1 . Is it important for teenagers to own the latest cell-phone models? There are different ways of looking at this question.
First, why do teenagers need to have the latest models? Often it’s just to show off. The paradox is that there are many teenagers who own the latest cell-phone models but don’t even know how to use them properly. This is true. They just want one because their friends have similar ones, or because they take very good videos and photos.
On the other hand, if they do know how to use them, the latest cell phones are really good. They not only help teens to stay in touch with friends and family, but also help them to access the Internet and download pictures, videos or music they need when studying. These new phones are so powerful that having one is almost like having a whole library in your pocket. It’s an instant (即刻的) source of information that helps young people get the latest news. But many parents, thinking only of such positive sides, do not take into consideration the potential dangers. For example, children may constantly be distracted (分心) during class by sending and receiving text messages.
Each young generation loves the new technologies available — just think back to when you were a kid. But your job as a parent is to make sure your child gets the most out of this technology with the least possible harm.
1. According to the second paragraph, teenagers want to have the latest cell-phone models because ________.| A．they want to show they are fashionable |
| B．they think the latest models help them a lot with study |
| C．they think they can keep in touch with others more easily |
| D．they want to learn how to use new technologies |
| A．fault | B．problem | C．benefit | D．imagination |
| A．a new generation always loves new things |
| B．parents also liked technological products when they were young |
| C．parents should make sure children use the new technologies properly |
| D．parents shouldn’t allow children to own a cell Phone |
2 . No Guts, No Glory? The Fear and Attraction of Risky Winter Sports
Once I went flying off the side of a mountain on skis. Certainly, I didn’t mean to. Before I
The Winter Olympics are here, and I’ll be astonished with my heart in my mouth, watching ski-jumping and people hurtling downhill at
It
Eric Brymer and Robert Schweitzer asked people who had been doing an extreme sport for many years, to reflect
For me, reading what the research participants said was
I have an almost total lack of mastery of winter sports. The contrast between my enthusiasm and lack of skill
Perhaps the best
| A．left | B．hit | C．flew | D．lost |
| A．short-lived | B．mind-numbing | C．break-neck | D．long-drawn-out |
| A．turns | B．hangs | C．takes | D．bursts |
| A．applauded | B．prohibited | C．recommended | D．challenged |
| A．interest | B．respect | C．priority | D．price |
| A．simple | B．straightforward | C．complicated | D．close |
| A．swiftly | B．deeply | C．intensely | D．temporarily |
| A．identify | B．dread | C．treasure | D．conduct |
| A．experience | B．society | C．fear | D．environment |
| A．enlightening | B．distressing | C．entertaining | D．confusing |
| A．Hence | B．Furthermore | C．Rather | D．However |
| A．scene | B．picture | C．odds | D．straw |
| A．stands for | B．accounts for | C．checks out | D．points out |
| A．belt | B．helmet | C．protection | D．blade |
| A．take-away | B．carry-out | C．take-off | D．try-out |
3 . How can the train operators possibly justify yet another increase to rail passenger fares? It has become a grimly reliable annual ritual: every January the cost of travelling by train rises, imposing a significant extra burden on those who have no option but to use the rail network to get to work or otherwise. This year’s rise, an average of 2.7 percent, may be a little bit lower than last year’s, but it is still well above the official Consumer Price Index (CPI) measure of inflation(通货膨胀).
Successive governments have permitted such increases on the grounds that the cost of investing in and running the rail network should be borne by those who use it, rather than the general taxpayer. Why, the argument goes, should a car-driving pensioner from Lincolnshire have to subsidise(补贴)the daily commute(通勤)of a rail traveller from Surrey? Equally, there is a sense that the sufferings of commuters in the South East, have received too much attention compared to those who must endure the relatively poor infrastructure of the Midlands and the North.
However, over the past 12 months, those commuters have also experienced some of the worst rail strikes in years. It is all very well train operators boasting about the improvements they are making to the network, but passengers should be able to expect a basic level of service for the substantial sums they are now paying to travel. The responsibility for the latest wave of strikes rests on the unions. However, there is a strong case that those who have been worst affected by industrial action should receive compensation for the disruption they have suffered.
The Government has promised to change the law to introduce a minimum service requirement so that, even when strikes occur, services can continue to operate. This should form part of a wider package of measures to address the long-running problems on Britain’s railways. Yes, more investment is needed, but passengers will not be willing to pay more indefinitely if they must also endure cramped, unreliable services, along with regular chaos when timetables are changed, or planned maintenance is managed incompetently. The threat of nationalisation may have been seen off for now, but it will return with a revenge if the justified anger of passengers is not addressed in short order.
1. The author holds that this year’s increase in rail passengers fares ________.| A．creates extra burden on taxpayers. |
| B．has kept pace with inflation. |
| C．is beyond the expectation of commuters |
| D．remains an unreasonable practice. |
| A．Compensations are to be given to the commuters affected by the strikes. |
| B．A minimum service requirement will be likely to settle the railway problems. |
| C．In terms of service, there is a conflict between train operator’s claim and the reality. |
| D．Train operators have suffered huge losses owing to the strikes. |
| A．the loss of investment. | B．the collapse of operations. |
| C．a reduction of revenue(收入) | D．a change of ownership. |
| A．Who Are to Blame for the Ever-rising Fares? |
| B．Rail Strikes Need to Be Stopped |
| C．Enhance Railway Service, Ease Passenger Anger |
| D．Ever-rising Fares Are Unreasonable |
4 . When I zipped through elementary school way back in the 1950s, in English class we were encouraged to express ourselves through creative writing, public speaking or perhaps taking part in some form of drama. And as we shared our creativity we were improving our communication skills. The emphasis here was how best to convey our thoughts and talents as clearly as possible. Yet it seemed that all spoken word exercises were being taught only from the speaker’s point of view, with little or no time spent teaching the fine art of listening.
And that was a missed opportunity because young children are remarkable listeners. They take in words, ideas and speech patterns, quite often without our awareness. Yet somewhere along the way, we teach them to stop listening. Perhaps they would benefit from lessons in selective silence, concentration, while focusing on knowing how to process all incoming information. Sadly, to the best of my knowledge, no such programs are offered.
We seem to allocate less time to actually listening to one another. There is no question that we are a nation of bad listeners. One reason might be the fact that we have become a much more visual society as result of exposure to television, the Internet and all manner of hand-held wireless devices. We tend to be more self-absorbed and primarily focused on hearing ourselves talk rather than listening to others.
I attended a small family gathering a few years ago and almost everyone except my 86-year-old aunt was constantly texting or checking email on their iPhone. It made me wonder why we had bothered get together in the first place as we were paying so little attention to one another. We could just as easily have had an online get-together.
Listening is indeed a rare and special talent. And one that takes a lot of practice. But once you have gotten comfortable with the technique, you might find your next tete-a-tete a whole lot more meaningful. Simply listening for nuances in conversation will provide so much more context and substance for the words you are hearing. Remember, in order to be interesting, you must first be interested. And in conversation, you are supposed to be listening, not waiting to talk.
1. What is the author’s attitude toward the English class in the 1950s?| A．Carefree. | B．Tolerant. | C．Favorable. | D．Objective. |
| A．We have less time to communicate. | B．We have a sense of self-importance. |
| C．The rapid development of technology. | D．The lack of care and understanding for others. |
| A．His aunt wasn’t good at listening. |
| B．His aunt didn’t like attending family gatherings. |
| C．His family members were engaged in hot discussions. |
| D．His family members showed little interest in one another. |
| A．To lead discussions. | B．To give suggestions. |
| C．To create expectations. | D．To make comparisons. |
5 . Why teach kids to forgive?
It’s been more than four decades, but I still can’t forgive what they did to me that summer afternoon. I was 14, walking in the mall with my two “friends”, Roger and Carson. I had introduced them to each other the week before and now they were chatting back-and-forth, leaving me out.
Forty-two years later, Carson died of injuries caused by a motorcycle crash, the bad blood between us unresolved. Roger? I have 4,922 Facebook friends, but he’s not one of them. I delete his every request.
Revenge isn’t so sweet
Revenge (报复) is a powerful emotion; the desire to hurt those who wrong us is a universal quality of human nature. However, research associates not-forgiving with depression, anxiety, and hostility. Multiple studies find a higher rate of heart problems in adults who won’t forgive. On the contrary, children and adults who are able to let go of angry feelings experience greater psychological well-being.
No hard feelings
Despite the evidence that forgiving is good for you, forgiveness has an image problem, originating from a misunderstanding of what forgiveness is and isn’t.
Forgiveness is often thought to be a weak response that minimizes or excuses wrongdoing. These are all misunderstandings, says Loren Toussaint, professor of psychology at Luther College. Forgiveness doesn’t require that the other person apologize. And it doesn’t have to result in reconciliation (和解). Forgiveness simply means you’re letting go of feelings of resentment and revenge. You’re refocusing your thoughts on positive emotions; perhaps even feelings of understanding, empathy, and compassion toward the person who hurt you.
Why it works
When kids are wronged and don’t forgive, they continue to release stress chemicals into their brains, which activate survival emotions such as fear and anger and results in an inhibition (抑制) of the brain’s problem-solving ability, creativity and reasoning.
What happens in the brain when a person forgives is a very different picture. A University of Pisa study found that participants who thought about forgiveness exhibited activation in five brain regions, indicating an increase in positive emotions, understanding of the mental states of others, perception, and control of emotions. “Research supports the connection between forgiveness and improved academic functions,” Toussaint says. “The negative emotions of unforgiveness can be powerful factors that affect children’s attention and focus in the classroom and in their individual studies.”
Okay. I will finally let go of my 50 years of resentment. And I’m moving on. Roger… I accept your FB request… Hi.
1. Why does the writer tell his own story?| A．To share his personal experience of forgiveness. |
| B．To introduce the topic of teaching forgiveness. |
| C．To show his determination to get revenge. |
| D．To express his hatred toward two friends. |
| A．Forgiving should be based on sincere apology. |
| B．Forgiveness will result in refreshed friendship. |
| C．Forgiving people means you are weaker than others. |
| D．Forgiveness means becoming free from negative emotions. |
| A．Forgiveness improves academic performance. |
| B．Forgiveness helps cure psychological diseases. |
| C．Forgiveness heals hurts and is good for the forgiver. |
| D．Forgiveness makes the forgiver an intelligent person. |
| A．inform and explain | B．argue and discuss |
| C．examine and assess | D．compare and evaluate |
6 . Gone are the days when a mother’s place was in the home: in Britain women with children are now as likely to be in paid work as their unburdened sisters. Many put their little darlings in day care long before they start school. Mindful that a poor start can spoil a person’s chances of success later in life, the state has intervened ever more closely in how babies and toddlers are looked after. Inspectors call not only at nurseries but also at homes where youngsters are minded; three-year-olds follow the national curriculum. Child care has increasingly become a profession.
For years after the government first began in 2001 to twist the arms of anyone who looked after an unrelated child to register with the schools, the numbers so doing fell. Kind but clueless neighbours stopped looking after little ones, who were instead herded into formal nurseries or handed over to one of the ever-fewer registered child-minders. The decline in the number of people taking in children now appears to have halted. According to data released by the Office for Standards in Education on October 27th, the number of registered child-minders reached its lowest point in September 2010 and has since recovered slightly.
The new lot are certainly better qualified. In 2010 fully 82% of nursery workers held diplomas notionally equivalent to A-levels, the university-entrance exams taken mostly by 18-year-olds, up from 56% seven years earlier, says Anand Shukla of the Daycare Trust, a charity. Nurseries staffed by university graduates tend to be rated highest by inspectors, increasing their appeal to the pickiest parents. As a result, more graduates are being recruited.
But professionalization has also pushed up the price of child care, defying even the economic depression. A survey by the Daycare Trust finds that a full-time nursery place in England for a child aged under two, who must be intensively supervised, costs £194 ($310) per week, on average. Prices in London and the south-east are far higher. Parents in Britain spend more on child care than anywhere else in the world, according to the OECD, a think-tank. Some 68% of a typical second earner's net income is spent on freeing her to work, compared with an OECD average of 52%.
The price of child care is not only eye-watering, but has also become a barrier to work. Soon after it took power the coalition government pledged to ensure that people are better off in work than on benefits, but a recent survey by Save the Children, a charity, found that the high cost of day care prevented a quarter of low-paid workers from returning to their jobs once they had started a family. The government pays for free part-time nursery places for three-and four-year-olds, and contributes towards day-care costs for younger children from poor areas. Alas, extending such an aid during stressful economic times would appear to be anything but child’s play.
1. Which of the following is true according to the first paragraph?| A．Nursery education plays a leading role in one’s personal growth. |
| B．Pregnant women have to work to lighten families’ economic burden. |
| C．Children in nursery have to take uniform nation courses. |
| D．The supervision of the state makes child care professional. |
| A．the registered child-minders are required to take the university-entrance exams |
| B．the number of registered child-minders has been declining since 2001 |
| C．anyone who looks after children at home must register with the schools |
| D．the growing recognition encourages more graduates to work as child-minders |
| A．prevents mothers from getting employed |
| B．may further depress the national economy |
| C．makes many families live on benefits |
| D．is far more than parents can afford |
| A．Objective. | B．Skeptical. | C．Supportive. | D．Biased. |
| A．The professionalization of child care has pushed up its price. |
| B．The high cost of child nursing makes many mothers give up their jobs. |
| C．The employment of more graduates makes nurseries more popular. |
| D．Parents in Britain pay most for child nursing throughout the world. |
7 . More and more men are taking up occupations traditionally dominated by females. Searching for more meaningful work or simply desperate for a check in a sluggish economy, they are applying in increasing numbers for jobs or training in nursing, child care and housekeeping. The jobs are often crying out for more applicants and offer solid pay. There’s downside, though, including nicknames like “murses” for male nurses and “mannies” for nannies. The pop-culture stereotyping is hard to shake.
There may be strength in the shifting numbers. Men account for 5.4% of registered nurses, up from 2.7% in 1980—still a small number, but they represent 9% of nursing school students, and schools say applications have been allowed. In public schools, just 26% of teachers are men. But males account for about a third of students in training courses for teachers in New York City and Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, 43% of applicants for those courses are men. In Washington, a rush of men is hitting employment agencies like Help Unlimited, which says males account for half its placements in secretarial and administrative temporary jobs. Maria Raimo of Elite Nannies in New York City says, “Male applications are way up in the past year. I have people who used to work at IBM and other companies registering as housemen, companions for the elderly”.
For women, the trend is a mixed blessing. Some advocates have long argued that pay in fields like childcare and teaching would not rise much until men moved into them. But in today’s high unemployment, some women are worried that men are muscling into the last reliable sources of jobs for females. With men around, for women “it’s like being an apprentice who never becomes a skilled worker,” says Tina Abbott, secretary-treasurer in Michigan. Certainly the job market remains inactive. Overall unemployment rose again in April and half of all job seekers have switched industries over the past year. Given that the industries with the most openings include nursing and teaching, notes CEO John Challenger, “artificial barriers like gender begin to break down when people have to make ends meet”.
1. The underlined word “sluggish” most probably means ________.| A．modern | B．old | C．weak | D．growing |
| A．easy | B．highly paid | C．steady paying | D．comfortable |
| A．Women will lose their traditional jobs. |
| B．Men will not be skillful in women’s jobs. |
| C．Men will find it hard to do women’s jobs. |
| D．Women will have less advantage in their jobs. |
| A．Women’s Worries | B．Male-to-Female-Job Trend |
| C．Men Posing Threat to Women | D．Fast-growing Job Market |
8 . Artificial intelligence is one of the most concentrated industries in the world, which influences education, criminal justice, hiring and welfare, But so far the industry has escapedregulation (管理), despite affecting the lives of billions of people, even when its products are potentially harmful.
The COVID-19 pandemic has sped this up. Many Al companies are now promoting emotion recognition tools (ERTs) for monitoring remote workers. These systems map the “micro-expressions”in people’s faces from their video cameras. Then they predict internal emotional states drawn from a list of supposedly universal categories: happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, surprise and fear. However, there is scientific doubt whether emotional states are accurately detected at all. “It is not possible to confidently infer happiness from a smile, or sadness from a frown,” a 2019 review stated.
Resistance to this highly controversial (有争议的) technology is growing; the influential.
Brookings Institute suggested ERTs be banned completely from use by law. The European Union becomes the first to attempt a proposal to regulate AI, but the draft AI act has its problems. It would ban most “real-time” biometric ID (生物识别) systems — but fails to define what exactly real-time means.
Clearly, we need far stronger protections and controls that address such harmful effects on society. However, too many policymakers fall into the trap of “enchanted determinism”: the belief that AI systems are magical and superhuman — beyond what we can understand or regulate, yet decisive and reliable enough to make predictions about life-changing decisions. This effect drives a kind of techno-optimism that can directly endanger people’s lives. For example, a review in the British Medical Journal looked at 232 machine-learning algorithms (算法) for predicting outcomes for COVID-19 patients. It found that none of them were fit for clinical use. “I fear that they may have harmed patients,” said one of the authors.
Many countries have strict regulations and thorough testing when developing medicines and vaccines. The same should be true for AI systems, especially those having a direct impact on people’s lives.
1. What can be inferred from paragraph 2?| A．The COVTD-19 pandemic has sped up the regulation of AI. |
| B．The internal emotional states are only limited to six basic categories. |
| C．There is no reliable link between facial expressions and true feelings. |
| D．People’s micro-expressions accurately reveal their internal emotions. |
| A．To show EU’s resistance to AI technology. |
| B．To show the difficulty in regulating AI. |
| C．To prove AI technology should be banned. |
| D．To prove the act is completely ineffective. |
| A．It shakes people’s confidence in technology. |
| B．It enables people to correctly predict future. |
| C．It misleads policymakers in making decisions. |
| D．It helps predict outcomes for COVID-19 patients. |
| A．AI: Products in Demand |
| B．AI: Strict Rules in Place |
| C．AI: Tight Control in Need |
| D．AI: Technology in Danger |
9 . Like anyone else, I have social media personalities that I like to follow. I watch their Insta stories, YouTube videos and generally keep track of what they are up to by means of social media. These “celebrities (名人)” encourage me to pursue my dreams, and unlike my physical friends, are often more accessible — just a YouTube click away.
So when I found myself telling a story the other day to one of my friends at a cafe and then casually referring to one of these online personalities as “my friend”, I suddenly became aware of the blurred (模糊的) line between my physical and virtual social lives. I was retelling a YouTuber’ s story about how to practice appreciation as if it were my story to tell. The scary part is that it came so naturally that I had to pause and think twice about what had just come out of my mouth. How did I get to the point of referring to someone I had never actually spoken with as a “friend”?
Between trying to make a living and maintaining social relationships, it has become especially easy for millennials (those born between the early 1980s and 1990s) to turn to artificial social closeness to meet their basic human needs for social interactions. So how do we really know who our friends are in a world where the term “friend” seems so blurred? Is it right to call someone a friend who you’ ve never spoken with in real life?
Sometimes I worry that my online friendships are taking away the time I could be spending forming meaningful relationships in real life. In an article in Psychology Today, Alex Pattakos claims that our quest to create more and more friends through popular social media platforms has led to us feeling more disconnected in reality. His research states that we can only maintain around 150 real friendships and the desire to have more connections leads to emotional attachments to online celebrities, referred to as parasocial interactions, and consequently detachment (分离) from our real life connections.
Do you make a distinction between your online and offline “friends” ? If so, how?
1. What does the author think of his real-life friends?| A．They are more difficult to reach. |
| B．They often cause him much trouble. |
| C．They are fond of following “celebrities”. |
| D．They mostly lack interest in social media. |
| A．The definition of physical friends. |
| B．Some phrases used in online language. |
| C．The proper way to practice appreciation online. |
| D．The distinction between physical and online friends. |
| A．They are skillful in AI technology. |
| B．They have great difficulty making a living. |
| C．They are eager to seek online friendships. |
| D．They rarely build firm social relationships. |
| A．Casual. | B．Opposed. | C．Supportive. | D．Ambiguous. |
10 . Training monkeys to pick coconuts(椰子)is a 400-year-old practice in Thailand. Monkeys are superpickers, naturally at home in the tall coconut trees. Males can harvest over 1,000 coconuts a day, females around 600. Humans, on the other hand, are super-slow in the treetops, with a mere 80 coconuts a day to their name. However, it could be argued that monkeys are being exploited(剥削)to meet growing consumer demand for coconut products.
Throughout history, humans have used animal labor to increase productivity or make tasks more manageable. From horses pulling ploughs in the English countryside, donkeys carrying luggage on South American treks, drugsniffer dogs in the US to guide dogs literally everywhere—all of those animals were specifically raised and trained to do their “jobs”.
Perhaps what upsets people about monkeys picking coconuts is that monkeys are so much like us. We share 93% of our DNA with macaques(猕猴). We share many of their behavioral traits. So when we read about them being “abused” or “exploited”, we perhaps feel more strongly about the issue than we do about, say, parrots riding bicycles to entertain tourists in Spain.
According to Operation Blankets of Love(OBOL), a leading animal welfare organization in California, macaques are snatched from the wild as babies and chained up or stuck in cages, which makes them extremely stressed. They’re forced to pick coconuts for human gain and denied (拒绝给予)companionship, mental stimulation and basic freedom.
However, it’s important to note there is no concrete evidence of “baby-snatching” or mistreatment. It could even be argued that the process of training is mentally stimulating, which, being intelligent animals, the macaques would enjoy. Furthermore, coconut farmers insist the monkeys aren’t abused or exploited. They say the monkeys are treated like family pets: loved and cared for, fed and watered, bathed and decorated.
Ethical(伦理的)living can be a minefield in the modern age. But if we stick to the facts and live true to our individual values, we can’t go wrong.
1. What’s the author’s purpose in writing the text?| A．To explain a theory. | B．To reject an argument. |
| C．To promote a product. | D．To appeal for animal rights. |
| A．Their safety is at great risk. | B．They damage many coconuts. |
| C．They are very similar to us humans. | D．Their productivity is relatively low. |
| A．has to spend all its life in a cage | B．feels great stress in the treetops |
| C．is separated from its family by force | D．suffers much from mental stimulation |
| A．The ethics of animal labor. | B．The reasons for animal labor. |
| C．The living conditions of macaques. | D．The protection of monkey species. |
