1 . Regardless of how famous they are, and despite the star treatment they receive, many celebrities make it a point to give back to charities. Some have even set up their own private foundations. Their widely publicised visits to troubled areas of the world help to raise awareness of issues such as famine and poverty. According to Jane Cooper of Unicef UK, celebrities have a unique ability to reach huge numbers of people, many of whom might not otherwise be engaged in charitable causes. She pointed out that famous faces had played a significant role in raising funds in recent years, and their energies had produced tangible results, such as enabling millions of children in poorer countries to attend school.
But in spite of these successes there is evidence to suggest that celebrity endorsement (代言) may be overrated. In a survey of members of the public to find out if celebrity involvement would encourage people to donate, researchers found that the impact was not as great as previously thought. When shown a list of well-known organisations and famous people who represent them, over half of respondents were unable to match the celebrity with the cause. What’s more, three quarters claimed that they didn’t respond to celebrity endorsement in any way. The survey also showed that a few names did stand out as being associated with particular charities. But the presence of a celebrity in a campaign, was not a significant factor when it came to a decision to donate time or money. Instead, the majority of people contribute because of personal connections in their lives and families which make a charity important to them.
In another study aimed at young people, most participants cited a compelling (无法抗拒的) mission as their main motivation to give. The second most important incentive was if a friend or peer recommended supporting a particular cause. Only two percent of respondents said they were motivated by celebrity endorsement. This seems to contradict the general assumption that teenagers are particularly influenced by famous people. One possible explanation is that there is a general fatigue (疲倦) with celebrity culture. There is also a suspicion that the stars are the one who benefit most when they offer to do charity work. Some critics have accused that celebrities might actually take attention away from issues by attracting more attention than the causes they represent.
So taking all these issues into account, is it time for charities to rethink their campaign strategies and look for alternative ways to reach new audiences? Whichever point of view you favour, there seems to be opportunities for more research into how charity campaigns might develop relationships with celebrities to maximise their potential. This in turn will open up more engagement, and better targeted campaigns-which can only benefit those who really matter — the people and animals that are in need of assistance.
1. What does the underlined word “tangible” in paragraph I probably mean?| A．Definite. | B．Complicated. | C．Limited. | D．Temporary. |
| A．they gain benefit from the charities |
| B．they are forced to finish a necessary task |
| C．they believe in the famous people they like |
| D．they are inspired by the people around them |
| A．what celebrities achieve in doing charities |
| B．How young people react to celebrity culture |
| C．why young people are hardly influenced by celebrities |
| D．who is to blame for taking attention away from charities |
| A．Objective. | B．Positive. |
| C．Negative. | D．Unclear. |
2 . Young children who have experienced compassionate (有同情心的) love and empathy (认同感) from their mothers may be more willing to turn thoughts into action by being generous to others, a University of California, Davis’ study suggests.
In lab studies, children tested at ages 4 and 6 showed more willingness to give up the tokens (代金券) they had earned to fictional children in need when two conditions were present—if they showed bodily changes when given the opportunity to share and had experienced positive parenting that modeled such kindness. The study initially included 74 preschool-age children and their mothers. They were invited back two years later, resulting in 54 mother-child pairs whose behaviors and reactions were analyzed when the children were 6.
“At both ages, children with better physiological regulation and with mothers who expressed stronger compassionate love were likely to donate more of their earnings,” said Paul Hastings, UC Davis professor of psychology. “Compassionate mothers likely develop emotionally close relationships with their children while also providing an early example of satisfying the needs of others,” researchers said in the study, published in November in Frontiers in Psychology” Emotion Science.
In each lab exercise, after attaching a monitor to record children’s heart-rate activity, the examiner told the children they would be earning tokens for a variety of activities, and that the tokens could be turned in for a prize. The tokens were put into a box, and each child eventually earned 20 prize tokens. Then before the session ended, children were told they could donate all or part of their tokens to other children.
Taken together, the findings showed that children’s generosity is supported by the combination of their socialization experiences—their mothers’ compassionate love—and their physiological regulation, and that these work like “internal and external supports for the ability to act prosocially that build on each other”.
In addition to observing the children’s propensity (习性) to donate their game earnings, Hastings suggested that “being in a calmer state after sharing could reinforce (加强) the generous behavior that produced that good feeling.”
1. How do young children loved by their mother tend to become in later years?| A．Considerate. | B．Emotional. |
| C．Generous. | D．Optimistic. |
| A．The process of the research. | B．The result of the experiment. |
| C．The reactions of the children. | D．The importance of Mom’s love. |
| A．Their moms love them deeply. | B．They donate the tokens easily. |
| C．They behave physiologically. | D．They are calmer after sharing. |
| A．What Contributes to Generosity? |
| B．The More You Give, the Calmer You Will Be |
| C．Do You Prefer to Receive or Give? |
| D．More Giving, Less Receiving |
3 . Was your school noisy or peaceful? It might not seem important, but a growing body of research suggests that sounds can have an impact on learning, performance and creativity.
Whether background sounds are beneficial or not seems to depend on what kind of noise it is—and the volume. In a series of studies published last year, Ravi Mehta from the College of Business at Illinois and his colleagues tested people's creativity while exposed to a soundtrack made up of background noises—such as coffee-shop chatter and construction-site drilling—at different volumes. They found that people were more creative when the background noises were played at a medium level than when volume was low. Loud background noise, however, damaged their creativity.
This makes sense for a couple of reasons, says psychologist Dr Nick Perham, at Cardiff Metropolitan University in the UK, who studies the effect of sounds on learning but was not involved in the study. Firstly, he says, sounds that are most disturbing tend to be very variable. A general hum(嗡嗡声)in the background suggests a steady-state sound with not much variation. "So there's not much there to capture your attention- nothing disturbing the subjects," he says. At the same time, the background noise might cause the subjects to be in a slightly heightened state of arousal(觉醒), says Perham. "Medium arousal is best for good performance. So it might be that a general hum in the background gives an ideal level of arousal. " With that in mind, Perham suggests there may be some benefits to playing music or other sounds in an art class or other situations where creativity is key.
Many teachers all over the world already play music to students in class. Many are inspired by the belief that hearing music can improve IQ in tasks, the so-called Mozart effect. While the evidence actually suggests it's a stretch to say classical music improves brainpower, researchers do think pleasant sounds before a task can sometimes lift your mood and help you perform well, says Perham, who has done his own studies on the phenomenon. The key appears to be that you enjoy what you're hearing. "If you like the music or you like the sound—even listening to a Stephen King novel -then you did better. It didn't matter about the music," he says.
1. Which of the following is true according to the studies by Ravi Mehta and Nick Perham?| A．It's better not to expose people to any background noise while at work. |
| B．Construction-site drilling should be forbidden where there is a school. |
| C．Noises will harm people's health however low their volumes are. |
| D．A certain level of noise may do good to people's creativity. |
| A．keep the classroom quiet |
| B．play music at a steady and medium volume |
| C．broadcast classical music |
| D．vary the volume of the music constantly |
| A．prove the usefulness of pleasing sounds |
| B．confirm the belief of Mozart effect |
| C．challenge the importance of soft music |
| D．cast doubt on the power of music in raising IQ |
| A．Learning Power: Noise and Music Work |
| B．Noise Meeting Music: A Blessing? |
| C．Noise or Music: Creativity in Danger |
| D．Brainpower: More Music and Less Noise |
4 . If scientists could create a pill that let you live twice as long while remaining free of diseases, would you take it?
If one considers only the personal benefits that longer life would bring, the answer might seem like a no-brainer: People could spend more time with loved ones; watch future generations grow up; learn new languages or try different careers.
But what about society as a whole? Would it be better off if life span were doubled? The question is of growing importance, and serious debate about it goes back a few years to the Kronos Conference on Longevity Health Sciences in Arizona. Gregory Stock, director of the Program on Medicine, Technology, and Society at UCLA5s School of Public Health, answered the question with a firm “Yes”. A doubled lifespan, Stock said, would “give us a chance to recover from our mistakes, lead us towards longer-term thinking and delay the start of expensive diseases of aging. It would also raise productivity through adding to our prime years.”
Callahan, a co-founder of the Hastings Center in New York, didn’t share Stocks enthusiasm. For one thing, he said, doubling life spans won’t solve any of our current social problems. ‘‘We have war, poverty, all sorts of issues around, and I don’t think any of them would be at all helped if people lived longer, Callahan said in a telephone interview, “The question is, ‘What will we get as a society?’ I suspect it won’t be a better society?”
Others point out that a doubling of the human lifespan will affect society at every level. Ideas about marriage and work will change in fundamental ways, they say, as will attitudes toward the young and the old.
1. In Paragraph 2, “a no-brainer” most probably refers to ________.| A．something coming to mind naturally | B．someone unwilling to think |
| C．something difficult to bear in mind | D．someone having a low IQ |
| A．thinking less frequently | B．having fewer diseases of aging |
| C．making more mistakes | D．working productively longer |
| A．Aging: Burden or Treasure | B．Base of Society: the Old or the Young |
| C．Longer Lives: For or Again | D．A Doubled Lifespan: Possible or Not |
5 . The Art of Healing
If no further evidence available of the sophistication of China in the Tang Dynasty, then a look at Chinese medicine would be sufficient. At the western end of the Eurasian continent, the Roman empire disappeared, and there was nowhere new to claim the important position of the cultural and political centre of the world. In fact, for a few centuries, the centre happened to be the capital of the Tang Empire, which boasted its national health service, and Chinese medicine under the Tang was far ahead of European medicine. The organizational context of health and healing was structured to a degree that had never happened in China before and found a similar one nowhere else.
An Imperial Medical Office had been inherited from previous dynasties: it was immediately restructured and staffed with directors, chief and assistant medical directors, pharmacists and managers of medicinal herb gardens. Within the first two decades after enforcing its rule, the Tang administration set up one central and several provincial medical colleges to train students in one or all of the departments of medicine, acupuncture (针灸) and physical therapy. Physicians were given positions in governmental medical service only after passing qualifying exams. They were paid according to the number of cures they had effected during the past year.
In 723, Emperor Xuanzong personally composed a formulary of prescriptions（方剂集）recommended to him by an imperial pharmacist and sent it to all the provincial medical schools. An Arabic traveller, who visited China in 851, noted with surprise that prescriptions from the emperor’s formulary were posted on notice boards at crossroads to enhance the welfare of the population.
The government protected people from potentially harmful medical practice. The Tang legal code was the first in China to include laws concerned with harmful medical practice. For example, to treat patients for money without following standard procedures was defined as deceiving combined with theft and had to be tried as theft. If such therapies resulted in death of a patient, the healer was to be sent to a remote place for years. In case a physician purposely failed to practice according to the standards, he was to be tried as murdering. Even if no harm resulted, he was to be punished.
1. In the 1st paragraph, the writer draws particular attention to ________.| A．the lack of medical knowledge in China prior to the Tang Dynasty |
| B．the Western interest in Chinese medicine during the Tang Dynasty |
| C．the systematic approach taken to medical issues during the Tang Dynasty |
| D．the differences between Chinese and Western cultures during the Tang Dynasty |
| A．the effectiveness of his treatment | B．the wealth of his medical experience |
| C．the number of physicians he had trained | D．the width of his medical knowledge |
| A．A qualified doctor’s refusal to practise. |
| B．The use of unapproved medical practice. |
| C．The death of a patient under medical treatment. |
| D．The receipt of money for medical treatment. |
| A．The differences existed between ancient Chinese and European medicine. |
| B．The government of the Tang Dynasty set up medical colleges to train students. |
| C．Emperor Xuanzong published a formulary of prescriptions. |
| D．The national medical system in Tang Dynasty put Europe’s in the shade. |
6 . Maeve Higgins once set herself a task. The Irish-born comedian wanted to see what life would be like if she stopped laughing at things that weren’t funny. Turns out it wasn’t as easy as she thought. “It was so hard,” she says. “ Laughter is a lubricant (润滑油) and is expected, and it’s really hard not to do it.”
Higgins suggests there’s something particularly special about being part of the shared experience that is live comedy — that curious magic that occurs when people come together specifically to laugh.
Comedy is more than just a pleasant way to pass an evening, humour more than something to amuse. They’re interwoven into our everyday existence. Whether you’re sharing an amusing story at a party or telling a dark joke at a funeral, humour is everywhere. But what is it for? And can humour, as comedy, change how we feel, what we think or even what we do?
As an essential part of human interaction, humour has been on the minds of thinkers for centuries. One of the most enduring theories of humour was put forward by the philosopher Thomas Hobbes. It asserts that humour appears to make fun of the weak and exert superiority. While this is clearly the function of some comedy, it’s far from a complete explanation for the overall purpose of humour.
For some comedians, it’s not just about getting laughs — it’s about changing what we think and maybe even what we do. If there’s one comic who is really typical of this, it’s Josie Long. A social justice activist and a comedian, Long has a reputation for delightful, optimistic humour and storytelling.
As her career has evolved, she has consciously put social and political topics at the heart of her act. She believes that comedians have a role to play in challenging some of the most pressing issues of the day.
British comic Stephen K Amos sells out venues seating thousands, year in, year out. Amos firmly believes that when comics consciously deal with pressing or controversial （有争议的）social issues like racism, they can reach people on a much more meaningful level than that achieved by briefly lifting someone’s mood. And while it may be difficult to quantify, he says, the social and psychological impact of comedy deserves much greater recognition.
The research backs this up. Although the role of comedy is to be entertaining first and foremost, Sharon Lockyer, a sociologist who studies humour, has identified a number of possible other functions. These include challenging stereotypes (刻板印象).
Amos’s work frequently settles the issues of race by challenging stereotypes.”I don’t do things for shock value,” he says. “ I do stuff that matters to me. In the old days it was just about doing jokes. We’ve moved on — people are talking about things that matter. ”
1. What do the first two paragraphs mainly talk about?| A．The benefits of laughing. |
| B．What a comedian’s daily work is about. |
| C．Why Maeve Higgins chose to be a comedian. |
| D．Maeve Higgins’ understanding of the appeal of comedy. |
| A．Protect the weak from the evil. |
| B．Encourage people to be stronger. |
| C．Be determined to improve oneself. |
| D．Show you are better than other people. |
| A．By gradually influencing people’s attitudes. |
| B．By urging politicians to try and solve the issues. |
| C．By quickly yet thoroughly changing people’s thinking. |
| D．By calling on the whole society to pay attention to the issues. |
| A．getting people to laugh |
| B．promoting social progress |
| C．influencing people’s ideas |
| D．making people more productive |
7 . “Uncle Chuchu, look!” Uncle Chuchu turns to where Preet is pointing. She quickly eats up the chips on his plate. He always falls for this trick！
Chuchu is the pet name Preet has given him. Uncle Chuchu is the kindest person in Preet’s world. He is also her best friend. One day, Preet sees Uncle Chuchu scoop (抓起) handfuls of candies from a jar and drop them from his bedroom window. She watches in amazement as he ducks under the windowsill, trying hard not to laugh.
Cries of delight float up from the street!
At the end of the lane is a school. When the lunch bell rings, Uncle Chuchu secretly drops candies down to the school children as they pass under his window.
After lunch, Uncle Chuchu walks back to his office with his briefcase. When he passes the children playing, he doesn’t look at them. So, the children never guess that the hand that sends them candies every day belongs to this thin, solemn man!
But one day, Uncle Chuchu has a terrible pain in his stomach. As he’s taken to the hospital, he presses Preet’s hand one last time...
Now, Preet sits in Uncle Chuchu’s empty room. His yoga mat is on the floor. She remembers that long ago one day when she had walked in and found a pair of long legs poking into the air.
“Help!” Preet had yelled. “Uncle Chuchu is hurt!” Mom and Grandma had rushed into the room and burst out laughing! “He’s not hurt.” Mom said. “He’s doing yoga!” Grandma said. “Yoga,” repeated Preet. She had watched with wondering eyes as Uncle Chuchu lifted his body on the palms of his hands, like a bird about to fly away!
Preet’s eyes are wet. Nobody can fill the Uncle Chuchu-shaped hole in her heart.
…
1. The scene described in the first paragraph is intended to show readers ________.| A．that Uncle Chuchu is easily fooled by others |
| B．what fun Preet used to have with Uncle Chuchu |
| C．how Preet enjoyed eating snacks such as chips |
| D．that Uncle Chuchu always treated Preet equally |
| A．hide | B．hang | C．drag | D．mark |
| A．He didn’t want to eat up all the candies. |
| B．He was too shy to greet the children directly. |
| C．He wanted to bring delight to the children. |
| D．He took pity on the homeless children in the street. |
| A．Uncle Chuchu’s Yoga Mat | B．Preet’s Farewell to Uncle Chuchu |
| C．Preet’s Innocent Childhood | D．Uncle Chuchu’s Jar of Candies |
8 . Holidays can be enjoyable and relaxing. But sometimes a holiday can change your life completely, which is what happened two years ago to Victoria Smith and Sally Gook.
Victoria Smith, six years ago, was working as a manager at Next, a British chain store. Then she went on holiday to Borneo. “It was a working holiday,” said Victoria, “where you could study the orang-utan in the wild — I have always been interested in apes, so I thought it would be fun. ” The holiday was wonderful, and when Victoria came home she found it very difficult to return to her old life. Although everybody told her she was mad, she decided to go back to university and study biology. Four years later she became a chimpanzee keeper.
For the last two years Victoria has been working at Monkey World, a centre in southwest England that looks after apes which used to be ill-treated. She works long hours, and the pay isn’t very good, but she loves it. “I’m really happy now. Since I started working here I feel that I’ve been doing something important, not just wasting my life.”
Sally Gook wakes up every morning to a deep blue sky and blazing sun. For the last two years she has been living on the tiny Greek island of Lipsi, which is only 16 square kilometers in size and has a population of just 650.
But until a few years ago she lived in London. “I was working for American Express and I had a good social life and earned a lot of money. But I had to get up very early every morning, often in horrible weather, and got a train and the tube to work.”
Then one day she and a friend decided they needed a relaxing holiday, and they came to Lipsi. “I loved it — the people, the mountains, the sun, and the delicious food. Suddenly I knew there was a different life waiting for me here.” A few months later she applied for a job at the travel company which had organized her holiday. Since then she has been living on Lipsi and working as a tourist guide. Sally said, “I’ve only been back to London once, and I can’t imagine ever living there again.”
1. “The orang-utan” (in paragraph 2) most probably refers to ________.| A．a chain store | B．a holiday resort |
| C．a kind of animal | D．a zoo for wildlife |
| A．She hesitated over whether to become a chimpanzee keeper. |
| B．She quit her job as a manager regardless of others’ objection. |
| C．She finally chose to work and live in Borneo. |
| D．She felt it unnecessary to work long hours. |
| A．She didn’t earn much. |
| B．She worked as a tourist guide. |
| C．She often went to Greece on business. |
| D．She spent much time on the way to work. |
| A．How the two girls’ holidays changed their life. |
| B．Why the two girls preferred to live outside cities. |
| C．How the two girls planned their holidays. |
| D．Why holidays were enjoyable and relaxing for the two girls. |
9 . A MAGICAL PLACE
Theme parks? I just love them. In a month or so, the UK’s finest will throw their gates open for the new season to thrill us with their engineered delights. As usual, I will be the first person inside. Yes, I may be a digital enthusiast, but to me there is nothing as irresistible or as thrilling as the full-on experience of spending a day in someone else’s imagination.
Dr. Carissa Baker, assistant professor in theme parks and storytelling at the University of Central Florida, argued in 2018 that theme parks are gatherers and tellers of stories. Their distinct narratives start before you enter the park, are played out in what you experience there, and continue after you’ve left. How do they do it? Some believe it’s down to creative direction and narrative system design. But I call it like I see it: they use all the psychological tricks in my social psychology textbooks to get us to feel and act in the way that the people behind the scenes foretell.
Everything in theme parks is manipulated(操纵). Everything is accounted for. Whereas in the digital world, designers infer what we feel, these theme parks digest these emotions. A famous example is Disneyland’s Main Street USA, which you walk down on first entering the park: the sets have been designed with forced perspective so the buildings appear taller and grander than they really are. Techniques like this are everywhere to be seen in the squares of Renaissance Italy and Georgian England to make the buildings seem bigger than they were. The mythical Main Street is made to feel larger and more impressive, which gets visitors excited when they enter the park—we are the hero of Disneyland’s narrative. Now that’s a powerful trick.
The digital world is nowhere near as magical as these places are. Yes, digital designers can create something out of nothing with mathematics and electricity, but their best attempts are only shortcuts in two-dimensional space. All they have in their toolboxes are sight and sound. But in theme parks, digital is out of place. Yes, behind the scenes there are data machines that are trying to track us to make our experiences better and more personal. Except for one or two notable examples, digital tech isn’t being used to enhance our time at the park in any practical way. It just gets in the way. And perhaps that is why I love theme parks. Because when I’m there, I want to be propelled(推动) by someone else’s vision, and give over to the feeling.
The next killer app isn’t on your device. It’s in the places that thrill us and compel us to keep our phones in our pockets so we can truly experience them.
1. From the first paragraph we can conclude that ________.| A．engineers in the UK are full of imagination |
| B．the writer is enthusiastic about digital devices |
| C．the writer finds theme parks charming and exciting |
| D．it takes much imagination to guess visitors’ preferences |
| A．the experience in theme parks helps him to let out emotions |
| B．they provide a designed setting in which he is easily absorbed |
| C．the digital effect makes theme parks a wonderland full of magic |
| D．the psychological tricks they use make him feel manipulated |
| A．It is advisable to put down your phone and get a taste of what theme parks bring you. |
| B．Nowhere else can you find a place as magical as the digital world. |
| C．The huge constructions in theme parks are designed to appeal to more visitors. |
| D．Digital tech plays an irreplaceable role in keeping theme parks running smoothly. |
| A．The distinct properties that theme parks and digital devices have. |
| B．The thrilling and irresistible experiences the writer has in theme parks. |
| C．Digital devices meant to create a magic world with simple techniques. |
| D．Clever techniques used by theme parks to make your visit memorable. |
10 . Are we just thinking with our heads? No. The human brain is just like a telephone switchboard (总机), but not a whole system. Its function is to receive incoming signals, establish appropriate connections, and send the information to its destination. In order to provide efficient service, the body must function as a whole.
But where is the mind? Is it in the brain? Or the nervous system? Can we say that the mind is in a particular place? In fact, the mind is not a thing, not a leg, and not even a brain. Thinking is both a function and an activity. Aristotle, 2300 years ago, noted that the mind is to the body what the tool is to the worker. When the tool is not in use, there is no work. Charles Woolbert said that consciousness is what the body does.
If this activity is necessary for thought, it is also necessary for the transmission of thought from one person to another. Observe how people conduct their daily conversations. If you've never taken the trouble to do this, you'll have a surprise waiting for you, because good conversationalists are almost always in motion. Their heads nodded and nodded, sometimes so violently that you wondered how their necks could withstand the strain. Even the legs and feet are active. As for hands and arms, they rarely stay still for more than a few seconds at a time.
Remember, these people are not giving speeches. They're just people, trying to get their points of view across. They have no sense of movement. Their language has not been studied. They're just human beings in a human environment, trying to adapt to the social environment. However, their conversation is not only verbal, but also visual, involving almost every muscle in the body. Briefly, because people are really thinking, the speaker must be everywhere if he is to succeed in getting people to think.
1. Which of the following is the author's opinion?| A．Thinking is a social phenomenon. |
| B．Thinking is just a brain function. |
| C．Thinking is the sum total of bodily activity. |
| D．Thinking is a function of the nervous system. |
| A．to use various bodily movements | B．to speak directly to the other person |
| C．to make the other person listen | D．to observe the other person's behavior |
| A．make the listeners deeply moved |
| B．appeal to the sympathy of the audience |
| C．make the speaker understood |
| D．convey the speaker's implied meaning to the listeners |
| A．Spoken Language | B．Bodily Communication |
| C．Spiritual Activity | D．Proper Conversation |
