslie?| A．They are anxious about something. |
| B．They are enjoying the conversation. |
| C．They are bored with the conversation. |
| D．They are interested in what’s on the phone. |
| A．They may be nervous or anxious. |
| B．They are being rude intentionally. |
| C．They are avoiding the conversation. |
| D．They are disinterested in social interactions. |
| A．Talking about something real. |
| B．Asking the other person directly. |
| C．Avoiding the situation in advance. |
| D．Asking the other person for explanation. |
| A．What is a cell-addict. |
| B．How to deal with a cell-addict. |
| C．Why people repeatedly check their phones. |
| D．When to cut in appropriately during a conversation. |
3 . Grace Hemingway gifted her son, Earnest, a copy of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem Hiawatha on his sixth birthday. While it’s hard to say how much her choice of gift influenced Earnest Hemingway at the time, he grew up to become one of the most famous writers in history.
Books can make for charming gifts. Giving a book as a gift to someone is much more than a simple exchange of goods.
When giving books, think about your recipients’ (接受者) favorite. It is worth the time to try and find a rare copy, like first editions or signed copies. They’ll be delighted by the effort. Are your friends stuck in a dullness and in need of some motivation? You can gift them a book that offers inspiration. Also, not mainstream yet useful guides related to their career are helpful.
A book when received as a gift has meaning to the recipient by itself if you’ve put some thought into it. An inscription (题词) adds to the appeal of your gift by making it more individualized. Without an inscription, although still meaningful, the book is just a book indistinguishable from hundreds of thousands of copies out there. A case for not penning down an inscription is that it makes it easier for them to pass it on to someone else if they don’t like the book.
Wondering if you should give your recipient a hardcover or a paperback? There is no universal preference among readers. Some like the paperbacks because of the convenience, easy to carry around and travel with. But many people, including me, prefer hardcovers because they’re more traditional and last much longer. A study designed to find a relation between the weight of wine bottles and their prices found that in most cases the weight of a wine bottle related positively with the price. The weight helped consumers perceive the wine as better.
In a word, books can make for memorable gifts. A good book gifted thoughtfully will create a pleasant memory.
1. Why is Earnest Hemingway mentioned in the first paragraph?| A．To share a book. | B．To present a fact. |
| C．To introduce the topic. | D．To make a comparison. |
| A．Who the gift should be given. | B．How a book should be presented. |
| C．Where a proper book can be found. | D．What kinds of books can be chosen as gifts. |
| A．To make the book more personal. |
| B．To record the giver’s reading experience. |
| C．To make the content of the book more appealing. |
| D．To allow the book to be more pleasing to the eye. |
| A．Good wine is all in heavier bottles. |
| B．The weight of a book determines its price. |
| C．A hardcover book is often valued more as a gift. |
| D．The price of wine depends on the quality of its bottle. |
4 . Growing up, I felt that I learned some things quickly and other things painfully slowly. Picking up French and Spanish seemed to come naturally, while painting and drawing required a lot of practice. I thought that some people just have a talent for languages; others don’t.
You’ve probably felt the same way—that certain things were easier for you to learn. And so did my research partners. So we set out to identify what makes some people learn faster than others. If we could just distill (提取) these unique characteristics, we thought, we would be able to create better learning environments—and make everyone a fast learner.
In our study, we model data from student performance on groups of tasks that assess the same skill component and that provide follow-up instructions on student errors. Our models estimate the increase in correctness after each practice opportunity. We applied our models to 1.3 million observations across 27 datasets of student interactions with online practice systems in the context of elementary to college courses. In contrast, and much to our surprise, we found students to be astonishingly similar in estimated learning rate. There are no such things as fast and slow learners!
We find that a typical student needs about seven learning opportunities to master a typical knowledge component. They start at different levels of proficiency but, when provided with high-quality practice opportunities, they learn at about the same speed. Yes, they will end in different places-but that’s because they have different starting lines, not because they are quicker or slower to learn.
That means the types of opportunities you get are important. Detailed, timely feedback and hints provide favorable conditions that allow you to consistently make progress, regardless of where you began.
Don’t think you’re alone if learning feels slow and effortful. Do try, try again. You can make as much progress as everyone else—and so can the young people in your life. Achievement gaps are the result of opportunity gaps, not individual differences in learning speed.
1. What is the author’s previous thought according to the first two paragraphs?| A．He can’t learn painting and drawing. | B．All people have a talent for languages. |
| C．People learn things in the same way. | D．People have different learning speeds. |
| A．Teach elementary courses. | B．Criticize students’ mistakes. |
| C．Apply their models extensively. | D．Distinguish the fast and slow learners. |
| A．By using high-quality equipment. | B．By doing more efficient practice. |
| C．By competing with other students. | D．By increasing learning speed. |
| A．There Is No Such Things as a Fast Learner | B．How We Can Learn Faster than Others |
| C．There Is No Difference Between Students | D．Why Education Is Important to Us |
5 . ......
What makes modern science uniquely powerful is its refusal to believe that it already possesses ultimate truth. The reliability of science is based not on certainty but on a complete absence of certainty. As John Stuart Mill wrote in “On Liberty” in 1859, “The beliefs which we have most warrant (依据) for, have no safeguard to rest on, but a standing invitation to the whole world to prove them unfounded.”
......
What is the main idea of paragraph 4?| A．It is unwise to believe in science. |
| B．Too much uncertainty lies in science. |
| C．The foundation of science is unfounded. |
| D．The lack of certainty makes science credible. |
6 . Every tree tells a story. They hold our memories, represent belief, and witness countless moments of joy and sorrow. In our imagination, there is always a place for a tree.
For the locals in Naunde, Mozambique, a mango tree provides more than just shade from the Saharan sun. It is also a traditional setting for storytelling, ceremonies, and regulating village life. “It is a place to meet and talk, to seek agreement and settle arguments, to bridge differences and develop unity,” wrote Kofi Annan, the former Secretary-General of the UN. “If you have a problem and can’t find a solution, you meet again tomorrow under the tree and you keep talking.”
The mango tree always stands there, witnessing and remembering everything, and at the same time becomes an inseparable part of the collective memory of the locals. “Each growth layer that trees add every year contains a bit of the air from that year. The trees absorb carbon dioxide from the air through tiny pores (气孔) , which helps build their tissues, so they physically hold the record of the years of their surroundings,” said Benjamin Swett, author of New York City of Trees. In this way, trees also serve as nature’s memory stick, keeping a record of a history as long as themselves.
The English language borrows a lot from trees: We turn over a new leaf and branch out, meaning we move on from the past and start something new. And there are times when we can’t see the wood for the trees. We tend to enjoy the flourishing leaves, branches, and roots of the trees. However, we pay little attention to the forests that embrace trees. The same things often happen to us in our own lives. We often dip ourselves into some bad experiences in life. As a result, we may give up at a terrible moment instead of imagining satisfying success after defeating the failure.
Trees inspire mankind, not just through language, but through ideas. Perhaps the most famous is a tree in a garden in Lincolnshire, England, where an apple fell and inspired young Isaac Newton to wonder: Why would that apple always fall directly to the ground? According to an 18th-century account, Newton was home from Cambridge when he stepped into the garden and into a reverie (沉思) . There, the idea of gravitation came into his mind, inspired by an apple.
1. What is the role of a mango tree in Naunde?| A．A spot to bind the locals together. | B．A witness to the changing weather. |
| C．A generous food supplier on Earth. | D．A shelter to protect villagers in disasters. |
| A．By changing the width of their growth layer. |
| B．By sticking out branches in different directions. |
| C．By absorbing carbon dioxide to build their tissues. |
| D．By reflecting changing climate conditions with their tiny pores. |
| A．Suggestions on facing failure. | B．Famous English stories about trees. |
| C．The relationship between trees and forests. | D．Lessons from English expressions related to trees. |
| A．To explain the necessity of observation. | B．To show how gravitation was discovered. |
| C．To stress the importance of trees in inspiring ideas. | D．To introduce how trees serve as a mirror of history. |
7 . How many bosses could rely on their employees threatening to quit in mass if they were abruptly forced out? Sam Altman received such a show of support from more than 700 staff after he was fired from Open AI that he was swiftly restored to his position by the board. But this level of loyalty is not typical and may not always be a good thing.
Management experts say staff who are loyal to their employer are inclined to invest more time and effort in their jobs, helping to create an engaged and higher performing workplace. In turn they receive pro notions and pay rises. They have a greater sense of belonging and potentially a longer career at the same organisation. But it is not all rosy. People who are too loyal are more likely to take actions that are deemed wrong to keep their jobs and protect their employer, according to a 2021 academic paper. They might overlook wrongdoing and be less likely to expose corruption. Loyalty is sometimes seen as such a force for good that it can be used to justify bad behavior.
Often companies and senior bosses are the real winner a of employee loyalty. Research led by Matthew Stanley at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business published this year, found that managers were more likely to exploit loyal individuals. Stanley recruited almost 1,400 managers to read about a fictional 29-year-old employee called John, who worked for a company that was trying to keep costs down. They had to decide how willing they would be to ask John to work longer hours and take on more work without more pay. Researchers created various situations including labelling John as loyal versus other traits such as honest and fair. Managers were more willing to ask loyal John to take on the burden of unpaid work.
However, Consultancy Gallup’s latest state of the workplace report showed that half of the 122, 416 employees who took part in a global survey were looking out for new work. “You can’t guarantee anyone will stick around these days,” says a consultant who advises boards. This is particularly true of younger generations. They trust their bosses less and are not as patient when it comes to career progression, seeing little benefit in keeping their heads down and following orders if they do not see results quickly.
1. What does the author want to say by mentioning Sam Altman in Paragraph 1?| A．Open AI’s staff loyalty is quite high. |
| B．Staff loyalty’s rosy side in the work. |
| C．Sam Altman could count on his employees. |
| D．This level of loyalty is not always good. |
| A．Through global surveys concerning a fictional employee named John. |
| B．By creating different situations to ask John ta take on more unpaid work. |
| C．By asking managers to make decisions about work arrangements of John. |
| D．By recruiting managers to read fiction about work traits like loyal and honest. |
| A．Loyalty can be used by management to exploit employees. |
| B．Younger generations are more patient towards their employers. |
| C．Employees who are loyal are more likely to report wrongdoing. |
| D．Loyalty to an employer always leads to a positive work environment. |
| A．How Job Loyalty Affects the Work Environment? |
| B．Why Staff Loyalty is Not Always a Good Thing? |
| C．Are Loyal Employees More Likely to be Promoted? |
| D．Does Work Loyalty Help Career Progress More Quickly? |
8 . ......
These kids are admittedly luckier than those for whom going back home is sadly not an option. But when choosing to live with your mum is the only way of coping with an insecure job, or with the costs of renting in the city, then that’s not much of a choice. Home is still the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. But a healthy and successful society shouldn’t be sending quite many overgrown children hurrying back for shelter, and nor should it leave quite many parents feeling bad about it.
What is the author’s attitude to this trend?| A．Favorable. | B．Confused. | C．Tolerant. | D．Disapproving. |
9 . For all programmers and processor industry participants, the RISC-V website is almost a must-visit as an open standard. Instruction Set Architecture, which is defined as the design of a computer from the programmer’s perspective, enabling a new era of processor innovation through open cooperation.
Unlike X86 and ARM, which are owned by certain enterprises, RISC-V is an open one, allowing anybody to download its instructions handbook and use it. Maybe that is why some US lawmakers are targeting RISC-V. Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Democratic Senator Mark Warner have reportedly been urging US President Joe Biden to take action regarding RISC-V, because, they fear that Chinese companies might make use of the open-source platform to improve their chips (芯片) technology.
Maybe the legislators (立法者) do not realize that by targeting RISC-V they are targeting not only a company or a platform but the idea of openness itself. Being a US company. RISC-V has a global membership, with a number of Chinese and US enterprises as members. It has for long been known as an open-minded institution promoting technological cooperation despite the political tensions, and the US lawmakers targeting it seem to be closing one of the last channels of technology communication between China and their nation.
By doing so they are harming the United States’ own interests and its technological leadership in the world. Open source is a good computing tool that benefits those who share programs as well as those who learn from it. The Android smartphone system, for example, has developed largely because Google decided to make it an open-source system, which attracted worldwide smartphone businesses to adopt its standard.
The US lawmakers might next target GitHub, or, some day, even forbid programmers from accessing the Internet. That will only lead to the US losing its technological edge, never to get it back again.
1. What is RISC-V according to the passage?| A．A website for programmers. |
| B．A computer design standard. |
| C．An open-source platform. |
| D．A US chips company. |
| A．argument | B．background | C．proof | D．connection |
| A．Fairness. | B．Interests. | C．Cooperation. | D．Openness. |
| A．RISC-V enables processor innovation through open cooperation. |
| B．US lawmakers are targeting RISC-V for the technology safety concern. |
| C．The example of Android demonstrates the benefits of technological openness. |
| D．GitHub and the Internet are the next target US will focus on to safeguard its leadership. |
10 . When Lenore Skenazy let her 9-year-old son take the New York subway home by himself 10 years ago, you would have thought that she’d carried out a crime. Now Skenazy started the movement Free Range (放养的) Kids to bring up safe and independent children. Just this month, Utah became a free range state, changing its law to protect parents from being charged with neglect (疏忽)for letting their kids walk alone, or wait in a car for an adult.
Skenazy argues that the risks of giving children some freedom are exaggerated (夸大). Skenazy’s mother used to send her outside at 5 to walk to school. That was just normal back then. And suddenly we hear stories about parents getting punished for letting their 10-year-old son play outside.
We get so used to not knowing our neighbors, not letting our kids walk to school, or play outside, that nowadays, the kids are either in a car or in the backyard, and they don’t get to know the neighborhood. In fact, the world has become safer. We have the technologies to keep track of almost everything our kids do. And so you think you must control them, and you think your child is something that has to be tracked like a package.
The famous case for many parents was the Etan Patz case in New York in 1979. Patz’s parents gave him permission for the first time to walk to the bus stop nearby. He was killed. The story is so terrible that we remember it two generations later. And we don’t allow our kids to walk alone because of one terrible thing that happened 39 years ago. But we don’t say, “I want to drive you to the dentist, but what if we get in a car accident? Think of those people who died in a car accident 39 years ago. I don’t want to be like them. No, we’re not going.” And we recognize that it would be funny to think that way.
1. What do we know about Lenore Skenazy?| A．She used to have full control of her son. |
| B．She was in favor of Utah’s previous law. |
| C．She suggests kids be allowed more freedom. |
| D．She was once punished for neglecting her son. |
| A．People remain distant. |
| B．Kids dislike outdoor activities. |
| C．Parents know little about accidents. |
| D．The crime rate is slightly increasing. |
| A．Unclear | B．Supportive. | C．Indifferent. | D．Unfavorable. |
| A．To prove accidents are like crimes. |
| B．To warn parents of a terrible crime. |
| C．To argue against some parents’ worry. |
| D．To point out the real danger to children. |
